210 



i)isr.ovi:nY 



The l.ittiT arc soimtimes broken uji lirst and tlicn 

 placed on the graves.' 



This rite is repeated on cl-'ld cl-Kiblr, the Great 

 Festival, which takes place in commemoration of the 

 sacrifice of Isaac." 



The Copts have tlirec very similar annual cere- 

 monies. One on either January i8 or 19, called 

 Yom el-Ghitas, the Festival of the Epiphany, another 

 on Good Friday, and a third in the middle of June, 

 on the occasion of a festival in memory of St. Mary. 

 The name Tala' is also bestowed on each of these 

 religious rites. 



I had the good fortune to be present at the Tala' 

 on Yom el-Ghitas, and witnessed the whole performance. 



Lane, in his book on the Modern Egyptians, gives a 

 short account on page 545 of what follows this festival, 

 but gives no details of the ceremonies on the day of 

 the Tala . On page 552 he alludes to the fact that it 

 is a custom of the relatives of the dead to visit the 

 graves on that day, and mentions that animals are 

 sometimes sacrificed on these occasions, their flesh 

 being distributed among the poor. No such sacrifice 

 took place at the cemetery which I visited this year, 

 so far as I am aware. 



Very early in the morning a continuous wailing 

 sound penetrated as far as our camp. The cemetery 

 in question was about six miles off, adjacent to the 

 monastery of Der el-Maharrak. Curiously enough, 

 the Muslim cemeteries were also filled with women 

 waiUng at the graves — in sympathy with the Copts, 

 according to one of my informants. The first thing 

 to catch the eye on arriving at the Coptic cemetery 

 was a large group of women indulging in a curious 

 dance close to some of the graves. It consisted in a 

 stamping, circular movement, the women being closely 

 packed together the whole time. 



The cemetery was very crowded, and visitors on 

 camels, horses, donkeys, or on foot, were constantly 

 arriving. Others, having paid their tribute to the 

 dead, were departing, wending their way to the 

 various villages in the cultivated area. All this time 

 the waiUng never ceased. It was, to my mind, the 

 most pathetic sound I had ever heard. The monastery 

 made a picturesque background for the whole scene ; 

 moreover, its walls afforded a welcome shelter from the 

 sun for horses, donkeys, and camels that were tethered 

 beneath them. 



The groups of mourners varied in size, some being 

 quite large and consisting of about twenty people, or 

 possibly more. Sometmies a woman could be seen 

 wailing in solitary grief. I noticed one such woman 



1 E. W. Lane, The Manners and Ctislonis 0' the Modern 

 Egyplians, London. 1895, pp. 485-87. 

 » Ibid., pp. 493-94- 



talking to her dead llu^l)and through a small hole 

 pierced at one end of the tomb. Coloured silk hand- 

 kerchiefs, similar to those used at the weekly Tola' 

 of the Muslims, were in evidence at this ceremony. 

 The graves, especially those with no superstructure, 

 were covered for the occasion with a rug, called 

 kisweh, generally of a striped woven material such as 

 is often placed on the floor or on a mastabeh for a guest 

 to sit on. The women appeared to have made no 

 change in their dress for this occasion, but in most 

 cases their hands, arms, and faces were dyed blue as 

 a sign of mourning, a custom which possibly dates 

 back to very early times, for the ancient Egj'ptian 

 women seem to have worn blue clothes at funerals as 

 a mark of grief.' 



The superstructures over the graves show verj' little 

 variation in form in this cemetery. They are rec- 

 tangular structures with barrel-vaulted roofs. Similar 

 superstructures were erected above graves in ancient 

 times.* Many of them were covered with white 

 paint, with simple designs in blue or red ; in some 

 cases, both colours were used for decoration on a 

 single tomb. Sometimes a text from the Bible was 

 inscribed in Arabic, in red or blue paint, along one 

 side of the monument, a cross being frequently either 

 painted or incised at one end. 



At one grave there were a number of women, their 

 faces and hands streaked with blue dye, each one 

 holding a silk handkerchief, either mauve or green in 

 colour, with which they gently stroked and patted 

 the grave as they wailed in piteous tones, " Still young, 

 oh my brother," evidently addressing the dead. By 

 another grave there was a large concourse of people, 

 some seated higher up on an adjacent tomb (Fig. 2). 

 Here a widow was bewailing her dead husband 

 in the following words : " Come and get up ! See the 

 weariness (or sorrow) of me and of my children. See 

 how your eldest son has wearied me, and how your 

 brother has oppressed me. You have left me alone 

 with young children. \\'ho will feed them, and who 

 will clothe them ? " etc. After this harangue, the 

 wallers took up their part, smiting their hands 

 together and striking their cheeks to the rhythmic 

 beats of a shallow, single-membrane drum, called 

 nadam. When the wallers ceagcd, the widow again 

 started her lament, other women sometimes joining 

 in as a sort of chorus. Passing friends stopped 

 and endeavoured to console her; and one of her young 

 children, who was seated near her, embraced her from 

 time to time. The grave was covered with a kisucli, 

 and the nadam was bedaubed with blue dye. The 



' A. H. Gardiner, Zeitschrift fur dgyptishc Sprache, vol. 

 xlvii, 1910, pp. 162 f. 



« See e.g. D. Kandall Maclver and C. L. Woolley, Buhen, 

 pis. 8i and 82. Petrie, Tarkhar, U. pis. .\.\ f. 



