154 EEV. G. E. WHITE, ON SUEVIYALS OF PEIMITIVE 



sheep by the help of a butcher, had a service in the church 

 where the priest read prayers while the meat was cooking, 

 after which the party sat down to partake of the sacrificial feast 

 with glad hearts. They invited whomsoever they found at hand 

 to join them, and gave a portion to the sexton, who would serve 

 the officiating priest. 



One of my friends, a Turk who is not rich, told me how he 

 once was so sick that they thought he would die. He vowed if 

 he recovered to offer a goat at a certain tckye, a Mohammedan 

 monastery, and such a vow he holds very sacred. True, this 

 man because of poverty has not yet been able to redeem his 

 pledge, but when he is able he will kill a goat with sacrificial 

 rites, cook the flesh and prepare suitable accompanying food. 

 Then he will invite to the feast several liojas, relatives and 

 neighbours, a prayer will be offered, and his friends will partake 

 with him in the convivial, sacrificial meal. 



In 1905 the spring rains were much delayed, and on a ride 

 of fifty miles through the country just then, I found tlie 

 villagers everywhere offering prayers and sacrifices for rain. 

 One of them, a Shia or Alevi Turk, thus described to me their 

 village custom. " We sacrifice for rain every year when May 

 comes on a Friday. We have our place in the graveyard near 

 our village. We owe our evliya (patron saint, from the Arabic 

 i:ely) two sheep a year, which we kill and cook there. We also 

 collect cracked wheat from every house and make a great 

 caldron of soup ; then we turn in all the passers-by and invite 

 them to share with us of the village in eating of the food. 

 With or without rain in season we have the ceremony, and 

 please God, our rain supply is not deficient." 



As some of these matters were once referred to in a Bible 

 class, one student said that he had seen sacrificial blood smeared 

 on the door of a Turkish house at the Courban Festival not long 

 before. Another said that he had seen sacrificial blood struck 

 in the form of a cross on the door posts of Greek liouses in 

 Trebizond, and that it is a frequent custom of the Greeks to 

 make such crosses whenever they offer a sacrifice. Another 

 student stated that he had seen such crosses put on the door of 

 Armenians in Yozghat during the time of cholera. In all these 

 cases sheep were the victims slain, but another member of the 

 same class added that he had seen the blood of cocks killed in 

 sacrifice marked in the form of the cross on tlie white walls of 

 an Armenian monastery near Sivas. Christians, Greek and 

 Armenian, Mohammedans, orthodox and sectary, all in the 

 crises of life naturally turning to sacrifice for relief. 



