The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1878-10-25
COrsican Funeral Rites.

In Corsica wailing and chanting is kept
up, off and on from the hour of death to
the hour of burial. The news that the
head of the family has expired is quick
ly communicated to his relatives and
friends in the surrounding hamlets,
who hasten to form themselves into a
troop or band, locally called the Scir-
rata, and thus advance in procession to-
ward the house of mourning. If the
death was caused by violence, the scir-
rata makes halt when it arrives in
sight of the village, and then it is that
the Corsican women tear their hair
and scratch their faces till the blood
flows, just as do their sistsrs in Delma-
tia and Montenegro. The widow awaits
the scirrata blythe door of her house,
and, as it draws near, the leader steps
forth and throws black veil over her
head to symbolic her widowhood; the
term of which must offer dreary pros
pect to woman who has the misfor-
tune to lose her husband while she is
still in the prime of life, for public
opinion insists that she remain for years
in almost total seclusion. The mourn
ers and as many as can enter the room
assemble round the body, which lies
stretched on table or plank supported
by benches; it is draped in long man.
tie, or tits clothed in the dead mans
best suit. Now begins the dirge, or
Vocero. Two persons will perhaps
start off singing together, and in that
case the words cannot be distinguished;
but more often only one gets up at a
time. She will open her song with
quietly-delivered eulogy of the virtues
of the dead, and few pointed illusions
to the most important events in his life;
but before long she warns to her work,
and pours forth volleys of rhythmic lam
entation with fire and animation that
stir up the women present into fren-
zied delirium of grief, in which, as the
prafca pauses to take breath, they
howl, dig their nails into their flesh,
throw themselves on the ground, and
sometimes cover their heads with ashes.
When the dirge is ended they join hands
and dance frantically round the plank on
which the body lies. More singing takes
place on the way to the church and
thence to the graveyard. After the fu-
neral the men do not shave for weeks,
and the women let their hair go loose
and occasionally cut it off at the grave;
cutting off the hair being, by the way,
universal sign of female mourning; it
was done by the women of ancient
Greece, and it is done by the women of
India. A good deal of eating and drink
ing brings the ceremonials to a close.
If the bill of fare comes short of that
recorded of the funeral feast of Sir John
PASTOR, of Barton, when 300 eggs, ,tcorty-
one pigs, forty calves and ten nete were
but a few of the items-nevertheless
the Corsican baked meats fall very
heavily upon the pockets of such fam
lilies as deem themselves compelled to
akeep up a position" Sixty persons is
not an extraordinary NUMBER to be
entertained at the banquet, and there is,
over and above, general distribution
of bread and meat tapoorer neighbors. |
Mutton in summer, and pork in winter, |
are esteemed the yiands proper to the |
In happy contrast to all thx |
feasting < The simple cp
of milk drank by each kinsman of the |
who dies in the mountains; in |
which case his body is laid out like |
Robin Hoods, in the open air, a green |
sod under his head, his loins begir. |
with the pistol belt, his gun at his side,
his dog at bis feet.-Corratiu Magazins.