The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-24
THE WAY TO DIE In PERSIA.

Oriental Fashion Which Could Not Charm
Mr.. Ii. w. Hanna.
st. James Gazette.
The sick man lies in extrems on a thin mat
tress upon the floor, covered by quilted silken
coverlet. Twenty or thirty persons are in the
room where he is dying. The smoke of many
hubble bubbles clouds the air; whispered CONVEX
sation is general The doctors have declared
their patients condition hopeless and as last
resort, certain charms suggested by a weird
looking dervish have been tried but the crab
broth, prepared from the tiny crustaceans that
inhabit the streamlets around Shiraz, the patient
has been unable to swallow; and the deryish
points out to the relatives of the dying man that
his panacea has only not proved nfallible be-
cause 1t was tried too late. A veiled woman the
wife of the dying man, sits weeping at the side
OF her husbands pillow. She frequently holds
to his face a mostened piece of mud torn from
the wall this wetted mud is supposed to have a
very reviving influence, and is used by Persians
as we use smelling salts).
Tea is handed around in small cups; the
crowc In the room becomes greater; every win
dow is shut and as the outside temperature is
ninety degrees some idea of the heat within can
be formed. The crowd is not here from mere
curiosity. A man is sick; then where should his
friends be, they say. if not by his bedsidel The
samovarS Russian tea urns steam and bubbls;
the room is filled with clouds of tobacco smoke
and the steam from the urns. And now just as
two hundred years ago was done in England,
fowl is killed and placed warm and bleeding on
the patients feet. All is of no avail, however
The man has breathed his last.
The wife yields her place by the bedside
Moistened cotton wool is place in the mouth of
the dead, in the orifces of the nostrils, and in
the ears. A moollah begins to read aloud the
prescribed portion of the Koran, commencing:
Oh man. swear by the instructive Koran
that thou art enc of the messengers of God sent
to show the right way" etc. This portion of the
Mussulman's sacred book was called by Mo
manned himself 'the heart of the Koran
And now all present witness aloud that the dead
man was a good and pious Mohammedan The
limbs are composed. and cup of water is placed
at the head of the corpse No sooner is this
done than moolah ascends to the fat roof Of
the house and begins to read in shrll monotone
certain verses from the holy book. This an
nounces to the neighbors that the man is verit-
ably dead, and at the same moment his relations
Shrek and wall, "Woe, woe! he is dead, he has
passed away" These are the expressions of a.
real grief; but presently the professional mourn
ers arrive and rend the air with their shrill
screaming. which is like the 'keening' of the
Irish
The house is soon filled with friends and
neighbors. who add their cries to the screams of
the mourners. The women of the family hasten
to array themselves in 'bitter" d. e., somberl
garments-not in actual black but in sad colors;
neither they nor the men wash or dress their
hair until the funeral and the first days Of
mourning are over. The male relatives do not
literally rend their garments, but give them tho
right appearance by opening certain seams of
their coats and cloaks with penknife, and in
stead of casting dust upon their heads they dab
mud on their hats.
And owcome the washers of the deadv To
each parish are attached family of these peo-
pie, who get despised livelihood by performing
the last offices for the dead The corpse having
been washed at an adjoining stream, the hands
are placed across the chest and it is wrapped in
the shroud of cotton cloth that the deceased has
probably had by him as a sort of memento mort
for years: Camphor (real vegetable camphor)
is placed beneath the shroud, and the body is
laid in rough coffin made of thin planks. and
brought back to the house. The coffin in Per-
STA is of thin AID unsubstantial kind, and the
burial always takes place within twenty-fo
hours of decease