Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-06-05
HOW nd pIs INIPsRsIA

Ist James Gazette. !

I6t James Gazetie.T
The sick man lies In extremis on a
thin Hs-~.tfsas Hpon the flour, covered by
q quilted silken covorlet Twenty or
thirty pefs0nsare in The room whore he
is dying. Tho smoke Of many hubble
bubbles clouds the air; whispered con-
versation ID general The doctors
have declared their patients condition
hopeless, and, as last resort, certain
charms suggested by a weird looking
dervish have been tried. Butthe crab
broth, prepared from the tiny crusta-
ceans that inhabit the streamlets round
Shiraz, the patient has been unable to
swallow; and the cervish points out to
the relatives Of the dying man that his
panacea has only proved infallible
because it was tried too late. A yelled
woman, the wife Of the dying man, sits
weeping at the side of her husbands
pillow. She frequently holds to his
face moistened piece of mud torn
from the wall (this wetted mud is sup
posed to have very reviving influence,
and is used by Persians as we use SMELL
ing salts. - -
Tea is handed round in small cups;
the crowd in the. room becomes greater;
every window is shut, and, as the out
side temperature is 80 degrees, some
idea of the heat within can be formed.
The crowd is not here from mere curios-
ity. A man is sick; then where should
his friends be, they say, if not by his
bedsidel The samoyars (Russian tea
urns) steam and bubble; the room is
filed with clouds If tobacco smoke and
the steam from the urns, and now, just
as 200 years ago was done in England, q
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 bed
side. Moistened cottonwood is placed
in the mouth of the dead, in the orr
fees of the nostrils, and in the ears
A moollah begins to read aloud the
prescribed portion Of the Koran, COM
mencing 70 man, swear by the in
structiye Koran that thou art one of the
messengers of God sent to show the
right way" etc. This portion of the
Mussulman's sacred book was called by
Monammed himself ''the heart of the
Koran" And now all present witness
aloud that the dead man was good
pious Mohammedan. The limbs are
composed and q cup of water is placed
at the head of the corpse. No sooner is
this done than a moollah ascends to the
flat roof of the house and begins TO read
in shrill monotone certain verses from
the holy book. This announces to the
neighbors that the man is vertically dead
and at the same moment his relations
shrek and wall, "Wo, wol he is
dead; he has passed away" These are
the expressions of real grief. But pres
emily the professional mourners arrive
and rend the air with their shriii
screaming, which is like the 'keening'
of the Irish.
The house is soon filed 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" Il. e. somber
garments-not in actual black, but in
sad colors; neither they nor the men
wash or dress their hair until the flu.
neral and the first days of mourning
dlO OhCls 1AO LldlC IOthIANCo dO L1OU 1ib'
orally rend their garments, but give
them the right appearance by opening
certain seams of their coats and cloaks
with penknife; and instead of casting
dust upon their heads they dab mud OF
their hats.
And now come the washers Of the
dead" To each parish are attached {
family of these people, who get de
spised 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 cottor
cloth that the deceased has probably
had by him as sort of memento NOR
for years. Camphor (real vegetabl,
camphoD is placed beneath the shroud
and the body is laid in a rough cofIiI
made of thin planks and brought bacl
to the house. The coffin in Persia is 0
a thin and unsubstantial kind, and tn
burial always takes place within twenty
four hours of deeease.