Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-06-02
DANCING FOR A sAlNT.

A E1AAMINUUN E4EE0EAnEmG8 In Which N4~UA Hot Erors Are Used.
 A fete which has fallen somewhat in. to disrepute is that of the Aissaona, named after poor and pious Moham- medan saint It is held in the court of Q house, and the music is barbarous. The music continues for an hour or more, while the cry is kept up of ssAis- saona, Aissaona, and the formula, .La- h-illa-allah"-there is no God but one God-is oft repeated. Then came 8 shrill. long-continued cry, just such a cry as one would imagine as coming from plesiosaurus or some similar an- tediluvian monster. Again and again it sounded above drum and tambour, the unearthliest, cruelest and most horri- ble 1 had ever heard.
 The court in which we were seated was open, and ranged in rows around the uppermost gallery were dozen women, their white, immovable figures looking like ghosts against the back ground of the dark purple sky, their muffded faces bent eagerly over the balustrade. The voices of the women seemed to act like poison on the brains of both musicians and Aissaona. The tambours evoked sounds more diaboli- cal still, the chants became moro frantic. At last the spell worked, and one of the men broke from the ring and began to dance.
 And what dance! One was reminded of Goethe's ballad and the skeleton that performed such weird feats on the moonlit graves, and, of everything fiendish or fantastic that the imagina- tion of man has conceived.
 The body was bent backward and forward, the head was shaken, the breast was shaken with a frenzied agility and recklessness, till the per former looked as unlike anything human as could possibly be. Now his head, with its horrible mass of snaky hair, hung backward as if it was dislo- cated; now his breast resounded with such blows that you feared some blood vessel were broken; now he whirled to and fro, yelling, raging and glaring. Soon another and another Aissaona were seized with the spirit, and now the sight became horrible. They caught hold of each other by the waist, swung this way and that, foaming at the mouth, wriggling like snakes, bowling like hungry wolves, and never breaking the horrible Mezentian union, till one " OAAO OACy AO4A uPOh bAO &EOuAO, C1b1" CT in 8 tetanic swoon or catileptic con- vulsion.
 To see these revolving figures writh- ing at our very feet, to hear the shrill choruses of the women and the mono tone of the musicians, was a sensation never to be forgotten. In the kitchen behind, in little fireplace in the cor ner, an Arab was heating flat pokers he !, @k L3 negro busied himself complacently among fragments of glass, knives, scorpions, needles, swords and broad leaves of the pluclzy cactus. When these instruments of torture were exhibited, the exulting cry of the women rose to higher pitch, the Mus selman crowd became ungovernably en- thusiastic and the Aissaona were fired with the spirit of faith. The scene now grew internal
 The priest held out leaf of the Bar barry fig, bristling with thorns an inch in length, and his disciples knelt around him, snapping, biting; tearing it like wild beasts. Then basket of blazing coals was brought out, and they fell upon them greedily, rubbing them be- tween their hands, making a carpet of them to dance on, grinding them be- tween their teeth. One terrible looking negro walked about the court holding in his mouth a red hot cinder and look ing like the devil incarnate. Then he dropped it on the ground with a iend- ish cry, "Aissaona, Aissaona," and groveled over the fragments, picking up one at a time with his teeth.
 The worst was yet to come; red-hot irons were brought out, with which they proceeded to seethe and scorch them selves in 8 manner perfectly sickening. They applied them to the soles of their feet, the palms of their hands, the fiat part of their arms, all being done with an ecstatic delirium. The smell of burning flesh, the howls, the groans, the contortions of the Aissaona, the universal madness, became unendura- ble, and we made an exit as soon as possible. It was relief to get into the fresh, pure air once more, and leave such a world of fantastic deviltry be-