Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-06-15
A TERRIBLE SACRAMENT
GLASS EATING A RELIGIOUS CERE'
MONY AMONG ARABS OF TUNiS.

ticnte and Swallow Broken Glass
Boys Partakc of the Jagged Morsel.
The Cornhill Magazine gives the
following account of remarkable ex-
hibition of religious glass eating re-
Gently witnessed among the Arabs of
Tunis, in Northern Africa:
As the music rose to crescendo,
and the rhythm became mere frantic
and involved, the dancers got visibly
more excited and less conscious of
their surroundings, their eyes taking
on fixed and vacant expression.
Then the leader OF the dance applied
what seemed to be the most effective
and eliminating intoxicant; at each
ictus in the dance all the heads were
strained forward and everyone gave q
deep staccato groan, like the roar of q
wild beast, while the blood rushed to
the head, and The muscles OF the neck
were strung like ropes under the
strain.
It was not long before this produced
the result for which all were waiting.
A man of about thirty, wiry and thin,
with small head, tore himself from
the line of dancers and rushed up to
one of tho two stewards standing in
the open space. The steward un-
wound his turban and held him for q
minute in fraternal embrace. With
his turban the man seemed to have
doffed most of his humanity; his
small face almost covered with black
hair, his bristling whiskers, his blue
shaven scalp, with the little pigtail of
black hair Tapping behind at every
movement; above all, the lips,
stretched across his large white teeth,
like those of snarling dog, all gave
the impression of something ultra
human-at once sublime and bestial.
Then bent nearly double, feeling
with outstretched arms, blinded by
his ecstasy, he groped his way down
the open line between dancers and
musicians to the other steward. This
man held in one hand large cloth
filled with pieces of broken glass.
One of these he took out and held in
his right hand at arms length. The
ecstatic as he approached glared saw
agely at the glass, CRASHED his teeth,
and stretched out his head; but he
drew back. The religious intoxica.
tion was not quite complete, and some
glimmerings of common-sense stand
ards still struggled in his disordered
brain. He rushed back to the first
steward, was again embraced by him,
and again crept back along the line.
Still the jagged shining glass was toe
terrible.
Backwards and forwards he went,
sometimes cropping along slowly,
sometimes with the stealthy rush of q
. tiger stalking its prey. At last, when
the eager gesture of his outstretched
neck made it clear that no vestige Of
reluctance remained, the steward
; clapped the glass into his mouth and
!, held his hand over it for q second.
, The devotee rushed back, as it were
: for consolation, to the first steward
: and held him in tight embrace, Fol
, some time he remained so, making
, strange, incohereut gestures with his
arms. while the steward, gradually
lifted up his head, proceeded to mas
sage his face and throat.
When his head was raised, the mar
, was still chewing and swallowing the
horrible mouthful After he had re
covered himself somewhat, his turbar
was wound round his head, and he
! was lifted ana showed back into the
,, line of dancers, where he went OF
, jigging up and down, his head falling
now on one shoulder, now on the
other, with blank, listless look in
| his face.
After this first example OF frenzied
| devotion, the spell of fear seemed to
be broken, and one after another the
dancers left the limo (the dance never
ceasinG for an instant, and the music
keeping up its maddening din) and
rushed at the steward who held the
glass and dealt out piece after piece.
Soon even the boys took part i'll it,
/ and one handsome fellow of sixteen
| came up and stretched out toward the
jagged morsel, as though it was ioi
part, too, they seemed to chew and
: swallow it with increasing ease, and
the first steward had little to do but
: wind on their turbans and put them
back into the line of dancers. Then
/ the man who had first eaten, and who
| had meanwhile recovered his tone
f came back for second, and little
while after for n third mouthful; but
the frenzy was increasing upon him,
: and he had to be held by three or foul
J Arabs, who rushed up from the sides
to help the steward.
, 1t became football scrimmaSe, a. {
, the four men had to put out all thei,
{ strength to collar and throw him. Fin
, ally he was held down on the floor il
, q sort of epilephc fit, throwing his
limbs about wildly, and literally bark
) ing like a huge dog. The ecstasy was
| too much for him, and he had become
o savage beast.
Ncr was he the only one who be
came unmanageable under the intoxi
eating influences Of dance and music
Sometimes, it is true, when q devotet
was exceeding the usual bounds, his