HOWLING DERVISHES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 257, 24 July 1920, Page 10

HOWLING DERVISHES

WILD RITES WITNESSED STRANGE CEREMONIES IN MOSQUE Tho other afternoon I went through the snow to see the Howling Dervishes in thdir mosquo (wrote a newspaper correspondent from Constantinople recently). It is hardly five minutes a.way from tho centre of this cosmopolitan town, but you cannot imagine a more extraordinary contrast to our comparatively civilised life than these people's ceremonies. There are plenty of foreigners at the show; and tho twenty piasters—"disasters," as tho British Tommy has learned to call them—which are collected from: each of us (it represents about a shilling) muEt make up a substantial sum each week. The dervishes enter. They are half a dozen men of all types, dressed in ordinary and rather raggod clothes; .indeed, if you met them in the street you would not bo ablo to distinguish' them from ordinary pcopife. They nquat down on the floor and under the guidanco of a huge priest, whose green turban shows that ho has mado the pilgrimage to Mecca, they commence to chant the nome and the pnaiee of Allah., The dervishes seem transfigured, hardly human. Ono of them staggers to his feet, puts on a little white skull-cup in tho place of his turban, picks up along Bpoon that has been growing red' hot in ono of tho brar.iers, and lays it on his tongue, You hear it hiss its it touches the flesh. This is no fake; one can ba euro of this. The other dervishes will still sob and bark, keeping up the chorus till tho end of tho ceremony. Soon the dervish in the white hat throws down the spoon and picks up « sort of skewer with bells on the end of it. He heats the point in tho brazier, and then, feeling about with it for about a moment or two, ho pushes it through his cheek into his mouth. Another few seconds and tho point of tha skewor emerges through his other cheek. An old dervish who has iust entered and is now going through the ceremony of licking another red-lioi spoon, p'icks up a' mallet and hammering the head of tho skewer, drives the point into tho wall. Thus the dervish is fastened to the wall by the iron, through his cheeks. It is by no means a pleasant 6ight, even though ono guesses that it is not so very terriblo for the dervish as it appears. At length the skewer is pulled out of the wall, then out of ono cheek and out of the other; and tho man is free. A spot of blood on his fnce shows that it has not been altogether easy for him. But ho docs not wait. He picks up tho skower again and, plucking together the skin of his throat with his fingers, lie pushes tho ekewer through it, and walks about with tho thing protruding through his neck. After a while he takes it out and pushes it through tho skin of his side. Meanwhile the insistent throb of tho kneeling dervishes' chant,continues, maddening them. They are swaying like machines; foam is dropping from their months. Ono jf them stands up and 6ings a melodious Eastern psalm. But the others do jiot stop. Tho old dervish with tho mallet puts it down and picka up a sword. Ho lies down on the floor; two of the dervishes hold tho sword across his throat and another puts his handß on their shoulders and, balanoing tliiw, stamps upou the sword. 1 One_ looks on with horror. Tho sword certainlyseems to penetrate the prostrato dervish's throat; and you expect to see the blood pour out. But nothing like this happens. The other man dis-' mounts after a time and the old man, after making a pretonco of wrenching the sword out of his throat, stands up, nono the worse. Then ho holds tho edgo of the'sword against his stomach, givei the ends of it to two men to hold and makes them ' carry him about by it. Neither his hands nor his feet touch -the_ floor, but his wholo weight is supported \by the sharp edge of tho sword. The shouting dervishes stand up, : panting and sobbing. They link arms anil 6till chanting, danco in a circle round the man from Mecca. The dance grows swifter and swifter, wilder and wilder.. At last tho other dervishes, led by tha old man, run in and pull -them apart. Sobbing, foaming, staggering, they are led out of tho room, and tho wild ceremony is at an end. Hardly what ono would expect to find within two hundred yards of the British Embassy, is it? And yet this i« what happens every Fridaj- ic th« yeer nt Constantinople