AN EGYPTIAN FUNERAL. Strange Burial of the Dead in the Country of the Nile.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 207, 18 June 1887, Page 4

AN EGYPTIAN FUNERAL. Strange Burial of the Dead in the Country of the Nile.

A ruxEit.YL in Egypt is indeed a strange sight, and the first one the visitor sees astonishes him very much. At the head of the procession march a corporate body of the blind, and a certain number of the men who proceed at a quick step, singing a most jubilant air, while swinging them selves from right to left. Behind them comes the funeral car, or rather a sort of bier, bearing a great red shawl, in which the body is deposited. At the extremity of the bier, on a perch, is placed the turban or the tarbouche, of the defunct. Two men carry this bier. They follow with such high spirits the movement of the head of the cortege that the corpse, rocked in every direction, seems to jump under the shawl that shrouds it. The women bring up the rear, some on asses, some on foot. The first row is formed of weepers, or rather screamers, who send forth toward heaven at each step the shrillest notes. The weepers hold in their hand a hanker-chief, with which they are not solicitous of wiping their eyes perfectly dry, but which they pull by the two ends behind their heads with a gesture that would be desperate it it were not droll. On arrival at the cemetery they take the corpse from the bier to cast it, such as it is, into the grave. The grand funerals, however, take place with much more solemnity. An important personage is hardly dead in Fgypt before his friends and acquaintances hurry to the house ; duriug one or two days they eat and drink at the expense of the dead, or rather his heirs, indulging in teh noiest demonstrations. When the hour of the interment arrives a scene of the wildest character is produced. The slaves and women of the household throw themselves on the corpse and feign a determination to hinder it from passing the household. The lugubrious tragedy is played conscientiously ; they snatch away the coffin ; they belay each other with blows, and the most violent and frightful clamor is hoard. At last the procession leaves the house and repairs to the cemetery, preceded by camels loaded with victuals, which are distributed to the poor hurrying in crowds along the road. All along the road mourners and friends of the family light for the honour of bearing the bier for an instant, and thus it passes or bounds from hand to hand amid the most frightful disorder. The interment ended, every one returns to the house of the dead to recommence the festivities, dancing and the mortuary demonstrations.