STRANGE RITES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1939, Page 4

STRANGE RITES

OBSERVANCE IN MOROCCO. Tburists in Morocco in May can witness one of the strangest sights to be seen, but it is not for the timid or impressionable. This is the rite of the Hamadcha and the Dghoughia,, who make a pilgrimage to Moulay Idriss, an Arab town built on a hilltop, there to break earthenware pots on their heads or slash their foreheads, with small axes. Working themselves into a paroxysm, they fling the earthenware pots into air, giving them a rotating movement by a twist of the fingers, then receiving them' on their heads, where they break. The others meanwhile dance with a small axe in their hands, the blade turned towards the forehead, which is suddenly gashed by a sharp blow. The ambition of all seems to be to cover their robes with blood. Helped by their followers, they make their way in procession to a stream more than a mile distant, where they bathe their which are rapidly healed —miraculously, they say. Many origins are ascribed to these curious customs, the most general being that the rites commemorate the qabit of Moulay Idriss to strike himself to keep awake while meditating on how best to lead souls to the paradise of Mahomet.