grave. of the male part of the attendants when a corpse is carrying to the When the corpse is carried out, a number of sheekhs,' with their tattered banners, walk first: next come the male friends; and after them the corpse, carried with the head foremost upon men's shoulders. The bearers are relieved very often, for every passenger thinks it meritorious to lend some little help on such solemn occasions. The nearest male relations immediately follow, and the women close the procession with dreadful shrieks, while the men all the way are singing prayers out of the Koran." Mr. Irwin, I remember, mentions the like singing, as observed by him at Ghinnah, in Upper Egypt. There is so much resemblance, according to Dr. Russell, between the Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews in the East, as to their nuptial observances and burial ceremonies, that it is natural to suppose this singing is common to all. It is not however a mere conclusion, drawn from what the Mohammedans practise: Dean Addison has expressly told us he found it practised by the Jews of Barbary. The corpse is borne by four to the place of burial, in this procession: in the first rank march the Chachams, or priests, next to them the kindred of the deceased, after whom come those that are invited to the funeral; and all singing 1 A sort of people among them supposed to possess great Janctity. m Descript. of Aleppo, vol. i. p. 305-309. in a sort of plain song the 49th Psalm. And if it lasts not till they come to the grave, they begin it again." " The Dean tells us, "It may not be unfit to observe, that though the modern ceremonies of burial are neither so numerous or costly as those of old among the Jews; yet they do not much vary from them for the washing the body was in use at the time of Tabitha's death; and the chief mourner spoken of before, as also the weekly lamenting of the dead, refers to the women hired to lament at the burials: and which the Scripture calls mourning-women, Jerem. ix. 17, the same with the præfice among the Romans. They likewise agree in the places of burial, which are now, as formerly, without the towns or cities where they live, excepting that in Fez they have a burying-place within the city, adjoining to the Juderia, or the part where they live.” Other writers have given an account of mourning-women being retained in the East;" ■ Present State of the Jews, p. 218. • Acts ix. 37. P P. 220. ↑ So the Abbot Mascrier tells us, from the papers of M. Maillet, that not only do the relations and female friends, in Egypt, surround the corpse, while it remains unburied, with the most bitter cries, scratching and beating their faces so violently as to make them bloody, and black and blue, but "to render the hubbub more complete, and do the more honour to the dead person, whom they seem to imagine to be very fond of noise, those of the lower class of people are wont to call in, on these occasions, certain women, who play on tabors, and whose business it is to sing mournful airs to the sound of this instrument, which they accompany with a thousand distortions of their limbs, as frightful as those of people possessed by the devil. These women at but the instances Dean Addison has given, as proofs of the continuance of that custom in these countries, do not seem to me to be happily chosen the chief mourner, who receives them with his jaws tied up with a linen cloth, after the same manner as they bind up the dead, appears to have been one of the nearest relations, not one hired to personate another in affliction; as those that go now every week, (and, I may add, often more frequently) certainly are not hired people, but relations, that go to weep there, as Mary the sister of Lazarus was suptend the corpse to the grave, intermixed with the female relations and friends of the deceased, who commonly have their hair in the utmost disorder, like the frantic Bacchanalian women of the ancient heathens, their heads covered with dust, their faces danbed with indigo, or at least rubbed with mud, and howling like mad people. This way of bewailing the dead has obtained even among the Christians of Egypt. I myself have seen a young woman here, who was a Catholic, and who, having lost her mother, who had resided in the quarter of the Franks, sent for these taborplayers to come and lament her. Scarcely could the Capuchins prevail upon her to dismiss these Mohammedan women, who were wont to sing on such occasions." Lett. 10, p. 89. What this writer says, shows the attachment of the Eastern people to this custom, since the Capuchins of Grand Cairo, who with some other religious orders that are settled there, and with great zeal are said by him to labour for the propa gation of the Roman faith, had so much ado to prevail on one of their own church not to employ Mohammedan hired mourners, to lament her deceased parent, instead of recurring to those good fathers to sing a Requiem to her soul, according to the papal mode. We Protestants may suppose the singing of the one as efficacious as that of the other, and the motives of one as pure and disinterested as those of the other; but this conduct of a member of the Romish communion, for some time obstinately persisted in, shows the great force of the custom, and, consequently, the univer sality of the practice among other people there. posed by the Jews to do, when she rose up hastily, and went out of the town, where JESUS indeed was, but near to which place was also the grave of her brother. John xi. 31. And as the Jews now, as well as the Mohammedans, are wont to carry their dead to the grave with devout singing, it cannot be unlikely that it was the common custom in the East anciently, for hymns to be sung by the more sedate part of the company, as it was for the female relations, with their hired companions the singing-women, to make use of very violent lamentations. It is admitted by all, that this last practice obtained, and the following passages are proofs of it, Jer. ix. 17, 18: Call for the mourning-women, that they may come; and send for cunning-women, `that they may come. And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eye-lids gush out with waters. To which may be added ver. 20. Can it then be thought difficult to admit the supposition, that the last clause of Amos vi. 10, is to be understood of the more sedate singing of portions of holy writ, according to the modern practice of these countries: A man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, hold thy tongue; for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD. The 8th chapter of that Prophet, ver. 3, speaks of many dead bodies in every place, and says, They shall cast them forth in silence; that however may be understood of neglecting the sending for hired mourners to lament over them; but the other passage speaks of the not mentioning the name of the LORD, which seems to refer to something very different from the extravagant female lamentations of the East, of these modern times: and most probably from the explanations of ancient hired mourners. The Jews of Barbary, of the last century, were wont to sing in their funeral processions the 49th Psalm. It cannot I apprehend, be positively determined, what the portion of holy writ was that they were wont to recite when carrying their dead to the grave, in the time of the Prophet Amos, but it might as well be the 49th Psalm, as any other part of Scripture; and as it was actually made use of in Barbary a hundred years ago, it is, perhaps, most likely to have been anciently made use of in the East. Now in that Psalm, GoD is celebrated, as he that would raise his people from the grave to life, after having long laid there. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave, from their dwelling. But GoD will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Ver. 14, 15. But he had been celebrated by them |