FIRE-WALKERS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 151, 30 June 1928, Page 20

FIRE-WALKERS

A REMARKABLE .CEREMONY. Writing in tho "Wido World Magazine," Liuutenant Archibald Jones,B.A., describes a remarkable "fire-walking" ceremony which he witnessed recently in tho island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. . Indian .devotees strode barefooted along a pathway ten yards.long and four feet wide, composed of a charcoal fire 12in deep. Tho charcoal was white hot, and, although our stand was several yards away from it, we were obliged to withdraw from the front owing to the intense heat; even so, our faces and the backs of our hands were burnt red. ■ The. air above the bed of charcoal could, be seen quivering with heat rays. The first man to bravo the lire was the senior priest. He walked"through it from end to end, moving with steady, even stops,, his gaze fixed steadfastly upon tho little gods. During his terrible journey his face appeared stern and set, but I noticed that his eyes glistened with the dreadful heat. In his hands, which were held close together in front of his body, he carried small bunches of green herbs. At every step his bare feet sank into the white hot charcoal up to the ankles, Ijuk tho appalling heat seemed to have mi effect upon 'him, or, so far as I could see, on tho flesh. Numbers of men and women followed, some of the men carrying 'their children in their arms. Despite tho fact that all the fire-walk-ing was dono with bare feet and that tho fire itsolf, as I can testify, was terrifically hot, not one of the people who strode along that awful path appeared to be in. any way injured, burned, or scarred. There must be, of course, some explanation for this, but what it is I cannot say.