SUTTEE IN INDIA
WOMAN BURNT ON PYRE POLICE ARRIVE TOO LATE DELHI, Jan. 14 The blowing of sacred conch shells and the clanging of cymbals drowned the screams of a woman who committed "suttee" (self-immolation) to-day on her husband's funeral pyre near a village temple in the neighbourhood of Agra.
The body of the Iranian's Brahmin husband, who had died after a long illness, had been placed on the pvre, and wood heaped over it. The widow appeared clad in her bridal clothes. She warned onlookers that they would suffer the wrath of the gotfs if they interfered. She entered the temple and worshipped and then lit and ascended the pyre.
Large crowds of onlookers and priests, overawed, watched the sacrifice.
The woman was incinerated by the time the police arrived to prevent the "suttee," a ceremony which the British Government prohibited a century ago and which is now very rarely practised.
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New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22628, 16 January 1937, Page 11
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152SUTTEE IN INDIA New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22628, 16 January 1937, Page 11
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