WAILING AS A PROFESSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2086, 15 February 1894, Page 42

WAILING AS A PROFESSION.

A Curious Occcpation. One of the strangest occupations in the world is extensively practiced in Egypt and other parts of the East. Women wail in this country for recreation, but they will wail there for profit. To many of them it is a bread-and-butter game, and a queer game it is. Every reader o£ ancient history has read of the " Neddabehs," or wailing women. I

had read of them before I came into actual contact with them. They are the finest actors in the world, and my experience with them impressed this characteristic upon me. I had a letter of introduction to an Egyptian official, a man of wealth and position.

One evening I made my way up to his house, on the banks of the stately Mabmoudieh Canal. There were a few persons idling about the rich vine groves. One of them came up to me and said something, and I attempted to look intelligent but failed. I showed the letter to this dusky guard, and passed on without understanding one of the many words he had addressed to me. I went up to the door, and my ears were nearly split by the most dreadful shrieks which ever fell upon the ears of civilised man. I was spellbound ; I thought a Whitechapel murder was being perpetrated, and there were no policemen about to stop the disturbance. I rang the bell, but no one answered.

After waiting a long time, I felt impelled to take the law into my own hands. The large door was open, and there was a magnificent view of the majestic hall before me. Silently I crept down. After going about 15 yards I came to an open door, and the shrieks came through in a deafening volume. There was a gauzy curtain spread over the aperture, and I sat down on a gorgeous divan for the purpose of seeing what was to be seen.

I got a clear view o£ everything; there were only six women and a corpse. The corpse was on a bier, and the amiable shriekers were banging around her, utterirjg the most demoniacal yells. Their hair was hanging down their shoulders and faces ; they were wringing their hands in hysterical grief ; tears were flowing down their dusky faces in regular courses; then they commenced a mournful chant which was worse than the shrieking. Then the shrieking commenced again.

. After this had been going on for a long time, I felt that my heart was really aching for these poor bereft ones. They had lost a dear relative no doubt — perhaps a mother, perhaps a sister— l didn't know. At that time I had not fathomed the depths of a woman's craft. I should think this had been going on for an hour when a tall, bedecked man entered the room from the opposite side, held up bis right arm in a very dignified manner, and said in very good English, "It is enough."

The scene was changed In the twinkling of an eye. The tears vanished in something less than a second ; the women trimmed up their hair and made themselves look quite prim and pretty. One of them was bold enough to throw her veil from her comelylooking face, and I got a full view of it. Then the women drew into a circle, and with smiling faces began chattering away quite comfortably — probably about the weather, the fashions in mourning bonnets, &c. Nay, I forgot. As a topic of conversation, the weather is branded with, infamy in Egypt ; It is never mentioned— except by a fool. lam not saying this maliciously, for I was that fool often enough. More than once on being introduced to Europeans, I would pass the usual compliments, and add, " What a charming day it is." I got more than one withering look of contempt for this species of crass forgetfulness. Why, tbe sun shines like a ball of fire for eight months each year, and there is practically no variation in the weather. In my diary I read the following entries: Beautiful morning"; II Beautiful morning, again " ; " Another beautiful morning " ; " Ob, bother, they are all beautiful mornings here, so I must take it for granted."

But to return to the wailing women. A large number of the women of Egypt make a profession of it. Their fee varies from a piastre an hour to an English sovereign. They are really anxious to get an English sovereign an hour. When they get so much they are getting to the top of their peculiar profession. Many of these women make a lot of money in this way, and I often thought it was a great pity some of the wailing women who burden life in England could not find an equally profitable scope for their powers ia this direction. It is an eminently respectable calling. The only qualification is a good voice— a shrieking voice — and the power to make black appear white.

The second time I saw thesa wailing women at work was at the funeral of the Khedive's uncle. It was a magnificent affair as a pageant, but a miserable failure as a funeral. The " wallers " were in their glory. A scion of the royal bouse was being carried head foremost to his loDg home. I had almost said his "lonely home," but that would have been a perversion of the truth. A royal tomb is not a lonely place. The howling dervishes make periodical calls upon the deceased monarch or prince, and they regale him in a right royal way. A light is always kept burning in the tomb, so that visitors will have no difficulty in finding out whether or not their host i 3 at home.

Ths body of the Khedive's uncle had been brought from Vienna. All the lord high official", dressed in their gorgeous apparel, met the boat at the quay, and the wailing women were there too. They sang, or rather wailed, tbe praises of tbe deceased prince. If he had been living he would have been compelled to blush, even through his dusky skin. His virtues resembled those of the archangels, his handsome looks were the glory of the fairest women, &c.

The body was carried to the Khedivial palace for the night. In the morning it was taken to the Mosque Nebi Daniel, in Alexandria. I formed one of the motley congregation. The English troops, under Sir William Butler, were there in force, and a number of bluejackets, under the command of the captains of the Amphion and Melita, then in the harbour.

In front of the bier were several camels, heavily laden with Arab cakes, and behind walked three fat oxen. In the rear there was a wild, dirty, almost savage, shrieking multitude of half-naked Egyptians. I did not know what was their object in attending the funeral at that time, but I found out soon.

After a brief service in the mosque the bullocks were walked to tbe back of the sacred building — to the place of the tombs — and there slain. It was a brutal and sickening spectacle. Their necks were twisted right round, and a long knife plunged into the softest part. The blood flew over the yelling spectators. Long before the brutes were dead they were cut Into small pieces, and the quivering flesh thrown amongst the

half-maddened multitude. Some of them fought for it ; some of them ate it as it was — raw and quivering with the life still in it. All the time the woilicg women kept up their morbid pantomime. They had white handkerchiefs in their hands, and, in their apparent agony, they threw them over their heads and buried their faces in them. It was a sight never to be forgotten. It was enough to melt the heart of a cynical Englishman — if he bad not known that it was all done for the sake of a few piastres. Mahomet, like a sensible man, put his foot on this kind of business ; he even stamped his foot upon it, but it was in existence long before his time, and it has long survived him. Many of the in junctions of the prophet are winked at, and this is one.