ANCIENT CEREMONY

Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1938, Page 4

ANCIENT CEREMONY

STRANGE CULT AT LONDON PARSEE ZOROASTRIANS A ceremony three thousand years old was held in the ballroom of a Kensington Hotelwhen Darayes Boomla, twelveyear- old son of a London doctor, ■ was iniated into the faith of the Parsee Zoroastrians. A brazier of sweet-smelling sandalwood burned on the canopied platform in the centre of the floor; Darayes, squattir.g on his heels, faced the whiterobed High Priest, with three assistant priests. Round the dais were many of the two or three hundred Zoroastrians in London. The men wore lounge suits, but most of the women wore silk robes and had jewelled bands round their hair, The High Priest, Dr. Dhalla, chanted the three thousand-year-old Ashem Vohu prayer in a forgotten. language, while the boy responded. The boy stood up, threw off his scarlet cloak, and a thin white muslin shirt was slipped over his hare shoulders, symbolic of simplicity and purity; a girdle of white lamb's wool was wound three times round his waist, an emblem of innocence and gentility. Then a red. line was drawn down his forehead and corn thrown over him, to represent fertility. A garland of ros--3 was hung round his neck. Darayes is a Boy Seout in the New Eltham troop. His father is a doctor in Plumstead. Zoroastrianism ip a faith without missionaries. "There are about one hundred thouand of us in the world mostly in Bombay. We do not admit converts," one of them said- "It is not true tp call us fireworshippers. We worship fire as a sacred symbol of our God. Our small colony in London is composed mainly of medical men."