HOWLING DERVISHES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20073, 9 October 1920, Page 2

HOWLING DERVISHES.

WILD RITES WITNESSED.

STRANGE CEREMONIES IN MOSQUE,

The other afternoon I went through tlie snow to see. the Howling Dervishes in thfeir mottju.e (wrote a newspaper correspondent from Constantinople recently). It is hardly five minutes away from the centre of "this cosmopolitan town, but you cannot imagine a more extraordinary contrast to our comparatively civilised life than-Abese, .people’s ceremonies. There a,ro plenty of foreigners at the show; and the twenty piastres-- “ disasters," os the British Tommy has learnt to call them-ywhich are collected from each o'f us (it represents about a shilling) must make up a substantial sura each week. The dervishes enter. They are half a dozen men of all types, dressed in ordinary and rather ragged clothes; indeed. if you met them in the street you would not be able to distinguish them trom ordinary people. They squat down on the floor and under the guidance of a huge priest, whoso green turban shows that he has made the pilgrimage to MOcca, they commence to chant the name and praise of AllahRED HOT SPOON ON TONGUE. The dervishes seem transfigured, hardly human One of them staggers to his feet, nuts on a little whit© skullcap in the place of his turban, picks up a long spoon that has been growing redhot in one of the braziers, and lays it on his tongue. You hear it hiss as it touches the flesh. This is no fake; one o n _n be sure of this. The other dervishes will sob and bark, keeping up the chorus till th© end of the ceremony. Soon the dOrvish in the whit© hat throws down the spoon and picks up a sort of skewer with bells on the end of it. He heats the point in tho brazier, and thou, feeling about with it for about a moment or two he pushes it through his cheek into his mouth. Another few seconds and the point of the skewbr emerged through the other cheek. An old dervish who has just entered and is now going through the ceremony of licking another red-hot spoon, picks up a mallet and hammering the heed of the skewer drives th© point into the wall. Thus the dervish is fas-, tened to the wall hv the iron through ms cheeks. It is bv ho means a pleasant sight, oven though on© guesses that it is not so very terrible for the dervish as it appears SKEWER THRUST THROUGH THE THROAT. At length the skewer is pulled out or the wall, then out of one cheek and out of the other; the man is free. A spot of blood on his face shows that it has not been altogether easy for him. But be does not wait. H© picks up the skewer again and, plucking together the skin of Ins throat with his fingers, lie pushes the skewer through it. and walks about with the tiling protruding through his neck- After a . while he takas it out and, pushes it through the skin on his side. Meanwhile the insistent throb of the kneeling dervishes’ chant continues, maddening them. They are swaying like machines; foam is dropping from their mouths. One of them stands up and sings a) melodious Eastern psalm. But the others do not stop. The old dervish with the mallet puts it down and picks up a .sword. ,He lies down on the floor; two of the dervishes hold the sword across lias throat and. another puts his hands on their shoulders and, balancing thus, stamps upon the sword. CARRIED ON A SWORD.

One looks on with horror. The sword certainly seems to penetrate the prostrate dervish’s throat'and you expect to see the blood pour out. But nothing Ilka this happens* The other man dismounts after a time, and the old m.an, after making a pretence of wrenching the sword out of his throat, stands up* none’ the worse. Then ho holds the edge of the sword against Jus stomach, gives the ends of it to two men to hold, and makes them carry him about by it. Neither his hands nor his feet touch the floor, but his whole weight is supported by the sharp edge of the sword.

The shouting dervishes stand, up, panting and sobbing. They link arms and, still chanting, dance in a circle round tbo man from Mecca. The dance grows swifter andi swifter, wider and wider. At last .the other dervishes. led by the old man, run in and pull them apart. Sobbing, foaming, staggering, they are led out of tho room, and the wild ceremony is at an end. Hardly what one would expect to find within two hundred yards of the British Embassy, is it? And yet this is what happens _ every Friday in the year at Constantinople.