Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1893 — The Tower of Silence. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Tower of Silence.

The Parsees will not burn or bury their dead, because they consider a dead body impure, and they will not suffer themselves to defile any of the elements. They therefore expose their corpses to vultures, a method revolting, perhaps, to the imagination, but one which commends itself to all those who are acquainted therewith. And, after all, one sees nothing but the quiet, white-robed procession (white is mourning among the Parsees) following the bier to the Tower of Silence. At the entrance

they look their last on the dead, and the corpse bearers—a caste of such—carry it within the precincts and lay It down, to be finally disposed of by the vultures which crowd the tower. And why should the swoop of a flock

of white birds be more revolting than what happens at the grave? Meanwhile, and for three days after, the priests say constant prayers for the departed, for bis soul Is supposed not to leave the world till the fourth day after death. On the fourth day there is the Unthanna ceremony, when the large sums of money are given away in memory of the departed. The liturgy in use Is

a series of funeral sermons by Zoroaster, Of superstitions, the Parsees have had more than they retain. Connected with burial is the popular conception as to the efficacy of a dog’s gaze after death. Dogs are sacred, and supposed to guide the souls of the dead to heaven, and to ward off evil spirits; hence it is customary to lead a dog into the chamber of death, that he may look at the corpse before it is carried away to the Tower.—The Nineteenth Century.

ESTANILAS & ZEBALLOS. Argentine Minister to the United States.