आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND THE HUNDREDTH-DAY FEAST

The ancient Iranian calendar, observed, it seems, by Zoroastrians till the downfall of the Parthians, had twelve months of thirty days each, and accordingly slipped back steadily against the natural year, being the shorter by over five days. It was kept in accord with it, however, by the frequent insertion about once every six years, of a thirteenth month. This calendar was reformed under the first Sasanian king by the addition on the model of the Egyptian calendar) of five days set at the end of the year. These five days were piously named by the reformers the Gāthā (Gāh) days after the five groups of Zoroaster’s hymns. The 365-day year was too close to the natural one to make the traditional intercalation of a month any longer a practical measure, since it now took 120 years to amass thirty days from the quarter-days disregarded annually.2 Accordingly, the new calendar was left to recede slowly against the solar year, and the Zoroastrian holy days, which with their symbolism are closely linked with the seasons, became gradually divorced from them. Two attempts were made to correct this state of affairs, one during the late Sasapian period and one again in about A.D. 1006; but both had only a temporary effect. By 1964 the religious New Year, No Ruz, had again receded so far that it was being celebrated in high summer, with 1 Farvardin coinciding with 31 July in the Gregorian calendar.

To complicate matters, the Parsis (who had once intercalated a month after settling in India, in an attempt to keep i Farvardin as a spring feast); observed a calendar which lagged one month behind the Irani one. This they called (by a Gujarati term) the

i On these matters see ‘On the calendar of Zoroastrian feasts’.

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165 ‘Shenshäi’ calendar, to distinguish it from the Irani one, which they named simply qadīmi ‘old’. Late in the nineteenth century a group of reforming Parsis attempted to resolve all confusion by adopting what was virtually the Gregorian calendar, with a leap-day every four years, set after the ‘Gatha’ days, and No Ruz always in the spring. This calendar they called faşlī ‘seasonal’; and they truly believed that in using it they were reverting to what must have been the original calendar of their faith, since clearly this had once been in harmony with the seasons. These Parsis, although only a small group, exerted influence in time on some reforming spirits among the Zoroastrians of Iran, who decided to accept this fixed calendar in their turn, and to introduce it if possible throughout their own com munity. In this endeavour they were helped by the fact that Reza Shah Pahlavi had adopted a similar fixed calendar as the national one of Iran; and moreover (influenced, it is said, by Arbab Kay Khosrow Shahrokh, the first Zoroastrian member of the Iranian parliament), he chose to use the old Zoroastrian names for its months, in prefer ence to ones of Arabic origin, to give it a traditional character.

Thereafter Arbab Kay Khosrow, working together with Arbab Sorush Sorushian of Kerman, and Arbab Sohrab Kayanian of Yazd, carried on a long campaign among his co-religionists, reason ing, exhorting, and cajoling, to persuade them all to adopt the fixed calendar. The reformers strengthened their case by naming this calendar, not by the colourless term faşli, but by the emotive one bāstānī “ancient”, labelling the 365-day one firmly nā-dorost ‘in correct’. The conservative members of the community continued to call the latter qadimi ‘old’, as the Parsis had done, and damned the fixed one by terming it jadid ’new’. (In the following pages, to avoid confusion, they will be referred to as the traditional and reformed calendars respectively.) The priests and a number of the laity were perfectly familiar with the workings of a fixed calendar, but they regarded this as a secular way of reckoning, tainted with un-Zoroas trian influences, and no fit way to calculate holy days and religious observances. Nevertheless, by prodigious exertions, the reformers brought it about that in 1939 their calendar was adopted by Zoro astrians throughout Iran. The Yazdis were deeply perturbed, however, by the measure, and a few years later, led by their priests, nost of them reverted to the traditional one. Since then, both calendars have been in use in their region, according to individual choice, for though the priests themselves abandoned the reformed

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THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND one in a body, nevertheless they were prepared, when asked, to celebrate family observances according to it.

In Sharifabad Agha Rustam’s father Noshiravan, having carefully studied the arguments of the reformers, was convinced by them, and with the belp of a dahmobed, who was similarly persuaded, did his utmost to bring the villagers to adopt and keep the fixed calendar. As his son said, it was a remarkable intellectual achievement that he, a small farmer of limited education, living in this most conserva tive of Zoroastrian communities, should not only have grasped the complex arguments involved, but have decided to act on them and make this major break with tradition. The weight of village opinion was against him, however, and when most of Yazd reverted to the traditional calendar, Sharifabad followed suit. Noshiravan held to the reformed calendar for a time in his own family, but in isolation this proved impractical, and by 1964 the traditional one had generally prevailed. 5

Reversion to the traditional calendar did not mean, however, that the Sharifabadis and other Yazdi Zoroastrians failed to cele brate No Ruz annually at the spring equinox, together with all the rest of their fellow countrymen. Spring in Iran is an enchanting season, and it marks the end of a harsh winter, which is endured with few defences because it is so short. Moreover, spring itself, so sweet and fresh, quickly ends in burning summer. So the age-old custom of taking a prolonged holiday in order to enjoy this loveliest time of year was too pleasant ever to give up; and accordingly, after their calendar-reform, the Sasanians evolved the practice, maintained by traditionalist Irani Zoroastrians to this day, of celebrating No

Both calendars were sometimes observed within the same family. Thus out of piety the Kayanian family kept the anniversary day of Arbab Şohrab according to the reformed calendar, but otherwise used the traditional one. I was much indebted to Khanom Simindukht, Arbab Sohrab’s widow, who most kindly collated for me the reformed calendar for 1963/4, printed in Tehran, with the traditional one, maintained through unwritten custom and usage.

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167 Ruz twice over, once as a religious observance on I Farvardin, as this moved through the seasons with the 365-day year, and once as a fixed secular feast at the spring equinox. This secularization of the spring No Ruz made it possible for Moslem Iran to retain this one feast while-rejecting all the holy days of Zoroastrianism, and it is accordingly the only festival which Zoroastrians share with their Moslem compatriots.

In the interests, moreover, of harmony—there being no religious principle at stake—the Zoroastrians had adopted in recent times the national practice of beginning the festival formally at whatever time was oficially proclaimed for it each year, rather than always at dawn on 21 March, which would be their own traditional usage. By the twentieth day of the month (which in 1964 corresponded to Ruz Dai-be-Din of Aban Mah in the traditional calendar) the great spring-cleaning of houses had taken place, and on that day everyone bathed and put on fresh clothes, which included at least one new garment. In the Belivani family young Gushtasp had a pair of new striped trousers, and a gay red and white skull-cap (standard wear for the village boys). His baby brother Shahvahram had a new jacket, and some of his sisters were wholly transformed, the smallest, Mandana, being enchanted by her new skirt, which she kept smoothing in solemn delight. Among the preparations for the new year had been the dying of quantities of hard-boiled eggs in bright colours (green, red, and yellow) and elaborate patterns, and these were piled in bowls, looking very pretty and awaiting distribu tion in the days to come.

Meantime two places were carefully prepared for welcoming the new year. One was šīv-e vīju, ‘under the hanging larder’. The viju is a square of wood hung by ropes at its four corners from the hole in the domed roof of a store-room, on which food can be kept safe from ants, mice, or thieving cats. For the festival everything black (such as smoke-darkened pots and pans) was taken out of this room, which was scrupulously dusted and swept. Then a number of

6 The seasons in Gujarat being quite different, the Parsis abandoned the secular spring No Ruz, which was, however, reintroduced among them under Irani influence in the late nineteenth ceptury and named by them the ‘No Ruze Jamshedi’. It is still ignored by some of the orthodox there. The adjective *Jamshedi’ derives from the legends associated in old books with the feast, according to which it was founded by Jamshed. Such legends seemed to have no living association with either the religious or the secular No Ruz among the Yazdis, and one would hear them only from those well versed in the Shahname or the Rivayats.

7 See Soruşhian, Farhang, 178.

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THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND things were set out, in rigidly prescribed order, on the earthen floor directly below the viju. A mirror was lent against the wall, and a lamp lit before it. To the right of the lamp was placed a green wrapped sugar-cone, to its left a pitcher full of curds. In front of the lamp was a vase holding sprays of evergreen (cypress or pine); to its right a bowl of water containing a pomegranate stuck full of silver coins, and dried marjoram leaves sprinkled on its surface, to its left a pitcher of owpāra (water in which segments of dried fruit —apricot, plum, and the like—had been steeped for three days). In front of the vase was a glass filled with pālūda, a sweet drink, white in colour, with to its right a new earthenware pitcher with pure water, its mouth closed by a green-painted egg, to its left a little woven basket full of fresh greenstuff, such as coriander, parsley, or lettuce. Finally, in front of all, there was a platter bearing čangal, or komāč-e No Rūz, a sweet dish made only for this festival. The predominant colours were thus white and green, which seemed to symbolize the colours of spring, To as the sweetness of the dishes symbolized its delights. The tall sugar-cone was put in position last of all, just before the announcement of the new year, and it was believed that, as that announcement was made, the viju itself would turn in a full circle overhead. This belief stemmed, presumably, from the ancient tradition that history began with the first No Ruz, when the sun (which had previously stood still at noon) started to revolve, and thus set in motion the cycle of the seasons, with birth and death.

8 This drink, common in Iran, is made by squeezing starch jelly through a strainer to form thin fibres; and it was prepared as a treat in the Belivani house hold on festive days in summer.

For čangal fresh stoned dates were steeped in a little hot water, and then mixed with rose-water, sugar-candy water, and a paste made from sesame seeds. Hot fresh bread was kneaded until soft, and wrapped round the moist mixture; and the whole was put on a plate, dried rose-petals and cinnamon were scattered over it, and it was pressed under another plate while it cooled.

10 That there is a long tradition in associating such things with No Ruz is suggested by a passage in the Kitāba-’l mahasin wa-l azdad, ed. Van Vloten, Leiden, 1898 (repr. 1966), 362, transl. R. Ehrlich, ‘The celebrations and gifts of the Persian New Year .,., Dr. Modi Memorial Volume, Bombay, 1930, 99: ‘New clothes were WOID, and food was of the new season . . . Among other things which it was thought propitious to begin this day with, was a mouthful of pure fresh milk and fresh cheese’, also ‘white sugar with fresh Indian nuts pared’. There is no custom among the Zoroastrians of setting out seven things whose names begin with the letter ’s’, as the Moslems of Iran do, though the number seven is highly significant for them in connection with the religious feast (see below, pp. 215, 230–1).

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169 There was none there to see this happen, however, for all the family were then gathered in the main room of the house. Here a second place had been made ready to welcome the new year. A table was set out with a silver standing mirror, a small portrait (brought from Bombay) of Zoroaster, a Khorda Avesta in a green silk covering, and two silver vases with sprays of pine and the purple-flowering Judas tree. In front was a small radio set. The children of D. Khodadad and Paridun Rashidi had drifted in early in the afternoon, and their mothers and fathers followed, so that all three families were as sembled. As sunset approached, Agha Rustam said the košti prayers. Then the new year was proclaimed over the radio, and he went round the whole family, sprinkling everyone with rose-water and wishing each a happy new year, Sweets were distributed, and the evening passed convivially, with fish for supper, a rare treat on the plain of Yazd,

The next day (21 March) would by traditional Zoroastrian usage have been the true beginning of the new year. It broke grey and windy, with rain-clouds louring and dust blowing along under the foot-hills. Maintaining the last vestige of his father’s attempt to introduce the reformed calendar, Agha Rustam sent his daughters Piruza and Pourandukht up on to the roof to light a fire before sunrise-a ritual that belonged to the religious No Ruz. On 31 July there would not be a single Zoroastrian roof without its glowing fire, but on that chill March morning theirs was the only one, lit with difficulty between gusts of wind, while a few heavy raindrops fell—though in compensation a pair of swallows, the first of the year, flew overhead twittering. After the small fire had burnt itself out, it was comforting to go down to breakfast with the family on bowls of steaming harisa, a pottage made of pounded wheat, maize and a little meat, a dish which was regularly cooked for festive mornings.

Thereafter the day was full of comings and goings, as the first No Ruz visits were paid. Three different groups of visitors came then and throughout the first week of the festival (which for the Zoroast rians lasted a full twenty-one days, an auspicious three times seven). First, there were those–mostly Moslems—who had worked for the family in any way during the year, such as baker, miller, quilt maker, pedlars of firewood and garden-produce, the village shop keepers. They were given new-year greetings, with two to four painted eggs, a handful of ajil (dried sunflower and melon seeds, with170

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND pistachio nuts), and sometimes some money. Then there were Zoro astrian children, up to the age of twelve or so. Those from sub stantial families went only to the houses of relatives and close friends, but poorer children made their rounds more widely, to receive in their turn painted eggs, ajil, and some little presents—a coin or two, pencils, writing books, and the like, as well as the painted eggs, which they played with rather as English children do with corkers, holding them in their hands and striking them together to break the shells. Finally, there came friends, relatives, and acquaintances to pay formal calls and to exchange greetings and token gifts—often in Sharifabad sprays of cypress or pine, or pomegranates, stored through the winter in underground cellars. (These particular gifts belonged also in their symbolism to the religious No Ruz, for they represent endless life, and should bring to mind the immortality that is to come.) Leading men such as Agha Rustam stayed at home for the first days of the festival to receive visits, which they repaid later. The visitors were mostly men, with a few women of the ex tended family, and they were formally received with rose-water and sweetmeats, as well as the exchange of gifts. Some stayed only a few minutes, others (especially those who had returned to the village for the holiday) settled for a comfortable talk until new arrivals displaced them.

D. Khodadad joined the family for a midday meal of chicken broth with bread and curds, and Agha Rustam, with Piruza and myself, went back with him afterwards for the purse of his late brother, D. Gushtasp, who had died that autumn. It was the custom at every feast throughout the first year after a death to hold a brief ceremony in the home for sad-ravani, to comfort the departed soul by drawing it into the festivities; and this custom was observed at the secular No Ruz as at the holy feasts. At the Dastur’s house a white cloth was spread in the pesgam-e mas, and on it were laid sprays of evergreen, pomegranates, and painted eggs. (Different things would be put out for a purse at different festivals, according to the season. At Tiragan and the religious No Ruz, for instance, an abundance of fresh fruits were available. The only foodstuff that was forbidden at a purse was ‘nuql’, white sweetmeats, which were avoided altogether by the immediate family during the first year after death.) It was usual to place a photograph of the dead person, if one were available, in the pesgam-e mas; and the family would seat themselves in the lesser pesgam opposite, and talk of the departed,

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171 and his doings and virtues. Meanwhile anyone in the village who wished would come, bringing some small gift from the fruits and herbs of the season, and place this on the cloth take and up something from there, thus acting, as it were, as the guest of the invisible soul. (By a similar gracious custom, whenever yad-bud was sent to a family from a service for the dead, some small gift was always put in the bowl when it was returned.) Then, after exchanging some words with the family, the visitor would take his leave, saying as he did so, Khodă be-āmurzadeš, ‘May God have mercy on him!’.

Agha Rustam himself soon withdrew from this No Ruz purse to receive more guests at his own house; but Piruza and I lingered to listen to D. Khodadad speaking of his brother. He had been the older by twenty-five years, though bom of the same mother, and had been a very hard-working, conscientious priest of the old school, belonging to the generation who still themselves wove the košti, taught, and performed all manner of rituals. He had served for some years as atašband in the Dadyseth Agiary in Bombay; and then,

back to Yazd, earning his living in Pauline fashion along the way by plaiting rope and cord. He settled in his father’s house in the village of Cham, became hust-mobed there, and taught daily in the village school. Eventually, as an old man, he became mentally confused, and Paridun Rashidi went to Cham, set him on a donkey, and brought him to Sharifabad, where he had lived his last years with his brother, devoting himself to the recital of Avesta.

In the evening of the first day of the festival there was a big family gathering at the Belivani house, with fourteen children and their elders. In traditional Persian fashion the merry-making came first, and the meal (a delicious meat-stew, with trays piled high with rice and freshly baked bread) was eaten late in the evening, in appreciative semi-silence, and the party then soon broke up. No one had worked in the village on that first day, No Ruz itself, except at essential tasks such as irrigating growing crops and feeding stock; but spring brought urgent work, and already on the second day cotton-sowing was in progress again, and thereafter the seasonal farm-work went on in the intervals of merry-making. The morning of the second day still saw many visitors coming to Agha Rustam’s house; but in the afternoon he and several members of his family set off for the mountain-shrine of Pir-e Hrišt, for his great-uncle

–, …..

.

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THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND Turk Jamshidi, with his wife Sarvar, were offering a sacrifice there, and bad invited their relatives to join them. Shahnaz, Agha Rustan’s eldest daughter, walked the whole way in fulfilment of a vow, but her sister Piruza rode on the high-peaked saddle of the family cow (peaked because the Yazdi cows are a hump-backed breed), with bedding and utensils hung all around her, and the others took turns on donkey-back, while Shehriar the Dastur’s son and I cycled, and Agha Rustam himself went on his moped. The whole party spent that night at the shrine, and the sacrifice was offered soon after sunrise the next day. There were other groups at the Pir, from Sharifabad, Mazra Kalantar, and further away, and many gahambar-e toji were celebrated there, whereby piety and pleasure were blended for though the spring No Ruz was a secular festival, Sharifabadi celebrations tended naturally to take religious forms).

That night a big double wedding took place in Sharifabad, The spring No Ruz is by tradition an auspicious time for betrothals and marriages, and this tradition had been reinforced latterly by practical considerations, since so many of the young men worked away from the village, but could return there for the national holiday. Betrothals were held to be as binding as marriages, since a Zoroast rian’s word is his bond, and to revoke it was regarded as shameful, and so they took place with almost as much ceremony as the mar riage itself, and with many guests invited as witnesses.12 There were three weddings and a betrothal in Sharifabad during the No

“I See ‘On the Zoroastrian calendar’, 534 and n. 85.

12 Formerly betrothals often took place at a very early age, and this was still occasionally the case in the 1960s. The youngest which I encountered was that of Shirin-e Jehangir, who had been betrothed at ten to a boy of seventeen, to make a double match, her eighteen-year-old brother becoming engaged at the same time to the sister of her fiancé. Seven years later, in 1964, neither pair was yet married, and only the other girl still wanted to fulfil their betrothal vows, the other three heartily wishing not to; but the pressure of the community on them was great. In a relatively large number of cases after an early betrothal the youth would depart-for Bombay or Tehran, Europe, or America–and the girl would wait, three, four, seven years, sometimes receiving few or no letters, to have him eventually return, by then a stranger, to marry her. (Occasionally, of course, he did not come back, and she remained virtually a widow without ever being married.) A number of the village marriages continued rather on this pat tern, with the wives staying at home and tending the family fields with help from neighbours, while the husband worked away, and returned only at intervals. This was partly due to economic pressure (since the cost of living was high in Tehran), partly to love of an ancestral home, and a wish not to sever attachment to it.

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173 Ruz holiday that year.13 By custom both ceremonies were solemnized at midnight at the bride’s home.14 Formerly many rites were per formed before this, and three days of feasting and rejoicing (sūr kartwun) took place thereafter;“s but all this had come to be much curtailed, and ceremony and festivities were largely crammed into one joyful occasion. The guests usually assembled about half-past eight or nine, 16 presents were exchanged between the two families, and various folk-customs were enacted, before the actual ceremony was performed by the priest at midnight. Before he recited the words of the ancient service, he, the groom, and the father of the bride all ‘made new the košti”; but thereafter the groom untied his košti again, for during the ceremony there must be no knot or closed pin on his or the bride’s persons, otherwise their affairs would become knotted and confused. During the service a brother or close kinsman of the groom held over his head a small tray on which was the uatied košti, together with needle, thread, scissors, a raw egg, a pomegranate or apple, dried marjoram, and white sweetmeats, all covered by a green kerchief. (After the ceremony he would go out into the court yard and throw the egg up on to the roof.) In front of the groom was a big tray holding lurk, with myrtle and cypress twigs, and the two fathers clasped their right hands over this during the service. When it was over, the lurk was distributed to the assembled company, with sherbet. The priest then departed, leaving it to the dahmobed to conduct the subsequent rites. A brazier full of glowing fire was put on a tall stool in the middle of the courtyard, and the dahmobed took the left hand of the groom in his own left hand, and the groom the bride’s; and thus he led them very slowly round the fire, withersbins, singing the many verses of a bridal song, while the encircling company looked on with murmurous approval, and marked its end with a tumultuous Hāvorū, hāvorū, hāvorū, ay šő-boš.17 Thereafter merry-making became

13 The betrothal was of Erdeşhir Qudusi’s second daughter. Her fiancé had been several years in Tehran, and had sought her hand before leaving the village; but etiquette had required him to wait until her elder sister had married and left home.

14 Traditionally Parsi marriages are generally performed in the evening, just a little after sunset’ (Modi, CC, 20).

15 It is hoped to describe elsewhere an old traditional wedding, for which the multifarious details were furnished me by Khanom Humayun Kayanian (wife of Arbab Jamshid Soroushian), and by Tahmina Khanom.

16 At each of these No Ruz weddings there was a great gathering of relatives and friends, but what was essential (it was said) was that at least seven persons should be present to act as witnesses.

17 This shout was raised by the Yazdi Zoroastrians on all occasions of rejoicing, (see further below, p. 234 n. 30).

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THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND general again, with the usual robust jokes proper to such occasions, and always an obscene dance, performed with varying degrees of gusto or grace by one of the young men of the village.

A wedding party would break up in the small hours of the morn ing; and early the next day D. Khodadad would go with the groom, the dahmobed and a group of male relatives and friends to the bank of a stream. They took with them a bowl of milk, with rose-petals and herbs in it, for the libation to water, and a tuft of couch-grass (mowr), dug up by the roots and washed. This was dipped into the milk, and the Dastur then performed the rite of āb-zöhr, with recital of Avesta. The grass was then dipped in the stream, and carried by the groom to his bride. He put it into her hand, and thereafter it was planted again, to grow and symbolize their marriage, which was to be as firm-rooted and flourishing as this useful and almost indestructible grass.

Many of the hardy wedding guests were also likely to be up early on the morning after the festivities, and at work in the fields. As the sun shone more warmly, the fodder-crop, fucerne, began to grow fast, and girls would go out to cut it with sickles, often taking with them the family cow or calf to graze on the new grass along the banks of the irrigation ditches. These were dotted with bright yellow hawkweed, and there were blue and white butterflies already on the wing. Every day more swallows were to be seen, some darting up and down the village lanes near their nesting sites, others in flocks flying steadily overhead on their way further north. Once a score or so of Alpine swifts broke their journey to hawk for insects over the fields, and for two or three days in succession a superb falcon appeared there, striking terror among the resident wagtails and crested larks. The winter wheat was growing tall and the trees along the field paths were breaking into leaf. Occasionally there were showers of rain, and then for a while the air was deliciously fresh and cool, and the mountains beyond the desert took on beautiful deep colours; but usually it was already hot at noon, and the children paddled joyfully in the streams. Sometimes this was only as a break from their regular task of weeding the crops, but sometimes during the No Ruz holiday groups of women and children went out to the fields simply to enjoy themselves. Such outings usually took the form of an ‘aš-e khairat. A family, that is, would take it on them selves to cook and distribute a charity pottage in the open, and would invite relatives and friends to share it. One afternoon when Piruza

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175 and Pouran and I were going to the fields rather late with Agha Rustam, to plant melons, we met such a party returning, colourful in their gay red and green clothes. The smallest children were on donkeys, or being carried pick-a-back, the others straggled along, happily tired from hours of paddling, chasing insects, and picking flowers in the warm sunshine. One of the women carried a big empty cauldron, another a full basin of pottage to share among their menfolk.

On the thirteenth day of No Ruz it is the universal custom in Iran to pass as many hours as possible out of doors. In Sharifabad the Belivani family spent a happy day in a walled garden, playing traditional games, and eating a picnic meal with relishes of freshly picked lettuce and parsley, and tiny green unripe apples (for the apple blossom was already over and the fruit setting). Agha Rustam chose rather to visit Hasanabad, and Erdeshir Qudusi and I cycled after him to that fertile village. In its gardens, under elm and ash trees in new leaf, there were thickets of roses in flower, some clear pink like the English wild rose, others yellow, and in one place a bush of the ’two-faced rose’, its petals flame-red inside but yellow backed. There were whitethroats singing and swallows skimming over green wheat, so that in some ways it seemed more like England in May than a Yazdi village, until one noticed a hoopoe perched on a wall or a string of camels padding past.

Meanwhile, by the traditional calendar we were well into Azar. Mah, the month of Fire, whose first day coincided with the seventh day of the spring No Ruz. Since this was one of the two ‘beloved months of the Zoroastrians, in which the merit of each good work was reckoned as tenfold, many pious acts were performed during the latter part of the spring festival. These included several celebrations of the rites of ’exalting the fire and making the libation to water, 18 The fourteenth to seventeenth days of No Ruz were, moreover, those of the official pilgrimage to the Pir-e Hrist, 19 and they included one very holy day, Ruz Azar of Mah Azar, the name-day feast of the yazad of Fire. Twenty-four sheep were offered up that day at the mountain shrine, and there was much prayer and rejoicing there. Times of pilgrimage were opportunities for the devout to say all the five daily prayers, but although the spring equinox was past, the return of Rapithwin could not be acknowledged before the celebration of

If For both these rites see the following chapter. ID See below, PP. 243-8.

· 176

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND the religious No Ruz at the end of July, and so the prayers of the third watch were still devoted to Mihr.

The twenty-first and last day of the No Ruz festival ( April) was signalized by small evening gatherings, and as a stranger I received yet more presents from my most kind hosts—a sugar cone, pistachio nuts, a green silk kerchief, and from Piruza a cloth beautifully embroidered with the winged symbol from Persepolis, which the Parsis have established as the Zoroastrian emblem. And so a period of happiness and delight came to a close, spindle and loom were busy again in the houses, the children returned reluctantly to the village schools, and field-work was carried on even more strenuously.

Yet it was not very long before there was another break in the daily routine, this time for a religious occasion; for 22 April co incided with Aštad Ruz of Azar Mah, and that for the Yazdi Zoro astrians was the feast of Sada, which marked the hundredth day before the religious No Ruz on the first day of Farvardin. Sada has a more complex history than any other Zoroastrian feast, except No Ruz itself, for two different days were observed for its celebration in different parts of ancient Iran.29 The other day, which was the one kept by the Kermani Zoroastrians, was Aban Ruz of Vahman Mah, which was the hundredth day after the gahambar of Ayathrima, held to be the beginning of winter. By either tradition Sada was properly a midwinter feast,21 celebrated with a huge fire to drive back demon created darkness and cold, but the reform of the third century A.D. set both days wandering with the 365-day year, and the resulting confusion led to their being first duplicated, like all the other feasts, and then extended into six-day festivals. The Sharifabadis came (for reasons that will be clear later) to know Sada as Hiromba, and in 1964 they celebrated it in late April for three days only, begin ning on Ruz Aštad. They were then alone in all Iran in keeping the feast on the traditional Yazdi date, for the reformers had adopted the Kermani one for their calendar, and during the brief period when this calendar was generally observed in Yazd the confusion there became so great that it ended in the celebration of Sada being abandoned except in Sharifabad and Mazra Kalantar.22 Mazras

20 See “Rapithwin, No Rūz…, 212-14; “The two dates of the feast of Sada’, passim.

21 Thus by the fixed calendar Aštad Ruz of Azar Mah coincided in 1964 with 11 December, Aban Ruz of Yahman Mah with 24 January.

22 The observance had been artificially revived in the city of Yazd when I was there, but on the Kermani date, and without, it seemed, much popular support.

THE HUNDREDTH-DAY FEAST

177 maintained the feast, but on the Kermani date as calculated by the reformed calendar. This was the only holy day which the villagers there kept according to this calendar; and their reason for doing so was that if they gathered wood for the fire on a fixed date in January they knew it would be dry, without sap, whereas wood gathered in April would be green and moist, and so it would be a siz to put it on the fire. The Sharifabadis admitted the soundness of this reasoning, felt themselves to be in a dilemma, but followed their consistent practice of holding to the ways of their forefathers.

The chief preparation for Sada was in fact the gathering of wood, which was a scarce commodity on the Yazdi plain. So every year on the day before the festival the young men and older boys of Sharifa bad (the latter firmly abandoning school) went up to the mountain shrine of Pir-e Hrišt to collect yidal (camel’s thorn). A boy had usually to be ten or eleven before his parents allowed him to become one of the wadayun-vidalī, the camel’s thorn-boys’; and this was a noteworthy step for him on the way to manhood, the first time, probably, that he had spent a night away from his family. The year before, Agha Rustam’s son Gushtasp had gone for the first time, and afterwards his parents had followed tradition by giving a party for him, where everyone toasted him in sherbet and wished him long life. So in 1964 both he and his fifteen-year-old cousin Shehriar, D. Khodadad’s son, were of the party, and his elder sisters went too, to help with the cooking. On Ard Ruz, the eve of the festival, a strong wind was blowing, bringing clouds and a threat of storm, and Shehriar and I, on bicycles, were driven before it across the desert with unusually little effort. The others were mostly on donkey back, with Piruza perched high above the rest on her cow.23 One of the salars was there, walking by his small son, who was mounted on a donkey with two long shovels lashed along its flanks, and a bigger boy led a sacrificial ram.

All of us had reached the pavilions at the foot of the shrine by late afternoon. As it grew dark the men and boys gathered in a big pavilion, and seating themselves in a horseshoe in one of its pesgams began to sing songs. The women gradually drifted into the

23 This animal had so much to do because the Belivanis had a cross-grained donkey (belonging to a friend) in their stables which resolutely refused to exert itself, and so the cow, a rather wild-eyed, hasty creature, did more than her fair share. She had some odd traits, and disconcerted us by munching in a sinister manner sheep-bopes which she found on the ground at Hrišt-presumably to

remedy some deficiency in her diet.

8285312

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178

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND opposite pesgam and arranged themselves in another horseshoe, as audience. The whole company was served tea with grave courtesy by the son of the shrine’s guardian, a youth of sixteen or so; and as the merriment grew, mime and dancing followed the chorus songs. The wind had by now blown away the clouds, and the moon shone down on the open pesgams, with flickering lamp-light showing from the shrine on the hill above. Eventually supper was eaten-a picnic meal, for everyone had brought his own (bread, hard-boiled eggs, white cheese, mint, radishes, and the like), and so to as much sleep as the donkeys would allow. The Belivani cow was snug in the stable behind the pavilions, but the hardier donkeys were tethered in the open, and, excited by each other’s company, kept up a constant braying, and several times one managed to pull up its peg and start a fight. (They were all jacks, as the Sharifabadis never owned jennies.) Then someone, roused by the racket, would rush out into the moon light to identify the culprit, and would raise a shout for its owner to come to settle the brawl, after which peace would settle again for a while.

At first light, about five o’clock, the boys were up and streaming away in twos and threes across the little mountain-locked plain. Six central points were established where ropes and sticks were dropped on the ground, and the boys worked around then in teams. In each team one of the bigger youths prized the low bushes—a prickly round tangle of thorns, dead leaves, and new growth-out of the ground with a long-handled spade, and the boys picked them up by the roots and carried them to the nearest collecting point. The wind was still tearing over the ground, and this made the work more difficult, for it sometimes carried off whole bushes; and there were fewer boys than in former years (only about twenty-five), so they had a struggle to gather enough. At each of the collecting points two men and one of the bigger boys worked the prickly bushes into great bales, with the help of the sticks, and roped them neatly together. When finished, these bales were about seven feet high, and far too heavy for a man to move; and at each collecting point two of them were made and were lashed together at the top, so that they stood leaning inwards against each other, tent-fashion. After some three hours, six such great triangular shapes dotted the plain, and the weary workers headed back to the pavilions, where men had already arrived with six more donkeys to carry the bales to the village in the afternoon (for even in late April no one exerted

THE HUNDREDTH-DAY FEAST

179 himself under the midday sun if he could avoid it). One of the men who had been making the bales was the dahmobed Erdeshir Khos rowi, and he said to me, factually, that the tradition was doomed, since the young men of the village were scattering all over Iran. When his generation died, the old ways would die with them.

Meanwhile the present scene was all bustle and cheerfulness. The ram that had been brought along the day before had been sacrificed just after sunrise, while the boys were at work. This was through a khairāt, a benevolence on the part of Kay Khosrow-e Dinyar, who lived in Tehran but came each year by bus especially for this observance. His womenfolk did the cooking, and the boys helped with water-carrying, sáng more songs, and were happy. Breakfast was ready by about half-past nine, and they sat down to it with sharp appetites. There were fried sirog, and quantities of good meat-broth, and everyone supplied his own bread. Then the boys rested, or played about, while the women cleared up and cooked again; and at midday there was another meal of rice and meat, with radishes, and after that three of the men provided sherbet for the boys and all who had come to help. Then a communal gahambar-e toji was celebrated at the shrine, and, the heat of the day being past, all set off back to the village. The fierce wind was now head-on, and as Shehriar and I fought against it on our bi cycles we came abreast of one of the pairs of great bales just as a donkey was being led under it. The little animal vanished beneath its load, and from the side only four small hoofs remained visible, though as we looked back we saw its head emerging from the mass of brushwood. There was a man at each side to prevent the load tipping, but even so it was clearly going to be a hard struggle to get it back in the teeth of the wind.

In Sharifabad itself there had been varied activity throughout the day. In the morning three cauldrons of pottage, an aš-e khairat by three individuals, had been cooked in the open space outside the shrine of Mihr Ized, where the Hiromba fire itself would later be lit. Big bowls of pottage were carried to the schools, to be eaten ap preciatively by the children there. After a morning of not very concentrated work the schools closed, and the small boys set out, in three or four groups, to go from house to house collecting wood. At each door they chanted the following verse as loudly as they could:

“A branch, a branch…! Har kas šāx-ē be-dehad, Whoever gives a branch,

.180

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND odā murād-eš be-dehad! May God grant his wish! Har kas šāx-ē na-dehad, Whoever does not give a branch,

Khodā murād-eš na-dehad! May God not grant his wish!’ Every household produced something, from a broken spade-handle or spinning wheel to logs from their own wood-store; and that year the wild wind had tom branches off trees, and these were added, their leaves already withered by the sun. The boys brought their spoil to the shrine of Mihr Ized, and there men heaped it in a big circle to form a base for the brushwood to come from the mountains.

An hour or so before sunset people began to gather round the shrine, on the flat roofs, packed round the open space, and along the lanes leading to it. There were many Moslems among them, for the Sada fire is a glorious spectacle. Formerly, Agha Rustam said, the Moslems had been silent, appreciative witnesses, but now their growing numbers had emboldened the hooligans among them, who took pleasure in mocking and in disrupting the proceedings, so that the rites proper to the fire-ceremony were now performed after it, in the seclusion of the fire temple.24 Eyes kept turning to the one lane which had been kept clear, that led towards Hrist, but it was nearly dark before a shout went up, and to cheering and clapping the first towering load of brushwood appeared. It moved slowly forward, under the illuminated archway near the shrine, and into the midst of the throng. Four men were waiting by the wood-pile, with long-handled spades. They cut the ropes binding the two bales together and these fell apart, revealing the little donkey, which just stood, too tired even to shake itself, till its master led it away. Then the ropes holding each bale together were cut, and the camel’s thorn, full of desert dust, was knocked apart and spread over the pile of wood. After a longish wait a second load arrived, and then a third. Moslem boys on one roof, growing impatient, began to chant obscenities, and one of the Ardekan policemen who were present went up and cleared them off. A lovely moon rose, and by its light the last three loads came wearily in together. They were piled on to what had now become a huge dark pyramid, and, the due religious rites being postponed, one of the four men put a torch to the pile without more ado. The wood caught instantly, and the flames

34 Similarly at Kerman, Arbab Jamshid Sorushian told me, the Sada fire had formerly been lit by a stream outside the walled garden of the Pir-e Mihr Ized; but rowdyism among the ever-growing throngs of Moslems had forced the Zoroastrians to withdraw inside the garden itself, where they could light the fire and say their prayers in peace.

THE HUNDREDTH-DAY FEAST

181 went rushing up in a huge beacon, hot and bright and fierce, and the fire burnt splendidly for a long time, turning night to day, and light ing up the faces of the throng.

A qanat stream flowed under the place where the fire was lit, and the choice of this place-above water, and near a shrine to Mihr–was traditional;25 for the great fire was originally meant, like winter fires lit by peoples the world over, to help revive the declining sun, and so bring back the warmth and light of summer. It was also designed to drive off the demons of frost and cold, who turned water to stone, and thus could kill the roots of plants beneath the earth. So for these reasons the fire was lit over water and by the shrine of Mihr, who was lord both of fire and the sun, For Zoro astrians, the festival was also a defiance of Ahriman, who ruled in darkness and was master of death, and this was expressed especially in the religious rites of Sada.

On that April night the Zoroastrians remained watching the great fire until it sank into a heap of glowing embers, and then withdrew in a body to the Ataš Varahram. The temple was filled to overilow ing, and there was so much talk and excitement in the closely packed congregation that not a word could be heard of the Afrinagan-e Do Dahman being celebrated by D. Khodadad, though the atašband, standing close beside him, gave the usual signs for the responses. As the service finished, a wave of excitement rippled through the people, with murmurs of Hiromba!, and the wacayun-yidali got up: and pushed and struggled themselves into two opposing lines, stretching in two curves from the fire-altar in the outer hall to the pesgam-e mas, their arms over each other’s shoulders, in order of height, the bigger boys nearer the pesgam. Properly, these two lines should have been drawn up earlier on each side of the unlit Sada fire. Between them stood one of the dahmobeds, another boy beside him; and he now began a long, impressive recital of the names of the great ones of the faith, from Kay Vištasp onward, down through ancient times (as recited, for instance, in the Afrin-e Rapithwin), coming then to the notables of Sharifabad and of Yazd in living tradition, and ending with the name of one dead person from every household in the village (either a leading family figure, or one recently dead). These last names were taken in geographical order, up and down the lanes. After each name, the dahmobed called out Khodā āmurzad-eš! ‘God have mercy on him!’. The boy standing

25 See ‘Rapithwin, No Rūz…, 214 and n. 90.

182

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND by him swung up either his right arm or his left, and the line of boys to right or left gave a great shout of Hirombol, going down together at the same time in a bow like a breaking wave. At the next name the shout and bow were made by the opposite line, and so it continued for name after name, for nearly half an hour. By the end the boys were visibly tiring, but they kept up the ritual gallantly, shouting Hirombo! at full pitch to the very last name, high young voices blending with deep ones, and each side competing with the other in volume. The culmination of the muster-roll was naturally deeply moving for the villagers, as they listened to so many familiar names of their own well-known dead.

No one in the village could explain the meaning of the word Hirombo which had given its name to their festival; but the ceremony, performed of old around the unlit fire, seems meant to afirm the triumph and immortality of the souls of the good over the forces of evil and annihilation, just as the flames of the fire were about to affirm the power of light and warmth over the blackness and cold of winter night; and in performing the ceremony one hundred days before No Ruz, the worshippers were helping to strengthen Rapith win, and were creating briefly, in midwinter, the warmth and beauty which would return with spring.

Formerly, when the Hiromba ceremony was performed in the open, the Dastur then recited the Ataš Niyayes, and the fire was lit; but in the temple, when the ritual was over, the lurk of the gahambar was distributed and the congregation then dispersed, the boys to sleep the sleep of glorious weariness. Men went to the remains of the great fire and drew the ashes together, to keep the centre burojag through the night; and the next morning Parvin Rashidi, Paridun’s elder daughter, was knocking at the Belivani door at first light. Piruza and I hurried out to join her, Piruza carrying a small empty brazier, and Parichihr, Turk Jamshidi’s daughter, came to join her cousins from another side. The lanes were chill and empty, but many of the Zoroastrian women had already sprinkled and swept the area outside their doors, and swallows were beginning to twitter overhead. We reached the Hiromba fire to find its embers still glowing red, Three or four girls were before us, each armed with a long metal bara or a pair of tongs, and they were beginning to fill their own small braziers with these embers-a tricky task for those with sandalled feet, for a wide area round about was still covered with hot grey ash. Gradually a circle formed, mostly of girls, but with

183

THE HUNDREDTH-DAY FEAST a young boy from a daughterless house, and one old woman, Bany, sister-in-law of the atasband, who alone said the košti-prayers, facing east. Parizad, the Dastur’s daughter, came with a big silvery afrinagan, and Shahnaz, Piruza’s eldest sister, was there from their grandparents’ house. When almost all the embers had been taken, she and another girl began to rake the ashes together, but just then two old women arrived, one with a white-painted clay brazier, kept from the All Souls’ festival of the previous year, and Shahnaz helped them to find some glowing bits. Finally all that was left was a soft grey heap of ash, the Hiromba fire being thus reduced to nothingness before the greater fire, the sun, rose to shine upon it.

Piruza, like the others, then carried her brazier carefully home, and fed the embers with twigs and charcoal, until she had a glowing fire. No one could explain the ritual in so many words, but pre sumably it was to spread the blessing of the winter-defying Sada fire to every house in the village. Then she joined her cousins again and all the others who were carrying their braziers back to the fire temple. The sun was now up, and the lanes were full of light and bird-calls. Some of the girls had tucked roses under their head veils, and they made a pretty sight as they hastened along, their eyes on the bright fires which they were carrying. The atašband, who had passed us in the grey dawn, was now seated in the hall of the fire-temple, near the entrance, with a big round metal tray before him, already full of glowing fire. He had a bara in his right hand, and with this he took some fire from each brazier as it was brought and added it to that on the tray. The girls then took their braziers over to the door of the fire-sanctuary and sat there quietly for a while, reciting Avesta. After this they emptied their braziers in the corner to which consecrated fire was usually brought,26 and left the temple.

The extension of their festivals in Sasanian times forced the Zoro astrians either to protract or to repeat observances, and in Sharifabad the impressive Hiromba ceremony had come to be performed three times. So on the second night of the festival, about two hours after sunset, there was again a packed congregation at the fire-temple. Three gahambars were solemnized, one after the other, but once again the words were inaudible through the general hubbub. Yet even the noisiest youth stood up and ‘made new the košti’ before each separate service. This time it was the blind Palamarz Rashidi,

26 See above, p. 73.

184

THE SPRING NEW YEAR AND clad in white, who called the muster-roll, and the boys once more did their part with zest. Three lots of lurk were then distributed, and it was nearly eleven o’clock of a moonlit night before the congregation dispersed. The boys, refreshed by the lurk, then gathered themselves into three groups, two led by the dabmobeds, and the third by Palamarz, and proceeded to visit every house in the village. At each house, standing in the lane outside, the leader recited the names of everyone, man, woman, and child, known to have died there. After each name he called Khoda amurzad-es, and the boys shouted in unison Hirombo!, each making the ritual bow separately this time, with right arm upraised and swung down on the shout, for emphasis. It was Palamarz’s group which came to the Belivani house, where twenty-four names were recited, beginning with that of Agha Rustam’s great-grandfather, Khodarahm-e Gushtasp, who had built it. After the last name there was a general Khoda amurzadi for the ancestors of the family, and a blessing was invoked on its living members, and their crops and cattle. Then Agha Rustam went to the door, and a plateful of roasted melon-seeds, dried peas, and the like, was handed round, and the boys, munching busily, went on to the next house. The ritual, bringing the living and dead thus together, with the thrilling shout of Hirombo echoing along the moonlit lanes, was very moving, and I persuaded Piruza and Pouran to go with me across the roofs to hear it at house after house. It was well after midnight before the blessing on the last family had been recited, and Gushtasp came wearily but happily home, to drop instantly asleep.. :. The next day was an ordinary school-day for all the boys, but early in the evening Gushtasp was a guest at a party given for a boy who had joined the wačayun-yidali for the first time that year. There were sherbet and sweets for all his fellows, to soothe their much-taxed throats, and they drank long life to their new companion. Then they went round the whole village again in the same way as the night before, repeating the Hironba blessing on the living and the dead at every home.

The following day, Ruz Manraspand (25 April), was the last of the festival. Soon after sunset the boys made the round of the village for the third time, and then went to the place of the Sada fire. Here many of the villagers were already gathered, and the great recital of the names of the illustrious dead was also made for the third time, with the boys once more drawn up in two opposing lines. Their

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THE HUNDREDTH-DAY FEAST

185 shouted Hirombo! echoed finely under the arch outside Mihr Ized’s shrine, and all the while a tiny curly-headed boy in a bright blue jacket stood stock-still between the lines, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at each as they made their bow in turn. Just before the final Khoda amurzadeš his father, Erej Nekdini, strode swiftly over, seized him and bore him to safety as on the last, loudest Hirombo! the two lines rushed at each other and grappled joyfully. The dahmobed then distributed great handfuls of dried melon-seeds and peas to all the company, and he and most of the elders departed, leaving the others to merry-making by moon- and lamp-light. Rustam Shehriari played the surnā, which produces wild, stirring music not unlike the bagpipes, and there was other music, singing and dancing until past one in the morning, when the gathering broke up, and the festi vities of Hiromba were over.

Unlike the spring No Ruz, Sada is a deeply religious festival, of which Biruni wrote, about A.D. 1000: People used to make great fires . . . and were deeply engaged in the worship and praise of God; also they used to assemble for eating and merriment. They maintained that this was done for the purpose of banishing the cold and dryness that arises in winter-time, and that the spreading of the warmth would keep off the attacks of all which is obnoxious to the plants in the world. In all this, their proceeding was that of a man who marches out to fight his enemy with a large army.27 In Sharifabad the energy and zest of the wačayun-yiðali, together with the splendour of the great fire, and the corporate activity of the whole village, preserved the ancient spirit of the festival admirably.28 Thereafter it must have been the duty of priests in days of old to count the hundred days that were to pass until No Ruz, the greatest single festival of the Zoroastrian year, for which Sada was the harbinger.

27 Sachau, ed., Chronology, 222. Biruni calls the feast simply Adur-jasan, the ‘Fire-Feast’, but the date which he gives for it, I Shahrevar, was 100 days before the ‘Greater No Ruz’ when this was celebrated on 6 Adur, after the second Sasanian reform. See in detail ‘The two dates of the feast of Sada’.

28 Although the Sharifabadi observances embodied the spirit of the communal festival so well, it is likely that the institution of the wačayun-yidali, and the Hiromba ritual, were special to the village, for they were unknown at neighbour ing Mazrar Kalantar.