आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR

UNTIL the beginning of the Sasanian era the ancient festival of All Souls, Hamaspathmaedaya, was evidently celebrated on the last night of the twelfth month, directly after the day’s celebration of the sixth gahambar. The spirits of the dead were entertained as honoured guests in their old homes throughout the hours of dark ness, and were then bidden a formal, ritual farewell at the dawn of the new year. This pattern of observance, going back in all probability to at least Indo-Iranian times, was broken by the third-century reform, whereby five extra days were introduced after the twelfth month, Spendarmad, to create a 365-day calendar. Since the fravašis, welcomed back to earth on 30 Spendarmad, could not, according to ancient custom, depart before the dawn of 1 Farvardin, New Year’s day, this measure created deep bewilderment and dis tress; and its working was interpreted to mean that these invisible guests must now be ministered to for the five ‘Gatha’ days as well. Moreover, in the first year of the reform the bulk of the population evidently ignored these newly introduced (or, as they called them, ‘stolen’) days, and made their own private calculations as usual, reckoning, that is, the first ‘Gatha’ day as I Farvardin. The result was that by the end of that year they were already five days behind the new official calendar when the ‘Gatha’ days were reached. Since, clearly, they were not allowed to celebrate No Ruz till the king permitted, they were forced to entertain the fravašis for a night and the ten days which then elapsed between their 30 Spendarmad and the official i Farvardin. Thereafter the worst of the confusion was over and a single calendar was observed, with everyone, perforce, recognizing the same day as i Farvardin, and acknowledging the existence, however suspect in origin, of the five new days; but plainly the reform, though it had thus, through the power of the throne, become fact, was neither widely understood nor willingly

See above, pp. 31-2, 164-5.

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213 accepted, the people at large being filled with anxiety lest they were being forced to fail in their proper duties to the divine beings. So, in order to avoid being coerced into any negligence, they not only kept double feast-days thereafter (according, as they understood it, to both the old and new calendars), but also maintained the ten day festival of the fravašis which had come into being at the end of that first year. These ten days were called Rözān Fravardīgān ’the fravaši days’;2 and in time they came to be regarded as the true All Souls’ festival (since the night of 30 Spendarmad, being no longer at the year’s end, gradually lost its significance); and so this festival grew to be known simply, by abbreviation, as Fravardigan (popularly Frõrdīgān), and the ancient name Hamaspathmaedaya was used only for the sixth gahambar. Through the duplication of feasts this gahanbar was celebrated twice, first on its old day of 30 Spendarmad, and then again on the fifth ‘Gatha’ day. With the joining together of the two celebrations it became a six-day feast, kept up during the four intervening ‘Gatha’ days as well, and finally it was reduced to a five-day observance, to coincide exactly with the ‘Gatha’ days themselves.

This last development kept Farvardigan divided into two clearly distinct pentads. These the Iranis knew as Panji-kasog, the ‘Lesser Pentad’, which lasted from 26 to 30 Spendarmad, and which had come into being through the confusions of the first year of the calendar reform; and Panji-mas, the ‘Greater Pentad’, which embraced the ‘Gatha’ days, and was an inevitable result of that reform. With colloquial casualness, however, they referred to the whole festival as Panji, the name Fravardigan having dropped en tirely out of popular use. Similarly, the ancient Dame Hama spathmaedaya was no longer familiar to the laity, who referred to the sixth gahambar simply as the ‘gahambar-e Panjivak’.

Gradually, down the generations, special beliefs had come to attach to the two pentads. Thus in Sharifabad it was said that Panji kasog belonged to the souls of children and of those who had died without sin, who were allowed to spend a longer time with their kindred on earth, whereas Panji-mas was truly for all souls, even

This seemed more reasonable than the belief which I heard from Golchihr-e Mapuchihr, daughter of the dahmobed of Cham, who said that the souls of sinners were released at ‘Forudög’ and remained free from then until the last day

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THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND for those then suffering in hell. They were released from there only for this one festival in the year, whereas the fravašis of the righteous could come whenever they were invoked, to any religious service or to any gathering.

Ten days make a long time through which to maintain observances which originally belonged to a single night, and no doubt during the 1600 or so years since the festival was first extended its celebration has varied a little according to the leisure and piety of those con cerned. The priests naturally evolved religious services appropriate to each of the ten days, and the laity were expected to devote the time as far as possible to prayer and acts of charity, as pious old people still do’among both the Iranis and Parsis. Moreover, there are still some Parsi families who make their preparations for the

of Panji-mas. *Forudog’ or the ‘Little fravaši-festival was celebrated on Ruz Farvardin (the nineteenth of Spendarmad Mah, eleven days, that is, before the beginning of Panji-kasog). In the 1960s it was no longer fully maintained any where, but it had been celebrated withio living memory in Yazd and the villages nearby, and its special rite was still observed here and there by mothers who had lost young children, By this, three stones, carefully washed, were put into the embers of the hearth-fire, and when they were glowing hot they were brought on a bara to the priest, who had come to the house; and he, while reciting Avesta, would drop them one by one into a bowl of milk, which sent up steam as he did so. The household meantime made the usual boy-o-brang. Khanom Simindukht, the mother of Arbab Faridun Kayadian, who was my chief in formant about this observance, said that in the past many babies died while still at the breast, and this rite (she thought) was meant especially to comfort their souls. Forudog was in general regarded as being for the souls of children, which were thus cherished before the general festival of the dead began. It was not kept in Sharifabad or Mazrar Kalantar.

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215 festival on 25 Spendarmad, the eve of Panji-kasog, so that all is in readiness for the first holy day. Life on the Yazdi plain was too hard, however, for such prolonged observances, and in practice the villagers there, although regarding Panji-kasog as holy, spent its five days mostly in preparing (during the intervals of necessary work) for the greater festival to come.

There was a pattern for these preparations, although it was not rigid. Thus it was usually on the first day of Panji-kasog, Ruz Aštad of Isfand (Spendarmad) Mah, that boys fetched clay to model figurines for the gahambar-e Panjivak.7 The figurines were actually shaped on the following day, Ruz Asman, when the worked clay had hardened sufficiently; and on that day in the Belivani household Pouran stitched tiny panniers of homespun cotton to put on the little clay camel, and also some small cotton bags. These, with two little wooden boxes, were carefully washed in running water, and filled with clean earth; and then seeds of seven kinds were sown in each, and they were watered with pure water and put in a corner of the courtyard, under a dampened cloth, for the seeds to sprout by I Farvardin. For this, the seeds had to be sown by the third day of Panji-kasog at the latest. This observance, which is an old one, celebrates both aspects of the religious No Ruz, since the fact that there are seven seeds is a reminder that this is the seventh feast of the creation, while their sprouting into new growth symbolizes its other aspect as a feast of the resurrection and of eternal life to come. The little rite was thus highly significant, and its importance is shown by the fact that some old houses had fixed clay containers for it, something like flower-boxes, set in the angles of the courtyard walls (high enough to be out of the reach of children and hens), and occasionally there were four bigger containers on the roof above for the same purpose.

On this third day Pouran and her sister Bibi Gol swept the whole roof of the house from end to end before sunrise, sending down a shower of fine dust into the courtyard, and thereafter all the rooms were thoroughly dusted and swept. On the fourth day their mother took a little woven basket, lined it with white cotton, moistened this, and sowed herbs in it. Piruza meantime washed melon-seeds at the stream, salted them, and left them to dry in the sun. It was not till the fifth day, however, Ruz Anērān, which was both the

216

THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND eve of Panji-mas and, by the ancient 360-day calendar, New Year’s Eve, that preparations reached a crescendo, On that day, very early, Gushtasp took the family cow and filled both its panniers with fine clay. This he mixed with chopped straw and clean water, and then having washed thoroughly himself) trod it all happily into a smooth mass, ending up with his legs and arms and clothes and even hair gloriously covered with mud. He then went off to wash in a stream (itself a pleasure in the summer heat), while his sisters Piruza and Pouran, having bathed at home, went, fasting, to the Dastur’s house to drink nirang—a general practice during the Panji festival, especially for women, to cleanse away the impurities of the past year.. Being thus in a state of physical and ritual purity, they set about preparing the ganza-påk, the ‘holy room’, for the coming of all souls.To This room opened off the pesgam-e mas, and it was used for setting out the ritual offerings of Panji, rather than the open pesgam itself, because these offerings would be made on each of the five days, during which time Moslem tradesmen and visitors (not to speak of cats) might come and go. In the ganza-pak were kept, along the walls, great red-brown jars of unfired clay for storing flour, and smaller greyish-white ones from the kilns of May bod, which held rock-salt; and all were sunk several inches into the floor, because of its annual resurfacing at Panji. The old floor was swept with care, and then Piruza, kept supplied by Pouran, carefully covered it, thinly and smoothly, with Gushtasp’s mixture of clay and straw, to make it fresh and new for the spirit-guests. Then while the clay was drying, the family sheep were all washed in the little pool in the courtyard, and this was then emptied, scrubbed, and refilled. (Such a pool was a unique luxury in Sharifabad, and their sister Shahnaz had to wash their grandmother’s one ewe at the communal stream, along with the household pots and pans, from where the affronted animal hurried home in damp dignity, not waiting to be led.) So by the evening of the last day of Panji-kasog the whole house, with everything in it, was as clean as possible, and all was in readiness to celebrate the five great holy days which were to come.

Even of these five days, it was the last three which were regarded as the holiest, and the first two still had a feeling of preparation

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THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR about them. On the first day Agha Rustam rose before dawn and went in his tum to the Dastur’s house to drink nirang. Thereafter Tahmina Khanom whitewashed the little clay figures, and she and her daughters spread out a white cloth on the clean new floor of the ganza-pak, and arranged all the proper objects beside it: a mirror leaning against the wall, a low brazier full of fire (which was re plenished morning and evening from the ever-burning kitchen fire), a lamp which was kept lit day and night, and the charming group of little white figures, the camel with its head to one side, as if craning to see itself in the mirror. The nightingale had a fragrant gourd, striped red and orange, in the hollow of its back, and grapes between its cane legs. Thereafter boy-o-brang was made each morning and even ing, to delight the spirits. Frankincense and marjoram leaves were regularly burnt on the fire, and that first morning wheat-grains were roasted and set, piping-hot, in a little copper bowl on the three legged clay stool. Piruza roasted her melon-seeds too, and brought a bowlful of them. There were plenty over (for the Sharifabadis always shared what they offered their spirit-guests), and the children munched them freely through the morning. Indeed, nearly all the children and young people of the village were going about with pockets full of seeds, roasted for the Panji offerings. Meanwhile, in the courtyard of the Belivani house Tahmina Khanom prepared a kūza-tara-tijog, or ‘spice-jar-a little green pitcher of unfired clay, which she filled with pure water and swathed in a bit of white cotton.. Over this she put a wadding of cotton-wool, held in place by cotton thread; and then she scattered seeds of pepper and other spices, steeped and smelling pleasantly pungent, over the wet surface, and covered the pot with a damp cloth, so that they should germinate and be green for Havzoru."

The village generally was in a bustle, with relatives arriving from Tehran, and preparations being made in various houses for the first of the many gahambars that were endowed for Panji. Gushtasp departed at about ten o’clock to take part in these, and returned much later, eyes shining and a napkin full of consecrated bread, meat, and lurk, which he shared among his appreciative younger sisters. On that and every other day of Panji-mas invitations came to the family, often three or four at once, to share the com-e nimrüy or midday meal at houses which were celebrating gahambars. Agha Rustam would divide his family up, to show courtesy by accepting

II See PL. IV..

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THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND as much of this hospitality as possible, and on this first day he and Piruza and I ate at the house of Turk Jamshidi, and stayed for the celebration there of two gahambars. Afterwards Piruza and I went with Khorshedchihr, Turk’s granddaughter, first to make the offering to the waters and then to give the com-e šwa. It being only the beginning of the festival, we readily found a hungry animal at the end of the lane, and while it ate we looked out over the fields, beautiful under a dappled evening sky. The corn was mostly reaped and the pale stubble had been swept bare with Yazdi thoroughness. Here and there brown stretches of newly turned earth showed be tween green bands of lucerne and cotton, and some of the crops were bordered with tall sunflowers, bright even in the fading light. There were no Zoroastrians working in the fields on that first day of Panji-mas, but Paridun Rashidi passed on his bicycle on his way to tend the dakhma firea task that could never be neglected, what ever the day. It was growing dark when we returned home, and the evening boy-o-brang had been made, and the door of the ganza-pak was closed. The light of the lamp, burning within for the spirit-guests, showed through the crack, and it shone steadily throughout that and every other night of Panji-mas, visible from the place where Piruza, Pouran, and I slept on the roof.

On the second ‘Gatha’ day Pouran sprinkled white all over the house-roof in sign of welcome to the fravašis, and noted approvingly that the ‘seven seeds’ had sprouted in all their pots, bags, and boxes. After the making of the morning boy-o-brang we visited the house of her uncle Paridun next door. He and his family had been hard at work during Panji-kasog, pressing sesame-seeds to provide ‘pure’ oil for gahambar-cooking in all three villages of the parish;12 and they had only just covered the floor of their ganza-pak with fresh clay, so that it was still cool and damp, with a very pretty set of white figurines set out beside it. Parvin, their elder daughter, was roasting wheat for boy-o-brang, and the tired cow was patiently going round and round the press, Paridun having started again early after working late the night before. (Şince pressing oil for ritual use was highly meritorious, it was permissible to do it even on a holy day.) We were hospitably entertained by Murvarid Khanom with melons, and roasted sesame-seeds mixed with sugar, which we

THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR

219 ate by the spoonful, Meantime the first gahambars were being recited in the village. They finished soon after noon, for D. Khodadad had to to go to Mazrac to solemnize a siroza, one of the observances which a priest would never willingly neglect, however pressing his other duties. Some laymen had meant to accompany him, but the weather turned unfriendly, with a hot, dust-laden wind blowing from the north, and in the end he pedalled away on his own, a slight, valiant figure.

The next morning all was activity soon after sunrise in the Belivani household, for elaborate boy-o-brang had to be made on each of the last three days of Panji; and this had, as always, to be offered either early in the morning, before the first gahambar began, in order to please the spirits in their own homes before they gathered at the religious service, or in the evening, when the last gahambar was over. So Pouran was quickly at work, pounding roasted wheat-grains and dried dates together in the big stone mortar to make halva, and the younger ones gathered round her for shares of the sweet mixture. Her mother in the meantime pounded up spices in a smaller mortar, filling the air with sharp, hot smells; and Piruza, being no-fwe, cooked sirog and eggs and finally sir-o-sedow, which gave off its familiar agreeable tang. Everything, as soon as it was ready, was carried swiftly to the ganza-pak.

That day all the girls of the family went to the house of their maternal grandparents, Mundagar and Sultan Abadian, for a gahambar. Mundagar was a fine big man, handsome even in old age, but crippled.13 We found him already seated, cross-legged and immobile, in the pesgam-e mas, ready for the religious ceremony. His mind was affected by time, but nevertheless he greeted me with all the instinctive courtesy of the Sharifabadi towards a stranger; but soon after, apprehending that the Dastur had passed his house over, be filled the little courtyard with a great shout of rage. There were sixteen gahambars to be solemnized that day, which was one of the most beloved in all the year, and though the Dastur might start wherever he pleased, from there on he should take every house in strict order (unless one family were not ready in their preparations and asked to be passed by). Soon after, however, the usual irruption of small boys into the courtyard heralded the coming of priest and elders, and the gahambar was duly celebrated, to Mundagar’s deep content. D. Khodadad too was satisfied, with the sense of …+3 It was he who had founded the Pir-e Mundagar (see above, p. 88).

220 THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND a hard day’s work well done, but at the same time he was feeling a need for sympathy. He had duly solemnized the siroza and a sal at Mazrae the previous day, and had risen early there that morning, to celebrate the Dron-e gahambar at the fire-temple. Then he had set out at seven o’clock, and had had to trudge almost the whole way back across the desert, pushing his bicycle, because of the fierce head-wind. By eight o’clock the July sun was blazing down, and the journey had taken three hours instead of the usual one; and then he had had the many gahambars to celebrate in Sharifabad. Mund agar’s was in fact the last, and we returned with the Dastur to his own house, to see his ganza-pak and Panji figurines. Instead of resting there, he began at once to recite the evening prayers, since the sun was nearly setting. Thereafter he went to the empty ‘Dastur’s House’ to recite the Sroš Yašt sar-e šab there. His wife had swept the place with special care, and throughout Panji she kept a lamp burning there, and made boy-o-brang there too for the ancestors; and in every empty Zoroastrian house in the village kinsfolk or friends performed similar rites for its fravašis.

The next morning Piruza rose at three to help her aunt Murvarid cut a patch of lucerne before sunrise. This essential fodder-crop was cut by sickle every twenty-four days or so, and it could not be left longer or the leaves would wilt under the blazing sun. So such work had to be done on even the holiest days, but it was then dealt with very early, so that it did not interfere with the rites and pleasures of the festival. That fourth day was the one on which the most boy-o-brang was made in the Belivani household, and so there was great activity in the kitchen, enormously enjoyed by the children, both for the sense of excitement and for all the delicious tastings and mouthfuls that came their way. The cooking began soon after six in the morning. By that time of year the last of the rendered fat from the Mihr Ized sheep had been used up in ritual cooking, and so the ‘pure’ dishes for the fravašis were cooked in sesame-seed oil, bought from Paridun Rashidi, and additional quantities for the family were cooked in shop-bought vegetable oil. As well as all the usual ritual dishes, Tahmina Khanom made several that day which were proper only to Panji. There was halvā-ye sen, for which steeped and roasted wheat-grains (san) were pounded up with dried stoned dates and fresh dates with their stones in, and mixed with ‘pure’ water into a creamy fawn-coloured paste. This was then fried to a golden-brown, and the portion for the ganza-pak was turned on to

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221 a plated copper dish, and prettily decorated with peeled almonds. Halvā.ye konjed was made from sesame seeds (konjed) and fresh dates, both lightly browned in sesame-seed oil and beaten together with a copper spoon in a copper bowl. Some of the stiff sweet mixture was then shaped into the torsos of little men with their arms held out at right angles, and these were ranged round the edge of a copper dish, as if holding hands, with a little sugar-cone in the middle of it. From the rest of the mixture were made fat little men with legs as well as arms (like the gingerbread men of English cookery), animals, stars, and the like. Then there was halvā-ye šekār, which was prepared for other festivals as well as Padji. This was like halvā-ye san, but had pounded pistachio nuts among its ingredients. Among the savoury dishes was nān-e äganja, ‘filled bread’, cooked only for Panji, and needing a good deal of skill in its preparation. For it meat and onions were pounded together and browned in a frying pan, with salt and spices. This mixture was then spread thinly on a round of dough, another round was put on top and the edges of the two were pressed firmly together in the manner of a Cornish pasty). The whole was then clapped against the hot side of an earthen oven, and at this moment the skill of the cook was tested, for only if the preparation had been just right would the pasty stay in place and cook properly. An easier savoury dish was nān-e pină. For this onions were browned with spices and salt, and then a dollop of dough was dropped on top of them in the frying pan, and they were worked into it. The dough was then taken out of the pan, a pleasant bright yellow, and baked in the usual way, producing a very appetising smell. Since such smells were at their strongest when the food was just ready, Pouran was standing by, and as soon as her mother had finished a dish she would seize it, using the ends of her head-veil if the copper plate were hot, and carry it at a run to the ganza-pak, where the white cloth gradually became covered with the varied foods. A great effort was made at Panji to provide many dishes, since all the departed were present then as guests, who in life would have enjoyed some this, some that; but by an act of delicacy poppy-seeds (often otherwise used in decora ting festive dishes) were not added to Panji cooking, for among the invisible guests were perhaps sinners, who might include among their ranks opium-addicts, and it would be heartless to remind these of the cause of their damnation, 14

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222 THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND

With all this cooking, and hearth-fire and oven-fire both burning brightly, the kitchen grew very hot and full of smoke. The sun was blazing relentlessly down by eight o’clock, Tahmina Khanom shed her flowing head-veil, and Gushtasp earned his share of the sweet dishes by bringing the cooks glasses of water every quarter of an hour or so. All was accomplished, however, by ten o’clock, when the first gahambar was due to begin. Even Gushtasp was too happily full, however, to attend it, and he, like the rest of the family, suc cumbed, what with heat and tiredness, to some well-earned sleep. Later in the morning there came four invitations to gahambar meals, and the family scattered in accepting them, leaving Tahmina Khanom and the infant Shahvahram to enjoy a rare peace and silence.

The fifth day of Panji-mas was the most strenuous of all for the Belivanis, since in addition to the rituals of the day itself they had an endowed gahambar-e lurki to hold in their own home (though even so Piruza and Pouran were out in the fields before sunrise to cut a patch of lucerne). The evening before, Tahmina Khanom had sent Azarmindukht with a copper bowl full of wheat to a neighbour who had a cow in milk; and early in the morning the neighbour’s small daughter brought the bowl back one-third full of milk—all that could be spared, since so many wanted milk for ritual cooking on the last day of the festival, especially all those who, like Tahmina, had lost small children, for it was proper then to cook nān-e šekārī for them (a sweetened bread, for which the dough is mixed with milk, not water). Varderin for the Dron-e gahambar (melons, cucumbers, and grapes) was sent early to the Dastur, and Tahmina went herself to a Zoroastrian house where each year, on the last day of Panji, two sheep were sacrificed, and the pure’ meat and fat sold for ritual cooking. While she was away, a Moslem brought a camel laden with two bales of brushwood to the bottom of the lane. Agha Rustam bought one, Paridun the other, and Paridun rolled each in turn up the lane and into the houses, while his wife

astrians were opium-addiction and suicide—sins against oneself rather than against others. The standard of sexual morality among thern was very high, and theft, murder, and arson seemed unknown, the community being in such respects sinned against rather than sinning. Opium poppies had been grown by the Sharifabadis before the crop was forbidden under the Pahlavi dynasty, but Agha Rustam said that he had never himself known an addict in the village. A little was enjoyed as an annual pleasure at the time of harvesting, as wine growers enjoy their wine, and the dried seeds were sprinkled on festival days on the harsh, heavy rye-bread, which was the staple of village diet until the late nineteenth century.

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223 Murvarid carried out the big afrinagan used in dakhma-rituals, full of embers from her hearth-fire, and scattered rue on it to sanctify the bringing of firewood.

When Tahmina Khanom returned, she and her elder daughters became busy with the special cooking of the fifth day. The nan-e šekari was baked both in ordinary little rounds, and also in shapes a shuttle, a ladder, a star, a fat little man, a hanging larder. (The villagers, as we have seen,15 regarded this practice as providing playthings for the child-fravašis, but it seems probable that this was a reinterpretation of an old observance which belonged originally, like the clay figurines, to the sixth gahambar.) Tahmina Khanom also cooked komacog that day-little balls of saffron-flavoured dough fried to a golden-brown, and decorated with strips of dough criss-crossed over them (like hot-cross buns) and studded with dates.

Once the cooking for boy-o-brang was finished, Pouran took a little glass filled with lurk to another neighbour, and returned with it half-full of milk for the gahambar-service. The family could itself provide home-made vinegar (to represent the wine), and Pouran and Bibi Gol carefully washed more fruits (bought from a Moslem trader) to be blessed. All was set out in readiness by eleven o’clock, with one of the big pots of ‘seven seeds’, now freshly green, beside the carpet on which were the things to be consecrated. The courtyard was cleared of the water-vessels and everything else, and newly swept. The Dastur had started his celebration of gabambars at the other end of the village, however, and it was half-past four before he and the dahmobed arrived with the rest of the congrega tion. The women of the house instantly sped into the kitchen, leaving Agha Rustam to receive his guests, and began the ritual cooking, Piruza and her aunt Murvarid (also a no-šwe) shared this work, with the others helping. The recital of the gahambar was over by a quarter-past five, and since it was the last of the day, Piruza and I went with the Dastur to his house, and watched her aunt Piruza make the evening boy-o-brang there. She had herself lost a seven-year-old son, 16 and so like Tahmina Khanom she made

224 THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND nan-e šekari among all the other dishes. We returned in time for Piruza, as no-swe, to give the com-e šwa from the gahambar before sunset. We duly found two dogs, one of them ‘four-eyed’, who made a gallant effort to accept the offering, but they were plainly suffering from Panji repletion, and could not swallow it all.

Meantime preparations were under way for the end of Panji-mas and a welcome to the new year. Piruza, as the eldest daughter at home, made a kopī. Her sister Shahnaz had brought from their grandfather’s orchard-garden a bunch of anice, which the villagers called ‘shāhvasrām’. They used its seeds in sherbet, and sowed it regularly in their gardens ‘when the mulberries were ripe’, to be ready for Panji. Piruza’s bunch was between flowering and setting its seeds. She took its stems and thrust them into a fair-sized lump of moist clay, which she then moulded to have a flat base and rounded top, and left to dry. Meantime, Gushtasp had begun to carry the whitened clay figures up on to the roof while it was still light. The house next door was occupied by Moslems, and their son, a little older than Gushtasp, was on its roof and on seeing him began to practice the azān very loudly. Gushtasp took this as provocation and dealt with it promptly by a well-aimed stone. The Moslem boy fled weeping to his father, who hastened round to complain to Agha Rustam, who beat Gushtasp, and for a while the happy harmony of the household was broken. This state of affairs could not be allowed to last, however, on this holiest of days, to distress the fravašis; and before the sun sank, cheerfulness had been restored. The Mos lems having retired to sleep when it grew dark, Gushtasp was able to carry out in peace his task of taking all the figures up on to the roof and arranging them in a quaint row overlooking the courtyard. The pots of seven seeds were set beside them, together with Piruza’s kopi, which had had a green silk kerchief tied over the anice stems. A big bundle of brushwood was also carried up, and a storm-lamp was lit and set to burn on the place where the Panji fire would be kindled. There were other lamps already burning on Zoroastrian roofs round about, steadfast yellow flecks under the starry sky. After a quiet family meal of consecrated food from the gahambar (pottage and bread with sir-o-sedow), Agha Rustam withdrew to read Avesta in the now almost empty ganza-pak, and the rest of the household went to sleep with the sound of the holy words coming softly to their ears.

It was not a long sleep, however, for Tahmina Khanom roused us

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225 all at half-past three. The moon was shining, and there was as yet no sign of dawn. She had already lit a fire on the roof where the lamp had been, and on a few other roofs flames were leaping up, and women, ever the first to rise, were tending them. Within a few minutes a fine but challenging azan was being broadcast as usual from the minaret of the Husayniya, 17 and more and more little twinkling fires leapt into life beside the lamps on the Zoroastrian roofs. Agha Rustam came up and said the košti-prayers, facing the fire; and then he seated himself before it and began reciting the appropriate Avesta: the prayers of the second night-watch, the Avestā-ye Rūz-e Vahištõišt (i.e. of the fifth ‘Gatha’ day), and the Afrinagan-e Dahman. Gushtasp meantime tended the fire and put bud-e nakoš on the flames—for this demon-daunting plant belonged to the ceremony. Father and son thus played the parts of celebrant and server (zot and raspi), which in the past would have been per formed (at least in such a leading family) by priests. D. Khodadad was himself praying before his own roof-fire, his white-clad figure showing clearly against the wind-tower. Paridun was by the fire on his roof beside us, and his elder son Rashid had carried the big dakhma-afrinagan to the roof of an empty Zoroastrian house opposite, where they had also put a lamp to burn through the night, a kopi, and some of their clay figures. While the men prayed, the women were busy, Martha-like, cooking a farewell meal for the fravašis, the hot dishes, together with some that had been placed in the ganza-pak overnight, being brought up and ranged on a sort of shelf that ran along the side of the barrel-roof where the fire was lit.

Soon after the azan ceased (it lasted some twenty minutes), the east began to grow light, and the shape of Hrišt appeared, and then slowly the other mountains to the south of it, and last of all the noble mass of Pir-e Sabz. Agha Rustam had finished the Avestan service and sat quietly looking eastward, waiting for the sun to rise and mark the departure of the fravašis, to whom he had thus bidden farewell. The roof-fire was allowed to sink as the fravašis withdrew, and just before the sun appeared Gushtasp gathered its last embers into a whitened clay pan, a kuwa, to be taken later to the fire-temple. Dark-clad Moslems began to emerge from their sheets (having one and all, it seemed, peacefully disregarded the azan), and the Zoro astrian men stood up singly and ‘made new the košti’ once more, this

226

all, men and Chere, famili Saness. F

THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND time with the prayers of Havan Gah, the first watch of the new day. One elderly woman did the same, but otherwise the women were already busy at their various tasks. As soon as the sun was clear of the mountain-tops, a girl on each roof took a big bowl of pure water, with marjoram leaves scattered over it, which had been standing by the fire, and sprinkled the water with a ladle over all the roof. (Parvin, Paridup’s elder daughter, had both their own house-roof to sprinkle thus, and that of the empty house opposite.) Perhaps this act was in origin the last rite in a loving ceremony of farewell to the dead, which had also an ancient element of exorcism in it; or perhaps it was a first libation to the sun, rising to bring in the new year.

The family then drank tea together on the roof, rejoicing in the early morning sunshine and freshness. Formerly it was the custom to breakfast up there, families and neighbours joining to gether, and all, men and women, drinking wine, with many toasts. With Moslem households now interspersed among Zoroastrian ones, however, breakfast was eaten in seclusion below. So down we went, and Paridun and his family joined us, bringing consecrated food with them from their own Panji cooking, and Tahmina Khanom provided all with bowls of hot harisa, just as at the spring No Ruz.18 It was a leisurely, happy meal; but long before their elders had finished eating and talking, Gushtasp and his cousin Jehangir, Paridun’s second son, had taken their kuwas full of glowing embers from the roof-fires, and set off for the fire-temple. After they had deposited the embers there (just as their sisters had done after the Hiromba fire), they and other boys forgathered on a piece of empty ground beside the temple, and bashed their kuwas against each other, to see which would break last. Gushtasp triumphed that year, and returned merrily. His sisters meantime had gone up to the roof again to fetch the clay figures (which bad gazed down on us, white against the blue sky, while we breakfasted below). Piruza took the green kerchief off the kopi and tied it briefly on her own pretty head a traditional custom; and Parvin appeared on the next roof, a kopi in either hand (held by the anice stems), and challenged Pouran to a duel. Pouran, ever active, seized Piruza’s kopi, climbed nimbly over, and flung herself on her cousin, and amid laughter broke both her kopis with it, one after another. Down in the lane I saw two little girls meet and clash their kopis earnestly till one broke; and

THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR

227 others gathered in a group, as the boys had done with their kuwas, and went on till the last survivor. This was an annual custom. (Subsequently Piruza’s unbroken kopi remained till Havzoru on the Belivani roof; and on the eve of that festival the house-sparrows descended on it in a twittering group and in seconds cleared the anice of all its sun-ripened seeds.)

After breakfast a number of visitors came to see Agha Rustam, as at the spring No Ruz (for though Panji did not coincide with any national holiday, some of the Tehranis managed to take their annual leave then). But although this was i Farvardin, the traditional New Year’s Day in Iran since time immemorial, no one in the village referred to it as No Ruz, or thought of it as such. To the Parsis, I Farvardin is ‘Naoroj’, regardless of the time of year when it comes; but the Iranis, keeping that name for the secular spring festival, had come to know the summer one simply as the day of the ‘Dadgah e Panji’—the third annual occasion for a communal observance at the dakhma.19 The day was thus annexed, as it were, to Panji, despite the fact that the fravašis had been bidden farewell (an illogicality that arose from the confusion attendant on the third century calendar reform). So not long after the family breakfast Paridun, as guardian of the dakhma, set off for there laden himself and leading his laden donkey, to be followed by his usual helpers. As at the Dadgah-e Tir-Mah,20 the women of seven families gathered at the Belivani home in the morning to make all the preparations there that they could; and in the early afternoon everything was loaded on the Belivani cow and a little group set bravely off under the remorseless sun—Piruza the Dastur’s wife, her great-aunt Daulat, the sister of Turk Jamshidi, and her niece Piruza. I followed only later, when the heat was relenting a little, with Erdeshir Qudusi

Then, despite the many rites already performed at Panji, gaham bars for the dead were celebrated again at the dakhma, ending as usual with a communal observance for all souls. The Sharifabadis services ended soon after six o’clock, and the evening meal was eaten once more in a great horseshoe on the desert shingle. The two salars were both present, but they ate separately in one of the pesgams, each using his own cloth and glass.21 Again the gathering broke up as soon as the meal was over, the boys dashing off on their bicycles, followed by family parties with donkeys and on foot. There was a low band of white dust hanging like mist at the edge of the fields, and the head of the procession was vanishing into it as the tail was still forming at the dadgah. Erdeshir Qudusi and I lingered to share their meal of consecrated food with Paridun and his weary helpers, and then cycled back ahead of them through the dusk.

The next day D. Khodadad departed to spend three days at Mazra Kalantar and Hasanabad, reciting the ‘Avesta-ye Panji’

THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR

2: (that is, an Afrinagan-service with appropriate dedication) for ever: family which wished it. Later he would do the same in Sharifabac in any house where a “gahambar-e čakhra’ had not been celebratud during the ‘Gatha’ days. This rite was valid for the first ten days of Farvardin Mah. In the times of many priests, the rites of Rapith wio (who had returned above earth at noon on I Farvardin) would have been performed at the fire-temple on the third day of the month, Ruz Urdibehišt, but these were now perforce neglected.22 For the rest of the village, life now returned to normal, except for careful watering of the pots of greenery. The Belivanis had sown one box with seeds of the castor plant, which is a slow grower, to be at their freshest in time for Havzoru; and on i Farvardin Murvarid sowed more herbs in a little basket to be ready too for that great day. But on 2 Farvardin the spinning-wheels were turning again in the houses, and out in the fields teams of men were at work digging up stubble or threshing the corn, the rhythmic thumping of their club-like flails carrying far through the dusty air. During the following days five of Agha Rustam’s fields were winnowed and threshed, and the grain and straw were put into store-rooms at the back of the house.

Yet despite all this nundane activity, thoughts were gilded by expectation of Havzoru to come, on 6 Farvardin, for this was the most beloved single festival of the year. Once, as the written tradition tells us, this day was known as the ‘Greater No Ruz’; but just as the “Lesser No Ruz’ of i Farvardin had lost its old name for the Iranis, so too had this second celebration, which was known to them prosaically as Havzoru (Persian ‘Hivdah Ruz’),23 that is, the ‘Seven teenth day’. In the ancient 360-day calendar, as we have seen, No Ruz was celebrated immediately after 30 Spendarmad; but in the first year of the Sasanian reform the people at large found that, having come to the day which they reckoned to be Hamaspath maedaya, that is, 30 Spendarmad, this was only 25 Spendarmad by the official calendar; and so they then had to count to the seven teenth day (30 Spendarmad, the ten days of Farvardigan, and the first five days of Farvardin Mah) before they could celebrate No Ruz on what they firmly believed to be its rightful date.24 That is to say, they reckoned that sixteen days had to be devoted to the 22 See above, p. 50; and for the rites themselves see ‘Rapithwin…, 209–11,

23 The pronunciation varied slightly from village to village in the Yazdi region, and in Kerman the form was ‘Arvedārû’ (see Sorushian, Farhang, 5).

24 For more detailed discussion, with a table of these complex developments, see ‘On the calendar …’, 513-22,

230 THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND fravašis, and that the seventeenth was the true No Ruz. Naturally before written calendars were available (which for the laity was not until the 1940s), such methods of reckoning the relative dates of observances were essential; and so the ‘Greater No Ruz’ came to be known simply by this practical designation. The Parsis called it equally prosaically after the name of the day on which it falls, that is, Khordad, qualifying this by the word sāl ‘year’, that is ‘Khordad of the (New) Year’. All the great legends that attached to New Year’s Day-that it had seen the birth of the prophet himself, and every epic achievement of old—were associated since Sasanian times with this feast, 6 Farvardin, and not with 1 Farvardin (as must have been the case before the third-century calendar

reform),25

In some ways, inevitably, the observances of the eve of Havzoru repeated those of the eve of both the secular spring No Ruz and the “Dadgah-e Panji’ since in origin these were all three one feast. So there was again sweeping and tidying, and in the late afternoon the pesgam-e mas was set out with the pots of greenery, a brazier, and a bright mirror. A lamp was lit there at dusk, and the air became full of the sharp tang of sir-o-sedow as the Zoroastrian houses began to make boy-o-brang. These observances repeated those of the fifth “Gatha’ day, for the ancient pattern was that the feast of All Souls preceded No Ruz, as night the day. So the lamp burnt through all the night, but there was no re-enactment of the farewell to the fravašis at the next dawn.26

The custom of donning new clothes to welcome the new year was maintained at this religious festival also. Thus Agha Rustam’s fifth daughter, Azarmindukht, who was living at Turk Jamshidi’s and helping there, had come home the evening before dressed from head to foot in new clothes, and in the morning several of her sisters wore something new and pretty. Everyone, said D. Khodadad, should put on that day seven new things, and men and women alike should drink seven sips of wine-for (though he did not add the explanation this was the seventh feast of obligation, in honour

25 See, e.g., Sorushian, Farhang, 5, s.v. ‘Arvedārū’; Modi, CC, 431, s.v. ‘Khordād Sāll (both treatments being based on the literary tradition).

26 Lo Taft the custom was that in the evening before Havzoru the villagers would gather at the fire-temple, and the priest would solemnize an Afrinagan service in honour of all souls. The Parsis of Navsari called 5 Farvardin valāva-ni rät eve of farewell’, sc, to the fravašis, and solemnized the same ceremonies then as on the evening of the fifth ‘Gatha’ day (see ‘On the calendar …, 521).

.—…

THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR

231 of the seventh creation, fire, and the number seven should run through all its observances.27

Everyone was up at dawn of the great day, and exchanging the greeting of the festival: jašn-e Havzorū-t mobārak! We breakfasted once more on harisa, and soon afterwards Sarvar, Turk’s wife, came to offer her greetings, with sprays of greenery, and rose-water was sprinkled and sweetmeats handed round. At half-past seven Piruza and I went by invitation to the Dastur’s House, where D. Khodadad was already preparing to perform the Visperad, washing all the Yasna utensils in the runoing water of the stream. The Visperad is held to be a service evolved especially to celebrate the seven obliga tory feasts, but as a busy parish priest D. Khodadad managed to solemnize it only once a year, on this the last of them, when it was the centre of the village’s observances. Lacking any fellow priest to act as server, and having to adapt to the villagers’ own established customs, he celebrated the long service as an “outer’ rather than an ‘inner’ ceremony; but he did not omit one syllable of the liturgy or any of the fundamental ritual, finding a spiritual satisfaction in performing the ancient act of worship as perfectly as he could, in lonely faithfulness.

Instead, therefore, of seating himself within ritually drawn furrows in a place apart, he spread a pure white cloth in an inner corner of the smaller pesgam, where none would approach him closely, and sitting there, white-clad, and wearing the mouth-veil (padan) he began, at about eight o’clock, the preliminary service to consecrate the vessels and offerings of the Visperad. As well as all the things obligatory for the service itself, laid out before him, there was to one side a glass flagon full of pure water, to be consecrated, and a silver vase with myrtle-sprays.28 D. Khodadad concentrated utterly on the words and rituals, and seemed wholly oblivious of the activities in the rest of the narrow house. : Paridun had arrived earlier from the Dastur’s own home with a big cloth over his shoulder full of flour, and had set about mixing it into dough in two huge basins; and from eight o’clock the women of the village began to arrive, at first in ones and twos, and then in little groups. Each carried a small copper bowl full of varderin. There was a melon, a cucumber, and an egg in every bowl, with a variety, at choice, of grapes, apples, small, prettily striped gourds, green pomegranates, tomatoes, dried dates, and the like. In the end

27 Cf. above, pp. 49-50. 28 See Pl. Va.

232 THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND there were 115 such bowls, covering the whole floor of the smaller pesgam around the Dastur’s cloth, and every ledge and sill. After each woman had put down her varderin, she went to D. Khodadad’s daughter Parizad and gave her a list of all those over the age of nine who were living in her house. Only one man, recently a widower, appeared carrying his own bowl, and he, having put it down and handed over his list, absent-mindedly uttered the familiar words Khodā be-āmurzad-ešān ‘May God have mercy on them!’, only to be heartily laughed at by the surrounding women. He acknowledged his error and retreated grinning, since what he should have said was Zande bāšand! “May they live!’; for Havzoru, the ‘Greater No Ruz’, feast of the resurrection, was the one festival of the whole devotional year which was celebrated entirely on behalf of the living.

For an hour and a half the women came and went. Many carried sprays of myrtle or mint, which they exchanged with the festival greetings; and there was plenty of talk and laughter, while small children ran about among their mothers’ skirts. The lists of games, when they had all been collected, were placed near D. Khodadad. Paridun meantime was snatching a little sleep after the dough mixing, but he was ruthlessly shaken awake again at about ten o’clock to begin the baking. He and his two helpers armed themselves, despite the August heat, with the heavy clothing needed for working at an open oven, and set about their task. Women, meanwhile, carefully boiled and peeled the 115 eggs, and at eleven o’clock the two dahmobeds arrived. By that time, the Dastur was deep into the solemnization of the Visperad itself, but it was nearly noon before he had made the ritual čašni or partaking of the first preparation of the parahom, and summoned them with a gesture to begin their work. They first ‘made new the košti, facing the fire in the vessel before the Dastur, and then began cutting up the now consecrated varderin. All the fruits were halved, and one-half of each melon and cucumber was put back in the family bowls, still on the pesgam. These bowls had already been colourful, with the gleaming melon skins, dark green and light green, striped and plain; but now there was a glorious display of red-fleshed melons with black seeds, white or creamy ones with golden seeds, and pale translucent cucumbers. The other halves of the cucumbers and some of the melons were put in to big basins to be carried later to the fire-temple, and the rest of the fruit was shared at once among the helpers, and any others who came. An eager group of small boys were fetched in from the

THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR

233 lane and ranged along a courtyard wall, where they sat and ate melon-slices. Old Hajji Khodabakhsh turned up too, in his bright new clothes from no-swa, and accounted for a whole melon, and Agha Rustam arrived later to share a more formal communion meal.

Meanwhile the big new rounds of freshly baked bread had been halved, and two halves were put on each of the family bowls, şir-o sedow was sprinkled over one, turning it a bright yellow, and half an egg was set on the other. All the while D. Khodadad continued steadily to secite the Visperad liturgy. Since he now celebrated this immensely long service only once a year, he had open beside him on a wooden stand a big Avesta, to prompt his memory for those portions of the service which are additional to the ordinary Yasna liturgy. He was still reciting, swiftly but clearly, when at about half past one the women began to return. A big brown cotton sheet had been spread in the courtyard, and on to this each poured a small amount of wheat, till slowly a golden pyramid of grain was formed. Part of this wheat was to replace the flour which the Dastur had himself provided for the bread to be blessed, part was to recom pense him for the services which he would solemnize that day. Each woman then went to Parizad, and received from her a spoonful of consecrated water infused with some of the second preparation of parahom made ready by D. Khodadad during the service. The women had not tasted food for several hours in readiness for this rite. The consecrated liquid was given them from a deep copper spoon, and it was poured from above, so that the spoon did not touch their lips.29 Nearly every woman in the village came at Havzoru to receive the parahom, and several took some away in a little copper bowl, or a deep spoon, for their husbands. Either before or after this, each woman found her family bowl, covered it with the cloth which had held the wheat, and carried it away for the consecrated varderin to be shared by all her family at their festive midday meal.

The Dastur, as well as solemnizing the Visperad, had to celebrate a Dron service and an Afrinagan in honour of Rapithwin, who returns above earth at No Ruz; and also to pray by name for the well-being of every single person on the lists which had been put before him. So he did not finish until half-past three, by which time he had been reciting with barely a pause for six hours in the August heat. He then left the pesgam, bearing a silver pot full of the second

29 See Pl. VIa.

234

THE FESTIVALS OF ALL SOULS AND preparation of parahom, and carried this down the steps to the stream to make the libation to water, which concludes every Yasna and Visperad service. After this he broke his fast, modestly, with con secrated food—a sirog, half an egg, and half a melon; and rested a little before going to the Ataš Varahram to hold a service for the men of the village. Paridun had already taken round the varderin for this–two big basins of cucumbers, cut into neat chunks, with a few pieces of melon to give colour (but only a few, since melon seeds are difficult to dispose of in a place of worship), and a smaller bowl with bread broken into pieces, chopped hard-boiled egg, and smaller fruits such as grapes. The fire-temple was packed with men and boys, who even overflowed into the outer pesgam where the women usually sat, the only women present being Piruza the atas band’s wife, there to cook the sir-o-sedow and sirog for boy-o-brang, another woman to keep her company, and myself. The Dastur celebrated an ordinary gahambar service, and then two men carried round the bowls of varderin while Erdeshir the dahmobed combined their contents to make čašni for each person present. The men produced big folding knives to cut up the varderin, while boys ate the melons off the rinds. After this communion meal, lurk was distributed, and then the temple, as usual, emptied rapidly.30

These, together with family gatherings and rejoicings, were the celebrations of Havzoru, the feast of a single day. It was a day for consecration and a sense of renewal, and it was both beloved by the community, and regarded by them as the high and solemn point of the religious year. In this, as in so much else, the Sharifabadis undoubtedly preserved ancient orthodoxy, according to which this seventh feast both crowned the old year and brought in the new one in a spirit of joy and hope. So while at Panji it was proper to make

30 At Yazd and most—perhaps all-of the villages apart from Sharifabad and its two neighbours, it was the custom to make a public appeal at this service for yearly contributions to the communal funds (for the upkeep of the fire-temple, the purchase of wood and oil, etc.). As each man came up and gave a sum of money, the congregation would raise a lusty long-drawn shout of ‘Hāvorū, hāvorū, hävorů, ay šo-boš!’—a shout which had come to be generally used, in Sharifabad also, in the sense of ‘Hurray!’ (cf. above, p. 173). The word šo-boš is a reduction of Persian šād bāš ‘be happy!’, and the usage provided an alternate name for Havzoru, namely Jašn-e šo-boš (see Sorushian, Farhang, 54). The custom was unknown in Sharifabad and Mazrar, where such public displays of generosity were frowned on by the villagers as unbecoming. Gifts to the commun ity should be made, they held, privately and unostentatiously. In places which had the šoboš ceremony, sherbet was often given by pious individuals, and drunk merrily at the gatherings. .

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235 confession and drink nirang, in order to cleanse away the sins and impurities of the past twelve months, at Havzoru it was fitting to partake of the parahom, a source of spiritual refreshment and energy, so as to quicken one’s spirit and gain zest and strength for the endeavours of the year to come.

After Havzoru the seven seeds’ in pots and boxes were no longer watered, and wilted at once in the dry heat, their essence having been enjoyed (so the simpler people said) by the spirit-steeds. The great festival-season of Panji and the religious New Year was over, and yet it was still thought valid and effective to perform any of the ap propriate rites which had been neglected up till Aban Ruz, the fourth day after Havzoru.31 Thus, for example, the Belivanis had been unable to make the ritual boy-o-brang on the eve of Havzoru, because they had no ‘pure’ oil left, and Paridun had sold the last drop. So they postponed this until Aban Ruz, when D. Khodadad came to the house and recited an Afrinagan in honour of all souls. There is no appropriate tradition attached to Aban Ruz to account for its being the last day for such observances, and the explanation seems to be simply that it is the twenty-first day from the eve of Panji-kasog (25 Spendarmad), which was popularly regarded at one time as being the true New Year’s Eve. No Ruz was tradition ally a three-week festival, lasting, that is, the auspicious number of three times seven days; and so it seems, the religious New Year festival was regarded, like the secular spring one, 32 as lasting this length of time, although it began now on 25 Spendarmad instead of I Farvardin. As a result Havzoru, a feast of the living, is embedded in a twenty-day festival devoted to the dead. All such confusions and duplications arose from the third-century calendar reform, which the Sasanian kings had had the power to enforce, but not the means to explain adequately to the devout. When one considers how dog gedly their subjects resisted, as far as they could, the changes which their absolute rulers then sought to impose on them, there is no reason to wonder at the Yazdis’ rejection of the twentieth-century calendar reform, which too was a measure that outraged those feel ings of loyalty and devotion whose strength has enabled Zoroastrians to remain true to the faith of their forefathers throughout millennia.

31 For the special Kermani observances on Aban Ruz of Farvardin Mah see Sorushian, Farhang, 54, s.v. *jašn-e şaddar.

32 See above, p. 176.