cause she knows the method of casting out spirits. Her first task is to find out the right tune for a particular sufferer. If she knows the "Zar bride" from previous meetings, she at once begins the right one. The first time, one tune after another is tried (for Cairo spirits, Upper Egypt spirits, etc.), until the sick person becomes ecstatic, which proves that the right tune has been found and it is then continued. Each special tune requires special dressing, which, according to the sex of the spirit, may be that of men, women, boys or girls. The sick person herself acts as the incarnation of the spirit; sometimes, however, the sheikha speaks instead of the spirit.

The meetings for exorcising the Zar may be of short duration, or may continue for several nights. If the patient is rich, the feast is prolonged, and during the fourth night, called the "great night," the greatest feast is prepared. The sheikha and other visitors remain for the whole night with the sick person, and the following morning they have the solemn sacrifice, the supreme performance of the feast.11

Captain Tremearne in "the Ban of the Bori" and G. A. Herklot in his book on the customs of the Moslems of India, "Qanoon-e-Islam" (1832), relate similar practices prevailing in North Africa and India. In every land therefore, with variations due to local circumstances, the Zar must always be propitiated by three-incense, the Zar-dance with music and last, but not least, the sacrifice all three of these are Pagan and repulsive to orthodox Islam and yet continue under its shadow. Between 1870-80 the practices spread to such an extent in Upper Egypt that the Government had to put a stop to them.12 During the past four years the Cairo press has published many articles demanding that "these

11 See The Moslem World, July, 1913. Article by Elizabet Franke, based on Kahle's investigations.

12 Klunzinger, p. 388.

infidel ceremonies" be abolished by law, but the custom dies hard. 13 Not only is the superstition of the Zar degrading to morals and spiritual life judged even by Moslem standards but it is such an expensive bit of heathenism that families have been financially ruined through its demands.

"Sometimes a man will divorce his wife," says Mrs. Dijkstra, "because she has zeeran, or if he learns that the girl or woman he was going to marry has them he will break his marriage agreement. And the reason in all these instances is a financial one. People possessed by zeeran must give feasts at various times, and the women are prompted by their zeeran to demand from their husbands new clothing, new jewelry, and new house furnishings, and if these are not forthcoming the zeeran threaten that severe calamities will overtake them. So unless the husband is prepared to assume such burdens he very promptly rids himself of the cause, and families refuse to entertain the very idea of zeeran because of the constant drain upon their time and strength and money."

The Zar spirits (zeeran) are divided into numerous tribes and classes. In Cairo they have Abyssinian, Sudanese, Arab, and even Indian evil-spirits, for each of which a special ceremony is necessary at the time of exorcism. They are male, female, or hermaphrodites. They may belong to every class of society and different religions. In Bahrein, East Arabia," the outward sign of being possessed by a Zar is the wearing of a signet ring, with the name of the Zar and of the person himself engraven on a red stone, and also the Shehadeh or witness, 'La illaha illa allah, wa Mohammed rasoul allah,' there is no god but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God. This signet ring must receive a bath

13 Cf. for example the newspaper Al Jareeda, April 18, 1911, and the pamphlet "Mudarr ez Zar," "The Baneful Effect of the Zar,” Cairo,

1903.

of blood before it becomes efficacious, and so a fowl must be killed and the stone soaked in the blood."

Among the fetich-worshipers of West Africa, where Islam has not yet entered, the same kind of demon-exorcism is practiced as in Arabia or in Cairo, the intellectual capital of Islam! Indeed, we need not ask what is the origin of the Zar for we have an almost exact description of it from the Rev. Robert H. Nassau as he witnessed pagan exorcism among a primitive people:

"Sick persons, and especially those that are afflicted with nervous disorders, are supposed to be possessed by one or other of these evil spirits. If the disease assumes a serious form, the patient is taken to a priest or a priestess, of either of these classes of spirits. Certain tests are applied, and it is soon ascertained to which class the disease belongs, and the patient is accordingly turned over to the proper priest. The ceremonies in the different cases are not materially different; they are alike, at least, in the employment of an almost endless round of absurd, unmeaning, and disgusting ceremonies which none but a heathenish and ignorant priesthood could invent, and none but a poor, ignorant, and superstitious people could ever tolerate. .

"In either case a temporary shanty is erected in the middle of the street for the occupancy of the patient, the priest, and such persons as are to take part in the ceremony of exorcism. The time employed in performing the ceremonies is seldom less than ten or fifteen days. During this period dancing, drumming, feasting, and drinking are kept up without intermission day and night, and all at the expense of the nearest relative of the invalid. The patient, if a female, is decked out in the most fantastic costume; her face, bosom, arms, and legs are streaked with red and white chalk, her head adorned with red feathers, and much of the time she promenades the open space in front of the shanty with a