Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/282

 272 The Rosary in Magic and Religion.

of your good works will be lost." ^ These two examples seem to show that a primitive form of rosary was in use at this time — the " beads " being merely pebbles, appar- ently unstrung.

The materials of which the rosaries are made are numerous, though each sect tends to have its own specially sacred form of bead. The Wahhabis use their fingers, on which they count their repetitions.^ Wooden beads are used by all sects, and beads made of clay from Mecca are highly valued. Pilgrims from this sacred city sometimes bring such rosaries back with them.^ Datestones are also much used, as are also horn and imitation pearls and coral. Beads made of earth from Kerbala, where Husain is buried, are sacred to the Shiahs, and are used by members of this sect only. These beads are believed to turn red on the ninth day of Muharram, the night on which Husain was killed. Some of the rosaries have as a terminal a com- plicated knot, usually made of bright-coloured silks ; this knot is of a form characteristic of Muhammadan rosaries. Another material often used is camel bone. Sometimes beads of this material are dyed red in honour of Husain, who Was killed in his conflict with Yazid, the seventh Khalifa h, the red colour representing his blood. Sometimes the beads are dyed green, this being Hasan's colour. Hasan, Husain's elder brother, met his death by poisoning. The poison turned his body green after death, hence these beads are in memory of his tragic end.* Faqirs, on the other hand, prefer glass beads of various colours, and also amber or agate.^

In Egypt, on the first night after a burial, certain


 * H. Thurston, yi3//';«. Sot. Arts, I. 265.

"^ Pro. U.S. National Mus.f xxxvi. 349..

"E. W. Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 444.

Oxford.
 * This information was given me by Mr. Vusuf Khan of Queen's College,

^ VV. Crooke, Things Itidian, p. 410.

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