The practice
is not confined to Sicily, for it is observed also at Cosenza in
Calabria, and perhaps in other places. The whole custom--sepulchres
as well as plates of sprouting grain--may be nothing but a
continuation, under a different name, of the worship of Adonis.
Nor are these Sicilian and Calabrian customs the only Easter
ceremonies which resemble the rites of Adonis. "During the whole of
Good Friday a waxen effigy of the dead Christ is exposed to view in
the middle of the Greek churches and is covered with fervent kisses
by the thronging crowd, while the whole church rings with
melancholy, monotonous dirges. Late in the evening, when it has
grown quite dark, this waxen image is carried by the priests into
the street on a bier adorned with lemons, roses, jessamine, and
other flowers, and there begins a grand procession of the multitude,
who move in serried ranks, with slow and solemn step, through the
whole town. Every man carries his taper and breaks out into doleful
lamentation. At all the houses which the procession passes there are
seated women with censers to fumigate the marching host.
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