Steely Dan- Black Cow (Piano And Vocals Demo Snippet)

Steely Dan- Black Cow (Piano and Vocals Demo Snippet)

Source:

Vintage photo of women mourning the death of Christ, while they accompany the Virgin during an Easter procession.

Photo taken in Cassano Allo Ionio, Calabria, Italy by Carlo Paone in the 1980s.

Professional mourning or paid mourning is an occupation that originates from Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures. Professional mourners, also called moirologists, were compensated to lament or deliver a eulogy and help comfort and entertain the grieving family.

In ancient Egypt, the mourners would be making an ostentatious display of grief which included tearing at dishevelled hair, loud wailing, beating of exposed breasts, and smearing the body with dirt. There are many inscriptions on tombs and pyramids of crowds of people following a body throughout the funerary procession.

However, the most important of these women were the two impersonating the two godddesses Isis and Nephthys.

Isis and Nephthys were both Egyptian goddesses who were believed to play a special role when someone died. They were to be impersonated as a mourning ritual by professional mourners. In most inscriptions seen, one of them is at either end of the corpse.

Meanwhile, Ancient Greek mourners were known as moirologists. In true Greek fashion, it was a position that added a dramatic flair to funerary practices. Moirologists gave performances that represented the life of the deceased, and they led chants with cries and wails to honor the dead.

In Roman history, mourners were hired to accompany funerary rituals and were often thought to be theatrical. In early history the public mourners, called praeficiae, would follow musicians in a funeral procession to sing for the dead.

Reports of the survival of this use occur in even more recent times in Southern Italy, especially in Sicily, Apulia and Calabria, where until the 1980s, in some mountain villages of the hinterlands, it was possible to witness such harrowing scenes.

Follow us on Instagram, @calabria_mediterranea

seeking, yearning, reaching hands

1926 Illustration by Georges Pavis for "La Vie Parisienne" magazine.