Parsee Religious Ceremonial Objects in the United States National Museum
PARSES RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL OBJECTS IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.^ By I. M. Casanowicz, Assistant Curator, Division of Old ^VorUl Archeology, United States National Museum. INTRODUCTION. THE PABSEES. The Parsees are the descendants of the ancient Persians, who, at the overthrow of their country by the Arabs in G41 A. D., remained faithful to Zoroastrianism, which was, for centuries previous to the Mohammedan conquest, the state and national religion of Persia. They derive their name of Parsees from the province of Pars or Fars, broadly employed for Persia in general. According to the census of 1911 the number of Parsees in India, including Aden, the Andaman Islands, and Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, China, and Japan, amounted to 100,499, of whom 80,980 belonged to the Bombay Presidency.2 About 10,000 are scattered in their former homeland of Persia, mainly in Yezd and Kerman, where they are Imown by the name of Gebers, Guebers, or Gabars, derived by some from the Arabic Kafir, infidel. persian, zoroaster (avesta, zarathushtea ; pahlavi texts, zartdsht ; modern zaeddsht). The religious beliefs and practices of the Parsees are based on the is, teachings of Zoroaster, the Prophet of the ancient Iranians ; that those Aryans who at an unknown early date separated from the Aryo- Indians and spread from their old seats on the high plateau north of the Hindu Kush westward into Media and Persia on the great plateau between the plain of the Tigris in the west and the valley of the Indus in the east, the Caspian Sea and the Turanian desert in lA brief description of part of tlie collection described in this paper appeared in the American Anthropologist, new series, vol.
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