culture

Funerals are conducted in special manners. When a person is dead the mula assisted generally by a near friend of the deceased. Washes the body which is then placed in a shroud. Women assemble, weep an relate the virtues of the deceased. The body is conveyed to the grave the very day of the decease. In Astor there is something in the shapes of a bier for conveying the dead. At Gilgit two poles across which little bits of wood are placed sideways and then fastened. Serve for the same purpose. The person who carry the body think it is meritorious act. The women accompany the body for some fifty yards and then return of its interment. Sometimes the grave is well cemented and a kind of small valut is made over it with pieces of wood closely jammed together. A pir or saint receives a hewn stone standing as a sign-post from the tomb . I have heard people there say that he was killed at the place in order to provide the country with a shrine