Identifier: annualreportofbu0v1powe (find matches)
Title: Annual report of the Bureau of ethnology to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ..
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Powell, John Wesley, 1834-1902
Subjects:
Publisher: Washington, D.C., G.P.O.
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University Hawaii, Joseph F. Smith Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Consortium of Church Libraries and Archives

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o solidly as almostto resist absolutely the ravages of time. The oldest and smallest of thetowers was constructed about 200 years since, when the Parsees firstsettled in Bombay, and is used only for a certain family. The next old-est was erected in 1756, and the three others during the next century.A sixth tower of square shape stands alone, and is only used for criminals. The writer proceeds as follows: Though wholly destitute of ornament and even of the simplest moldings, the para-pet of each tower possesses an extraordinary coping, which instantly attracts andfascinates the gaze. It is a coping formed, not of dead stone, but of living vultures.These birds, on the occasion of my visit, had settled themselves side by side in per-fect order and in a complete circle around the parapets of the towers, with their headspointing inwards, and so lazily did they sifc there, and so motionless was their wholemien, that, except for their color, they might have been carved out of the stone-work.
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Fig. 3.—Parsee Towers of Silence (interior). tarrow.) PARSEE BURIAL. 105 No one is allowed to enter the towers except the corpse-hearers, noris any one permitted within thirty feet of the immediate precincts. Amodel was shown Mr. Williams, and from it he drew up this description: Imagine a round column or massive cylinder, 12 or 14 feet high and at least 40 feetin diameter, built throughout of solid stone except in the center, where a well, 5 or 0feet across, leads down to an excavation under the masonry, containing four drainsat right angles to each other, terminated by holes filled with charcoal. Round theupper surface of this solid circular cylinder, and completely hiding the interior fromview, is a stone parapet, 10 or 12 feet in height. This it is which, when viewed fromthe outside, appears to form one piece with the solid stone-work, and being, like it,covered with chuuam, gives the whole the appearance of a low tower. The uppersurface of the solid stone column is divided into

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