Note 9 — Chapter III · Christian Folk Festivals

Although the picture given by Dubois of a simple church service he attended in Koulpe, Armenia, is not the ceremony of Maundy Thursday, it has one or two strokes of native color that make it impossible to omit.9 The church was poor and simple, the walls were built of stone cemented by clay or bad lime. Two rows of large beams neither squared nor trimmed supported the earthen roof in the manner of columns. At the farther end was a kind of niche, partitioned off by means of soiled curtains, thus forming a sanctuary where stood the priest, clothed in torn robe, to read the prayers. All of the little boys of the village encircled him, kneeling and chanting or reciting prayers, turn by turn. The eldest placed themselves outside of the choir and knelt on straw mats or on sheep’s skins which marked their customary places, and kissed the earth, or murmured very low the words of the priest, or responded to the chanting at high pitch. The women held themselves apart, their faces half veiled, filling the back of the church behind the men, and, with lowered heads, were the first to leave.