Editors: Razieh Bahri
Matin Bahri

Special thanks:
Alireza Bahri
Mani Mosaffa

& Dr Jaleh Hassas khah

Reciting elegies in “Alam vachini” was come from a very old time, from the story of “Siavash mourning”. It has been forgotten because of two elements: the passage of time and the heroic movement of Karbala’s martyrs. Of course, “Alam vachini”, nowadays, is done after harvest and also in Moharram. After the ceremony the alam was kept in the mosque and Alam-Rakht (the cloth of the alam) was stored in a bundle. They sometimes had a wrestling match and at the evening a horse racing among the people who were returning, was performed. In the areas were rice cultivated, the ceremony for Alam vachini was in a way that they cooked rice from the rice which has been stored in Tem-Bijar (the place to store rice). Today, this ceremony has been turned to a religious ceremony in Moharram and that wooden alam has changed into a metal and decorated one and does not belong to a certain family. But some villages such as Chaldasht perform this ceremony the same as the past and hold it in Mordad and Shahrivar in place known as Shah-Shahidan. In some parts of mountainous areas in the east of Guilan a ceremony is done that is very similar to Alam vachini. In Tourar, a place in east of Kelishom, there is a bogheh called as “Tourar Astaneh”. This ceremony is performed there. There is a natural pond near there that many ducks immigrate there and nobody hunt them because of that bogheh.