is held in
contempt, and the companies were formerly recruited from the lowest
sources. The disabilities under which they lay have, however, been
removed; a Dramatic Reform Association has been organized by a number of
noblemen and scholars, and a theatre on European lines built (see
JAPAN).

5. PERSIAN AND OTHER ASIATIC, POLYNESIAN AND PERUVIAN DRAMA

Siam.

Java, Sumatra, &c.

Such dramatic examples of the drama as may be discoverable in Siam will
probably have to be regarded as belonging to a branch of the Indian
drama. The drama of the Malay populations of Java and the neighbouring
island of Sumatra also resembles the Indian, to which it may have owed
what development it has reached. The Javanese, as we learn, distinguish
among the lyrics sung on occasions of popular significance the _panton_,
a short simile or fable, and the _tcharita_, a more advanced species,
taking the form of dialogue and sung or recited by actors proper. From
the _tcharita_ the Javanese drama, which in its higher forms treats the
stories of gods and kings, appears to have been derived. As in the
Indian drama, the functions of the director or manager are of great
importance; as in the Greek, the performers wear masks, here made of
wood. The comic drama is often represented in both Java and Sumatra by
parties of strollers consisting of two men and a woman--a troop
sufficient for a wide variety of plot.

Persian.

Among other more highly civilized Asiatic peoples, the traces of the
dramatic art are either few or late. The originally Aryan Persians
exhibit no trace of the drama in their ample earlier literature. But in
its later national development the two species, widely different from
one another, of the religious drama or mystery and of the popular comedy
or farce have made their appearance--the former in a growth of singular
interest.

The teazies.

Of the Persian _teazies_ (lamentations or complaints) the subjects are
invariably derived from religious history, and more or less directly
connected with the "martyrdoms" of the house of Ali. The performance of
these episodes or scenes takes place during the first ten days of the
month of Muharram, when the adherents of the great Shi'ite sect all over
Persia and Mahommedan India commemorate the deaths of the Prophet and
his daughter Fatima, the mother of Ali, the martyrdoms of Ali himself,
shamefully murdered in the sanctuary, and of his unoffending son Hasan,
done to de