Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon

by Austen Henry Layard

It was night before we reached Bukra, where we were welcomed with great hospitality. The best house in the village had been made ready for us, and was scrupulously neat and clean, as the houses of the Yezidis usually are. The elders of Bukra came to me after we had dined, and seated themselves respectfully and decorously round the room. They were not averse to the reconciliation I proposed, received the hostile chief without hesitation, and promised to accompany me on the morrow to the adjoining village of Ossofa, with which they were also at war. In the morning we visited several houses in the village. They were all neat and clean. The women received us without concealing their faces, which are, however, far from pleasing, their features being irregular, and their complexion sallow. Those who are married dress entirely in white, with a white kerchief under their chins, and another over their heads held by the agal, or woollen cord, of the Bedouins. The girls wear white shirts and drawers, but over them colored zabouns, or long silk dresses, open in front, and confined at the waist by a girdle ornamented with pieces of silver. They twist gay kerchiefs round their heads, and adorn themselves with coins, and glass and amber beads, when their parents are able to procure them. But the Yezidis of the Sinjar are now very poor, and nearly all the trinkets of the women have long since fallen into the hands of the Turkish soldiery, or have been sold to pay taxes and arbitrary fines. The men have a dark complexion, black and piercing eyes, and frequently a fierce and forbidding countenance. They are of small stature, but have well proportioned limbs strongly knit together, and are muscular, active, and capable of bearing great fatigue. Their dress consists of a shirt, loose trowsers and cloak, all white, and a black turban, from beneath which their hair falls in ringlets.

The Yezidis are, by one of their religious laws, forbidden to wear the common Eastern shirt open in front, and this article of their dress is always closed up to the neck. This is a distinctive mark of the sect, by which its members may be recognised at a glance. The language of the people of Sinjar is Kurdish, and few speak Arabic.

As the people of Ossofa, or Usifa, were at war with their neighbours, and as this was one of the principal seats of rebellion and discontent, I was anxious to have an interview with its chief. The position of Ossofa is very picturesque. It stands on the edge of a deep ravine; behind it are lofty crags and narrow gorges, whose sides are filled with natural caverns. On overhanging rocks, towering above the village, are two ziarehs, or holy places, of the Yezidis, distinguished from afar by their white fluted spires. Pulo, the chief, met us at the head of the principal inhabitants and led me to his house, where a large assembly was soon collected to discuss the principal object of my visit. The chiefs of Mirkan and Bukra were induced to make offers of peace, which were accepted, and, after much discussion, the terms of an amicable arrangement were agreed to and ratified by general consent. Sheep were slain to celebrate the event.

We passed the night at Aldina, in the house of Murad, one of the imprisoned chiefs, whose release I had obtained before leaving Mosul. I was able to announce the good tidings of his approaching return to his wife, to whom he had been lately married, and who had given birth to a child during his absence.

Below Aldina stands a remarkable ziareh, inclosed by a wall of cyclopean dimensions. In the plain beneath, in the midst of a grove of trees, is the tomb of Cawal Hussein, the father of Cawal Yusuf, who died in the Sinjar during one of his periodical visitations. He was a priest of sanctity and influence, and his grave is still visited as a place of pilgrimage. Sacrifices of sheep are made there, but they are merely in remembrance of the deceased, and have no particular religious meaning attached to them. The flesh is distributed amongst the poor, and a sum of money is frequently added. Approving the ceremony as one tending to promote charity and kindly feeling, I gave a sheep to be sacrificed at the tomb of the Cawal, and one of my fellow travellers added a second, the carcases being afterwards divided among the needy.

A messenger brought me word during the night that Suttum had returned from his tribe, and was waiting with a party of horsemen to escort us to his tents. I determined, therefore, to cross at once to the Belled by a direct though difficult pass. We visited Nogray and Ameera, before entering the gorge leading to the pass. Only two other villages of any importance, Semoka and Jafri, were left unseen. The ascent of the mountain was extremely precipitous, and we were nearly two hours in reaching the summit. We then found ourselves on a broad green platform, thickly wooded with dwarf oak. I was surprised to see snow still lying in the sheltered nooks. On both sides of us stretched the great Mesopotamian plains. To the south, glittering in the sun, was a small salt lake about fifteen miles distant from the Sinjar, called by the Arabs, Munaif. From it the Bedouins, when in their northern pastures, obtain their supplies of salt.

We descended to the Belled through a narrow valley, thick with oak and various shrubs, and were nearly five hours in crossing the mountain. Suttum and his Bedouin companions were waiting for us, but were not anxious to start before the following morning. A Yezidi snake-charmer, with his son, a boy of seven or eight years old, came to my tents in the afternoon, and exhibited his tricks in the midst of a circle of astonished beholders. He first pulled from a bag a number of snakes knotted together, which the bystanders declared to be of the most venomous kind. The child took the reptiles fearlessly from his father, and placing them in his bosom allowed them to twine themselves round his neck and arms. The Bedouins gazed in mute wonder at these proceedings, but when the Sheikh, feigning rage against one of the snakes which had drawn blood from his son, seized it, and biting off its head with his teeth threw the writhing body amongst them, they could no longer restrain their horror and indignation. They uttered loud curses on the infidel snake-charmer and his kindred to the remotest generations. Suttum did not regain his composure during the whole evening, frequently relapsing into profound thought, then suddenly breaking out in a fresh curse upon the Sheikh, who, he declared, had a very close and unholy connection with the evil one. Many days passed before he had completely got over the horror the poor Yezidi’s feats had caused him.

Suttum had changed his deloul for a white mare of great beauty, named Athaiba. She was of the race of Kohaila, of exquisite symmetry, in temper docile as a lamb, yet with an eye of fire, and of a proud and noble carriage when excited in war or in the chase. His saddle was the simple stuffed pad generally used by the Bedouins, without stirrups. A halter alone served to guide the gentle animal.

We followed a pathway over the broken ground at the foot of the Sinjar, crossing deep watercourses worn by the small streams, which lose themselves in the desert. The villages, as on the opposite slope, or “Shomal,” are high up on the hill-side. We encamped, after a short ride, upon a pleasant stream beneath the village of Jedaila. We remained here a whole day in order to visit Suttum’s tribe, which was now migrating towards the Sinjar. Early in the morning a vast crowd of moving objects could be faintly perceived on the horizon. These were the camels and sheep of the Boraij, followed by the usual crowd of men, women, children, and beasts of burden. We watched them as they scattered themselves over the plain, and gradually settled in different pastures. By midday the encampment had been formed, and all the stragglers collected. We could scarcely distinguish the black tents, and their site was only marked by curling wreaths of white smoke.

In the afternoon Suttum’s father, Rishwan, came to us, accompanied by several Sheikhs of the Boraij. He rode on a white deloul, celebrated for her beauty and swiftness. His saddle and the neck of the animal were profusely adorned with woollen tassels of many colors, glass beads, and small shells, after the manner of the Arabs of Nejd. The well-trained dromedary having knelt at the door of my tent, the old man alighted, and throwing his arms round my neck kissed me on both shoulders. He was tall, and of noble carriage. His beard was white with age, but his form was still erect and his footsteps firm. Rishwan was one of the bravest warriors of the Shammar. He was a noble specimen of the true Bedouin, both in character and appearance. With the skill and daring of the Arab warrior, he united the hospitality, generosity, and good faith of a hero of Arab romance.