The Kourbana as celebrated in the Syrian villages reminds me both of the great communion gatherings of the Scottish Highlands and the Church service which, in my childhood, ushered in the revelry of the village wake or feast. The festivals which, as in England, fall on the feast of the patron saint of the village are the great gaieties of Syrian life, and even the Kurd cannot altogether overshadow them. After the celebration of the Kourbana at dawn, when the crowds are frequently so great that the church is filled by several successive congregations of communicants, the day is spent in visiting, and in every house fruit, sweetmeats, and tea are provided for all comers, and arak, if it be obtainable, forms a part of the entertainment. Dances and games are kept up all day, and at its close many are drunk and disorderly. These are the occasions when fighting with the Moslems is apt to take place.
Men and women, of course, dance separately, and the women much in the background. The dancing, as I have seen it, is slow and stately. A number of either sex join hands in a ring, and move round to slow music, at times letting go each other's hands for the purpose of gesticulation and waving of handkerchiefs. It is not unlike the national dance of the Bakhtiaris. The women not only keep in retirement on this but on all occasions. They never sit at meat with the men, but take their food afterwards in private—indeed, I strongly suspect that they eat the leavings of their superiors. It is not, however, only the women who occupy a subordinate position. Young men treat not only their fathers but their elder brothers with extreme respect; and when there are guests at table the sons do not sit down with the fathers, but wait on the guests, and take their own meals, like the women, afterwards.
The Syrians call Easter "The Great Feast" and Christmas "The Little Feast." At the former, eggs coloured red are lavishly bestowed. The festival of the Epiphany also receives great honour, but it is curious that a people who believe that they owe their Christianity to the Wise Men should not keep this feast so much in commemoration of them as of our Lord's baptism. So much does the latter view preponderate, that the Urmi Christians call it by a name which means "The New Waters." Here in the mountains, however, it is called "The Brightness." During the night before the celebration of the Kourbana on the Feast of the Epiphany it is customary to plunge into frozen pools! "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" they hold with us, and it is of great interest to recognise this fact in the midst of many superstitions and even puerilities.
It is impossible by any language to convey an idea of the poverty and meanness, the blackness and accumulations of dust, the darkness and the gloom of the Syrian churches, of which this one is a favourable specimen, typifying, I fear, too truly the gross ignorance, indifference, and superstition in which bishops, priests, and people are buried. And yet they are "faithful unto death." My daily wonder is that people who know so little will for that little suffer the loss of all things. Apostasy would be immediate emancipation from terror and ruin, but it is nearly unknown. Their churches are like the catacombs. Few things can be more pathetic than a congregation standing in the dark and dismal nave, kissing the common wooden cross, and passing from hand to hand the kiss of peace, while the priest, in dress like their own, with girdle and stole of the poorest material, moves among the ancient Liturgies in front of the dusty sanctuary, leading the worshippers in prayers and chants which have come down from the earliest ages of Christianity; from the triumphant Church of the East to the persecuted remnant of to-day.
I. L. B.
LETTER XXIX (Continued)
Who is or is not in this house it is hard to say. Mirza tells me that there are 115 guests to-day! Among them are a number of Tyari men, whose wild looks, combined with the splendour of their dress and arms, are a great interest. Their chief man has invited me to visit their valley, and they say if I will go to them they will give me "a fine suit of clothes." I need it much, as doubtless they have observed! Their jackets are one mass of gold embroidery (worked by Jews), their shirts, with hanging sleeves, are striped satin; their trousers, of sailor cut, are silk, made from the cocoons of their own silkworms, woven with broad crimson stripes on a white ground, on which is a zigzag pattern; and their handsome jack-boots are of crimson leather. With their white or red peaked felt hats and twisted silk pagris, their rich girdles, jewelled daggers, and inlaid pistols, they are very imposing. Female dress is very simple.
These Tyari men come from one of the wildest and most inaccessible valleys of Central Kurdistan, and belong to those Ashirets or tribal Syrians who, in their deep and narrow rifts, are practically unconquered by the Turks and unmolested by the Kurds, and maintain a fierce semi-independence under their maleks (lit. kings) or chiefs. They are wild and lawless mountaineers, paying taxes only when it suits them; brave, hardy, and warlike, preserving their freedom by the sword; fierce, quarrelsome among themselves, and having little in common with the rayahs or subject Syrians of the plains except their tenacious clinging to their ancient Church, with its Liturgies and rites, and their homage to our Lord Jesus as divine. They and their priests, many of whom cannot even read, are sunk in the grossest ignorance. They love revenge, are careless of human life, and are wilder and more savage than their nominal masters. It is among these people, who purchase their freedom at the cost of absolute isolation, that Mr. Browne is going to spend the coming winter, in the hope of instructing their priests and deacons, to whom at present guns are more than ordinances. He has been among them already, and has won their good-will.