The Yezidis have a regular hierarchy of seven orders of priesthood. They hold a great annual feast at Sheikh Adi in October; which is continued for eight days, and is attended by all the faithful who can come. Layard was present on two such occasions, and shared in the feasting and merry-making; but no unbeliever has ever been permitted to witness the rites and ceremonies enacted within the temple itself. Pilgrimage to Sheikh Adi is incumbent on every Yezidi; but he is not commanded to pray; and he leaves that duty to his priests. Fasting can also be performed by deputy; and a group of Yezidis will select one of their number to do all their fasting for them, confessing to him the acts which need expiation, and paying him a capitation fee for carrying out the corresponding penances.
The Yezidis understand the nature of an oath, but the oath must be properly administered; and, lest any of the sect should appear as witnesses in our own courts of justice, it may be convenient to state exactly how the thing is done. A circle is drawn round the man to whom the oath is propounded, and he is told “All within that circle is the property of Melek Taüs. Now answer falsely if you dare![{106}]” One would have thought that to the Father of Lies falsehood would be the one thing most pleasing. But apparently when you are put to your purgation it is most emphatically otherwise. So we may conclude that the Prince of Darkness is really a gentleman after all.
The distinctive costume of the men consists of white tunic, trousers and jacket, with a scarlet turban and sash. The women wear the same costume, except that the tunic is longer and reaches nearly to the ankle; and they also have an oblong red mantle, draped from the left shoulder under the right arm.
We quitted Sheikh Adi in the course of the forenoon, the young prior accompanying us to the monastery gate in order to bid us farewell. He would accept no payment for our entertainment, representing that it was the custom of the monastery to keep open house for its visitors;[57] but “out of love for us he could not refuse” the gift that we proffered instead. We followed a very steep and rugged pathway, clambering out of the glen up the hillside immediately opposite; and from the notch at the summit we got our last view of that unhallowed Hoodoo House, and saw once more to the southward the ocean-like levels of Mosul.
Being now so deeply entered in devilry we had resolved to top off our orgy by paying our respects to the Satanic Pontiff, Ali Beg the Mira of the Yezidis, whose home lay close to our road. A descent even rougher than the ascent led us down to the terrace of heath land from which the mountains arise; and here, on a sort of cape jutting out over the lower plain country, we came upon the Mira’s castle—a large defensible house with a walled courtyard. A beautifully clear little river issues from a spring just above it, and girdles the base of the hill on which the “castle” stands; and along the banks of the stream lies the Yezidi village of Baadri, one of their principal settlements in the district of Sheikhan.
The castle seemed pretty well garrisoned; for plenty of[{107}] men were in evidence when we dismounted in the courtyard. But it is only constructed of jess work; and the cracks which showed conspicuously in the walls of the Mira’s reception room suggested that repairs were getting a bit overdue.
This diwan khana is a good-sized vaulted chamber; and its whitewashed walls were scrawled all over with rough pencil drawings of steam-boats and locomotives; as though the Mira’s visitors had been trying to explain to him the nature of these monstrosities, neither of which can be seen within a journey of ten days. The room was empty when we entered, but the Mira appeared almost immediately, and seated us beside him on the dais at the end.
The High Priest of the Devil is a pronounced Anglophil,[58] a fact which will doubtless be deemed significant by our country’s continental friends. He is also on terms of traditional amity with Mar Shimun, the Catholicos of the “Nestorian” Christians; for though the Christians abhor the “Devil Worshippers” most piously, both millets are driven into sympathy by the common oppression of the Kurds.
Ali Beg was rather a big man, as men go in the mountain districts; probably about six feet high, and about forty-five years of age. He wore a dark brown abba with gold embroidery round the collar; but we could make out but little of his features, as he kept his face closely muffled in the folds of his red Yezidi turban. This, however, was not to be attributed to any desire to imitate the veiled prophet of Khorassan, but only to the fact that he had a bad cold; an indisposition which had prevented his intended journey to Mosul. His manner was melancholy and depressed, as befitted the chieftain of a persecuted people; but perhaps this also, more prosaically, may be partly attributed to the cold.
He was attended by a Yezidi Sheikh, a very handsome man with a long black beard, wearing a white turban, and[{108}] a gown and abba of soft dove-coloured brown. The Sheikhs are the second order of the Yezidi hierarchy; the Cawwals or priests forming the third order, and Pirs, Kuchaks, Fakirs and Mollas being entrusted with various minor rites.