'Turkish Arabia: Being an Account of an Official Tour in Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia, 1886-87' [‎23r] (45/72)

29
ILlh:relfts Sa idtrant e we^^deTu^ot^
^tStd 'Scrib:^ 6 1; t t E r an ' out ? ost ' noe ^^ c -- ea >-e s
reio-n of order has been 1 1 ' f ^ 1 j S ev ^ ent t ^ at: between then and now the
reign order has been largely introduced into it under Ottoman rule. To suppose that
Mosu P a as ;r k V : rn0rS a ? b . ad W0Uld be aS abSUrd as t0 set them a " down as good The
Mosul Pasliahk appears to be just now very well administered, and the decree of orotec
rel :e^a1ve Pr :t P 1 ty -- eS t" S,le t t , h . r0Ugh0Ut * iS ' -n^^ ^
™yerle!t in the U ' \ t"" IbrMmSidki, is an official with whom any
t ,1 n j W0 , n " g t be con'""; young and hopeful, yet experienced vigorous
of ra^andTe 6 ! ate r at . Consta D ntino P ,e . an d apparently above the influence equalty
aLTe 1 ! f T inclinations. But tor the vestiges of byegone times strewn around it
d the elevated site it occupies, the town of at most a couple of hundred houses in which
wate? Br T T ^ ^ ^ P 1 ^ better off for
and : Bro ° ks . resemb '"S mountain torrents everywhere form themselves out of springs,
Lems to he rr^^l'" T™'/ CUltiVati0n disa PP ear in the thirst y soil - Agriculture
seems to be almost the only industry, and dried figs the principal export. On a mule
to mfueT ; t ,T! r u refUSing t0 Se " itS P'"' 1 n0t a " S ' n j 4r couId y ield the material
to make one^ So far it had been fine since Mosul, but the rain now began, and lasted, off
a don for three d ays, thick mists rolling over everything. Weather apart, the
a go s oppe . ie al-afar muleteers having been released as promised had vanished
s arp Strange to say, only one mule fit for transport was brought up for sale. This was
oug i or a out £10, and though not much to look at proved unccmmonly good to go,
a e o carry, on the top of its load, a heavy man from Sinjar to KarhalS, and walk clean
away, when so weighted, from the best horse—a lesson not always to judge by looks. As
or hiring, that proved even more out of the question than buying. Nothing for it there-
ore but send a man to Mosul, to see what could be done there, and stand fast till he came
back This to explain the halt from 23rd December to 5th January at Sin jar, during
which several of the Yazidi villages of the adjoining mountain were visited.
To enter here on an account of the Yazidis, and their tenets, if tenets they can be
The Yazidfs. called, would be to extend these notes too far without
. .. . anything new to offer. Not Christians, and as certainly
not Muslims, the question is what are they? Of several other possible explanations of
eir istinctive designation, that deriving it from Yazd or Eezid used in classical Persian
poetry as a name for God * is almost certainly the right one. But while recognising, how
ever imperfectly, a Supreme and Beneficent Creator, the a canny" attitude maintained by
' em i a * . f same t' 1116 towards the principle of Evil (in which by the way they are not
singu ar)t has obtained for them, especially among Muslims, the name of "Devil-worshippers
ne sensible trait they have, and that is an aversion to enter into religious talk with
strangers. This, coupled with their ignorance, and the absence among them of places of
worship, sacred writings, or literature of any description, increases the difficulty of making
them out. Of their cult it is sufficient here to say that it seems a mere survival of Pagan-
^m, Sabianism, and Zoroastrianism running into one another, with the inevitable Pan-
t eistic evelopment, homage and adoration being paid to God through some of the chief
manifestations of His power, and goodness, notably the sun that illuminates, and water
t at fertilizes the earth. In appearance they are not very unlike their natural enemies,
t e Kurds, from whom, however, they are distinguishable at a glance, owing to their
making a point of wearing the common eastern shirt closed up to the neck instead of,
Muslim fashion, slit at one side. Within the present century they were warlike and
formidable, having their principal strongholds then as now round Mosul and in the
Sinjar range. A combination against them among the Kurdi tribes was the first thing
that broke them, after which their subjugation by the Osmanlis followed. On both occa
sions they were massacred by thousands, partly suffocated in the caves where they had
taken refuge, and partly destroyed with cannon.
On 26th December an excursion was made to the Yazidi village of Mih-ri-kin, the
A Yazidi village K4im MakAm and his mounted escort accompanying. This
is one of their oldest settlements. Layard saw it in 1843
* Thus, for example, Hafiz :
f Vide, e.g., Burns' "Address to the Deil."