A STRANGE IDOL.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13507, 29 August 1912, Page 8

A STRANGE IDOL.

The British Museum acquired, a few weeks ago, what the "Daily Telegraph" de-scribes as "ono of the strangest and most interesting of tho idols to which any heathen race has ever bow-od down in its blindness." This was a chased and damascened steel peacock, which, it is believed, used to bo the idol of an obscure sect in Mesopotamia called the Yezidis. Tho peacock is in some respects a- puzzle to experts in ethnology. It bears on its tail representations of three people, ono of whom is supposed to be the Almighty, and there era lengthy inscriptions, which, so far, no ono has succeeded in interpreting. The theory is that originally the peacock was intended to symboliso the powers of darkness which tho Yezidis worship. They are Devil-worshippers, their religion being based on the belief that Lucifer, who was only carrying out the pre-destined purpose of tho Almighty, was given a chanco of regaining the position ho had forfeited by his rebellion, and availed himself of it. The "Daily Telegraph" says that Burne-Jones had the same idea in mind • in designing the mosaics for tho American Church in Rome, for tlio niche of highest honour among the- Archangels j is there represented as emptj', ready for ! the rebel spirit, should ho choos-o to re- j turn. It is believed by some that the Yezidis are tho solo representatives today of the once famous Gnostics, who, for their complicated system of daemonology, were relentlessly persecuted during tho second century of tho Christian era. Vory little is known about the Yozidis, who live in small detached communities besido the upper roaches of the Tigris. Ono of their most remarkable characteristics i3 an intense hatred of tho colour bluo in any form. A traveller records an occasion on which a small gathering of Yezidi notables that had been called together to meet him, broke up in disgust when they saw that ho had by inadvertence put in his buttonhole a small bluo flower that he had picked by tho waysido.