DEVIL WORSHIPPERS

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1935, Page 15

DEVIL WORSHIPPERS

GALA DAY AT SHEIKH ADI. LIGHT UPON WEIRD PEOPLE. Each side of the steep pebbly path was lined with picturesque ruffians who clapped their hands at our approach in that boneless way peculiar to the East. At the same time the women intoned a high-pitched fluted chant, long sustained on one note. Such is the welcome accorded visitors by the Yez. ldi s> ° r devil worshippers, of Sheikh Adi, Irak, writes the Bagdad correspondent of the Morning Post. ■ , By no means always, however, for except at certain festivals, when they collect at their chief shrine, they live in villages some distance away, leaving the shrine to the priests, whose only companions are lizards, basking on the sun-hot rocks. . The head of these people is. known as the Min He can do no wrong and his word is absolute. He. has the power of death over’ his followers and. may command their womenfolk to his will unquestioned. The law of succession is an easy one, and hereditary. The rightful heir may establish his right by murdering his predecessor. 'lf he succeeds, automatically he assumes all privileges. But should he fail in an attempt, to assassinate the head of his family his probable fate is death by torture. The present Mir is a tall and handsome man with lack-lustre eyes and slim, languid hands, and a silky black beard which ends in a corkscrew curl. On gala days the Mir’s small daughter wears one of the largest and most magnificent belts in the village, of a type worn only by unmarried girl. It is of stiffened and somewhat shabby velvet, fastened by two enormous chased silver clasps, each about four inches broad, six inches long, and studded with uncut jewels. She wears beneath this belt, as does every girl, a white shirt and a full swinging skirt of bright colours reaching to her ankles. Above the belt she wears a velvet waistcoat well, bedecked with metal braid. FLAMING HAIR. The girl’s crowning glory is the headdress, in which gold or silver coins spirally overlap each other, forming a complete skull cap. A scarf • with a fringed border is twisted loosely below, between the strands of which peeps a bright brow-band of other jingling coins. Some girls wear filigree ear-rings stmdded with jewels. Men and women alike dress their hair in six or eight tight plaits, terminating in brightly-coloured woollen tassels. The men mostly wear white—for it is a matter of personal pride for them to vie with one another in the matter of spotless linen—baggy Kurdish trousers and a shirt which is always kept fastened al the neck. They believe that in the next world they will be given a sister who will loosen the neck band for them. Some of the small boys look most engaging, their wide blue eyes gazing fearlessly from below fluffy, fair, bobbed hair and a straight-cut fringe beneath an embroidered skull cap—until’ one of them removes his cap, revealing that the top of his head is shaved, leaving only a ragged fringe of long hair all round. The colouring of the tribes is either of the fair and almost Scandinavian type or dark and swarthy.' Many of the children have their black hair treated with henna until it flames a deep Titian red. • Almost every four months Sheikh Adi is thronged with noise and laughter occasional shots as some lighthearted young blood looses off his rifle into the cobblestones at his feet, booths filled with brightly-striped ' sweetmeats and red cotton turban cloths, and all the attendant life and bustle of pilgrimage. ' Festival time is dancing time, and outside the darkened and silent temple the sun blazes down. Beneath the sacred ; mulberry tree the dance shuffles on unceasingly for several days. CIRCLE ROUND MUSIC. Fifty or sixty villagers take their place in a close circle formed around the music, made by a flute and two drums. After their first shyness has worn off, here and there girls push their way into the circle, linking arms and continually shuffling around, encouraged by one or two experts in the centre, who dip and spin, whirl and pirouette. The footwork is intricate.. Occasionally a massed flash of white'shows all the arms in their white sleeves, lunging into the centre for an instant, until they are lost again behind'the svvaying bodies. All day long the dances continue until the sun sets, when a white ox is led round the base of a fluted white shrine, before being sacrificed to the god of the sun. Pilgrims brink’ offerings of wood and oil to the temple. Before stepping with their burdens over the sacred threshold they kiss the holy black serpent carved in stone beside the entrance. There was not only one Flood, but two, say the Yezidis. As the waters of the second rose the Ark floated on to Mount Sinjar, where it was pierced by the rock and was likely to sink. A serpent thrust his body into the hole and kept it there until the’waters had subsided and the danger passed. But thus saving the lives of the other inmates the serpent has since been an object of veneration. ’ ’ Within the temple the further wall is lost in lofty gloom. The main chamber is bare save for a square sunken bath of holy water, central supporting pillars and wall niches for saucers containing] wicks and oil. A passageway leads to the tomb of. Sheikh Adi himself, which is covered .with faded but dignified cloths of red and green,' reputed, to conceal wonderful carvings. All is in comparative darkness, fitfully illuminated by crude tapers held aloft. Beyond the tomb is a veritable Cavern of the Forty Thieves, lined with great blackened jars of oil and hollowed out of the very rock face. At the far end a few camel-hair robes are spread about, purporting to be vestments of the saint himself. Yet, as he died in the middle of the, twelfth century, and the cloth is unprotected in any way, it scarcely seems probable that the vestments can claim to be genuine. Outside the dance at length ceases. The little village clings to the wooded mountainside, tenanted only by a handful of aesthetic priests who have their being in the sun-drenched silence.