It is further illustrated by an Assyrian cylinder, engraved in the Aihenceum Franqais for the 5th of January, 1856, and which represents a priest making offerings to a deity, repre­sented under the form of a hatchet.*

The lion, it is almost needless to remark, was an Assyrian emblem ; but with regard to the comb, it would be difficult to venture a surmise, except it were that the rude carving was meant to represent something which has been taken for a comb.

It does not appear who was the first to bring against the Izedis the charge adduced against several sects in Western Asia, of putting out the lights upon the occasion of certain festivals, and indulging in indiscriminate intercourse. Those who are said to indulge in such abominable practices have been called Chiraok Kush or Chirajh Sundiran, " Extinguishers of Lights."* Such a charge, however, the writer was led at once, from what little opportunity he had of observing the character of these persecuted people, to denounce as having all the appearance of being " a base calumny, assailing human nature in general, while aimed against the poor Izedis in particular" (Trav. and Res., vol. ii, p. 185); and it is gratifying to find that Mr. Layard, who enjoyed much more extensive opportu­nities of observing the same people, sides with this view of the subject. " The mysteries of the sect", says Layard, " have been traced to the worship introduced by Semiramis into the very mountains they now inhabit,-a worship which, impure in its forms, led to every excess of debauchery and lust. The quiet and inoffensive demeanour of the Yezidis, and the clean­liness and order of their villages, do not certainly warrant these charges."

In another place, describing the picturesque and striking practices at the great annual festival at Sheik Adi, he says, " Thus were probably celebrated ages ago the mysterious rites of the Corybantes, when they met in some consecrated grove. I did not marvel that such wild ceremonies had given rise to those stories of unhallowed rites and obscene mysteries which have rendered the name of Yezidi an abomination in the East. Notwithstanding the uncontrollable excitement which appeared to prevail amongst all present, there were no indecent gestures or unseemly ceremonies. When the musicians and singers were exhausted, the noise suddenly died away; the various groups resumed their previous cheerfulness, and again wandered through the valley, or seated themselves under the trees."

" So far," adds the same authority, " from Sheikh Adi being the scene of the orgies attributed to the Yezidis, the whole valley is held sacred, and no acts, such as the Jewish law has declared to be impure, are permitted within the sacred precincts."

Dr. Frederick Forbes says, in Journal of Koyal Geo. Society, vol. ix, p. 425, " On the tenth day of the moon, in the month of August, they hold a meeting at the tomb of Sheikh Adi, which lasts a day and a night, and at which all the married women and men assemble. After dark the lights are extinguished, and they hold promiscuous intercourse till morning." This was probably from some Mussulman authority.

Near the mausoleum of Sheikh Adi, there existed a low edifice, neatly constructed, and, like all the sacred edifices of the Izedis, kept as pure as repeated coats of whitewash can make it. It is called the Sanctuary of Sheikh Shems, or " of the Sun ;" and it is so built that the first rays of that luminary should as frequently as possible fall upon it. At the great annual festival white oxen are sacrificed to Sheikh Shems, and their flesh is distributed among the poor. " The dedication of the bull to the sun," Mr. Layard remarks, " so generally recog­nised in the religious systems of the ancients, probably originated in Assyria, and the Izedis may have unconsciously preserved a myth of their ancestors." (Nineveh and its Remains,vol. i, p. 289.)

The idea of a myth unconsciously preserved is very much opposed to Mr. Layard's notions of the Izedi devotedness to their faith. Elsewhere (p. 277) he says, " Their devotion to their religion is no less remarkable than that of the Jews; and I remember no instance of a person of full age renouncing his faith. They invariably prefer death, and submit with resig­nation to the tortures inflicted upon them. Even children of tender age, although educated in Turkish harems, and nominally professing the Mussulman religion, have frequently retained in secret the peculiar doctrines of the sect, and have been in communication with Izedi priests." A people so steadfast to the faith of their ancestors are not likely to have preserved a myth unconsciously; on the contrary, the preservation of this and other myths tends to throw a remarkable light upon whom those ancestors, as shadowed forth by Mr. Layard, are likely to have been.

The lighting up of Sheikh Adi, and the illumination of the neighbourhood at the great annual festival, are attended by circumstances which exhibit manifest traces of fire worship. At twilight the Fakirs issue from the mausoleum to fill and trim lamps, placed in niches in the walls of the court yard, and scattered over the buildings on the side of the valley, and even on isolated rocks and in the hollow trunks of trees. Innumer­able stars appear to glitter on the sides of the mountain, and in the dark recesses of the forest. As the guardians of the sacred fires make their way through the crowd to perform their task, men and women pass their right hands through the flames; and after rubbing the right eye-brow with the part which had been purified by the sacred element, they devoutly carried it to their lips. Some, Layard describes, who bore children in their arms, anointed them in like manner; whilst others held out their hands to be touched by those who, less fortunate than themselves, could not reach the flame.

The lamps are votive offerings from pilgrims, or from those who have appealed to Sheikh Adi in times of danger or disease. A yearly sum is given to the guardians of the tomb for oil, and for the support of the priests who tend the lamps. They are lighted every evening as long as the supplies last. In the day time the smoked walls mark the places where they are placed, and Layard says he has observed the Izedis devoutly kissing the blackened stones.

Upon the occasion of his second visit to Sheikh Adi, the Kawal Yusuf confirmed to Mr. Layard the fact of the small Ziyarah being dedicated to the sun, who, he said, is called by the Izedis Wakil al Ardth, " the Lieutenant or Governor of the World." But he denied that they had any particular reverence for fire; the people, he said, passed their hands through the flame of the lamps merely because they belong to the tomb. This statement of the Kawal is, however, manifestly contradicted by the practices of the Izedis. The same priest declared also that their Kablah was the Polar Star, and not the East. This may be, but the evidences of adoration of the sun are too numerous to admit of doubt.

Nothing, indeed, more clearly results from the observations of different travellers than that the Izedis bow in adoration before the rising sun, and kiss his first rays when they strike on a wall or other object near them, like those of other

" Eastern realms, where early Persians run To greet the bless'd appearance of the sun."

Ovid, i, 75.

Mr. Forbes seems to have thought that this adoration of the sun was symbolical of Jesus Christ, but there is nothing to justify such a supposition. We have, indeed, in the rites performed at the annual festival at Sheikh Adi-the votive lamps and their hereditary guardians-the ceremonies observed upon their being lighted up and the reverence paid to them, even to passing the hand through them and kissing the member thus consecrated, as well as in the worship of the sun, remnants -just as much of the Cuthite or Nergal worship-as of that Magian religion which was introduced after its reform by Zardusht or Zoroaster among the Assyrians.

Layard believes that the religion of the early Assyrians was a pure Sabaeanism, in which the heavenly bodies were wor-shipped as mere types of the power and attributes of the Supreme Deity.

The worship of fire, a corruption of Sabaeanism, the same authority tells us, originated or generally prevailed in Assyria about the time of the building of the Khorsabad and Koujunjik edifices.

Dr. Grant pointed out that the system of faiths of the Izedis had points of strong resemblance to the ancient Manichean heresy; and it is probable, he said, that they are a remnant of that heretical sect. This idea, he further argues, derives sup­port from the fact that they seem to have originated in the region where Manes first laboured and propagated his tenets with the greatest success; and from the coincidence of the name of their reputed founder or most revered teacher, Adde, with an active disciple of Manes, of the same name and place of abode.

These suggestions are worthy of consideration and investiga­tion, for it is impossible, notwithstanding Haxthausen's assertion that their religion is not of Parsee origin (for with them Satan is not like Ahriman, a personification of the Evil Principle), not to feel that it is more than likely that their notions of the Evil Being were, in part at least, derived from the Ahriman of the ancient Magi (not wholly so, or they would have also the Good Principle in opposition) and from the secondary or Evil Deity of the Manicheans, which was evidently engrafted on the Oriental philosophy, and is, indeed, to be met with in most of the earlier Arabian Muhammedan writers. The connexion established between Sheikh Adi and Adde, the Manichean teacher, is the more remarkable, as the history of their teacher, and even the date of his existence, have been almost lost by this persecuted sect. It is easy to understand, should such be the case, how the title of Sheikh has been superadded, as it has ridiculously enough in the case of the sun, who appears to be personified among these poor ignorant people by a Sheikh Shems !

Sheikh Nasr informed Layard that the Izedis had a date of their own, and that he believed we were then, according to their account, in the year 1550. This, he remarked, suggested some connection with Manes; but he could not ascertain, either by direct or indirect questions, that they were acquainted with the name, or recognised him in any wise as the originator of their peculiar doctrines with regard to the Evil Principle.

These, in fact, seem, as before said, to be in their origin of far more remote antiquity, and date back to early Cuthite times.

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W. Francis Ainsworth, 1861

Primitive Christian Worship