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94
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1926
each other. To start with a theory-Mr. Brown writes (p. 400), 'I have assumed a working hypothesis '- and work up the beliefs and customs of a primitive people thereon, open up a literary vista that appals me at any rate.
It recalls to my mind a verse that has remained with me from my childhood of long ago. If I remember rightly, Southey was the author, when writing of Mob, Cob, and Chitta bob. I may be wrong in the ascription. That, however, does not much matter, but after going through Mr. Brown's book, I cannot help wondering what length of a philosophy of religion could be built up round that one verse by some remote descendant, were it to remain on and be discovered : how he would 'interpret' first the words themselves and then their religious meaning: how his contemporaries would dispute with him about both points.
1 he Devil was dressed
In his Sunday best : His coat was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through.
(To be continued.) THE YEZIDIS OR DEVIL-WORSHIPPERS OF MOSUL.1
By H. C. LUKE.
Prefatory Note.
By Sta RICHARD O. TEMPLE, Br. ON 25th-28th August 1924, The Times published a series of articles by Mr. H.C. Luke, sometime Assistant Governor of Jerusalem, on the "Minorities of Mosul,” two of which will be of interest to the readers of this Journal, as they describe the Yezidis of that region who are called “Devil-worshippers." These people being surrounded by Muhammadans and probably of an ancient Persian' origin, their form of devil-worship has naturally a strong Musalman tendency. 'Devil-worship’ is however very common in India, especially in the South, where its tendency, on the contrary, is towards Hinduism. Nevertheless to my mind the term 'devil-worship is a misnomer, naturally invented by the early European travellers to the East, imbued with Christianity, to describe a form of religious practice foreign to their ideas : whereas, devil-worship is really the worship of supernatural spirits by primitive Animists. It is not devil-worship at all, as some of the spirits worshipped aro not credited with evil designs on human beings and their property.
In 1883 I secured from the library of my old friend and correspondent, Dr. A. C. Burnell, a long MS. entitled The Devil Worship of the Tuluvas, which I got translated through the Rev. Dr. A. Männer of the Basel Mission, and published it in this Journal in 1894 (vol. XXIII). I then made the above remarks and have never since seen anything to shake the opinion therein expressed. Indeed it is strongly confirmed by the situation in the Nicobar Islands, where European missionaries taught the people to apply the term 'devil' to the images and other objects they set up to scare away the evil spirits from their homes. There the devil' is really the devil-scarer.'
In the Jebel Sinjar to the west of Mosul and in the district of the Sheikhan to the north. east there dwell the peculiar people known variously to the world at large as Yezidis and Devil-worshippers. To all appearances of Kurdish stock and speaking a Kurdish dialect, their own name for themselves is Dasnayi ; the meaning of the term Yezidi, applied to them by their neighbours, is uncertain. The Shiah Moslems, by way of adding to the odium which their beliefs have brought upon the Yezidis, like to ascribe their foundation to Yezid Ibn Mu'awiya, the murderer of the Shiah hero Husein ; but their origin is infinitely more remoto than the times of the fourth Caliph and his luckless sons.
• Reprinted from The Times, August 27th and 28th, 1994.
