volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

228 The Yaztdis and Their Religion.
worship these and sing to them, and they are carried
from village to village and the people receive them as
abodes of God, and make offerings to them. It is said
that these bird-figures possess the power of motion
and that they dance with the people on their way from
one village to another. Twice a year the Yazidis make
a pilgrimage to Shekh 'Adi, for they firmly believe that
'Adi was an incarnation of God, who really appeared
on earth for a short time in order to teach the elect
fesignation to God's Will, and to write the book Jilwah
for their guidance. But the worship of Malak Ta'us is
more ancient than that of Shekh 'Adi, and probably
dates from a period coeval with that of the ancient
Babylonians. The Sanjak is the true symbol of Malak
Ta'us, who is the Principle, or Power, of Evil personified.
There is no doubt that the Yazidis worship this Principle
of EvU more from fear than love, and they spare no
trouble in attempting to propitiate him. They are so
much afraid of offending him that they will not use the
Arabic word for Satan, " ShaitSn," or any word which
is like any part of that word in soimd. On the other
hand, though they worship Shekh 'Adi they make no
attempt to propitiate him because, they say, he is so
good that there is no need to do it. I had many conversations
in Mosul with Jeremiah Shamir about the
Yazidis in 1890 and 1891, and it seemed to me that their
religion was then a mixture of paganism (with its worship
of springs and fountains) Zoroastrianism, Sabaism,
Manicheeism, Christianity and Isl&m. The Sanjak is, no
doubt, the descendant of the bird used in divining,
as Layard, Badger and Parry have pointed out, and
is identical with the " Anghar-bird " on the back of
which God placed the White Pearl which He made out
of His own- Essence, and dwelt in it for 40,000 years.
And the priests used the Sanjak for divining purposes as
a matter of course. According to Shamir the Yazidis
in remote villages had many horrible practices and
customs ; he said they worked black magic, and used
incantations, and made philtres composed of decoctions
of dead bodies, and all unmentionable things. And