The Cradle of Mankind; Life in Eastern KurdistanWigram, W. A. (William Ainger)
History
The Cradle of Mankind; Life in Eastern Kurdistan
Wigram, W. A. (William Ainger)
Kurdistan -- Description and travel; Kurds
It was a good-sized lofty room, roofed with a pointed stone vault: but
it boasted no window; and apparently no chimney, for the fire that was
lit for our benefit soon filled all the space above the level of the
door lintel with a dense and suffocating smoke. To us as we squatted on
the floor this was no particular hardship; but a hand raised overhead
reached into a warm smoky stratum, and if we rose to cross the room we
had to bend double under pain of asphyxiation. The Yezidis seem more
callous to smoke even than the Kurds and Syrians. The latter do
generally provide a hole in the roof above the fire.
The young prior of the monastery, a nephew of Ali Beg, played the part
of host. He had been preferred to his post by his uncle, to whom he pays
a fixed composition (equivalent to £120 _per annum_) for the privilege
of receiving the offerings of the faithful whom he entertains at the
shrine. The entertainment which he provided for us consisted of the
local pancake bread and a big dish of lentils; on which we supped very
composedly, albeit we had no "long spoons." Then followed coffee served
in a brazen jug with a gigantic spout like the beak of a toucan: and,
after a cigarette or two, our host took leave of us; while we and our
_posse comitatus_ disposed ourselves to sleep on the floor.
Our earliest thought the next morning was to inspect the Diabolical
Temple; for the Yezidis, unlike their Mohammedan neighbours, are quite
willing to exhibit their shrine. The sun was rising brightly as we
emerged into the daylight; and the wakening glen in its rich autumn
colouring looked a very different place from the gloomy gully up which
we had crept the night before.
There is no village at Sheikh Adi. The place consists simply of the
temple and its appurtenances, forming, in fact, a monastery, though it
is not actually so called. The buildings hang along the steep brae-side
which forms the left bank of the river; the uppermost tier being notched
deeply into the slope, and the lower terraced out boldly above the
margin of the burn. The temple rises in the centre of the upper tier,
conspicuous for the fluted spires which form the roofs of the
sanctuaries. These fluted conical spires are a distinguishing
characteristic of Yezidi architecture, and their appearance, on any
building is strong _primâ facie_ evidence of Yezidi origin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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