Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/325

Rh dipped in wine, but to this the Kurds add the immolation of a sheep and distribute the flesh at the same moment. But underneath the surface the 'Red Caps' are animists, regarding rocks and mountain ridges as sacred (that is, dangerous), and offering sacrifice to them: at its rising and setting they adore the Sun; at Manasgerd they worship at a rock-hewn fire-altar. Their extinction of the lights seems to associate them with the Ismaili sect, the Chiragh-Kush in Central Asia—whom Mirza Haidar the Mogul so cordially detested, as practising the most sinful orgies under cover of darkness. These we know to have been a branch of Assassins, and the Kizil Bash are very likely lineally descended from them. Both Cumont and de Cholet believe that there is some truth in these rumours: there is at certain times a ritual sacrifice of chastity to Ma or Anaïtis (as to Istar of Babylon): 'once a year' says the latter (Arménie, Paris, 1892) 'a young maiden is offered to the dedeh (priests); if the offspring is a son he becomes a priest, a daughter is made a consecrated nun.' One suggestion in conclusion: the Yezidi (or devil worshippers) regard a lower spirit as creator, permitted to frame the world by the Supreme, as in Gnostic systems: he is in consequence author of such evil as there is and is represented as a peacock: but =Tammuz, and it seems likely that the belief is an ascetic reaction against a pure nature-god of vegetation and life.

16. In sum, we can trace every stratum of religious belief in these Syncretizing Sects of modern Syria. The early nature-worship of a female principle with her short-lived consorts; the Greek sun-worship (helios) uniting with the Semitic el and the Phoenician elyun or highest; the buddhist-ebionite theophanies or rather periodic vehicles of a divine message from the unseen world; Hebrew worthies like Elijah obviously made welcome because of the name; Christian features thinly overlaid; the Mahommedan Caliph, Ali, likewise rekindling ancient memories by