Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/184

130 sacred rites at certain times and to send teachers to the different districts. The present incumbent possesses considerable property, and engages in extensive agricultural pursuits. Twice a year he visits most of the villages in the neighbourhood to collect contributions in the shape of free-will offerings, and he commissions deputies to the more distant provinces for the same purpose. The Yezeedees believe him to be endued with supernatural powers, and his mediation is often sought to heal obstinate diseases in men and cattle, to make the barren fruitful, to crown a journey or other undertaking with success, &c. which he affects to do by charms and other occult means. Mohammed, Mr. Rassam's Kawass, or orderly, who is a strict and sincere Mussulman, and cordially hates all unbelievers, especially such as possess no books, assured me that his wife Miriam, originally a Yezeedee, was cured of epilepsy by Sheikh Nâsir. He had tried the native physicians, the piety of the Moollahs, and afterwards the skill of an able Frank surgeon, who treated her for several months; but all to no purpose. At length, in spite of all his prejudices, he took her to the great Yezeedee Sheikh, who, he informed me, first directed him to slaughter a sheep, with the blood of which he sprinkled her forehead, then covered her breast with a coating of bitter clay brought from Sheikh Adi, tied a string over her left wrist, and kept her in a separate room for seven days, feeding her upon a particular kind of bread which he prepares with his own hands. Several years have now elapsed, and Mohammed declares that his wife has never had a single attack since she left the roof of Sheikh Nâsir. Knowing his antipathy for the Yezeedees, I asked him how he accounted for the possession of such power by an unbeliever. "It puzzled me very much," said he; "but on applying to Moollah Sultan for a solution of the difficulty, he told me that it was natural that the unclean should cast out the unclean!"

Sheikh Nâsir sometimes takes part in celebrating the marriages of persons of distinction among his community. The contract is generally settled by the relations of the two parties, but the bond is sealed by the bridegroom going to the Great Sheikh, and receiving from him a loaf of consecrated bread, half of which is eaten by himself and the other half by his bride.