Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/186

132 needs to be added under this head. They are the musicians of the community, and as music and dancing form so important a part in the worship of the Yezeedees, theirs is the most numerous of all the sacerdotal castes. They are confined to the villages of Ba-Sheaka and Ba-Hazâni, but are frequently sent to other parts to conduct the religious services of the people, for which they receive remuneration.

The Fakîrs are the lowest order in the Yezeedee hierarchy; it is their province to minister at Sheikh Adi, as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and to attend the Cock in its peregrinations. They carry a band on their left shoulder with which they tie up the faggots for the shrine, and are sometimes called Kara-bash, or Black-heads, from always wearing a turban of that colour. They are also employed in collecting contributions for the temple, and in this respect they resemble the begging friars of monastic establishments.

Besides the above, the Yezeedees have a temporal chief, which dignity is also hereditary and confined to one family. Husein, the present Emeer, exercises a kind of conventional authority over the entire sect, and is the medium through which the local government communicates to them its wishes and orders. He exercises great influence among them, and, what appears rather strange, possesses the prerogative of cutting off any refractory member from the privileges of the community. From all I have heard, this punishment imposes far greater penalties upon the offenders than the severest form of excommunication as practised by Christians, and is much dreaded by the Yezeedees.

I shall now add a few words on the general character of this people. The Yezeedees, particularly those in the district about Mosul, are a very industrious race, clean in their habits, and quiet and orderly in their general behaviour. Many of them, however, are very intemperate in the use of arrack, and some make a boast before Christians of the superiority of their religion to that of Islâm, inasmuch as it does not prohibit the use of intoxicating liquors. Drunken broils, however, such as are, alas! too common in our own land, are almost unknown among them, and the native Christians with whom they dwell, bear witness that in their general intercourse with other sects, they are comparatively free from many of those known immoralities which