Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/313

Rh pressing too hard he might raise a resistance which he would have found it difficult to subdue.

In addition to the Emeer the Nestorians had heads of their own, who held under him a dignity nearly allied to that of the old Lairds of the highlands of Scotland, or the Sheikhs of the Bedooeen Arabs. This office, like that of the Emeer, was hereditary, and gave the incumbents certain rights over those villages which were not ranked among the tribes. These chiefs were styled "Meleks," and previous to the outbreak of 1843 the two individuals holding that rank in the Tyari were Melek Barkho of Rawola d'Salabeken, and Melek Ismaeel of Chamba.

The Patriarch had a two-fold authority, in the exercise of which he appears to have been supported by the Hakkari Emeers, until an increasing thirst after power, and a fear lest the Christians might acquire political ascendancy in the mountains, led them to use every effort to undermine it. He was regarded as their spiritual head by all the Nestorians in Persia and Coordistan, and his approbation was sought to sanction any measures of state proposed by the council of the tribes. We have already seen how the present Mar Shimoon exerted this power on the occasion of his visit to Asheetha, and I shall hereafter record how he headed an army of 3,000 men on a warlike expedition beyond the Tyari country.

The Patriarch, moreover, exercised the functions of a civil magistrate: whenever disputes arose between the Christians and Coords of any of the mountain provinces, the litigants were free to decide before what court they would bring their differences, whether before that of Mar Shimoon or the Emeer. A Nestorian, however, dared not, when cited thereto by a Coordish plaintiff, refuse to appear before the tribunal of the latter, from whose sentence there was no appeal. But he might choose the Emeer as his judge in preference to the Patriarch, even when the defendant was also a Nestorian. It is said, that until within the last few years, such an appeal was of rare occurrence, it being considered a crime for a Christian to go to law with a brother Christian before an unbeliever, which sentiment they justly grounded on the injunction of S. Paul (1 Cor. vi. 1—8). I mention the possible exceptions, how-