THE YEZIDEES, OR DEVIL-WORSHIPERS. 4^-jj 



ing and evening twilight, tlie morning star, the other stars, and the 

 seven planets. Each of them made himself a mare, with which to 

 travel over the sky. The gods talk with one another in Knrdish, 

 the speech of paradise, the language of languages. The seven gods 

 together created the angels. It came to pass that the angel created 

 by the first god rose against his lord, and was cast into hell for it. 

 He at once set up a great lamentation, with confessions of his faults, 

 and wept continually for seven thousand years, filling seven great 

 earthen jars with his tears, till at last the all-good and merciful 

 God had pity on him, and took him again into paradise. This 

 angel afterward so excelled the others in doing good that God 

 loved him more than all of them. The other angels once in a 

 quarrel taunted him with his single sin and punishment. God 

 overhearing this became very angry and said : " Whoever of you 

 offends this little one with another word shall be accursed ; whom 

 God hath pardoned, the creature shall not make ashamed." He 

 raised this angel to be first and master of all, called him Melek- 

 Taus, and united him with his own person and existence, as two 

 flames become one. The seven jars filled with the tears which he 

 wept in hell are to be preserved till Sheik Adi shall return after 

 having completed his mission on the earth, to be used in extin- 

 guishing the fires of hell. 



The seventh god created the various species of animals, grad- 

 ually, one out of the other, and finally Adam and Eve. But their 

 posterity could not maintain themselves. After ten thousand 

 years the earth destroyed them all, and then remained desolate 

 for ten thousand years longer. Only the genii survived. The 

 same thing haj^pened five times again, each god creating a human 

 pair in his turn. Finally the first god, with Melek-Taus, created 

 the last first pair. Eve a considerable time after Adam, and not 

 till after he had been expelled from paradise. Adam lived in 

 paradise, and was allowed to eat of all the fruits growing there 

 except of wheat. 



In the course of time Melek-Taus said to God : " You have cre- 

 ated Adam to people the earth; but he still lives in paradise, 

 while the earth is uninhabited." God said : " You are right ; take 

 counsel about it." Melek-Taus went to Adam and moved him to 

 eat of the forbidden fruit, upon which his expulsion from paradise 

 followed as a punishment. God then determined to give Adam, 

 who was still alone, a companion, and made Eve from his ribs, 

 who bore him seventy-two pairs of twins. The Yezidees are not, 

 however, descended from this race, but from a son miraculously 

 given by God to Adam, named Shehid-ibn-Giarr, and a houri 

 from paradise. Their posterity, the Yezidees, do not mingle with 

 the children of Adam and Eve. 



Shehid's eldest son was Yezdani, from whom, through his son 



