180 EEPOBT — 1889. 



are carious, inasmuch as they contain many elements of Christianity. 

 Each person as he or she enters kisses the hand of the Seid and takes up 

 his place at the right of the last comer. A sheep is killed and roasted 

 whole ; it must be without blemish, and its horns and hoofs are first 

 taken off; the man who cooks it must not taste it, and when all are 

 assembled it is brought in, and the Seid distributes portions of it to each, 

 each person's share being equal, be he great or small They have, too, a 

 form of baptism, and pass children through fire, and at their assemblages 

 they have cups of wine handed round. They have no mosques, only 

 sacred tombs, where their Seids are buried, places where they say the 

 holy light has come down, which, together with their worship of fire, 

 connects them with the ancient Zoroastrians who lived in this district. 



Their tradition is curious. Nazere, they say, was All's representative 

 on earth ; seven times was he killed by Ali, and seven times was he 

 brought to life. Mahomed they assert to be God. Ali, his son, was also a 

 part of the Godhead, who was sent to earth to convert people from their 

 evil ways, and on his return to heaven he left an incarnation of the Deity 

 always on earth, which incarnation is represented by Nazere and the 

 succeeding Seids. 



There is so much that is similar to Christianity in their religion as to 

 make me hazard the suggestion that they are a branch of decayed 

 Christians (many other branches occurring here, such as the Nestorians, 

 Chaldeans, &c.), who, to preserve themselves from persecution, substituted 

 the name of Ali, the great saint of the Shiah sect, for that of Christ, and 

 in the lapse of ages have got a mixture of the two creeds The very 

 name of Nazere is suggestive of Nazareth ; then there is the passover, the 

 baptism, and the curious fellowship between them, which is handed down 

 from father to son. Many of the Beliants, or wandering tribes, who come 

 up to the mountains in the summer months, belong to this sect, and 

 Sarmas Beg and his sons are said to be shining lights in the community. 

 The Mahomedans proper attribute to this sect many horrible crimes ; 

 they say they are communists, and have their wives and property in 

 common, but from personal observation I should say this is a libel pure 

 and simple. My wife had occasion to visit Sarmas Beg's wives on 

 several occasions for photography, and found them much as other women 

 of the Mahomedan faith. To the casual observer the only outward 

 feature noticeable in these Ali-uUah-hi villages is the absence of mosques, 

 baths, and prayer, all such marked features in Mahomedan countries. 

 My information on the subject has been obtained from varied sources, 

 from Mirza Hassan Ali Khan, a Persian of great intelligence, from a con- 

 verted Seid in the Ali-uUah-hi village of Ilkatchee, and from Armenian 

 missionaries, and in the main the information from all these sources 

 agrees. 



Before Sarmas Beg's house stood his long lance, the evidence that 

 the chief of the tribe dwelt within. When he is in his tent this lance 

 stands before it. 



About a mile from Baba Nazere are the ruins of Takht-i- Suleiman, 

 ruins of doubtful origin, but probably dating only from the Suljnkian 

 period ; they are situated in a very fertile hollow amidst the mountains, 

 and are remarkable chiefly for a pond in the centre, which in overflowing 

 petrifies all around it, so that excavating we found practically impossible. 

 Close to it is a conical hill 200 feet high, with a hole a quarter of a 

 mile round, sinking to the depth of the hill and formed by the same 



