III. Nationality

Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidiz, by Isya Joseph, [1919], at sacred-texts.com

p. 194

III

NATIONALITY

Four different theories have been advanced as to the face to which the Yezidis belong. There are those who think them to be of Indo-European origin, for there is a type among them that has a white skin, a round skull, blue eyes and light hair. And there are those who suppose them to be Arabs on the ground that the color of skin of another type is brown, their eyes are wide, their lips are thick and their hair is dark. The western writers, moreover, have in the past always taken them for Kurds because of the close resemblance of the two in appearance and manners. In his "La Turquie d’Asie,"' Vitol Cunet says that though the Yezidis have been taken for Kurds, they can no longer be regarded as such, for in many ways they resemble other nationalities. On the other hand Hormuzd Rassam, in his "Asshur and the Land of Nimrud" seems to agree with those who suppose them to be of Assyrian origin. He bases this inference on the independent and martial spirit which they possess, and their tendency to rebel against their oppressors, which, according to him, may be taken as an indication of ancestral inheritance. ¹

Footnotes

194:1 p. 200 In his letter to me, of date August 6, 1907, the Rev. A. N. Andrus, of Mardin, expresses the opinion that "many of the Yezidis around ’Sinjar might have come from Indian stock" on the ground that "they are darker and more lithe than the Kurds around them."