Page 233 - Neglected Arabia Vol 1 (3)_Neat

( %
■•1
6 NEGLECTED ARABIA

worn smooth by the generations of shepherd boys who have sheltered
their flocks there. Quite different from the lazy life of the grain-growing
plainsman, or that of the palmist (is that what you call the date-growers?)
or the precarious existence of the desert bedouin. The rugged mountains
nurture a rugged people. Poor people they are, in this world’s goods; •
accumulated wealth is usually in the form of flocks; a year of drought
or a year of locusts (we have had both recently) puts them on the very •i1
edge of existence. But to one who loves the mountains, any physical
hardships there may be more than requited by the lofty peaks and verdant
valleys of Kurdistan.
Shall I tell you a story in point? I am indebted for it to Dr. McDowell
who has spent forty years among the mountain Assyrians. He picked ' .s
it up from the Kurds themselves. It is related that in the beginning
God created the world, plain and mountain. And to the plain he gave
a people, but to the mountains He gave no people. And the mountains
complained, saying, “O God, Thou hast created us and left us empty. .
Give us also a people.” And God replied: “I will give you also a people; i
their hearts shall be as hard as your rocks, and their spirits as free as
your winds; and neither gold shall bribe them nor sword drive them ‘
from your embrace.” And God created the Kurds.
At present there arc in the section of Kurdistan which forms my ! 3
field—the regions to the west, north, and east of Mosul extending to the ! j
Syrian, Turkish, and Persian borders—various peoples. There arc a few •3
villages of refugee Armenians who have settled in lower Kurdistan since •
the war and are eking out a meager living, with occasional help from
us. There are several large villages of “Chaldeans”—it is a religious and ' :?|
not a racial term, signifying those who, some two hundred years ago • I
forsook the ancient Nestorian Church and accepted the authority of the . 9
Roman pope. There are a good many whole villages, small ones, and
many scattered families of the mountain Assyrians who were driven from -J
their homes during the war! They took refuge at Urumia, Persia, and J
then, decimated by a flight, beset with death from war and pestilence,' M
were first encamped at Baquba, near Baghdad, and then scattered in 1
the Mosul district. Their original homes were in upper Kurdistan, and -l
they approximate the Kurds in many points. These three Christian com- J
munities, the Armenian, the Chaldean, and the Nestorian, cannot be over- j
looked by the missionary to Kurdistan. J
The Jewish communities have an interest of their own. All of the \
market towns have their Jewish quarters; the one at Zakho, for in- j
stance, comprises a majority of the population. So far as I know, there |
is only one separate village of Jews, a secluded little place not far north i
of Dohok. A strange linguistic phenomenon is that many of the Jews, j
for example those of Zakho and of Aqra, use Syriac as their household
language. It is my guess that these are remnants of the Assyrian cap­
tivity, continuous communities in these places from that time. Perhaps
some scholar will come and study the case. But I should much rather see
someone whom the Spirit has qualified to preach to them the Word of
Life.
Another separate community is formed by the fifteen or twenty j
thousand Yezidis who occupy a line of villages beginning at the cluster
around Jebel Sin jar, over near the Syrian frontier, and continuing north- *;■

•A