Yezidis celebrated "Pilanda" Feast

Yezidis celebrated "Pilanda" Feast

Yezidis celebrated "Pilanda" Feast
Friday, January 7th 2011 10:06 PM


Dohuk Jan. 7 (AKnews) - The Yezidis celebrated on Thursday night Pilanda Eid which is specialized to the discretion of the dead in religious ceremonies and rituals and popular celebrations.

Karim Suleiman, the Yezidi researcher told AKnews that the word Pilanda is a genuine Kurdish word similar to term (Breeze Smelling) and the festival is dedicated to the discretion of the dead by the alive people.

"On the Pilanda night, the Yezidis prepare various kinds of food and make bread pieces named Kurdia (Sowk) which are distributed for the souls of the dead, and they also take these foods in a symbolic way to the graves of their dead in cemeteries, and put them on the graves of the dead, and grant them on behalf of the deceased to the poor and needy or to the elders and Abyar."

Suleiman who was the head of Lalish Yezidi Cultural center, Sheikhan branch (53 km southeast of Dohuk) stated that "the Middle East in general and Iraq and Kurdistan in particular were celebrating the dead before and this is an evidence about the oldness and nobility of the Yezidi religion, because these feasts for the dead were practiced by ancient peoples in Mesopotamia, Egypt and elsewhere, and celebrating this Eid is an indication that the Yezidi religion is an ancient one."

According to researchers, the Yezidi religion is an ancient Kurdish religion because all the religious texts are recited in the Kurdish language in the Yezidi events and religious rituals.

"During the same period of celebrating Pilanda, there is a ritual named (Julir), in addition to another one named "Korça Kay" which means the bull's fire flame and the words are Kurdish. Korça Kay is linked to life according to the ancient agricultural economy where groups of Yezidi families Yezidi used to get out to host the returning peasants from cultivating the land and set fire on their way, and the farmers should jump over the fire, along with their oxen or mules. "

"This ritual is done after about two months since the cultivation of the land, and after the first week of forty winter according to the Eastern calendar, a festival or celebration will be held for the farmer who cultivated the land and the bull that carried out the process, and the fire is sacred because it represents the light in one of its aspects."

"The Yezidi set fire in a plant called in Kurdish (Rashaq), and the farmer jump over the fire and he tries to make the ox or mule pass over the fire also and they spread candy on them, such as dried figs and raisins, and this is a celebration about the farmer and the bull on the occasion of close end of the cultivation season, and the farmers take the ash that was left after burning the Rashaq and spread it in their fields to be blessed."

He concluded by saying that on Pilanda Eid, no religious ceremony is done in Lalish temple (5 km north of the sheikhan), but the ceremonies are done in the Yezidi villages and areas.

Reported by Khudr Khallat
RN/GS AKnews

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