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Show i SHEIKS OF SYRIA i WORSHIP A DEVIL Taoun Malak, Fallen Angel, Is Their Patron Saint. Aleppo, Syria. Taous Malak, the "fallen angel" whom God expelled from heaven, Is the patron saint of the sheiks not - those whose handsome profiles thrown on the American screen have made flappers' hearts flutter. The tribe of the Yazidies, worshipers worship-ers of satan, from which the original sheiks sprang, are nomads living from cattle raising. They number about l-'.oou and their habitat is north of I Aleppo near the Mjebel Soumaun. An-i An-i other branch is to be found at Khal-! Khal-! tar, a small town in the vicinity of j Oiarkobir. Sheiks claim they can trace their ancestry from heaven, being direct de-! de-! s.'endaiits of Sheik Charaf ICddin, or !( "the moon." Another early sheik was Amandin, which means "pillar support-, support-, ing heaven," while a third one was j directly related to the sun. Some of the present-day sheiks claim to have the power of miracle in rendering inoffensive the bites of snakes and scorpions. "Why do you worship the devil?" asked an American, who had been bitten bit-ten by a poisonous insect, and, desirous de-sirous of ascertaining the miraculous power of the sheiks, had sent for one. "Satan Is the source of all evil and If we ignore him we cannot avoid his wrath. God on the contrary, is the essence of kindness and therefore we have nothing to fear from him," was the way the reply was translated. There is no divorce among the real sheiks, in winch they differ somewhat from the American species. Sheiks marry only the daughters of other sheiks. The marriage ceremony Is very simple. It is a question of mutual consent between the bride and the bridegroom, expressed before one of the older sheiks. Both newlyweds are then branded with red ink on the shoulders and forehead. The sheik performing the ceremony then takes a branch of a tree and breaking it in two, says: "Kemain ; united until death parts you as force has broken this branch." |