Kurdish mythology

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Kurdish mythology (Kurdish: ئەفسانەی کوردی) is the collective term for the beliefs and practices of the culturally, ethnically or linguistically related group of ancient peoples who inhabited the Kurdistan mountains of northwestern Zagros, northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia. This includes their Indo-European pagan religion prior to them converting to Islam, as well the local myths, legends and folklore that they produced after becoming Muslims.

## Legendary origin

[edit]

Part of a series on

Indo-European topics

Languages

* * *

* List of Indo-European languages

* * *

Extant

* Albanoid
* Albanian
* Armenian
* Balto-Slavic
* Baltic
* Slavic
* Celtic
* Germanic
* Hellenic
* Greek
* Indo-Iranian
* Indo-Aryan
* Iranian
* Nuristani
* Italic
* Romance

Extinct

* Anatolian
* Tocharian
* Paleo-Balkan
* Dacian
* Illyrian
* Liburnian
* Messapic
* Mysian
* Paeonian
* Phrygian
* Thracian

* * *

Reconstructed

* Proto-Indo-European language

* Phonology: Sound laws, Accent, Ablaut

* * *

Hypothetical

* Balkanic
* Daco-Thracian
* Graeco-Albanian
* Graeco-Armenian
* Graeco-Aryan
* Graeco-Phrygian
* Indo-Hittite
* Italo-Celtic
* Thraco-Illyrian

* * *

Grammar

* Vocabulary
* Root
* Verbs
* Nouns
* Pronouns
* Numerals
* Particles

* * *

Other

* Proto-Albanian
* Proto-Anatolian
* Proto-Armenian
* Proto-Germanic (Proto-Norse)
* Proto-Italo-Celtic (Proto-Celtic · Proto-Italic)
* Proto-Greek
* Proto-Balto-Slavic (Proto-Slavic · Proto-Baltic)
* Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Iranian, Proto-Nuristani)

Philology

* Hittite inscriptions
* Hieroglyphic Luwian
* Linear B
* Rigveda
* Avesta
* Homer
* Behistun
* Greek epigraphy
* Phrygian epigraphy
* Messapic epigraphy
* Latin epigraphy
* Gaulish epigraphy
* Runic epigraphy
* Ogham
* Gothic Bible
* Bible translations into Armenian
* Tocharian script
* Old Irish glosses
* Albanian Kanun

Origins

* Homeland
* Proto-Indo-Europeans
* Society
* Religion

* * *

Mainstream

* Kurgan hypothesis
* Indo-European migrations
* Eurasian nomads

* * *

Alternative and fringe

* Anatolian hypothesis
* Armenian hypothesis
* Beech argument
* Indigenous Aryanism
* Baltic homeland
* Paleolithic continuity theory

Archaeology

Chalcolithic (Copper Age)

Pontic Steppe

* Domestication of the horse
* Kurgan
* Kurgan stelae
* Kurgan culture
* Steppe cultures
* Bug–Dniester
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* Dnieper–Donets
* Samara
* Khvalynsk
* Yamnaya
* Mykhailivka culture
* Novotitarovskaya culture

Caucasus

* Maykop

East Asia

* Afanasievo

Eastern Europe

* Usatove
* Cernavodă
* Cucuteni

Northern Europe

* Corded ware
* Baden
* Middle Dnieper

* * *

Bronze Age
Pontic Steppe

* Chariot
* Yamnaya
* Catacomb
* Multi-cordoned ware
* Poltavka
* Srubnaya

Northern/Eastern Steppe

* Abashevo culture
* Andronovo
* Sintashta

Europe

* Globular Amphora
* Corded ware
* Bell Beaker
* Únětice
* Trzciniec
* Nordic Bronze Age
* Terramare
* Tumulus
* Urnfield
* Proto-Villanovan
* Lusatian
* Este

South Asia

* Bishkent
* Vakhsh
* BMAC
* Ochre Coloured Pottery
* Copper Hoard
* Cemetery H
* Gandhara grave

* * *

Iron Age
Steppe

* Chernoles

Europe

* Thraco-Cimmerian
* Hallstatt
* Latial
* Jastorf

Caucasus

* Colchian

Central Asia

* Yaz

India

* Painted Grey Ware
* Northern Black Polished Ware

Peoples and societies

Bronze Age

* Anatolian peoples (Hittites)

* Armenians
* Mycenaean Greeks
* Indo-Iranians

Iron Age Indo-Aryans

* Indo-Aryans

Iranians

* Iranians

Nuristanis

* Nuristanis

East Asia

* Wusun
* Yuezhi

Europe

* Celts
* Gauls
* Celtiberians
* Insular Celts
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* Thracians
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* Phrygians
* Scythians

Middle Ages
East Asia

* Tocharians

Europe

* Albanians
* Balts
* Slavs
* Norsemen/Medieval Scandinavians
* Middle Ages

Indo-Aryan

* Medieval India

Iranian

* Greater Iran

Religion and mythology

Reconstructed

* Proto-Indo-European mythology
* Proto-Indo-Iranian religion
* Historical Vedic religion
* Ancient Iranian religion

* * *

Historical

* Hittite

Indo-Aryan

* Vedic
* Hinduism
* Buddhism
* Jainism
* Sikhism

Iranian

* Persian
* Zoroastrianism
* Kurdish
* Yazidism
* Yarsanism
* Scythian
* Ossetian

Others

* Armenian

European

* Paleo-Balkan (Albanian · Illyrian · Thracian · Dacian)
* Greek
* Roman
* Celtic
* Irish
* Scottish
* Breton
* Welsh
* Cornish
* Germanic
* Anglo-Saxon
* Continental
* Norse
* Baltic
* Latvian
* Lithuanian
* Slavic

Practices

* Fire rituals
* Horse sacrifice
* Sati
* Winter solstice/Yule

Indo-European studies

Scholars

* Marija Gimbutas
* J. P. Mallory

Institutes

* Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European

Publications

* Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture
* The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
* Journal of Indo-European Studies
* Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch
* Indo-European Etymological Dictionary

Category

* v
* t
* e

### Supernatural origin legend

[edit]

A legend recorded by Judaic scholars claimed that the people of Corduene had supernatural origins, when King Solomon arranged the marriage of 500 women to jinns.[1][2][3][4][5] The same legend was also used by early Islamic authorities, in explaining the origins of the Kurds.[6][7][8]

In the writings of the 10th-century Arab historian al-Masudi, the Kurds are described as the offspring of King Solomon’s concubines engendered by the demon Jasad.[6] On learning who they were, Solomon shall have exclaimed "Drive them (ukrudūhunna) in the mountains and valleys" which then suggests a negative connotation such as the "thrown away".[6] Another version says that they are the descendants of King Solomon's concubines and his angelical servants. These were sent to Europe to bring him "five hundred beautiful maidens" for the king's harem. However, when these had done so and returned to Israel the king had already died. As such, the jinn settled in the mountains, married the women themselves, and their offspring came to be known as the Kurds.[7][8]

### Legend of Milan and Zilan

[edit]

Many Kurdish tribes trace their origins to the Milan and Zilan tribes. According to Mark Sykes, Ibrahim Pasha, then chief of the Milli tribe, gave the following explanation: "Years and years ago the Kurds were divided into two branches, the Milan and Zilan; there were 1,200 tribes of the Milan, but God was displeased with them and they were scattered in all directions, some vanished, others remained; such as remained respect me as the head of the Milan."[9]

One variation adds a third branch, the Baba Kurdi. According to one version of the legend, the Milan settled in Dersim, but Sultan Selim ordered some to sedentarize and build houses, and others to nomadize southward.[10][page needed]

A famous semi-historical Yezidi figure of Kurdish folklore, Derwêşê Evdî, was of the Şerqi tribe of the Milan.[11]

### Descendants of Kaveh's army

[edit]

Zahhak, who is named Zuhak by the Kurds,[12][13] was an evil Assyrian king who conquered Iran and had serpents growing from his shoulders.[14] Zahhak's rule lasted for one thousand years; his evil reign caused spring to no longer come to Kurdistan.[12] During this time, two young men were sacrificed daily and their brains were offered to Zahhak's serpents in order to alleviate his pain.[14] However, the man who was in charge of sacrificing the two young men every day would instead kill only one man a day and mix his brains with those of a sheep in order to save the other man. As discontent grew against Zahhak's rule, the nobleman Fereydun planned a revolt.[15] According to the legend, the young men who had been saved from the fate of being sacrificed were according to the legend were the ancestors of the Kurds.[16][17][18] They were trained by Kaveh into an army that marched to Zahhak's castle, where Kaveh killed the king with a hammer. Kaveh is said to have then set fire to the hillsides to celebrate the victory and summon his supporters; spring returned to Kurdistan the next day.[19][20][21]

## Mythological figures

[edit]

The Sasanian king Khosro II Parvez is highly esteemed in the Kurdish oral tradition, literature and mythology.[22]

### Kaveh the blacksmith

[edit]

Called Kawe-y asinger in Kurdish, some Kurds believe that the ancestors of the Kurds fled to the mountains to escape the oppression of an Assyrian king named Zahhak, who is later killed and overthrown at the hands of Kawe. It is also believed that these people, like Kawe the Blacksmith who took refuge in the mountains over the course of history, later they were called by the profession of their ancestor and created a Kurdish ethnicity. Kaveh is a geographical and symbolic figure in Kurdish nationalism. In common with other mythologies, Kurdish mythology sometimes is also used for political aims.[19][21][20][clarification needed]

## Mythological creatures

[edit]

### Shahmaran

[edit]

Shahmaran (or Şahmaran) is a mythical creature in Kurdish Folklore, she's believed to be a human-snake hybrid that lived in a cave, and she was considered the wisdom goddess to protect secrets. It's also believed that when shahmaran dies her spirit passes to her daughter.[23][24]

### Simurgh

[edit]

The legendary bird of Iranian tradition, the simurgh, is called sīmir in Kurdish. The scholar Kamilla Trever quotes two Kurdish folktales about the bird. These versions go back to the common stock of Iranian simurgh stories.[25]

## See also

[edit]

* Iranian mythology
* Armenian mythology
* Ossetian mythology
* Scythian mythology
* Islamic mythology

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Kinross, Patrick Balfour (1970) [Originally published 1954]. Within the Taurus: A Journey in Asiatic Turkey. London: J. Murray. p. 89\. OCLC 994230.
2. ^ Kinross, Lord (1954). "The Widow Ararat". The Cornhill Magazine. Vol. 167\. p. 228.
3. ^ Schäfer, Peter, ed. (2002). The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture. Vol. 3\. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. p. 80\. ISBN 9783161478529. OCLC 40058420.
4. ^ Büchler, Adolf (1956). Brodie, Israel; Rabbinowitz, J. (eds.). Studies in Jewish History: The Adolph Büchler Memorial Volume. Oxford University Press. p. 84\. OCLC 2184486.
5. ^ Abrahams, Israel; Büchler, Adolf (1973). The Foundations of Jewish Life: Three Studies. New York: Arno Press. p. 84\. ISBN 9780405052637. OCLC 668371.
6. ^ a b c James, Boris (September 2014). "Arab Ethnonyms ('Ajam, 'Arab, Badū and Turk): The Kurdish Case as a Paradigm for Thinking about Differences in the Middle Ages". Iranian Studies. 47 (5): 685. doi:10.1080/00210862.2014.934149. ISSN 0021-0862. S2CID 143606283.
7. ^ a b Kahn, Margaret (1980). Children of the Jinn: In Search of the Kurds and their Country. New York: Seaview Books. p. xi. ISBN 9780872235649. OCLC 5727204.
8. ^ a b Aloian, Zorab (December 2004). "The Kurds in the Ottoman Hungary". Transoxiana: Journal Libre de Estudios Orientales. 9. ISSN 1666-7050.
9. ^ Sykes, Mark (1908). "The Kurdish Tribes of the Ottoman Empire". The Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 38: 470. doi:10.2307/2843309. JSTOR 2843309.
10. ^ Sykes 1908.
11. ^ Filiz, Mehmet Ş. (2014). Xebatek li ser Destana Dewrêşê Evdî [A study on the epic of Dewresh Evdi] (Master's thesis) (in Northern Kurdish). Mardin Artuklu University.
12. ^ a b Murphy, Dan (24 March 2004). "For Kurds, a day of bonfires, legends, and independence". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 8 March 2007.
13. ^ "Newroz 2001: In Diyarbekir the celebrations brought together, in a calm atmosphere, 500,000 people; but there were many incidents in Istanbul". IstitutKurde.org. Kurdish Institute of Paris. March 2001. Retrieved 13 March 2007.
14. ^ a b Warner, Marina; Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2004). World of Myths: Roman Myths. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-70607-1.
15. ^ In some of the present Kurdish versions of the story of Zahhak and Kawa, there is no mention of Fereydun; see van Bruinessen, Martin (2000), "Kurdistan in the 16th and 17th centuries, as reflected in Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname", The Journal of Kurdish Studies, 3: 1–11, doi:10.2143/JKS.3.0.519238. In the Ahl-e Haqq (Yarsan) Kurdish tradition, Kawa rebelled against Zahhak and helped Fereydun imprison Zahhak inside Mount Damavand. See Hajj Nematollah (1982), Ḥaqq al-ḥaqāyiq, yā, Shāhnāmah-ʼi ḥaqīqat حق الحقايق، يا، شاهنامه حقيقت, Tehran: Kitābkhānah-ʼi Ṭahūrī, OCLC 21937539.[page needed]
16. ^ Al-Dinawari, Ahmad b. Dawud (1888). Guirgass, V. (ed.). Kitab al-akhbar al-tiwal. Leiden. p. 7.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
17. ^ Özoğlu, Hakan (2004). Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State. SUNY Press. p. 30\. ISBN 978-0-7914-5993-5.
18. ^ 05001 Zahak Archived 2007-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
19. ^ a b Morris, Harvey; Bulloch, John (1993). No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. Oxford University Press. p. 50\. ISBN 978-0-19-508075-9.
20. ^ a b O'Shea, M. T. (1994). "Between the Map and the Reality: Some Fundamental Myths of Kurdish Nationalism". Peuples méditerranéens. 68–69: 165–183.
21. ^ a b Dönmez, Rasim Özgür (November 2012). "Constructing Kurdish Nationalist Identity through Lyrical Narratives in Popular Music" (PDF). Alternative Politics. 4: 318–341.
22. ^ "Kurdish Library - Kurdish Museum". Kurdish Times. Vol. 4, no. 1\. Summer 1991. pp. 117–123.
23. ^ Nakamura, Toru (2019). Snakes, Birds and Dreams. Dorrance Publishing. p. 64\. ISBN 9781480991132.
24. ^ Emmanuel, Raphael (1944). The Ring of Shah Maran, a Story from the Mountains of Kurdistan. Emmanuel Publishing Company.
25. ^ Schmidt, Hanns-Peter (2002). "Simorḡ". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica (Online ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Bois, Th. (2012) [Originally published in print 1986]. Bearman, P. (ed.). "Kurds, Kurdistān vi.—Folklore and Literature". Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English). Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0544.
* Nikitine, Basile (1926). "Kurdish Stories from My Collection". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 4 (1): 121–138\. ISSN 1356-1898. JSTOR 607408.
* Noel, Edward (1920). "The Character of the Kurds as Illustrated by Their Proverbs and Popular Sayings". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 1 (4): 79–90\. ISSN 1356-1898. JSTOR 607064.

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