Notes from the Field: Yezidism: A New Voice and an Evolving Culture in Every Setting

Abstract

These 'notes from the field' report upon an ongoing comparative research project into the Yezidis, both in their traditional heartlands and in western Europe. The author reports that intensive fieldwork yields a much higher degree of flexibility and variety in Yezidi traditions than has often been acknowledged, whereby political events as much as diverse religious currents have influenced the shape of Yezidi thought. The project is still on-going but even the preliminary ethnographic findings described here lead him to doubt the adequacy of much that is hitherto accepted as reliable in the current literature.