Feast of the Assembly (Cejna Cemayê) · Cejna Cemayê

Culture of origin: Yezidi · Cultural

Holiday sources: Yezidism

The Feast of the Assembly honours Sheikh Adi with a pilgrimage to his tomb at Lalish, from 23 to 30 September in the Julian calendar, 6 to 13 October in the Gregorian. For Yezidis from Iraq it is by far the most important feast of the year, and every Yezidi who can is expected to attend. Pilgrims wash in the Kaniya Spî spring; in the evening twelve men in white circle a sacred torch in the sema dance, and qewwals recite religious texts; a dish of meat and wheat, simat, is shared in the mornings. On the fifth day a bull is sacrificed at Sheikh Shems's shrine and its meat given out, and on the sixth a copper grid is carried from Sheikh Adi's shrine and baptised in a sacred pond. Wikipedia says the feast corresponds to Iran's ancient Mehregan, which also involved animal sacrifice; the Yezidi Studies scholar Artur Rodziewicz calls the Mithraic reading an unsupported over-interpretation.