Pir Shalyar festival · Pir Shalyar

Culture of origin: Kurdish · Ancient festival

Holiday sources: Kurdish

Every year in the second week of Bahman, at the time of Sadeh, the people of Hawraman Takht (Uraman Takht), a mountain village in Iran's Kurdistan province, hold the "wedding of Pir Shalyar", a rite they say has been kept the same way for more than 950 years. Pir Shalyar is remembered locally as one of the last Zoroastrian magi. In the legend Shah Bahar Khatun, the deaf and mute daughter of the king of Bukhara, was healed on her way to him, and the villagers held a great wedding for the two; the sage asked that its anniversary be kept every year, and each family still does the task its forebears did. On the eve walnuts from Pir Shalyar's garden are handed out to the village; from Wednesday morning livestock vowed by their owners are sacrificed at the door of his house and the meat shared, a barley broth is cooked and eaten together, and long chains of dancers move to the daf. For the three days the villagers set their work aside, and on the last night they gather at Pir Shalyar's house. A second rite, Komsai, is held at his tomb in Ordibehesht.