Late Antique Literary Motifs in Yezidi Oral Tradition:The Yezidi Myth of Adam

摘要

Oral traditions undergo constant change and evolution. Some elements, perhaps seen asobsolete, can be discarded while new ones are introduced. These new elements may have anumber of sources, but can often be traced back to traditions of other religious groups. "Oraltraditions collected from all over the world show a great freedom of borrowing between cul-tures." I Such borrowings may occur between two oral cultures, but many motifs found in oraltradition have their origins in written literature. Literacy influences oral tradition in manyways, including plot, characters, and other motifs.2 Of course, such borrowings are not "ser-vile imitation." The borrowed elements take on a life of their own in their new surroundings,even while their literary origins have been long forgotten. Not only may so-called folk talesand secular oral works borrow from written texts but so does religious oral tradition. Re-ligions based exclusively on oral tradition may borrow elements, or even whole myths,either directly or indirectly (that is, through a number of intermediaries that may them-selves have been oral) from religious literature. An eloquent, and hitherto ignored, exampleof literary traditions from one religion surfacing in the oral traditions of another religionmay be found in the mythology of the YeziThs, in particular in the myth surrounding thecreation of Adam.