| Society-KURD The Kurds are an ethnolinguistic group inhabiting the mountainous crescent that extends from the Euphrates River in northern Syria and Turkey to Kermanshah in Iran. This area is generally designated as Kurdistan and lies approximately between lat. 35 degrees-40 degrees N by long. 37 degrees-47 degrees E. Kurdistan has neither political nor geographical unity, being a semi-continuous territory divided among the modern nations of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and the USSR. At the treaty of Sevres in 1920, it was proposed that Kurdistan be made a political unit; but this proposal was eventually dropped and Kurdistan never came into existence as a nation. The Kurdish language belongs to the Indo-European linguistic stock, and has many similarities to Farsi (Persian). Three major dialects are spoken by the Kurds, but with the development of modern Kurdish nationalism, there has been great emphasis on language unity within Kurdistan (Barth 1953: 11). Estimates of the total Kurdish population vary considerably, ranging from 1,500,000 to 4,000,000. The Royal Institute of International Affairs gives a figure of 3,000,000 around 1951 (Barth 1953: 11), with the greatest single concentration (ca. 2,000,000) located on the Turkish-Iraqi border. The census of Iraq for the year 1947 records 1,000,000 Kurds concentrated in the northern and northeastern sections of that country. Many of the Kurds are urbanized and Arabized or Turkicized, being Kurdish by descent only. The Kurds were early converts to Islam, with the majority belonging to the Shafi'i school of Sunnite Muslims. Several Kurdish groups in Iran belong to the Shi'ite sect of Ahl-il-Hakk (Ali Ilahi). The Kurds today show a considerable diversity in their economic patterns, ranging from pastoral nomads to settled farmers. The great majority of the population are subsistence farmers practicing some degree of localized transhumance. Wheat and barley are the two primary cereals grown. Of secondary importance are rice, peas, lentils, and garden vegetables. Tobacco is the main cash crop. Of the domestic animals, goats and sheep are most important for their hair, wool, and dairy products, while cattle are kept as work animals for plowing and harvesting. Horses are few in number since they are luxury animals, owned primarily by the wealthy. The basic diet centers around bread, dairy products, dates, tea, and meat. The wealthy are able to afford a more varied diet and consume more rice, meat, and fruits. Pork and alcoholic beverages are taboo to the Islamized Kurds. Throughout the Kurdistan area there are two basic and distinctive types of social organization: (1) a so-called "tribal" system based on descent, and (2) a feudal system based on class and land ownership. The nomadic Kurds belong to the descent type, while the settled population, the agriculturists, may be dichotomized between freeholding, organized farmers (descent) and sharecropping tenants (feudal). The feudal-type village structure is progressively being absorbed into the modern structure of the respective national states. Kurdish towns serve as trade and administrative centers, and have more complex patterns of social relations. The tribal areas are characterized by small endogamous communities with strong patterns of localism and traditionalism. In the villages farmers generally own and work their own land, sometimes hiring outside labor for assistance. Mutual renting or borrowing of livestock may occur, especially at harvest time when cattle are used for threshing. Grazing land is owned by the village as a whole, while herd animals are individually owned. Herding is usually done by one or more full-time shepherds serving the whole community. The village is composed of economically independent households, each of which is usually occupied by a single nuclear family; some households include an extended patrilocal family. Within the household the division of labor is clear-cut and follows the traditional rural pattern of men working the fields and women attending to the household tasks. Marriage patterns are based on Koranic law. The Kurds practice kingroup endogamy with the preferred and statistically most frequent mate being the patrilateral parallel cousin. Bride price is present but is not fixed as to amount, this being dependent on the wealth and status of the families involved. The bride price is completely eliminated for marriages involving sister exchange. Polygyny, although permitted by Islam, is relatively uncommon, being confined mostly to the wealthy. The levirate is frequently practiced, but the sororate does not occur. In accordance with Muslim practice, the husband has a right to divorce his wife at any time without specifying his reasons. Following divorce, the woman returns to her father's house leaving the children with their father. Residence in marriage is ideally patrilocal, but the usual household consists of a nuclear family. Traditionally, the father or senior adult male has complete and unquestionable control of the household; but in actual practice it has been observed that Kurdish women often have considerable influence within the family circle (some have even attained prominence on a higher political level). Nevertheless, obedience of the female to the male, and of the young to the old, is still both the ideal and the general rule. The Kurdish kinship system is distinguished by its small number of basic terms, twelve in all. From the standpoint of the male, affinal relatives are of secondary importance. The group of relatives covered by the basic twelve terms is a bilateral kin group and includes all individuals in the elementary families of which ego or ego's parents are members during their lifetime. Kurdish kinship terms measure genealogical distance between new kin without showing unilineal emphasis. Kurdish political organization of the tribal type is based on a segmentary lineage system. A political confederacy, called ashiret, is headed by a paramount leader (beg), and is composed of a number of units each of which is called a tira. Each tira is taxed by the ashiret in terms of armed men and servants who serve in the camp of the beg. These tira represent the primary political and land-owning groups in the society with membership inherited patrilineally; in other words, each tira is the equivalent of a maximal lineage. Each tira is headed by a raiz or leader, whose position is hereditary. During crisis situations, tira leaders meet to form a deliberative body or council for the purpose of decision-making. Population pressure and internal strife sometimes lead to the split of a tira with the eventual formation of a new unit. The whole tira rarely camps as a single unit, but instead divides into a number of tent camps called khel, roughly corresponding to a lineage segment and held together by both economic and kinship ties. The khel is headed by an older man selected informally on the basis of his high prestige, power, and capabilities. Each khel is in turn made up of from 20 to 30 households, and approximates in size, composition, and roles the corresponding political unit represented by the villages of the sedentary Kurds. Instead of being farmers, however, the men are engaged in fulltime herding and stock breeding. Due primarily to the Kurdish practice of endogamy, genealogical and local groups usually coincide and represent the organizational units in the formal political sense. At the village level, a mukhtar (mayor or headman) is elected to serve as an intermediary between the village and the higher political administration. Frequently, the mukhtar is appointed by the higher administration in an attempt to achieve a balance of power in the village or full cooperation with the national government. Vinogradov (1965) is a cultural summary based on material in this file, and provides a good introduction to the Kurds. Additional sources to consult are Leach (1940) and Johnson (1940). Culture summary by John M. Beierle Barth, Fredrik. Principles of social organization in southern Kurdistan. Oslo, Brodrene Jorgensen Boktr., 1953. 146 p. illus., maps, tables. Leach, Edmund Ronald. Social and economic organisation of the Rowanduz Kurds. London, Published for The London School of Economics and Political Science by P. Lund, Humphries, 1940. 74 p. illus., maps. Johnson, J. C. A. The Kurds of Iraq. I. Geographical Magazine, 10 (1940): 382-393. Johnson, J. C. A. The Kurds of Iraq. II. Geographical Magazine, 11 (1940): 50-59. Vinogradov, Amal. Kurd cultural summary. 13 l. Typescript. Unpublished manuscriptNew Haven, Human Relations Area Files, 1965. 7855 | |
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