To Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in disguise

by Ely Banister Soane

ENCAMPMENT OF JAF KURDS IN SHAHR-I-ZUR.

One of the late chiefs, Uthman Pasha, who died in the autumn of 1909 (to whom reference is made in the chapters on Sulaimania and Halabja) strengthened and enriched the tribe by his marriage with Adela Khanum, who was a lady of the old Ardalan family of ministers to the valis, and at once drew upon himself the displeasure of the Turks and the approval of the Persians, who granted him a sword and title as a mark of the recognition of his having chosen a Persian subject to wife.

THE JAF

The pashas of the Jaf are a proud and haughty class of men, speaking little, but prompt to act, and they have, during the last hundred years, whenever trouble occurred in the tribe, taken such swift and effective action that since the first division of the tribe none further has taken place. Almost alone among the greater tribes of the Kurds this one of the Jaf has been able to live in good interrelation, for, as the heads of the various families have worked in concert, the tribe has grown wealthy and strong.

This is a remarkable feature of Kurdish life, for the reason why Persia and Turkey have been safe from the great invasions by Kurds that would otherwise have occurred, is the inability of the tribes to live at peace with one another—a not uncommon feature of the temperament of mountain races in all parts of the world.

The tribe seldom passes the Persian frontier, except at its northern migration limit near Bana, for over their southern border lies the territory of the Guran, an ancient and renowned tribe, which, while not so strong as it used to be, still commands a sufficient respect to keep in check its turbulent neighbours in Turkish territory.

Of all Kurdish tribes, perhaps the Guran has been best known and has excited most interest among those who have travelled in western Persia and southern Kurdistan. If, however, ethnological research could be brought to bear upon the tribe, it is possible that the Guran would be discovered to be not Kurdish, but either Lurish or Persian. Along the border that separates Kurdistan from Luristan, are a number of tribes that are neither Lur nor Kurd, and speak a dialect which is imagined to be the relic of the old Persian Tajik.

It is now thought that this country was peopled by a sedentary population called Guran, speaking the dialect above referred to, and which is still spoken with variations by the Aoraman, Kanduleh, and Rizho settled tribes. The tongue was, and still is in a measure, the classical language of the Ardalan family, and is used in all the very extensive poetry that was and is written in and about Sina. It is now called Aorami, or Shahrazuri.

This theory accounts for the fact that a large portion of the Guran tribe—the sedentary section—still speaks the language. The nomadic section speaks a definitely Kurdish dialect, but this is readily accounted for by the circumstances which led certain Jaf and Kalhur sub-tribes to put themselves under the protection of the Guran and adopt their name.