In addition to this costume all tribes of the south wear the typical Kurdish felt waistcoat, which is sleeveless, and about half an inch thick.
It may be said that in the south the Kurd has preserved no prejudices in the matter of dress, except the turban, which is his distinguishing feature.
The costume of the women is simple. In the north, a long coloured shirt, and full trousers, or full skirts, supplemented in cold weather by more shirts, and perhaps a felt, constitutes the dress. A large turban is worn.
In central and southern Kurdistan, however, the dress becomes more complicated. The Mukri and Sina women enjoy the reputation of wearing the biggest turbans of any tribes, huge masses of coloured silk handkerchiefs cocked to one side. Earrings, bracelets, strings of gold coins around their foreheads, are all common enough features of their dress. Among the Mukri the women often wear the “sardari,” and if not that, the “charukhia,” a kind of heavy cloth thrown over one shoulder.
The veil is absolutely unknown to the Kurds, and the women never hide their faces.
The dress adopted by the Sulaimania women is, while Kurdish in character, yet influenced by the Arab style.
The underclothes are a short shirt and baggy trousers, the upper parts of which are made of white cotton and the lower of some striped material. Over this is a long shirt reaching to the feet, with small bishop-sleeves of white cotton, and open at the neck. Over this again is the “kawa,” a long coat—also reaching to the feet—buttonless, not meeting at the front, of some heavier stuff, the sleeves of which are tight, but slit on the inner side for a few inches from the wrist.
The headgear consists of, first, a little ornamented skull-cap, over which is thrown the “jamana,” a coloured handkerchief, which hangs behind and is often brought once round the neck. The Kurdish turban has given place to a long thick cord with pieces of black cloth fastened in it, in contact with one another, making an apparatus more like a “boa” than anything else. This, the “pushin,” is wound round the head over the jamana, and the costume altogether is graceful and dignified, particularly when the wearer is tall, as are most of the women of Sulaimania.
The Kurds are by no means devoid of the superstition and folklore that is to be expected among such a people.
Like the Persians, whose Islamiyyat has not expelled the ancient fables, they still believe in the fairies, and although the Jinn of the Arabs have taken a large place in the scheme of beings of the underworld, Peri and Shait still hold their own. There is too the Pir or saint, the origin of whom is wrapped in obscurity, and who is popularly supposed to exist in certain spots and tombs, where the votive offering of rags is made, just as in Persia—relic of a custom surely older than Islam.