In Kirkuk they enjoy great freedom from persecution, despite the periodical efforts of Muslim priests to incite ill-feeling against them. Their presence is too necessary to the well-being of the town to make a massacre anything but a catastrophe for the Muhammadan traders, who have been led by their integrity and capability to place great faith and confidence, and often to deposit large sums of money with them. In these qualities of honesty, and an ability for getting on with Muslims amicably without conceding a particle of their behaviour as strict Christians, they contrast very forcibly with the Armenians, Syrians, and Arab Christians.
KIRKUK FOLK
They are distinguishable by their head-dress and shirt-sleeves alone, for they wear the long, striped tunic reaching to the heels, and the zouave jacket or “salta,” which, however, they do not ornament with scroll-work in gold and silver as do the Kurds.
Their shirt-sleeves are tight round the wrist, and do not appear below the long sleeves of their jackets; while their head-dress, a blue handkerchief round a skull-cap, is worn broad and flat, embracing the head closely, not standing out as do the turbans of the Muhammadans.
Up to recent years they still displayed a partiality for light yellow striped garments, a relic doubtless of the choice of colour forced upon them in the early Middle Ages by the Khalifas of Bagdad, who commanded all unbelievers to wear a distinctive dress, usually honey coloured.
In Kirkuk is a large colony of Jews, the first of the hosts of that race that exist from here eastward all through Kurdistan to Sina of Persian Kurdistan and Hamadan.
It is thought possible that these are direct descendants of the Jews of the third captivity,[32] whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylonia in the 6th century B.C., just after the fall of the Assyrian Empire.
They use the Aramaic character, and in Kurdistan speak Hebrew, a remarkable fact being that the Chaldeans of Sina in Kurdistan and the Jews of the same place, while survivals of different epochs, speak almost exactly the same ancient Semitic dialect, a conclusive proof, were any needed, of the Semitic origin of the Chaldeans.
In Kirkuk, as in all Kurdistan, the chief occupation of the inhabitants is that of drapers and mercers, the cotton cloth and print trade is entirely in their hands; in fact so far have their co-religionists of Bagdad progressed, that the cottons of Kurdistan are supplied from Manchester by Bagdad Jews settled there.
Kirkuk is thus a collection of all the races of eastern Turkey—Jew, Arab, Syrian, Armenian, Chaldean, Turk, Turkoman, and Kurd—and consequently enjoys considerable freedom from fanaticism, besides being strongly governed by a Turkish governor who possesses sufficient military strength to keep in order almost every element, the Kurds being the only difficult section of the population, with their contempt for all rule and order that does not emanate from their own khans. Unfortunately this excellent state of affairs does not extend for more than a mile or two outside the town, where Arab and Kurd roam at will, defying all.