The geology, entomology, and zoology of the Bakhtiari country have yet to be investigated. In a journey of three months and a half the only animals seen were a bear and cubs, a boar, some small ibex, a blue hare, and some jackals. Francolin are common, and storks were seen, but scarcely any other birds, and bees and butterflies are rare. It is the noxious forms of animated life which are abundant. There are snakes, some of them venomous, a venomous spider, and a stinging beetle, and legions of black flies, mosquitos, and sand-flies infest many localities.
This area of lofty ranges, valleys, gorges, and alpine pasturages is inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, classed with the savage or semi-savage races, who, though they descend to the warmer plains in the winter, invariably speak of these mountains as "their country." On this journey nearly all the tribes were visited in their own encampments, and their arrangements, modes of living, customs, and beliefs were subjects of daily investigation, the results of which are given in the letters which follow.
Their own very hazy traditions, which are swift to lose themselves in the fabulous, represent that they came from Syria, under one chief, and took possession of the country which they now inhabit. A later tradition states that a descendant of this chief had two wives equally beloved, one of whom had four sons, and the other seven; and that after their father's death the young men quarrelled, separated, and bequeathed their quarrel to posterity, the seven brothers forming the Haft Lang division of the Bakhtiaris, and the four the Chahar Lang.[44]
The Haft Lang, though originally far superior in numbers, weakened their power by their unending internal conflicts, and in 1840, when Sir A. H. Layard visited a part of Luristan not embraced in this route, and sojourned at Kala-i-Tul, the power and headship of Mehemet Taki Khan, the great chief of their rivals the Chahar Lang, were recognised throughout the region.
The misfortunes which came upon him overthrew the supremacy of his clan, and now (as for some years past) the Haft Lang supply the ruling dynasty, the Chahar Lang being, however, still strong enough to decide any battles for the chieftainship which may be fought among their rivals. Time, and a stronger assertion of the sovereignty of Persia, have toned the feud down into a general enmity and aversion, but the tribes of the two septs rarely intermarry, and seldom encamp near each other without bloodshed.
The great divisions of the Bakhtiaris, the Haft Lang, the Chahar Lang, and the Dinarunis, with the dependencies of the Janiki Garmsir, the Janiki Sardsir, and the Afshar tribe of Gunduzlu, remain as they were half a century ago, when they were the subject of careful investigation by Sir A. H. Layard and Sir H. Rawlinson.
The tribes (as enumerated by several of the Khans without any divergence in their statements) number 29,100 families, an increase in the last half-century. Taking eight to a household, which I believe to be a fair estimate, a population of 232,800 would be the result.[45]
A few small villages of mud hovels at low altitudes are tenanted by a part of their inhabitants throughout the winter, the other part migrating with the bulk of the flocks; and 3000 families of the two great Janiki divisions are deh-nishins or "dwellers in cities," i.e. they do not migrate at all; but the rest are nomads, that is, they have winter camping-grounds in the warm plains of Khuzistan and elsewhere, and summer pastures in the region of the Upper Karun and its affluents, making two annual migrations between their garmsirs and sardsirs (hot and cold quarters).
Though a pastoral people, they have (as has been referred to previously) of late years irrigated, stoned, and cultivated a number of their valleys, sowing in the early autumn, leaving the crops for the winter and early spring, and on their return weeding them very carefully till harvest-time in July.
They live on the produce of their flocks and herds, on leavened cakes made of wheat and barley flour, and on a paste made of acorn flour.