The Cradle of Mankind; Life in Eastern Kurdistan

by W. A. Wigram; Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram

However that may be, it is the fact that every Kurd in the district of Hakkiari (a general name for the mountain districts of southern Kurdistan) has some reverence for Mar Shimun, as a sort of titular head of the land, and as a man of as much hereditary sanctity as a Christian can aspire to. Thus, strict Mussulmans will often consider that the flesh of animals killed by Christians is not clean enough for a true believer to eat. Who can tell if it has been properly made hallal or no? If, however, the beast has been killed by one of the patriarchal family, the strictest Moslem will not hesitate; particularly if the slaughtering has been done with one particular knife that is one of the heirlooms of the house.

Many other strange survivals of old days remain in this home of ancient semi-royalty and even more ancient patriarchate, but these must suffice. There are few spectacles more romantic and more attractive than that of this young man whom Providence has called to so difficult a position, loyally doing his best, with the help of his devoted sister, to guide and preserve those that are entrusted to him; to save them in the perils that encompass them, and to make them once more worthy inheritors of their own splendid past.

Note. The conclusion of this chapter provides an opportunity for the insertion of a few notes upon the bird and animal life of the mountains of Hakkiari. The subject has some interest of its own; though the fact that every self-respecting man in the country carries a gun prevents the land from ranking as a sportsman’s paradise.

Ibex are fairly common in the southern portions of the range, which are also the more rugged; and moufflon are to be obtained upon the lofty downs of the Armenian plateaux—but not in any great numbers. The former carry very fine heads, and we have seen them with knobs that marked a life of ten or even eleven years, and a measurement, round the curve of the horn, of over four feet.

Bears are common enough to be a nuisance in the spring—when they do much harm to the flocks—and are usually of the ordinary brown type. Sometimes they are of a greyish colour; and the district of Jilu can boast a variety which is described as “white.” The only skin of the type that the writer has seen, however, was light sandy in hue, and it is probably no more than a slight local variant in colour.

Generally they are hunted in a strictly utilitarian way; the object being not so much as to provide sport as to get rid of a nuisance. All the men of the village who can raise anything that can be fired without bursting go out en masse, and beat the hillside till the quarry is roused. When that happens there is as much firing as at an ordinary tribal[{281}] skirmish; and by the time the skin is brought in, it sometimes has some resemblance to a fishing-net.

One good man of Qudshanis, however, had a more sporting disposition, and made a practice of hunting the bear in a way that would have delighted the soul of the Emperor Maximilian, with no other weapon than a short stick (some eight inches long, pointed at the ends) and a dagger. His method was to track the bear to his lair, to approach to within arm’s length if possible, and then rouse the enemy. It seems that the bear could be trusted to stand at gaze for an instant with open mouth, and the hunter (so said deponent, who was the worthy old steward of the Nestorian Patriarch) then thrust the stick into his mouth, thus propping his jaws apart. The bear was sure to use his paws to get rid of the nuisance, and so laid himself open to just one stab from the dagger. It was certainly a sporting method, and the hunter got many skins and much local kudos, the latter being certainly well earned.

However, as often happens, there came a day when something went wrong. Precisely what happened was not known, for the hunter was, as usual, alone—and he never came back to explain how he had failed.

As is the case with many half-wild races, Assyrians regard the bear as half-human, or at all events nearer to man than other beasts; and are convinced, among other things, that he understands human speech. In one instance known to the writer, a girl went down to the fruit-orchards one summer evening with the reprehensible purpose of helping herself from trees that did not belong to her family. As she peered up the tree in the dusk, she saw the soles of a pair of feet above her, and called to the supposed boy to throw her down a share of the fruit. She got no answer, and so went on: “Then I’ll go and tell Abraham that you are stealing his fruit, and he will come out with a gun and a stick.” At that word, a half-grown bear dropped out of the tree beside her, and she perceived that the feet had been his, and not those of a boy. (The resemblance between the footprint of a bear and that of a man, in snow, is remarkably close.) It would be hard to say which party was the most scared, for they ran away in opposite directions; but, naturally, nothing would persuade the girl that the bear had not understood her.

Wild boar is fairly common in the lower hills, which are forest-clad; but the sportsman must reconcile himself to shooting them, for orthodox “pig-sticking” is out of the question in that land. Some of the Christian tribes (though they keep no domestic swine) will shoot and eat these beasts; and at times play unkind tricks on their Mussulman neighbours, inviting them to a banquet and putting pig before them. Kurds are not too particular under these circumstances, though they will not eat the meat knowingly. Still, if trapped thus, they salve their consciences with the remark: “The Christian had the sin, and I had the good dinner.” It is, however, only men of Tkhuma who act thus. The good folk of Tyari might not be above scoring off the enemy in that or any other way, but they will never themselves eat either pork or hare. They do not realize, however, that the rule is not peculiar to that elect people, their own tribe. A good lady of that valley once expressed to the writer her disgust at hearing that Christians were to be enrolled in the army in future. “How can I endure to have my sons set to eat pigs’ flesh among the Mussulmans?” Nothing would persuade her that they were not likely to be exposed to that horror at any rate.