“But those are the Consul’s, your Greatness.”
“The Consul’s! Am I Sheikh, or am I not?”
So the horses were brought; and it is to be hoped that the trouble that followed, and the fine that had to be paid, was a salutary lesson to everybody.
Of late years, a family quarrel has rather diminished the power of Sheikh Taha. His uncle Abd-l-Kadr, son of Obeid-Ullah, returned from Constantinople with the claim to be (what he is by all laws of primogeniture) the Head of the House. Fighting followed between the two; a proceeding[{167}] which would not have done much harm to anyone had the Kurds only fought among themselves. Naturally, however, the poor serfs of Christians (whose allegiance both parties claimed) suffered as those do suffer who have the misfortune to find themselves between the upper and nether millstones.
Both Sheikhs were arrested, but a compromise was arranged. Abd-l-Kadr agreed to accept a liberal allowance from the family funds; and to live in Stamboul, the city he knew, rather than set up as a savage chief in Kurdistan.
A day’s journey from the Sheikh’s house at Neri brings the traveller to the land of the Christian “ashirets” of Jilu and Baz.
Ashiret is a word that strictly means “tribe” or clan; but as descriptive of status it is contrasted with “rayat” or subject; and means that the bearers of the name pay tribute (when it can be got out of them) and not taxes. The Ottoman Government is only now extending its power, as a practical thing, into Kurdistan at all. All the Mussulman dwellers in the land were until lately “ashiret,” and much in the same position as the Highlanders “beyond the line” in days previous to the “forty-five.” A fair proportion of the Christian dwellers there, happening to have arms, are “ashiret” as well.
Those who are unarmed are in the unpleasant position of having to serve two masters (both of them abominably bad ones), and are “rayat” both to the Government, as far as its power goes; and to the Kurdish chiefs, as far as they can enforce theirs. The whole position is comprehensible to those who live among the people; but to the foreigner, it appears to be (and is) the negation of law, order, and all that we mean by good government. It is the old life of the highlands of Scotland, complicated and worsened immensely by the division between Christianity and Islam.
Still, among the ashirets who carried arms, whether Christian or Moslem, the position was by no means intolerable a generation ago. Besides it was extremely picturesque. The various tribes fought one another freely; and of course[{168}] the feuds usually, though not always, followed the religious and racial line of division.
Still, arms were approximately equal; and the Christians, though outnumbered, had strong positions to defend, and were of good fighting stock, as men of Assyrian blood should be. So, until Abdul Hamid’s day, the parties were fairly matched on the whole; and generations of “cross-raiding” had evolved an understanding in the matter, capable of summary statement as “Take all you like, but do not damage what you leave; and do not touch the women.” Thus, live-stock were fair loot, and so were carpets and other house-furniture, and arms of course. But the house must not be burnt, and standing crops and irrigating channels not touched, while a gentlemanly brigand would leave the corn-store alone. Women were never molested when a village of ashirets was raided, until a few years ago. And this was so thoroughly understood that it was not necessary even to guard them; a custom which by an interesting parallel prevailed on our own Scotch border in the fourteenth century.[100] When, however (as sometimes happened), a party of Kurds at feud with other Kurds, plundered a Christian village that was “rayat” to the chief of the other party, girls might be carried off, with the other live stock. Even so, however, wives were sacrosanct.