‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎219r] (444/722)

leave their followers, whom they occasionally visit, to the direction of the
elders of the different branches and families of the tribe. The number
which remain in one body is regulated by their means of subsistence.
They, in general, change their residence with the season, and may be sai^,
throughout the year, to enjoy a fine climate. They pitch their dark tents
on the finest of those plains over which they have a right of pasture, and
the encampment is usually on the banks of a rivulet or a stream. It is
commonly formed in a square; and the abode of the principal eller is only
to be distinguished from that of the lowest man in the tribe by its size.
All are made of the same coarse materials and in the same shape. The
horses, mules, and sheep are turned loose to feed around the encampment;
while the young men. if not employed in hunting, are generally seen sit
ting in circles, smoking or indulging in repose. The women are busily
occupied with their domestic duties, or aiding aged men and beys in tending
the flocks. It is the usage of these tribes, unless when very strong, to
pitch their tents in the vicinity of a range of mountains, that their flocks
and families may be within reach of a place of security on the occurrence
of danger. Along the base of those hills which divide Kurdistan from
Azarbaijan and Irak, every valley is occupied during the spring and sum
mer by the camps of these wanderers.
“The men of some of the rudest of the tribes of Persia are accused by
the other natives of that country of paying hardly any attention to the
forms of religion, or to its prescriptions relative to forbidden food; and there
is no doubt that the accusation is in some degree just. They openly eat
the flesh of the hare, which is classed by Muhammadan divines among
meats which, though not legally prohibited, is deemed abominable; and
there, is reason to believe that many of them are not deterred by the Kuran
from feasting, when they have an opportunity, upon swine's flesh.
“Though the chiefs' of the principal tribes, from being brought up at
court or at the capital of a province, are often as well educated and as
polished in their manners as any of the higher classes of the court of Persia;
and though some of their followers, who accompany them, amid scenes com
paratively civilised cannot be distinguished fr>m the inhabitants of the
cities whose manners they adopt, and among whom they frequently inter
marry and settle, the bulk of the tribe, who remain always in the tents or
in their rude villages, continue in a state of the most barbarous ignorance.
They circumcise their children when at the proper age, and contract mar
riages according to the prescribed customs ; but they are said, and probably
with truth, to be very neglectful of the other practices of the Muhammadan
relio’ion. Though some of them, who desire a character for superioi piety,
o >0 ^throuo’h the regular ablutions and the forms of prayer, they are,
m o-eneral" entirely ignorant of the words which they ought to repeat.
“The wandering tribes of Persia are all plunderers ; and they glory m
admitting that they are so. They are continually recounting their own
successful acts of depredation, or those of their ancestors; and, from the
chief to the lowest man in the tribe, they boast openly of deeds for which
men would be capitally punished in a better ordered government. Kyery
sentiment that escapes them evinces their attachment to their piedatory
habits. They often regret the internal tranquillity of their country, and
speak with rapture of those periods of confusion when every man, who, to
use their own expression, ‘ had a horse, a sword, and a heart, could live in
comfort and happiness.'