'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎2v] (4/122)

P R E F AC E.
This report is an attempt to collect and edit all the information at
present available about the Kurds and Kurdistan. It is based on the
reports of military and political officers, especially of Captain C. F. Woolley
and Major E. Noel, and on a paper written by Sir Mark Sykes in 1908 on
“ The Kurdish Tribes of the Ottoman Empire.” The work of the latter
requires verification, as it is now nearly 15 years since he carried out his
researches. The reports of the former are at present incomplete, as the
country has only been accessible to British officers for six months.
No itinerary has been given, as almost the whole of Kurdistan has
been described in the “ Handbook of Mesopotamia” (vols. i.-iv.) and in the
“Military Report on Eastern Turkey in Asia” (vols. i.-iv.) It will be
time to give a fresh account of the country when it has been re-explored.
As regards the numerous Kurdish tribes, it is feared that the
account here given will be found very inaccurate. In the first place,
there is much divergence in spelling, almost every report being based on a
different system of transliteration; nor is this unnatural when it is borne
in mind that the Kurdish language has never been reduced to writing.
Secondly, many tribes are reported in various localities, sometimes in
their winter quarters and sometimes in their summer quarters, without
any indication being given as to which is meant; at other times it is
uncertain whether the parent-tribe or an offshoot which has settled
elsewhere is intended. A third difficulty lies in the custom of calling a
tribe now by its tribal name, and now by that of its chief or even of one
of his ancestors; consequently, what seems to refer to different tribes
may in some cases refer to one and the same tribe.
All these questions require long and careful investigation; and it is
partly to draw attention to them and to provide a basis on which to work
that this report has been compiled.
The map can only be regarded as approximately correct. It is im
possible to locate exactly nomad and semi-nomad tribes, or to define
boundaries where group overlaps group. Almost all the tribes mentioned
in this book will be found in the map ; only those have been omitted
whose position cannot be fixed, or certain sub-tribes of which the chief
tribe has already been shown on the map.
* Published by the Royal Anthropological Institute, 3, Hanover Square, London, W.