'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎250r] (504/862)

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 375
The semi-nomadic Dizai occupy the rolling downs west of Erbil and
Altun Kopru almost as far as the Tigris where their neighbours are
the Arab Jubur (p. 370). They number 30,000 folk and can provide
5,000 warriors, of whom 600 are mounted. A large number of the
non-tribal Kurds of the Erbil plain are Dizai by origin. The Dizai
have been described as the most intelligent and progressive of the
Iraqi Kurds, and the authority of their aghas over the commoners is
said to be on the wane; there is no paramount agha and the sections
fight amongst themselves. Makhmur, founded when they drove the
Jubur off the Jabal Qara Chauq, is one of their chief villages.
The Girdi are a warlike tribe with some fifteen villages on the
northern fringe of the Erbil plain, south of the Bastura Chai. They
successfully checked the expansion of the Dizai and usually follow an
opposite policy. Another group of Girdi live in the district of Koi
Sanjaq east of the upper Shalgha and south of the Sefin Dagh; but
most of the villagers of Koi plain are the tenants and dependants of the
town aghas of two rival families, Hawaiza and Ghafuri, in Koi Sanjaq.
North of the Bastura Chai there are some sections of the Surchi,
and in winter the Herki nomads appear here (pp. 376-377).
Mountain Basin of Little Zab (figs. 26, 71). The inhabited core of
this region consists of the Rania and Qala Dizeh plains and the southern
tributaries of the Little Zab. The inhabitants of the latter have come
for centuries under the influence of Sulaimaniya and their tribal
organization is weak, but the Rania plain, bounded in the north-west
by the valleys of the Khushnao (p. 376), contains several small tribes,
the Phan, Rumm or Rumak, Sinn, and others. The Pizhder tribe, said
to be one of the strongest of all Iraqi Kurdistan, has land round Qala
Dizeh, the seat of the paramount chief, and in the hills to the south
east along the Little Zab (photo. 140). Many sections are nomadic and
range in summer into Persia as far as Sardasht; the Persian govern
ment tried to regulate this migration in 1927-1929. The small but
warlike Phan tribe, which belongs to the Persian Bilbas confederation
by origin, also makes this summer migration. In the inaccessible hills
between the Qala Dizeh plain and the basin of the Great Zab there
are the Ako, a fierce tribe containing several loosely co-ordinated
sections dispersed in 40-50 villages.
Mountain Basin of Great Zab (figs. 27, 71). This rugged region,
which has only recently been penetrated by a modern road, contains
the most warlike and independent of the Kurdish tribes, though few
are strong in numbers. The more notable are the Surchi, Khushnao,
Baradost, Zibari, and Barzan. These are settled agricultural folk for