'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎174r] (352/610)

landowners (arbab) but they have no armed 1 following except
in the more turbulent Turk! districts of Khamseh and Khal-
khal and Kharagan, where every local khan, whether tribal or
non-tribal, maintains ‘ sowars ’ and ‘ tufangchis.’
Most of these Khans, however, are not united with each other
by any tribal organization and are individual territorial
magnates. The conspicuous figures among them are the Amir
Afshar and Amir Ashayir. The Amir Afshar is a self-made
man who has acquired power by his own personality and not
from the small branch of the Afshar tribe settled in Khamseh.
The Amir Ashayir in Khalkhal is chief of the Shatranlu, the
only Azarbaijantribeof consequence included in this area, and
is connected with the chiefs of the vigorous Fuladlu Shahsa-
vans, who live between Khalkhal and Ardabil. Most of these
tribes therefore are now only of ethnological interest, and have
ceased to be of military importance. Brief details of most of
them are given below, province by province, the Shatranlu of
Khalkhal, and Inanlu and Baghdadi Shahsavans of Kharagan,
Kazvin and Saveh being the most important.
Tribes of Mazandaran.
From East to West—
1. Abdul Malikx.
2. Kurd-u-Turk.
3. Khwajahvand.
These tribes are all sedentary and have become more or less
assimilated to the Mazandaranis, and, while retaining their
original dialects among themselves, all speak Mazandaran!
as well.
The Abdul Maliki and Kurd-u-Turk have lost their physique
owing to the unhealthy climate of the Mazandaran plain. The
Khwajahvand live in the hills and are more virile, but also eat
much rice and fall sick if transferred to the plateau climate and
diet. The difficult nature of their country, and their local
knowledge of tracks through swamps and thickets would enable
the Abdul Maliki and Kurd-u-Turk to maintain a guerilla
warfare against strangers with very little risk to themselves.
Rifles were plentiful in Mazandaran until 1919, when
Cossacks and Gendarmerie collected all they could find.
1 Any arms they may possess are contraband and concealed