"كردستان والأكراد" [ظ‎‎٣‎٢] (١٢٢/٦٤)

62
Tribe.
Number of
families.
Locality.
Remarks.
27. Piradtini
1,100
[S. of Zemzan]
Village-dwellers; Baba.
28. Koshnao
2,000
[Between Girdi and
Sheikh Bazeini]
Sedentary ; employed by
Girdi and Sheikh
Bazeini as workers
and to look after
crops in their ab
sence ; poor fighters. •
The Kurds enumerated in the preceding list are to a large extent
sedentary mountaineers; they are industrious agriculturalists, cultivating
every available piece of ground in the vicinity of their village, diverting
and damming streams, draining and digging ditches for the purpose of
irrigating their terraced fields ; they grow crops of barley, wheat, maize,
rice, and excellent tobacco. They live under the rule of tribal chiefs and
are constantly at war with one another. The men, who carry daggers and
rifles, are active fighters and hunters. Near the centre of each village is
a small douhle-bastioned block-house of hewn stone, in which the inhab
itants take refuge in case of need. They are sedentary, dwelling in summer
in bowers erected on the roofs of their houses. Their women are not
veiled and are well-treated. Many Jewish families live among them
unmolested, but Jews are not allowed to carry arms nor to engage in
tribal wars; they are, therefore, able to travel freely among hostile tribes
in the pursuit of trade. Nestorian Christians are treated similarly;
sometimes they are in a state of vassalage to the Kurds, but more often
they own their own lands and are on an equal footing with the Kurdish
population.
The last group deals with the semi-nomad Kurds of the plains and
the southern hills, several of whom form numerous and important tribes.
Tribe.
Number of
families.
Locality.
Remarks.
1. Surchi
8,000
[N.E. of Mosul]
One-third complete no
mads, the rest semi
nomads ; Baba.
2. Khalkani
700
S.E. of Surchi
Semi-nomadic, unwar
like; Baba.
3 Mamund
(?)
[E. of Mosul]
Sub-tribe of the Hama-
wand.