CHAPTER XII_The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe

THE PEOPLES OF TURKEY

The peoples and ideas emanating from within the realm which still

bears the name of Turkey have left an indelible mark on the rest

of the world. Crossed by some of the great highroads of history,

the land is inspiring in every aspect in which it is regarded. Its

heritage of memories and the prestige of a happier and grander past

are undisturbed by marks of decadence. Most of the foundations

of our progressive spirit were laid in that eastern region. From

a purely scientific standpoint, its human grouping and surface

configuration present highly interesting interdependence.

The region is divisible into six major geographical sections.

Each forms a background against which distinct types of the human

family are displayed. The various groups differ from one another

in religion and language, often even in race. A fringe of fresh

and verdant coastland which surrounds the elevated shelf of Asia

Minor is largely Greek and Christian. The only foothold which

western thought, art or temper ever obtained in Asiatic Turkey is

found within this wave-washed strip of land. The plateau-heart of

Anatolia is predominantly Turkish and Mohammedan. The Christian

element scattered on its steppe-like surface is unable to assert

itself and yields to Oriental ascendancy. The high and broad

mountain masses which border it on the east are the home of the

Armenoids, generally Christians, sometimes Mohammedans, but almost

always characterized by broad-headedness accompanied by a peculiar

flattening of the back of the skull. Beyond this mountain barrier

Asiatic Turkey becomes entirely Semitic, being mainly Arabian in

speech and overwhelmingly Mohammedan in creed. Three main regions

characterize this southern area. The long and narrow corridor of

Syria became the highway which in antiquity bound the flourishing

empires of the Nile basin to the powerful kingdoms of the Hittite

highlands and the Mesopotamian lowlands. Its motley population,

containing representatives of every race, is a relic of former

to-and-fro human displacements along its trough-like extension. In

the adjoining desert Bedouin tribes find their favorite tramping

ground. The twin valley of Mesopotamia is the home of peoples in

whom fusion of Semitic and Indo-European elements is observable.

The history of this land is that of its invaders. Successive

streams of humanity poured into it from four superabundant

reservoirs. Its central mountain zone was the motherland of a

virile race whose sons went forth at intervals to breathe vitality

into gentler populations scattered between the Ægean coast and the

valleys of the Nile and Mesopotamia. Armenians and a number of

Mohammedan sects represent today this Alpine race. Mediterranean

men proceeded constantly from the south and west to new homes in

the pleasant valleys that connected eastern Ægean shores with the

interior table-land. Mobile Semitic hosts abandoned the plateau of

inner Arabia before the time of our earliest records and drifted

naturally northwards towards the fertile Tigris-Euphrates basin

or the commercial routes of Syria. Finally a Turki element, lured

out of its mountain cradle in the Altai by scattered grass lands

extending westwards, swarmed in successive hordes into Asia Minor

and even beyond, well into the heart of Europe.

In addition to the foregoing fundamental wanderings, the inflow

of an Iranian element, composed of men of Aryan speech, may be

observed. This contingent marched out of the plateau of Iran and

reached the Turkish highland without having to scale its slopes.

As a result of this migration Persian words permeate Armenian[214]

extensively. The Turks also have appropriated a certain amount of

Persian words and culture from the same source. Racially, however,

the eastern element was absorbed by the Armenoid population.

The present inhabitants of the diversified domains of the Sultans

have been welded by the run of history into a shadowy political

unity which has failed to harmonize their incompatibilities of

origin and ideals. Turkey is a thoroughly theocratic state.

Its sovereign-caliph and his subjects have always considered

it their most important mission to bring Islam to the infidel.

So great is the hold of ideals over the human mind, however,

that the non-Mohammedan populations have clung passionately to

their religious beliefs. We are forced to seek in creed the main

distinguishing traits which, outwardly at least, divide the

inhabitants of Turkey into groups of different names. We shall see,

however, that in the minds of many of them, language or historical

traditions have little significance. At the same time it is

believed that distinctions of a more fundamental character will be

brought out in the course of this chapter.

THE GREEKS

Our knowledge of the first appearance of Greeks in Asia Minor has

undergone radical revision in recent years. Their prehistoric

culture can be traced as far back as the Neolithic. The chief

interest of modern discovery centers around the now accepted fact

that Greek culture originally invaded the region from the south

and that the Indo-European element which brought Aryan speech to

the land is a later wave which flooded the original Mediterranean

stock at some time during the transition from the Age of Bronze to

that of Iron.[215] The southwestern coast was first colonized. A

northerly extension occurred thence and proceeded mainly along the

coast.[216]

The sequence of geological events preceding man’s appearance upon

the Ægean coast of Asia had imparted features which were destined

to favor human development to an exceptional degree. A land-bridge

connecting the Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas occupied the site

of the Ægean Sea at the dawn of quaternary times. The subsidence

of the land during this period was accompanied by heavy fracturing

trending in east-west lines. The Ægean archipelago, studded with

islands and surrounded by deeply indented coasts, conveys a vivid

picture, on the map, of the crustal deformity which occurred.

Climate also conferred its share of advantages. The long and narrow

valleys are sheltered by mountains on all sides except to seaward.

Northerly air currents cannot reach them. Frosts or snows are

therefore unusual.[217] The course of moisture-laden winds blowing

landward from the seas that wash the three coasts of Asia Minor is

arrested by the mountainous rim of the peninsula. Precipitation

is almost entirely expended upon the narrow shore lands. Copious

rainfall and flowing rivers thus provide this historic Anatolian

fringe with patches of luxuriant vegetation and green valleys. The

interior plateau, on the other hand, remains parched and barren

during the summer months.

A splendid stage for Greek history was thus built during the

prehuman period. Early Mediterranean oncomers discovered sheltered

havens and fertile inlets along the entire development of the

fancifully dissected coast. A natural festoon of outlying islands

increased their security by providing them with advanced posts for

the detection of hostile raids. Erosion along the parallel lines

of east-west rifts had carved fair valleys in which the winding

rivers of classical literature found a channel. But above all, the

sea contributed commerce and cosmopolitanism, both great elements

of world power. These in turn favored the growth of tolerance,--a

trait which has ever marked the western mind and which, at that

particular spot, was to constitute a bastion destined to remain

impregnable to the opposing spirit of the east.[218]

[Illustration:

_The American Geographical Society of New York_

_Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. VII_

PART OF ASIATIC TURKEY SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF PEOPLES]

Intermediate site, low relief above sea level and genial climate

combined to give the Greeks a full share of the joy of life.

These are the physical elements upon which the striking cultural

superiority of Hellenism is founded and without the concourse of

which it has never set permanent foot anywhere. The brilliant

florescence of Greek civilization in pagan time attained its apogee

wherever these three geographical factors prevailed. The Byzantine

Empire succumbed before eastern onslaught because it was gradually

converted into an Asiatic state and thus exceeded the boundaries

marked by nature for Greek humanity.

The sixth century of the pagan era was the Golden Age of Hellenism

in Asia Minor. The elongated seaward valleys became the seat of

flourishing and independent nations. A strong democratic spirit

prevailed among their inhabitants. City states or self-governing

communities were numerous. Their merchant princes drew on the vast

eastern rearland for supplies which they sold to Europe. They also

collected heavy tolls from freight going eastwards. A double stream

of wealth thus flowed into their treasuries. The prosperity of this

period has never since been paralleled in the region.

Creative art found a home upon a site so eminently favored by

nature. The heart and mind of its inhabitants throbbed responsively

to the stirring events which were the result of their country’s

situation at the junction of the most important sea and land

highways of the then known world. There the antagonism between

east and west, out of which so much world history has been made,

broke into violent clashes after periods of commercial interchange.

Talent was spurred to high achievement under the stimulus of

foreign contact, wealthy patronage and genial environment. Imposing

ruins and prolific discoveries of masterpieces of art convey ample

testimony of nature’s concentrated prodigality on this famous

coastland.

The present Greek occupants of the Anatolian shores reflect the

pleasant character of their environment in the lightness of heart

which is one of their distinguishing characteristics. Their

craving for gaiety, society and enjoyment is unfailing. Even the

gloom of Asiatic dominion does not prevent merrymaking at every

opportunity. In these respects the Greeks share to an eminent

degree the feelings of the nations of the western world.

With the exception perhaps of the Circassians, the Greeks are the

handsomest of the inhabitants of Asiatic Turkey. Classical forms of

the head and of the general cast of countenance are met in every

nook of the Anatolian seaboard. Their profiles are those of the

gently curving lines of ancient Greek statues and medals. Among

women graceful carriage of the head and neck adds to their charm.

The men are erect and firm of gait.

Fishing and sailoring are the hereditary occupations of the coastal

Greek populations of Asia Minor. Inland they become traders. The

“corner” grocery or the village butcher shop is generally owned by

a Greek. In recent years the Greek has learned to play the part of

the promoter in the growing development of Asia Minor. He is often

the middleman who brings western capital to eastern opportunity.

Herein his rôle differs but slightly from that of his Lydian or

Carian ancestors.

The true Greek is met only as far inland as a whiff of the salt sea

air can be inhaled. Eastward, on the Anatolian table-land, Greek

communities of the ancient Phrygian and Cappadocian lands differ

from kindred coastal populations as widely as the fascinating

greenswards of the one vary from the semi-arid steppe of the other.

Once beyond the range of maritime influences, Greeks often forget

their own language and adopt Turkish instead. This is frequently

the case in many of the inland settlements where Turkish is now

the only medium of oral expression for Christian thought.[219]

Racially, too, the Greeks of the inland towns and villages betray

Alpine or Armenoid origin rather than Mediterranean descent.

Short stature, ample chest development and broad-headedness are

conspicuous among them. The rock-hewn villages south of Mt. Argaeus

afford a clue to the origin and antiquity of these mountain

Greeks.[220] They are descendants of the natives who were conquered

by the armies of Greek pagan states or by Byzantine troops. The

conquerors brought language and culture to the upland populations

but were numerically insufficient to impose a new racial stratum.

Later the wave of Turkish invasion drove out Greek and forced

Asiatic speech on the same mountain populations without always

replacing Christianity by Mohammedanism.

Duality of language is sometimes accompanied by a strange duality

of creed among Anatolian Greeks. At Jevizlik, on the road between

Trebizond and Gumushchane, dwell crypto-Christian Greeks who

publicly profess Mohammedanism while maintaining in secret the

Greek orthodox faith.[221] The inauguration of a constitutional

form of government in 1908, with its promise of religious liberty,

gave the members of the community an opportunity to renounce their

outward form of faith and proclaim complete adherence to the

religion they had never really forsaken.

To the philologist these ancient Greek communities are veritable

treasure grounds, especially when found in mountainous districts.

Archaic forms of speech are in current use among their inhabitants.

In many, the purity of the ancient Greek dialects of Asia Minor has

been preserved with but slight contamination from later literary

influences. The very names of those who speak these vernaculars

show interesting connection with the classical period of Hellenism.

Socrates or Pericles will cook daily for the traveler, and

Themistocles supply him with tobacco. More than that, they all

make themselves intelligible in the style--and the spirit, too--of

inscriptional language. But the old Hellenic dialects should not be

confused with the still unknown Lycian, Lydian and Carian languages

found in inscriptions. There is reason to believe that these

primitive speeches of the Anatolian plateau represent exceedingly

early stages in the development of Indo-European forms.

Many of the Greek communities owe their survival to the proficiency

of their members in a particular industry. The settlements of

Greek miners scattered in the Pontic and Tauric mining districts

are instances in point. The Turkish conquest of the Byzantine

Empire was accomplished by Asiatic barbarians who knew how to

fight but included no artisans in their ranks. They were therefore

obliged to rely upon the populations of the conquered lands for

the maintenance of industrial and commercial activity. This

notorious incompetence of the Turk for any pursuit other than that

of soldiering is, at bottom, the prime cause of the survival of

Christian communities within Ottoman boundaries.

THE TURKS

The appearance and establishment of the Turks in a land which was

not that of their origin follows their life as nomad tribesmen of

the vast steppeland of central Asia. They were men at large upon

the world’s largest continent, the northerners of the east who

naturally and unconsciously went forth in quest of the greater

comforts afforded by southern regions. The flatlands which gave

birth to their race lie open to the frozen gales of the north.

Their continental climate, icy cold or burning hot in turn, is cut

off from the tempering influences prevailing behind the folds of

tertiary mountain piles to the south. As the steppemen migrated

southward their gradually swelling numbers imparted density to the

mass they formed because expansion on the east or west was denied

them. China and the Chinese, admirably sheltered by barriers of

deserts and mountains, stopped their easterly extension. Christian

Russia stopped them on the west, though at a heavy cost to herself,

for no obstacle had been raised by nature to meet their advance.

The open plain of central Asia merges insensibly into that of north

Europe. That is why incidentally Russia is half Tatar today. The

Asiatic was forced upon her. She sacrificed herself by absorbing

him into her bosom, saving Europe thereby from this eastern

scourge, but forfeiting the advantages of progress.

[Illustration:

FIG. 58--A group of Turks who have none of the racial traits

indicated by their name. The seated members in the foreground are

typical inhabitants of the Anatolian plateau. The Greek type,

closely resembling the Italian, appears in the background.]

Cut off from east and west in this manner, the only alternative

left to the Turk was to scale the plateau region of western

Asia and to swarm into the avenues that led him to conquered

territory where he succeeded in attaining power and organizing

his undisciplined hosts into the semblance of a state. The presence

of the Turk upon the land to which he conferred his Mongolian name

and the very foundation of the Turkish state can in this manner be

attributed to outward causes rather than to local development. It

was essentially a process of transplantation. The consolidation

and rise to power of the Ottoman Empire between the thirteenth

and sixteenth centuries were largely due to foreign conditions,

for during that interval Europe was busily engaged in extirpating

feudalism and the objectionable phases of medieval clerical

influences from its soil.

The Turks and their name were first known to the western world in

the sixth century of our era. But their invasion of Asia Minor

should rather be considered as a gradual infiltration begun in

prehistoric times. Hittite carvings represent, among others, a

recognizable Mongoloid type of Tatar soldiers who fought as allies

of the great mountain state.[222] Pig-tails, high cheek-bones and

oblique eyes have been conspicuously modeled by the sculptor. Tatar

migrations are thus discerned in the morning of the history of

Asia Minor. The early invaders were steadily reinforced from the

east by their kinsmen. The rise of the Seljuk Turks to dominance

was the explosion of energy accumulated in the course of the

centuries in which this movement of Altaic tribes had persisted.

The consolidation of Ottoman power marked its culmination. A single

tribe could never have acquired sufficient strength to establish a

mighty empire had not its ranks been swollen by members of kindred

groups encountered during its migration. This is what actually

happened when Jenghiz Khan and Timur appeared on the stage of

history. Turkish accounts describe both as fiery leaders, men who

could command the adherence of the vast swarm of descendants of

their kinsmen, in whose footsteps they marched. Sultan Osman, the

founder of the present Turkish dynasty and reputed to be of the

same caliber, likewise drew on a human legacy of centuries for the

accomplishment of his designs.

Unfortunately, the Turks bear a name which is utterly void of

significance. They themselves apply it to every Mohammedan

inhabitant of Asia Minor without discrimination of race or origin.

But for fully eight centuries they have stocked their harems with

women seized from conquered populations. It is no exaggeration to

say that this human tax has been levied on almost every family

of the Caucasus, western Asia and the countries of the Balkan

peninsula. Today the net result of this variegated intermixture is

that the Tatar origin of the average Turk, so called, is entirely

concealed by the mingling with Mediterranean, Armenoid-Alpine and

even Nordic elements. Except in a few isolated instances the Turki

type of central Asia is rarely met within Turkish boundaries.

Clearly no valid claim to racial distinctiveness can be set up by

the Turks.

In religion the Turk is no innovator. He has merely taken unto

himself the idealism of Arabia. And yet his efficient wield of

the fine edge of Mohammedan fanaticism failed to sever the ties

which bind Islam to this land. Even his language is not his own.

The splendor of Arabian syntax and the supple elegance of Persian

style alone confer literary flavor upon it. Over 70 per cent of the

words in Turkish are Arabic retained in unalloyed purity. A scant

sprinkling of Tatar words merely recalls by their sound the raucous

articulations which form the nomad’s speech, while their paucity is

a true measure of the limited range of concepts which find lodgment

in his mind.

Turkish nationality is equally meaningless. The descendants

of Asiatic nomads became masters of western Asia without ever

conferring the boon of government or of nationality upon the land

and its peoples. In Gibbon’s mordant words “the camp and not the

soil is the country of the genuine Tatar.” And Turkey is still a

vast field in which the Turk has pitched his tent and merely waits,

knowing that the day is not far off when he will have to break camp

and seek new pasturages for his herds and flocks. But the site on

which he has settled for the past five centuries had been the seat

of a highly organized government. Seeing himself master of this

estate the Turk unhesitatingly adopted its institutions. Thus,

under the mantle of Islamic theocracy, Byzantine government and

customs have continued to flourish in Ottoman dominions. Barring

special features belonging to Mohammedanism, the ceremonials of the

Sultan’s court may be traced, step by step, to Byzantine forms.

The very absolutism of the caliphs is alien to the fundamentally

democratic character of both Tatar societies and Koranic teaching.

It is Byzantine and a relic of the despotism of the Roman Caesars.

In speaking of the Turks it is necessary to carry two distinct

types in mind. The pure Tatar vagrant, true to his native

indolence, which unfits him for sedentary occupation, is in

the minority. The mass of the Turkish population consists of a

mixed element in which the racial strain of given localities

persists along with characteristics imparted by fusion with Turki

conquerors. This mingling is indicated further by the spirit which

moves this people in the performance of their daily tasks. Its

members are recruited among the plodding, gentle-mannered and

kind-hearted peasants of the land. Local influence accounts for

these qualities. Occasionally, however, the foreign strain will

crop out. Then, like their nomad ancestors, who, from peaceful

shepherds roaming leisurely from patch to patch of green, are

transformed into fiends incarnate by the approach of a thief or

a beast of prey, or whom a passing storm will throw into fits of

uncontrollable rage which vents itself in passionate outbursts of

shrieking and gesticulation, the Turkish peasants can cast their

natural softness of character to the winds and become either

bloodthirsty murderers smiting unarmed Christians or else heroes

performing gallant deeds on the battlefield.

The majority of this Turkish population finds a congenial home on

the Anatolian upland. Their ancestors beheld here an environment

in which the physical characteristics of the plateaus of central

Asia were reproduced. They took to it naturally. The table-land

is a rolling expanse mournfully devoid of vegetation, save for

rare clusters of stunted trees. Scanty plots of grass, surrounding

sickly pools or streams, resemble holes in a ragged garment spread

over its surface. Sun-baked in summer, chilled in winter, with a

climate too deficient in moisture for the favorable development

of human societies, the land could only appeal to Asiatic sons of

semi-arid areas. In recent years, the tendency of Turks to retire

to this region is observable wherever the industry of Christian

populations of the encircling coastland has rendered life too

arduous for Turkish love of ease.

The penetration of this table-land by nomads from the heart of

Asia goes on today as in the past, albeit with abated intensity.

It is no rare occurrence in Asia Minor to meet Tatars or Turkomans

who have been on a slow westerly march for periods of from five to

ten years at a time. Most of them come from the Kirghiz steppes.

A vague desire to change their residence from a Christian to a

Mohammedan country impels their wanderings, according to their own

accounts. Constantinople looms as an objective nebulously impressed

in their minds. But the goal is rarely attained. In reality their

migration is as unconscious as that of their forefathers and merely

carries them out of sheer necessity from pasturage to pasturage in

the manner it affected former generations.

MOHAMMEDAN IMMIGRANTS

Ever since the establishment of Turkish authority in western

Asia the policy of the Sultan’s officials has been directed

towards attracting Mohammedan settlers from foreign countries

to the unpopulated districts of Turkey. Particularly at the end

of unsuccessful wars, special efforts are made to induce Moslem

inhabitants of lost provinces to return within Turkish boundaries,

where land often exempt from taxation is assigned to them. Widely

distributed Circassian, Tatar and Turkoman settlements owe their

origin to this Turkish method of increasing the Mohammedan

element in the country. The Bithynian peninsula, where Cretaceous

limestones and sandy Eocene beds provide excellent soils, is a

region favored by immigrants.

Russia’s southwesterly spread of empire is responsible for the

movement of some 500,000 Circassians from the Caucasus highlands

to Asiatic Turkey. Lithe of figure, brilliant-eyed and nimble in

mind, these immigrants are morally and physically far superior to

their new countrymen. They bring with them the higher standard of

living of their native land. Their dwellings are more solidly built

than the customary shanties or hovels of the Anatolian table-land,

and their food is of the average European quality. Wherever

settled, they live in a degree of comfort unknown to the Turkish

peasant. Flourishing farming communities have grown up around their

villages. In cities they are distinguished by a natural aptitude

for commerce, and many an able government official has been

recruited from their numbers.

In race, language and religion the Circassians of Turkey present,

according to tribal origin, the confusion existing in their cradle

land. The Kabardian group of the Uzun Yaila are of western Caucasus

extraction and speak an incorporative language. The Chechen

settled in Syria are derived from Daghestani highlanders. In some

cases Circassians bear Christian names, but worship in mosques.

Representatives of central Asiatic, European and even Semitic races

are found among them.

A colony of Noghai Tatar refugees was founded in the lower Jeihun

valley after the Crimean War, at which time it consisted of some

60,000 individuals. Their numbers were speedily reduced, however,

by the malaria and fevers of the unhealthful Cilician coast land.

A decimated remnant is now engaged in farming the marshy lands

originally bestowed on their fathers. They maintain excellent

relations with the Turks, with whom they intermarry.

The Turkomans of Asia Minor are, according to their statements,

refugees from Muscovite Christianity. In reality they seek escape

from Russian pressure exerted to force them to abandon nomadism.

This name is applied generally to immigrants coming from Turkestan

who preserved their roving habits. The cruel Turki type of

lineament and expression is observable on their faces. They are

Sunnis, or orthodox Mohammedans, and a Turkish-speaking people,

but have little intercourse with native Turks.

The Karapapaks, or Black Caps, known also by the name of

Terekimans, are Shiites, or adherents of the eastern branch of

Mohammedanism, from Russian Armenia, who have crossed the Turkish

frontier and settled near Patnoz in the Van vilayet. The original

seat of this people is between Chaldir and Daghestan. Racially they

are of Turki stock. Tatar types predominate among them, although

Circassian and Persian physiognomies are by no means uncommon.

The Lazis of northeasternmost Turkey, who are sometimes known by

the name Tchan, form the connecting link between the Caucasian and

Anatolian populations. Many of them have forsaken their Russian

homes in the past thirty years for the land of their kinsmen on

the Turkish side of the frontier. They occupy, in fairly dense

communities, villages nestling on the forested seaward slopes of

the Pontic Alps, as well as the narrow strip of coast east of

Platana. Former generations looked on them as pirates or brigands.

They now follow less irregular pursuits, but still bear the

reputation of being daring smugglers. The Turkish navy recruits

sailors from among them.

By race the Lazis are allied to the Georgian group of Caucasus

peoples, and their intermixture with ancient Armenian populations

is probable. Their adherence to Mohammedanism is lax. They speak

a southern dialect of the Grusinian language closely allied to

Mingrelian but mingled with Greek and Turkish words. In some

localities Turkish entirely replaces their vernacular. The limits

of their language in Turkey coincide with the western boundary of

the sanjak of Lazistan. They extend thence eastward, in a belt

fringing the southern base of the Caucasus, all the way between the

Black and Caspian seas.[223]

[Illustration:

FIG. 59--“Turkish” crowd in an Anatolian city (Trebizond). A

gathering in these Turkish cities contains representatives of

almost every race in the world.]

[Illustration:

FIG. 60--A group of Maronite women. Their sturdy appearance

suggests their highland origin.]

MOHAMMEDAN DISSENTERS

A number of communities whose origin is wrapped in obscurity are

found off well-beaten avenues on the Anatolian table-land. A

mild, temperate lot, broad-shouldered and open-faced, they have

much in common, in spite of diversity of worship and isolation.

Racially they present few of the Turki features. Their speech

is usually Turkish, but they keep rigidly apart from the Turks.

They are Mohammedans in name only. Having secured immunity from

the fanaticism of the masters of the land, they have secretly

maintained ancestral beliefs to their full extent. When the light

of ethnographic research shall have been fully shed on their rites,

it is likely that the transition of religious thought from the

paganism of Hellenic times to the Christianity of the Byzantine era

will be made clear.

To this group belong the inhospitable Tahtajis (known also as

Chepmi and, in their westernmost extension in the Aidin vilayet,

as Allevis), who are the woodcutters of the upper recesses of the

Lycian mountains. A people of almost primitive manners, they form a

community of about 5,000 souls. Eastern and western culture swept

by their mountain homes, leaving the faintest of traces among them.

Having neither priests nor churches they are held in disrepute

by the Turks. Similarity with eastern religions can nevertheless

be traced in their worship. They wail over the corpses of their

dead as do the Egyptians. A vague connection with Iranian ideas

is discernible in the belief they hold regarding the incarnation

of the devil in the form of a peacock. They cannot be induced to

discuss their rites with strangers. In their simple minds faith is

all in all, and well accentuates the separatist tendency determined

by their rugged mountains.

A more important group, the Kizilbash, present racial

characteristics peculiar to the Nordic race, although they too have

mingled extensively with the Armenoid natives of the Anatolian

mountains over which their settlements are scattered. The name

is pure Turkish for “red head,” but cannot be traced to head-gear

in Turkey. In Persia however allied communities are known whose

members wear scarlet caps. The bends of the Kizil Irmak[224] and

of the Yechil Irmak contain their villages.[225] They also have

settlements in the highlands which extend from the Taurus to Upper

Mesopotamia.

A Turkish-speaking people of peaceful habits, engaged exclusively

in the tillage of their lands, submissive to authority, frugal and

industrious, such are the Kizilbash in the midst of their Turkish,

Kurdish and Armenian neighbors. They are usually on excellent terms

with the Christians. But to this day, after centuries of occupation

of the valleys of the Sakaria and Halys, they have remained as

foreigners among the Turks who colonized their territory long after

them. Probably on account of religious divergences the newcomers

have always held them in contempt.

It is not unlikely that the Kizilbash are lineal descendants of the

Galatae of Asia Minor. This western people entered the peninsula

through the notch cut by the valley of the Sakaria--an avenue also

chosen by the Phrygians sung by Homer. Later the Cimmerians also

followed the same route. All these invasions from the west brought

blondness into Turkey--though not of the pure Nordic type, for the

roads leading out of northern Europe had their longest stretches in

the brunet territory of central and southern Europe. Nevertheless

mingling incurred in the course of migration, as well as after

settlement, has not obliterated entirely the fair ancestral type.

The strongest argument in favor of the relationship between the

Galatae and the Kizilbash lies in the identity of the territory

occupied by both peoples. The racial distinction between the two

lies in the greater admixture of Tatar blood in the Kizilbash of

our times. Gradual change of the Galatian of European provenience

into the Kizilbash type of Asiatic affinity was accompanied by the

replacement of Celtic by Tatar culture.

Galates to the Greeks meant any western barbarian. The term was

applied to the foreigners whose coming was always marked by

destruction and who, in the third and second centuries B.C.,

terrorized Thrace before crossing into Asia Minor. Here they

introduced Celtic forms of speech which were current in their

settlements as late as the fourth century of our era. At that

time the language spoken in parts of Anatolia was similar to the

dialect of the Traveri, a Celtic tribe on the Moselle whose name

has been perpetuated in that of the city of Trèves.[226] Arrian,

a native of Bithynia, describing the customs of the Celts gives

accounts of usages, such as the worship of the oak, which prevailed

in his country and which on investigation are found to have their

counterparts in Europe.

In religious thought, the Kizilbash may be classed as the most

liberal among the Mohammedans of Turkey. Their interpretation of

the Koran exempts them from keeping fasts and allows them the use

of wine. They permit their women to go about with a freedom which

has never been tolerated among Sunnis. Christian rites, such as the

custom of praying over bread and wine, are performed among them.

Fragmentary survivals of pagan observances likewise form part of

their worship.

The Kizilbash are closely affiliated with the Bektash

confraternity, a once powerful Islamic organization which still

owns a large number of convents (tekkes) and churches in Turkey.

Indiscriminate use of the two names has led to much confusion in

the writings of travelers. It seems preferable to restrict the

name of Kizilbash to the group of Anatolian people whose mountain

origin is amply proven by somatic traits and whose cultural

development denotes amalgamation with invaders of the table-land.

The term Bektash can then be applied to the form of religion to

which this people adheres at present. The connection is probably

founded on the ease with which Bektash proselytism drew recruits

from among Kizilbash populations. In the light of this distinction

the so-called Bektash people of the Lycian mountains are merely a

sub-group of the Kizilbash, to whom they are related in part by

race, language and religion.

The Balikis, or Belekis, living on the southern fringe of

Sasun,[227] are probably also a remnant of the old highland

population. The Mohammedanism they profess is tainted with dim

reminiscences of Christian worship and was probably adopted as a

self-preservatory measure. Religious beliefs weigh lightly however

on this community. Its members possess neither church nor mosque.

A term of residence among them would probably enable an observer

to discover survival of very ancient customs. The passing traveler

can do little more than note the unusual freedom with which their

women go about unveiled or note the mixture of Arabic, Kurdish and

Armenian words in their language.

The Avshars, descended from Persian immigrants mingled with native

hill populations, are settled mainly on the eastern slopes of the

Anti-Taurus facing the northern end of the Binbogha range.[228] The

two elements which are blended in this people are also represented

in their religion. The newcomers brought Shiite Mohammedanism

and insured the predominance of their views over the relics of

the nature cults of the aboriginal groups. Traces of Christian

influence are observable in their daily life. Around Cesarea these

Avshars give the shape of a cross to the loaves of unleavened bread

they bake. In view of the deep-rooted aversion of Mohammedans

towards any trace of Christian symbolism, it is evident that we

are here in the presence of an old-established usage rather than

one adopted in post-Mohammedan times. But in speech, custom and

occupation the community differs in no respect from neighboring

Turks.

The nomad element of the Anatolian plateau is represented mainly

by the Yuruks, whose wanderings range from the northern landward

slopes of the Cilician Taurus to the mountainous tract surrounding

Mt. Olympus. They are divided into tribes of varying size, some

not exceeding twenty tents. Their number is estimated at about

200,000. Roving over barren districts, the members of this group

are half-starved human products bred in areas of defective food

supply. The men know no other occupation than that of tending their

sheep and horses. The women are noted carpet-weavers. Strangers

passing within sight of their tent settlements can generally rely

on finding the nomad’s proverbial hospitality under their felt

roofs.

In common with kindred plateau communities, the Yuruks hold

severely aloof from the Turks. But they have adopted Turkish

speech, and it is gradually replacing their ancient vernacular.

They have sometimes been connected with European gipsies,

although the little that is known concerning their history and

traditions hardly warrants such an assumption. A promising field

for ethnographic research still awaits exploitation among their

settlements. They call themselves Mohammedans and circumcise, but

have no priests or churches.[229]

The Aptals of the lofty valleys of northern Syria also have nomadic

habits and appear to be closely related to the gipsies. Although

they claim to be Sunnis they rarely intermarry with settled

Mohammedans. Their roaming life carries them from village to

village, generally in the capacity of musicians and entertainers.

According to their traditions they were expelled from the lower

Tigris regions in the ninth century.[230]

THE ARMENIANS

The table-land on which Armenian life unfolded itself was faulted

into blocks and covered by flows of huge volcanoes after the

Miocene. Pontic ranges fringe it on the north and thereby forbid

access to the Black Sea.[231] On the south, the folds of the

Anti-Taurus mountains likewise act as successive barriers. But no

mountain obstacles intervene to the east or west of Armenia. Close

racial, linguistic and historical relations can therefore be traced

between Armenians and Persians today. Furthermore, the existence

of important Armenian communities scattered all the way west of

Armenia to the coasts of the Ægean becomes intelligible. The very

crowning of Armenians as Byzantine emperors may ultimately be

explained by this east-west extension of relief in western Asia.

The heart of the Armenian plateau is found in the gently folded

limestones and lacustrine deposits surrounding Lake Van. Here an

elevated plain relieves the ruggedness of environing peaks. Here,

too, our earliest knowledge of Armenian history is centered.

But the formation of nationality upon the surrounding sites of

intricate relief was a long-drawn process. A highland dissected

into numerous valleys could not become the seat of a united

people. The region, being broken up, favored division. Accordingly

feudalism flourished undisturbed throughout its extent. Each

valley or habitable stretch was governed by its own princeling.

These petty chiefs relied on the security provided by their rugged

environment and were naturally disinclined to acknowledge authority

emanating from outside their valley homes.

[Illustration:

FIG. 61--The plain of Van. The photograph shows the three

features which make the site a center of Armenian history. The

plain afforded farming land and was dominated by a lone eminence

to the protection of which Armenians have resorted to this very

day. The broad lake in the background added to the natural

strength of this position.]

The plain of Van has always loomed large in the history of Armenia.

This interesting depression occupies the southeastern corner of

the great central plateau and lies surrounded by volcanoes which

were centers of lively eruptive activity during the Pleistocene.

Together with the plain of Mush it forms a single basin which

was once a lake bed. The heavily saline waters of Lake Van still

cover its deepest section. The exposed lake bottom consists of

volcanic matter carrying fertilizers in abundance. Rich brown

loams contributed to the region’s famed fertility. Between the

tenth and ninth centuries B.C. the Vannic community became the

nucleus of a confederacy of mountain tribes forming the kingdom

of Urartu,[232] which extended to the heads of the valleys

debouching on Assyrian territory.[233] After successful resistance

against Assyria the independence of the Armenian state became well

established about 800 B.C.

The ancient history of the Armenians is closely related to that

of the Hittites. The appearance of the former is coeval with

the disappearance of the latter. The probability of a common

origin is strong. Enough light has been shed on the history of

the Armenian table-land prior to 700 B.C. to enable us to divide

its political subdivisions into two great groups. The Vannic

states of the kingdom of Urartu held sway in the northern ranges.

Hittite dominance extended to the southern group of mountains. It

may be assumed that the Armenians of the present day are direct

descendants of these ancient populations, due allowance being made

for the invasion of Iranian peoples who brought eastern culture

to the land. The free inflow of this eastern element was impeded,

however, by the highly dissected table-land of Armenia. It trickled

westward without ever assuming the proportion of a flood. Hence

the Armenian physical type is preserved with considerable purity

beneath the shroud of Aryan culture.

The Armenians call themselves Hai and trace their descent to a

mythical mountain chief Haik. Hai-istan is the name of their

native land in Armenian. The word Armenia itself is of Persian

derivation and foreign to Armenian. A remote possibility of the

connection of Hai with the old name Hit or Hatti may be advanced

in view of the frequency with which the elision of the letter _t_

and the replacement of _d-t_ sounds by _y_ occur in Armenian.[234]

The etymology of the name, however, still awaits more thorough

elucidation.

Although the relation between the Hittite and Armenian languages

yet remains to be determined, and the secrets of the old Vannic

language are not fully revealed, enough is known to prove Armenian

an Aryan infiltration from the west. Herodotus refers to them in a

natural manner as the Φρυγῶν ἄποικοι (VII, 73), “Phrygian

colonists.” It is significant to note that this Greek appellation

was bestowed on the Armenians at a time when western Asia was

better known to the civilized countries of the world than it is at

present. Modern research, however, places the inhabitants of the

plateau of Anatolia and of the Armenian mountain land in the same

racial type.

Planted squarely on the scene of the secular conflict between

the civilization of Europe and Asia, Armenia became the prey of

the victor of the moment. But the united influence of site and

configuration was more than once during this long struggle strong

enough to confer independence on the Armenian. As a buffer between

eastern and western empires the country enjoyed three distinct

periods of native rule prior to the Ottoman conquest.

Throughout these vicissitudes, Armenian life centered mainly around

its mountain home. Nevertheless, altitude alone does not suffice

to explain the characteristics of the people. Climate must also be

taken into account. Armenians are distributed in a belt extending

one degree on either side of the line of north latitude 39°. Within

this zone the products of the soil as well as the customs are those

of temperate regions bordering on the warm. The narrow highland

valleys are wonderfully fertile. Wheat is harvested before July at

an elevation of 3,600 feet in many districts. The country enjoys

fame for the variety and excellence of its fruits.

Little wonder, then, that traits which distinguish populations

reared in sunny lands should also prevail among the dwellers of

this rugged mountain zone. Voluble in the extreme, endowed with a

highly developed imaginative sense and with an innate tendency to

aggrandize and glorify the facts of ordinary life, the Armenian is

often an eastern counterpart of the celebrated Tarasconese created

by Daudet’s genial fancy.

But a rocky environment is equally reflected in the minds of the

Armenians. Harshness of manner and a certain degree of uncouthness

are present along with tenacity of purpose and moral fortitude.

Through the latter, endurance of Turkish persecution, which has

generally assumed exceedingly savage form, was made possible.

Armenians are also known for their martial spirit. Dwellers of many

of the less accessible recesses of the Tauric or Armenian highlands

held their Turkish foes in check for centuries and managed to

maintain a state of semi-independence in their conqueror’s land

until confronted by modern artillery.

Again, the influence of the mountain home of the Armenians is

expressed in their art. Poems and songs often extol the fairness

of the valleys where rest will be found after descent along

interminable slopes. Sometimes the beauty of lakes, embosomed in

high plateaus, fires the poet’s fancy. Towering summits figure in

legend as steeples from which melodious chimes send forth their

tones. Armenian music, too, resounds with echoes that seem to

reverberate from valleys cut deep in the sides of their mountains.

Perhaps it is these varied influences which convert the rough and

mannerless mountain boors into the most polished and cultured

citizens of Turkish cities. Armenians have the reputation of being

energetic business men. Their honesty was proverbial among the

Turks, who generally intrusted the management of estates or domains

to their hands. Among them alone throughout the inland districts of

Asiatic Turkey, western progress found receptive minds.

The size of the Armenian population of Asiatic Turkey has never

been accurately determined. The inaccuracy of Turkish statistics

is notorious. Furthermore the boundaries of Turkish administrative

provinces have been drawn with the sole view of creating groups

in which the Mohammedan element would predominate. The estimate

of 2,100,000 Armenians for Asiatic Turkey given by so reputable a

writer as Major-General Sir Charles Wilson[235] is undoubtedly

high. Cuinet’s figures given by Selenoy and Seidlitz[236] probably

come nearer the truth. The wholesale massacre of Armenian males

which has been systematically conducted by the Turks for the past

twenty years and which culminated in the massacres and deportations

of the past two years, makes it improbable that over 1,000,000

Turkish Armenians still live. Prior to the European war, the only

districts of any size in which they constituted a majority of the

population were found west of Nimrud Dagh in the plains surrounding

Mush as well as in the Kozan district north of the Cilician

plains.[237]

[Illustration:

_The American Geographical Society of New York_

_Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. VIII_

DISTRIBUTION OF ARMENIANS IN TURKISH ARMENIA]

THE KURDS

An Alpine zone of transition connecting the plains of northern

Mesopotamia with the surrounding mountains on the north and east

became the homeland of the Kurds. In a broad sense it is the

drainage area of the Tigris and Euphrates. It is also the site of

important mountain gaps through which human movements from east

to west or vice versa have proceeded. Before the consolidation

of Turkish authority in this region, a matter of less than a

century ago and still in an imperfect stage of completion,

Kurdish clans, each under the sole leadership of their respective

Chieftains, controlled the pass through which traffic from the

southern lowlands or the eastern plateau was directed towards

the Anatolian table-land. They exacted heavy tolls from passing

caravans and derived their chief source of revenue from these

levies.

Their manner of living conforms with the intermediary character of

their habitat. The semi-nomads of the plains and southern hills

seek cool uplands during the summer months. In winter they descend

to the warm plains with their flocks and herds and mingle with

their Arab neighbors. Their instinct for seasonal migrations has

been developed to such an extent that they cannot refrain from

maintaining their semi-annual movements in the Armenian districts

to which they have been forcibly removed by the Turkish government,

desirous of insuring Mohammedan predominance in the Christian

valleys of Armenia.

Language and religion carry the Kurds back to eastern ancestry.

However diverse their dialects, Aryan roots forming the framework

of their speech have survived in spite of the admixture of Turkish

and Arabian words. By creed they are generally upholders of Shiite

tradition in its westernmost confines. But their religious views

vary from tribe to tribe and present as composite a character as

their race. Many are Sunnis. Wandering into eastern Asia Minor

since hoary antiquity they have culled from Paganism, Christianity

and Islamism alike. The predominance of the ideals which inspire

these faiths among the individual clans probably affords a clue

to the period of their arrival in the localities which they now

inhabit.

Similarly, the racial relation of the Kurds with peoples found

east of their land is well established.[238] They undoubtedly

belong to the European family, though perhaps not in the sense

suggested by von Luschan, who would connect them with inhabitants

of northern Europe. From the writer’s own observations the

“generally blue eyes and fair hair” are by no means dominant in

the regiments of Hamidyeh cavalry recruited exclusively from

among Kurdish tribesmen.[239] The three groups studied by the

eminent anthropologist near Karakush, on the Nimrud mountain, and

at Sinjirli were probably remarkably pure, as might be inferred

from the nature of their secluded districts. As early invaders of a

transition land the Kurds have intermingled extensively with both

highland and lowland populations.[240] The Kurd varies therefore

according to region, the inhabitants of the elevated sections being

stocky and of massive build, while the tall and sallow Semitic type

appears among those on the southern plains.[241]

The Kurds, particularly in the semi-nomadic state, are noted

freebooters. Travel in the districts they occupy is generally

unsafe. Armenians and other Christians find them an inexorable

foe. They are none too loath to prey even on Turks, although as a

rule the latter obtain immunity in return for the lenient dealing

of the government in cases of Kurdish depredations on non-Moslem

communities. The strong arm of an organized police alone will end

the lawlessness with which their name is coupled in Turkey.

Good qualities are not wanting among them. A Kurd is generally true

to his word. The rude code of honor in vogue among their tribes

is rarely violated, and, whenever disposed, the Kurd can become

as hospitable as his Arab neighbors. The tempering influence of a

settled existence among sedentary tribes is marked by harmonious

intercourse with surrounding non-Kurdish communities. At bottom

their vices are chiefly those of the restless life they lead in a

land in which organized government has been unknown for the past

eight centuries.

[Illustration:

FIG. 62--A Kurdish village in Upper Mesopotamia with

characteristic stone shanties peculiar to semi-arid regions.]

[Illustration:

FIG. 63--A harvest scene in Upper Mesopotamia with Kurds at work.]

THE SYRIANS

Syria is the elongated land passage, barely fifty miles in width,

which connects northern Africa with western Asia. It is one of

the world’s best-defined natural regions. The sea on the west, and

the desert on the east, sharply mark off its fringe-like extension.

On the north the Amanus ranges constitute a wall that has proved

well-nigh impassable to Semites. To the south the land naturally

ends in the Sinai peninsula.[242]

The province is mountainous in its northern half. Its mountains are

the monuments that throw light on the utter failure of the cause of

human progress in northern Syria. A single redeeming feature, the

Orontes river valley, favored foreign contact. At its mouth on the

Mediterranean western ideas filtered into the land while a blend

of eastern influences, Persian and Arabian, flowed down with its

waters. All converged at Antioch, the region’s greatest center of

life and a true product of the Orontes’ lower course. Absence of

relief in southern Syria, however, was coupled to a Mediterranean

climate and fertile soils. These permitted the development of the

flourishing civilizations of antiquity. Herein lies the physical

basis of the historical evolution of the Syrian fringe and the

explanation of the growth of nations and of world religions in its

southern lands.

As a land-bridge of early humanity Syria was necessarily the

scene of much coming and going at a time when the civilization of

the world was largely confined to what is now known as Asiatic

Turkey. Its population therefore presents a mixed character.

Hittites, Arameans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs

and Turks conquered the land in turn and imparted their native

customs to its inhabitants. The inhabitants of its southern area

are now transformed almost beyond the possibility of analysis. The

settlements of the elevated and broken northern area, on the other

hand, represent very ancient communities.

The mountains of Syria harbor strange denizens in their northern

end. In the northern Lebanon many villages of the western slopes

are inhabited by the Metauilehs, who are Shiite dissenters and

bear unenviable reputation for ignorance and inhospitality.[243]

Their own traditions point to Persian or Arabian origins. Religion

seems to confirm the former claim. At the same time they are known

to the Syrians as a sturdy mountain people. Scattered through the

same mountain districts the Ismailyehs, another highland folk who

under the name of Assassins enjoyed sinister fame during the Middle

Ages, maintain their abode in inaccessible valleys. The epithet

which is coupled to their name is an altogether illogical rendering

of the Arabic “hasheeshin” and does not convey any worse meaning

than that of “hasheesh” fiends. They live mainly in groups around

old Saracen castles.

THE ANSARIYEHS

The Ansariyehs, or Nusariyehs, form an important group among

northern Syrians. Their settlements are generally confined to the

grassy seaward slopes of the mountains stretching north of the

Nahr-el-Kebir towards the Gulf of Alexandretta. They also occupy

villages in the plains surrounding Antioch. In recent years they

have shown a tendency to abandon their mountain homes for the

less arduous life of the plains. Officially they are regarded as

Mohammedans and bear Mohammedan names, but the religion which

differentiates them from the other inhabitants of northern Syria

teaches Christian and Sabean doctrines alike. It is believed that

they still maintain observances of exceedingly ancient nature

cults. The fundamental principles of their creed are transmitted

by word of mouth and with injunction to secrecy.[244] Their

deification of the conception of fertility is couched in highly

metaphorical language in which the productivity of the earth

and of the human race is extolled. By making proper allowance

for the imagery which clothes the wording of their prayers it

will probably be found that their religion resolves itself into

a relic of the worship of the mother-goddess which was deeply

rooted throughout the mountain districts of Asia Minor. Hints of

nocturnal orgies accompanying their worship should be taken with

a grain of suspicion, as orthodox Mohammedans are prone to such

imputations whenever dissension from the Koran is suspected. In

this Mohammedans merely follow the lead of Byzantine Christians in

whose eyes the relics of Anatolian paganism were as obnoxious as

the heresies of their own times.

The ancestors of the Ansariyehs and other small sects in northern

Syria were closely related to their powerful Hittite neighbors.

These peoples all occupy, together with the Druzes and Maronites,

the southern limit of known Hittite monuments.[245] Their land

is the frontier zone between Syria, Asia Minor and the Armenian

highland. It is studded with ruined strongholds which figured

prominently in ancient battle.

THE DRUZES

The southern Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges in the rear-land of

the Haifa-Beirut coast[246] are inhabited by Druzes. Tribes of this

people are met as far southeast as the Hawran volcanic uplift,

whither they have steadily emigrated from the Lebanon in the

course of the past hundred years and where they have succeeded in

dislodging the former Bedouin inhabitants. These Druzes are best

known for their warlike disposition. Although numerically inferior

to the Christian population of their native districts, their

bellicose qualities have won them predominance in central Syria. In

religion they are pure monotheists. Their standard of morality is

high. They call themselves Mohammedans but do not maintain mosques

and rarely practise polygamy. Orthodox Moslems generally repudiate

them on account of the discrepancy between their teachings and the

tenets of the Koran. As far as can be determined the doctrines

of the Mosaic law, the Gospels, the Koran and Sufi allegories

are represented in their creed. Often when with Christians they

will not hesitate to assert belief in Christianity. The leaven of

Iranian influences which pervades their doctrines estranges them

from the surrounding Semitism just as their highland home separates

them from the plainsmen settled around them. The dominance of this

eastern strain in their thoughts does not, however, necessarily

indicate racial migrations. Historical testimony is available to

prove that the known form of Druze religion can be traced to the

teachings of Hamze, a Persian disciple of Hakem.[247] The case is

more probably that of an infiltration of foreign ideals and its

retention within a region deprived by its relief from intercourse

with the more progressive life of the surrounding lowland.

THE MARONITES

Closely related to the Druzes are their northwestern neighbors, the

Maronites, a Christian people, who seceded from the Roman Church

in the great schism that followed the council of Chalcedon in 451

A.D.[248] They form a compact mass settled on the western slopes of

the Lebanon mountains between the valleys of the Nahr-el-Kebir and

the Nahr-el-Barid. Mountain isolation and intermarriage among them

have maintained an old type with remarkable purity. Being better

farmers than warriors they have suffered from the oft repeated

depredations of their war-like neighbors.[249] Enmity with their

Mohammedan neighbors dates from the time of the Crusades when the

Maronites had sided with the Christian knights.

THE JEWS

The Jews of Turkey include a small remnant of the captivity settled

around Jerusalem and in Mesopotamia.[250] After the destruction of

Jerusalem, the valley of the Tigris became the most important seat

of the Hebrews. Parthian tolerance granted them a partial autonomy

under the authority of a chief chosen from among the descendants

of the house of David.[251] This liberal régime ended with the

decline in power of the Abbasside caliphs of Bagdad. The Jews were

then forced to abandon Chaldea. Many emigrated to Spain. Later,

under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, they were compelled to

flee from Spanish persecution and seek a home again in Turkey.

Descendants of these emigrants, known as Sephardim, are settled in

cities of Asia Minor and Syria. Small colonies of Ashkenazim Jews

are also scattered in various Turkish towns. An old colony of a few

hundred Samaritans survives in the vicinity of Nablus.

The Jews are an exceedingly composite people and, contrary to

popular belief, do not represent as pure a type of the Semitic race

as the Bedouin Arabs. Southern Syria was a prey to invaders from

every quarter of the compass. It was the clashing ground of Hittite

and Nilotic civilizations. From the west, Mediterranean seafaring

populations swarmed in from earliest antiquity. At least three

great waves of Semitic migrations overwhelmed the land prior to

the coming of the Arabs. The Jew, therefore, represents the fusion

of four distinct races of men. The purity he has retained is that

of the fused type. His language alone is Semitic. His physical

appearance recalls Hittite traits more prominently than Semitic

and this probably accounts for the frequent mistaking, in western

Europe and in the United States, of Armenians for Jews.

ARAMEANS

The Arameans are either direct ancestors of modern Jews or else

close congeners of early Hebrews. Both peoples are closely allied.

They represent one of the many waves of Semitic humanity which have

rolled out of Arabia’s highland steppes. A period of settlement in

the fertile districts around the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris

precedes their spread throughout Mesopotamia and northeastern

Syria. References to their history abound in sacred texts, as well

in inscriptional remains[252] found throughout western Asia. The

accounts, however, are fragmentary and so far have made possible

only partial reconstitution of their history. An Aramean nation or

a number of Aramean states undoubtedly existed in the tenth century

B.C. This body subsequently acquired considerable power and founded

colonies all over Mesopotamia and Syria. Damascus and Hamath, both

in the latter province, became the greatest centers of Aramean

power, owing to the natural resources of the districts around their

sites as well as to their commanding position on important trade

routes.

It seems established that the vast territory designated by the

Assyrians by the name of “Mat Aram,” or land of Aram, did not

necessarily contain Aramaic populations. It was more probably

conquered by Arameans, who imposed their language on the subjugated

peoples. Soon after the capture of Damascus by the Assyrians in 732

B.C. the Aramean nation disappears from history. Aramaic, however,

survived and was even adopted by the victors.[253] But, in common

with other Semitic languages, it could not withstand the advance

of Arabic. The only locality in which it is now spoken is found

northeast of Damascus in the environs of the villages of Malula,

Bakha and Yubb Adin, where the natives still use a dialect similar

to the Palestinian Aramaic spoken thirteen centuries ago. There

is reason to believe that this sub-group of Syrians represents

today the old Aramean stock in as pure a degree as is consistent

with the secular mingling of peoples which has taken place in the

region.[254]

THE YEZIDIS

The Sinjar range of hills stretching in a westerly direction from

Mosul is the only upland of importance in the Mesopotamian valley.

The largest compact mass of Yezidis are domiciled in this hilly

country. A minor group occupies the Samaan mountains in Syria.[255]

The appellation of devil-worshipers which generally accompanies

the name of Yezidi conveys a totally erroneous impression

regarding their beliefs. They recognize, in fact, a benign deity,

the Khode-Qanj, who reigns supreme over creation but with whom

is associated an inferior divine essence, the Malik-i-Tawus, or

Peacock King, who is lord of all evil and whom they consider

necessary to propitiate in order to avert misfortune. But the

ceremonies and sacrifices performed in honor of the subordinate

deity do not interfere with the primary worship with which the God

of Good is revered.[256] This interpretation of divinity bears

deep analogy to the Iranian cult which revolves around the central

figures of Ormuzd and Ahriman, respectively the good and the evil

principle. The language of the Yezidis, which is akin to Kurdish,

brings added evidence of the eastern derivation of their culture.

According to their own traditions the Yezidis came originally from

the districts of the lower Euphrates. Certain Sabean features of

their religion indicate intimate contact with Semitic populations.

Little is known about their curious religious celebrations, to

which strangers are never admitted. Their practice of bowing before

the rising sun is a clear relic of Zoroastrian influence. They also

perform rites which have analogy to Christian commemorations. In a

land overrun in all directions no simple feature of the views they

hold can account for their origin. The religion of the moment was

imposed by the dominant element over all the peoples of Asiatic

Turkey. Hence a given group merely shows successive strata of

religious invasions.

The sturdily-built Yezidi is active and hardy. His energy sets

him apart from the lithe-limbed and easy-going Arabs. His vigor

and fighting blood saved him from the frightful persecutions for

which the particularly obnoxious feature of his dual deity was

responsible. Byzantine bishops and Arabian mollahs in turn reserved

the wildest thunder of their intolerance for the Yezidi, whom they

execrated beyond all others among heretics and unbelievers. This

hatred of the presumed worshiper of the devil has not yet been

outlived, and a devout Mohammedan will today spit upon the ground

and mutter a curse whenever the abhorred name crosses his lips.

The Yezidis enjoy fame as agriculturists who know how to exact

good yield from their mountain farms. They live a retired life

and rarely allow strangers to travel through the Sinjar range.

The modern armament of Turkish expeditions has cowed the present

generation into a submission which their fathers would have

scorned. But they still remain unwilling tax payers who rely

on the natural disinclination of Turkish tax collectors to

mountain-climbing.

THE NESTORIANS

The Nestorians, a Christian sect, are descendants of the followers

of Nestorius, who seceded from established orthodoxy in the sixth

century. They inhabit scattered villages in a region which changes

from mountain to plain as it extends west of the Persian frontier

to the Tigris river, roughly between latitudes 34° and 38°. On the

north they rarely venture beyond the Bohtan river. The mountainous

tract produces a manly set, who have more than held their own

against the martial Kurds. Poverty and dependence mark the lot of

the plainsmen in spite of their industry as agriculturists.

To say that the inhabitants of Turkey have religious nationality is

perhaps the happiest way of accounting for the presence of large

numbers of independent communities owing political allegiance to

the Sultan. The bond of faith in the case of the Nestorians is

one of remarkable strength, because this community represents the

persecuted remnant of the ancient church of central Asia. Owing

to its situation on the very outskirts of early Christianity the

church became engaged in propagating the Gospel on a scale exceeded

only by the see of Rome in the sixth and sixteenth centuries.[257]

Consciousness of this tradition has not forsaken the Nestorians of

the present day. The great influence wielded by their patriarch

or religious head, the Mar Shimun, as he is called, is a relic of

former authority.

The speech of the Nestorians is a Syriac dialect in which Persian,

Arabic and Kurdish words have found place. Religious services are

conducted, however, in the uncontaminated language. The Nestorians

call themselves Syrians and refuse to recognize any other

appellation. Owing to this fact much confusion has arisen in the

minds of travelers who have attempted to describe them.

THE CHALDEANS

The Chaldeans are racially akin to the Nestorians, with whom they

formed a single religious community prior to the seventeenth

century. The hope of obtaining relief from Mohammedan persecution

induced an important section of the old community to join the

church of Rome at that time. In recent years, however, many have

forsaken Roman Catholicism and formed a new sect which is known by

the name of New Chaldeans. Protestant communities of this people as

well as of Nestorians and Jacobites exist.

THE JACOBITES

The rugged limestone district around Midyad is the home of another

mountain people known as the Jacobites. Banded together by the

ties of religion they form a community of husbandmen living aloof

from their neighbors of divergent religious views. They are

described as of warlike nature and independent spirit. Language

also differentiates them from other Ottoman groups, a Syriac

dialect differing considerably from Nestorian being in use among

them.[258] In Turabdin they speak an Aramaic dialect known as

Turani. The Jacobites are noted for their aptitude for business.

The important colony of traders founded in the eighteenth century

in the vicinity of Bagdad owes its origin to the desert traffic and

the Indian trade by way of Basra.

This people traces its religious origin to the teachings of Jacobus

Baradeus,[259] who, in the middle of the sixth century, traveled

through Asia Minor and consolidated scattered groups of Monophysite

recusants into a single body. They constituted a large sect during

the Middle Ages, but defections, notably in favor of the Roman

Church, have thinned their numbers considerably since then. At

present they muster hardly more than 15,000 individuals.

THE SABEANS

We are still in the dark concerning the history of the Sabeans,

a people of Semitic origin who profess Christianity. That they

once formed a powerful nation is attested by numerous ruins and

inscriptions. This state began to decline in the first century

of the Christian era and had completely disappeared by 500 A.D.

They call themselves Mendai and are often known by the name of

Christians of St. John. The community is small, numbering hardly

3,000 souls, mostly goldsmiths and boatbuilders who ply their trade

in the Arab encampments of the Amara and Muntefik sanjaks in the

vilayet of Basra. They talk a Semitic dialect and dress like the

Arabs, from whom they can scarcely be distinguished. Their original

homeland is believed to have been Yemen.

[Illustration:

FIG. 64--Kurd children of the Armenian borderland. The poverty

of the land is reflected in their appearance no less than in the

arid background of the photograph.]

[Illustration:

FIG. 65--A family of sedentary Arabs in Mesopotamia.]

[Illustration:

FIG. 66--In the desert of Syria. A tribe of Anezeh Arabs moving

from an exhausted pasture to a fresh one.]

THE ARABS

The Arab folk, sparsely distributed over the Syrian desert and

forming the majority of the inhabitants of the featureless downs

of Mesopotamia, represent the ebbing of the last tide of Semitic

invasion. In the sandy waste of their western extension, their

tribes, shifting perpetually from seat to seat, like the dunes

around which they roam, consist of Bedouin or “tent men.” The

contribution of these nomads to society is as insignificant as the

yield of the unproductive lands of their wandering. Towards the

east, however, where two mighty rivers bring fertility and life to

the soil, the genius of the race blossomed untrammeled and gave

Mohammedan civilization to the world.

The purest living representatives of the Semitic race are found

among these Bedouins. Civilization pursued its steady growth

around their tent homes without affecting their lives. Better

favored belts encircling the Syrian desert attracted the human

migrations which took place in western Asia. From the last outliers

of the hill system fringing the southern Taurus to the northern

confines of the Arabian peninsula, the patriarchal state of society

prevailing today differs little from the condition in which a

dreamer well past middle age found it fourteen centuries ago and

brought it within the pale of modern thought by inspiring it with

the enthusiasm of his own belief in a single God. Stripped of

his religion and of his rifle, the Bedouin stands today before

the historian as the living image of long remote ancestors whose

invasions caused profound upheavals in the societies established

east and west of his present tramping ground.

But the Arab settled in the long elongated plain watered by the

Tigris and Euphrates can never lay claim to equal purity of stock.

He lives in a land which by virtue of a great twin river system

gave rise to the oldest civilization of the world. Its inhabitants,

whether aboriginal or invaders from the table-land on the east,

derived more than mere sustenance from proximity to these mothering

watercourses. Surrounded by desert and mountain, this region

naturally became a seat of population. Its native element, already

much mixed, was assimilated to a large extent by the Arabs since

the period of their appearance in Mesopotamia.

The floating masses of Bedouins have successfully resisted Turkish

effort to induce them to abandon nomadism. Occasionally, as in

the belt of Tauric precipitation or along the borders of the zone

of Mediterranean rains no less than under the benign influence of

Mesopotamian rivers, they become sedentary. They are then known as

_fellaheen_. But the change is incompatible with their immemorial

restlessness and implies loss of caste in their own eyes.

TABLE I

NAMES AND PEOPLES OF SOME NON-TURKISH VILLAGES IN ASIA MINOR

Peoples designated as follows:

Alevi Al.

Armenians Ar.

Avshars Av.

Chaldeans Ch.

Circassians Cir.

Greeks Gr.

Karapapaks Kpk.

Kizilbash Kz.

Kurds Kd.

Nestorians N.

New Chaldeans N. Ch.

Tatars Ta.

Turkomans Tkn.

Yezidi Yd.

Name of Village Peoples

Aghje Kaleh Kd.

Agh-ova Kd.

Aivali Gr.

Ak-bunar Cir.

Akdam Ar.

Akhlat Kd.

Akstafa Kpk.

Alaklissia Gr.

Alexandropol Ar.

Alkosh N. Ch.

Altea Gr.

Angora Ar.

Arabja Keupri Gr. & Cir.

Ardia Cir.

Arji N.

Atess N.

Avviran Gr.

Bazarjik Kd.

Berar Ar.

Bey Ch.

Birgami Kd.

Chateran Ar.

Chevirme Kd.

Chukh Ar.

Deliler Kd.

Derendeh Ar.

Diz-deran Kd.

Ekrek Ar.

Feshapur Ch.

Funduk Cir.

Furinji Kd.

Garib Kd.

Garni Ar.

Gemerek Ar.

Gunderno Ar.

Gunig-kaleh Ar.

Gurgujeli Tkn.

Gurun Ar.

Haik Ar.

Hamsi Gr.

Hanefi Al.

Harras Kd.

Helais Kd.

Hornova Ar.

Hoshmat Ar.

Inevi Tkn.

Instosh Ar.

Isbarta Gr.

Isoghlu Kd.

Jenan Kd.

Jessi Kd.

Kaialik Kd.

Kainar Cir.

Karachu Kd.

Kara-geben Ar.

Keklik-oghlu Kd.

Kelebesh Gr.

Kemer Av.

Keupri Tkn.

Kezanlik Cir.

Khakkaravokh Kd.

Khasta-Khâneh Av.

Khusi N.

Kinskh Kd.

Kizil-doghan Gr.

Kilisse Ar.

Kochannes N.

Koch-hissar Ar.

Kojeri Ar.

Koshmet Kz.

Kotni Kd.

Kula Gr.

Kwaneh N.

Maden N.

Madrak Kd.

Mansuriyeh Ch.

Melendis Gr.

Mervanen N.

Misli Gr.

Mush plain Ar.

Nerdivan Kd.

Nerib Kd.

Nigdeh Gr.

Niksar Gr.

Norchuk Ar.

Omar Kd.

Orbülu Kd.

Pekarieh Ar.

Pingan Ar.

Porrot Kd.

Pulk Ar.

Rabat Kd.

Redvan Yd.

Samsat Kd.

Sekunis N.

Semil Yd.

Serai N.

Shabin Kara-Hissar Ar.

Shahr Ar.

Sha-uta N.

Sheik Adi Yd.

Sheikh Amir Kd.

Sheikhan Kd.

Shen Kd.

Shernak Kd.

Sultan Oghlu Tkn.

Tadvan Ar.

Takvaran Kd.

Tashan Ar.

Tashbunar Cir.

Terzili Ar.

Thorub Ch.

Tokat Ar.

Tomarze Ar.

Top-agach Ar.

Tor Tkn.

Ulash Ar.

Uzum Yaila Cir.

Vurla Gr.

Yakshi-khân Ta.

Yalak Av.

Yarzuat Ta.

Yeni Keui Kd.

Zara Ar.

Zela Ar.

TABLE II

CLASSIFICATION OF THE PEOPLES OF ASIATIC TURKEY

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