ARMENIA, THE SUFFERING
Armenia is the Job among peoples. Her frightful sufferings seem to have
no end. A little Christian island in a vast sea of Mohammedanism, she has
been swept by one great tidal wave of persecution after another. Before
the eyes of the modern world, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
even, a whole people has been robbed, exiled, and murdered, while the
great nations have looked on apparently helpless to bring to a permanent
end the horrible atrocities committed by the “unspeakable Turk.”
Millions of dollars have been spent in the past for the aid of Armenia,
millions more will be required before she is freed from famine and
persecution. Vast sums have been donated by Americans through their
churches and missionary societies, the Red Cross, and other national and
international organizations to help these people in their misery. But
lasting relief cannot come until Armenia is enabled to set up a nation
of her own once more, or is brought under the protection of a strong
Christian power.
What the Armenians have done under oppression shows that they have
great possibilities as a race. They are sometimes called the Yankees
of the Orient. They are the brightest, brainiest, and shrewdest of all
the people of Asia Minor. In business they are sharper than the Jews
or even the Greeks. The Turks say, “Twist a Yankee and you make a Jew,
twist a Jew and you make an Armenian.” The Greeks say that “one Greek
is equal to two Jews, but one Armenian is equal to two Greeks.” Another
current Turkish proverb is, “From the Greeks of Athens, from the Jews of
Saloniki, and from the Armenians everywhere, good Lord deliver us!”
The Armenians are by no means confined to one part of the Orient. I have
met them everywhere in the East and I have found them acting as heads of
all kinds of businesses. There are many rich Armenians in India. Coming
from Singapore to Calcutta I travelled with a wealthy Armenian jeweller
who told me he was on his way back from Hong Kong where he had gone to
sell pearls to the Chinese. I found Armenian conductors on the Egyptian
railways, and when I went over the transcontinental railroad to Paris the
guards on the train and the men who took up my tickets were Armenians who
spoke English and French. There are hundreds of thousands of Armenians
in Europe. There are a large number in Persia, and in different parts
of Turkey there are said to be about one million. There are a great
many in Constantinople where they manage most of the banking business
and own large mercantile establishments. When I got money on my letter
of credit in Constantinople it was an Armenian clerk who figured up the
exchange and an Armenian cashier who handed out the money. Whenever
there are riots in that city nearly all the stores are closed because
their Armenian owners fear they may be looted by the mob. When I visited
the Turkish government departments I found that, though the chief
officers were Turks, the clerks were in most cases Armenians, and the
cleverest man I met in Turkey was one of the Sultan’s secretaries, a man
of Armenian birth. There are also Armenian engineers, architects, and
doctors in Constantinople. The Armenians of Armenia proper, however, are
almost all farmers, most of whom have become poverty-stricken through the
exorbitant taxes of the Sultan.
At Jerusalem I saw a large number of Armenian pilgrims who had come from
all parts of Asia Minor to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They
have a Patriarch at Jerusalem who leads them in these celebrations. He is
a tall, thin man with a long gray beard and a face not unlike that of the
typical Georgia cracker. He usually wears a long gown and has a little
skull cap on the crown of his head. During the Easter celebration he
wears a tiara blazing with diamonds and his gown is a gorgeous silk robe
decorated with diamonds. The Armenian Christians have doctrines much like
those of the Greek Church. They have monasteries and churches scattered
throughout Asia Minor.
Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a
state religion. This she did at the beginning of the fourth century and
twelve years before the conversion of the Roman emperor, Constantine.
Ever since she has been persecuted by a succession of enemies and
conquerors of other faiths. Almost as soon as Christianity had been
adopted, the Armenians were commanded by the Persians, their overlords
at that time, to give up their faith and adopt the Persian religion of
fire-worship. They replied: “No one can move us from our belief, neither
angels nor men, fire nor sword. Here below we will choose no other God,
and in heaven no other Lord but Jesus Christ.” And they have stuck to
their declaration through all the horrors and persecutions brought upon
them by Persians, Saracens, Tartars, Mamelukes, and Turks.
At her height Armenia was a flourishing country with a population of
some thirty millions. But from the time of the great dispersal that
resulted from the invasion of the Moslem hordes in the seventh century,
the Armenians, like the Jews, have been decimated, their country has been
ravaged, and the people have been scattered all over Europe and Asia.
The Armenians assert that their country is the holiest land upon earth.
It lies in Asia Minor, southeast of the Black Sea and between it and
Persia. Mount Ararat is situated in Armenia, and some of the monasteries
claim to have pieces of the identical ark in which Noah landed upon this
mountain. A ravine near by is pointed out as the site of Noah’s vineyard.
The vineyard has a monastery connected with it, and the monks show a
withered old vine which they assert is the very one from which Noah
brewed the wine that made him drunk. He cursed it so effectually after
he got over his spree that it has borne no grapes unto this day. Noah’s
wife is said to be buried on Mount Ararat. The Armenians trace their
ancestry back to Japheth in one great genealogical tree. They also have a
tradition that the Garden of Eden was located in Armenia, almost in the
centre of the region where the worst massacres have occurred, but it is
now one of the barren parts of the country. The Armenians believe that
the Wise Men of the East, who followed the Star of Bethlehem to find the
young Christ, came from their country and that the Star first appeared
in the heavens not far from Mount Ararat.
According to another curious Armenian tradition, when Adam was in the
Garden of Eden his body was covered with nails, like those we have on
our fingers and toes. These nails overlapped each other like the scales
of a fish, thus giving him an invulnerable armour. After the fall they
all dropped off except those from the ends of his fingers and toes. They
remain to this day to remind man of his lost immortality. The Armenians
say that when God made Adam of clay, he had a little piece left over. He
threw this upon the ground, and as it fell it became gold and formed all
the gold of the world. These people are devoted to the Bible, and take
their religion very seriously. They could have made their peace with the
Turks long, long ago if they had been willing to accept Mohammedanism.
The condition of the women of Armenia is said to be terrible. They have
no refuge from the Turks, who perpetrate all sorts of outrages upon them.
In some of the Armenian cities during one of the massacres the girls were
collected into the churches and kept there for days at the pleasure of
the soldiers before they were murdered. One statement described how sixty
young brides were so treated and how the blood ran out under the church
doors at the time of their massacre.
These Armenian women are among the most attractive of the Near East.
I have seen a number of them during my trip through Asia Minor. They
have large, dark, luminous eyes with long eyelashes, and rich, creamy
complexions. Many of them have rosy cheeks and luscious red lips. They
are tall and straight, but become fat soon after marriage. Not a few
of them are married to Turks. These women have a dress of their own.
They wear red fez caps with long tassels much like some of the country
girls of Greece. The richer ladies wear loose jackets lined with fur,
and long plain skirts of silk or fine wool. In the province of Van,
where many atrocities have been committed, the girls wear under their
skirts trousers which are tied at the ankles. Some have long, sleeveless
jackets, or cloaks, reaching almost to the feet and open at the sides up
to the waists, and others wear gorgeous headdresses, covering the front
of their caps with gold coins, which hang down over their foreheads.
Like the Jewesses, these girls often wear their whole dowries on their
persons, and in massacres like those which have so often occurred rings
are torn from the ears, arms are cut off for bracelets, and many a woman
is killed for her jewellery. The poorer women are hard workers. Nearly
every household has some kind of home industry whereby it adds to its
income. Some of the finest embroideries we get from Turkey are made by
these clever Armenian women, the best of the work being done by hand in
hovels.
The houses in which the Armenians live are different in different
countries. In many of the cities of Turkey there is an Armenian quarter,
and the older Armenian houses of Smyrna are built like forts. They have
no windows facing the street, and only of late years, when the people
have considered themselves safe from religious riots, have they built
houses more like the Turks. In Armenia itself the poorer classes have
homes which would be considered hardly fit for cows in America. The cow,
in fact, lives with the family. The houses are all of one story, and it
is not uncommon to build a house against the side of a hill in order to
save the making of a back wall. The roofs are flat, and are often covered
with earth upon which grass and flowers grow, and upon which the sheep
are sometimes pastured. The floors are usually sunken below the level of
the roadway, and the ordinary window is about the size of a porthole. You
go down steps to enter the house, where you find a cow stable on one side
and the kitchen and living quarters of the family on the other.
All the living arrangements are of the simplest and cheapest description.
Each room has a stone fireplace where the cooking is done with cow dung
mixed with straw. There are no tables and very few chairs. The animal
heat of the cattle aids the fire in keeping the family warm. The houses
of the better class are more comfortable, and in the big Turkish cities
some of the rich Armenians have beautiful homes. The Armenian women are
good housekeepers and much more cleanly than the Turks. Even their hovels
are kept clean.
They have a better home life than the Turks. A man can have but one
wife, but the families of several generations often live in one house.
If the daughter-in-law lives with them, she is, to a large extent, the
servant of her husband’s family. She has to obey her father-in-law, and
during the first days of her married life is not allowed to speak to her
husband’s parents or any of the family who are older than herself until
her father-in-law gives her permission. Up to this time she wears a red
veil, as a badge of her subjection, which is often kept on until her
first baby is born.
Armenian girls are married very young. Eleven or twelve is considered
quite old enough, and women still young often have sons twenty years old.
Marriages are arranged by parents or by go-betweens. The usual wedding
day is Monday, and on the Friday before the marriage the bride is taken
to the bath with great ceremony. On Saturday she gives a big feast to
her girl friends. On Sunday there is a feast for the boys, and on Monday
the wedding takes place. It usually occurs at the church, where the
priest blesses the ring and makes prayers over the wedding garments. The
numerous other ceremonies make the wedding last from three to eight days.
Shortly after her return from the church the children present rush to
pull off the bride’s stockings, in which have been hidden some coins for
the occasion. Another curious custom is to place a baby boy on the knee
of the bride, as she sits beside the groom on a divan, with the wish that
she may become a happy mother.
While one reason for the hatred of the Armenians is envy of their
shrewdness and their wealth, the chief cause of the Turkish outrages
is religious fanaticism. The better classes of the Turks and the more
intelligent of the Mohammedans would probably stop them if they could.
Many of the high officials are afraid of the religious zeal of the
people. They realize that if the common people get the idea that they
are false to their religion, they are almost sure of assassination. The
Imams and the Sheiks, or, in other words, the Moslem priests, are, to a
large extent, the rulers of Turkey. They are in most cases ignorant and
intolerant.
Among the Mohammedan fanatics there are a large number known as
dervishes, who roam about from place to place stirring up trouble. They
are walking delegates, as it were, for the killing of Christians. They
stimulate the religious zeal of the people and make violent speeches
against unbelievers. They fast much and they have strange forms of
worship. One class, known as the whirling dervishes, may be seen in
Constantinople any Friday going through their devotions. They dress in
long white robes fastened at the waists with black belts, and wear high
sugar-loaf hats. They sing the Koran as they whirl about in the mosques.
As they go on the chief priest makes prayers and they whirl faster and
faster, until at last their long skirts stand out like those of a ballet
dancer. Their faces become crimson, and some finally fall to the ground
in fits.
Another class of these fanatics are the howlers, who have a great
organization in Turkey, and have probably been largely concerned in
inciting feeling against the Armenians. I have visited their mosques, but
I despair of adequately describing their religious gymnastics. They work
themselves into a frenzy, jumping and bending, and gasping and howling
out the name of God. The dervishes of the interior parts of Turkey often
take knives and cut themselves and each other in religious ecstasy.
They go into fits and foam at the mouth, and most of them think that
the killing of a Christian is a sure passport to heaven. I would say,
however, that these people are the cranks of Mohammedanism, and that they
are not a fair sample of the Moslem world. Nevertheless, they have had no
small part in bringing about the miseries of Armenia.