The Ordway new era., 1922-10-13
prepared by the National Geographic So
cIety. Washington, D. CA

ciety. Washington. d. CO.
The sO-calleG Kurdish Republic,
one of the latest governmental units
reported to have been set up In the
protean Middle East, is supposed to
have been created by Kurd bandit
from the Persian part of the region
that has been indefinitely termed
"Kurdistan" for generations.
Kurdistan has sprawled across in.
ternatfonal lines with fine disregard
for those hypothetical, man-made
limits; and its people, too, have disre-
garded national boundaries. Semi
nomadic, many of them spend their
winters in the warm plains of Irak, and
their summers in the cool uplands of
Persia or Eastern Turkey
The Kurds are, par excellence, the
mOuntaineers of the Middle East. The
highlands have ever bred not only a
love of liberty and independence, but
often an aggressive and marauding
spirit as well, and all these traits the
Kurds have In abundance. Big and
muscular with piercing dark eyes and
long mustaches that contribute look
of fierceness, every one armed to the
teeth. the men might be described as
the worlds nightmare conception of
brigands.
Three thousands years ago the
proud kings of Assyria led their
trained armies northwestward into the
mountainous region of the upper Eu-
pirates and Tigris rivers. The tur-
bulent mOuntaineers against whom
n
soldiers of the Mesopotamian plain
and took refuge In inaccessible
heights, leaving their rude villages of
mud and stones to be destroyed.
Not Easy to Conquer.
Invariably the kings claimed to
have defeated the wild upland tribes,
as boastful inscriptions carved in the
living rock still prove; but the defeat
was never permanent. AS soon MS the
soldiers retired the mountaineers re-
occupied their villages, and soon be-
gan to plunde- the lowlands as law
lessly as c le..
Centuries later, when Nenophon led
his ten thousand Greeks from the
lower Euphrates northward across the
Armenian plateau to Trebizond, the
mountaineers were still untamed. All
night they rolled stones down the
mountain-side upon Xenophon's army,
and were vanquished only by a
stratagem.
Today the great empires of Meso-
pOtamia have fallen; the power of
Greece has passed away; but, still, as
of old, the mountains breed lawless-
ness, and the mOuntaineers are the
unsubdued scourge of the people of
the plains.
The lineal descendants of the Car
duchi who opposed the march of
Xenophon are the Kurds-a sturdy,
strong-featured race of Mohammedan
Aryans, allied to the Persians on the
one hand and to the ArmenianS on the
other Their home is in the southern
part of the Armenian plateau, among
the headwaters of the Euphrates and
Tigris rivers, and in the Zagros noun
tains, which run southeastward from
Lake Van to the Persian gulf and
form the boundary between Turkey
and Persia. There they tend their
focks; for the majority are primarily
shepherds. although they cultivate the
soil as far as possible.
Although most Of the Kurds pos
sess villages, composed of clusters of
low, flat-roofed houses Of stone or
mud, all the tribes are more or less
nomadIc. The majority live in dark
brown, many-peaked tents of goats
hair during the summer. not wander
ing far from home, but merely going
up into the high mountains. where 1t
is too cold and snowy to live in winter.
A considerable number, however,
live purely nomadic life. wandering
hundreds of miles along regular
routes. Among the pure nomads So
ciety is organized upon half-tribal,
half-patriarchia system, while the
half f-patriarchal Kurds are either d.
vided into tribes or clans, like those of
medieval Scotland, or are ruled by
feudal lords, whose power is often
absolute.
Poverty is the rule among the
Kurds; their mountain Businesses are
difficult Of access, and they them
selves are strong and hardy by reason
Of their life of exertion. The people
Of the neighboring fertile lowlands, on
the other hand, are relatively well-to-