Society-KURD
The Kurds are an ethnolinguistic group inhabiting the mountainous
crescent that extends from the Euphrates River in northern Syria and
Turkey to Kermanshah in Iran. This area is generally designated as
Kurdistan and lies approximately between lat. 35 degrees-40 degrees
N by long. 37 degrees-47 degrees E. Kurdistan has neither political
nor geographical unity, being a semi-continuous territory divided
among the modern nations of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and the USSR.
At the treaty of Sevres in 1920, it was proposed that Kurdistan be
made a political unit; but this proposal was eventually dropped and
Kurdistan never came into existence as a nation.
The Kurdish language belongs to the Indo-European linguistic stock,
and has many similarities to Farsi (Persian). Three major dialects
are spoken by the Kurds, but with the development of modern Kurdish
nationalism, there has been great emphasis on language unity within
Kurdistan (Barth 1953: 11).
Estimates of the total Kurdish population vary considerably, ranging
from 1,500,000 to 4,000,000. The Royal Institute of International
Affairs gives a figure of 3,000,000 around 1951 (Barth 1953: 11),
with the greatest single concentration (ca. 2,000,000) located on
the Turkish-Iraqi border. The census of Iraq for the year 1947 records
1,000,000 Kurds concentrated in the northern and northeastern sections
of that country. Many of the Kurds are urbanized and Arabized or Turkicized,
being Kurdish by descent only.
The Kurds were early converts to Islam, with the majority belonging
to the Shafi'i school of Sunnite Muslims. Several Kurdish groups in
Iran belong to the Shi'ite sect of Ahl-il-Hakk (Ali Ilahi).
The Kurds today show a considerable diversity in their economic patterns,
ranging from pastoral nomads to settled farmers. The great majority
of the population are subsistence farmers practicing some degree of
localized transhumance. Wheat and barley are the two primary cereals
grown. Of secondary importance are rice, peas, lentils, and garden
vegetables. Tobacco is the main cash crop. Of the domestic animals,
goats and sheep are most important for their hair, wool, and dairy
products, while cattle are kept as work animals for plowing and harvesting.
Horses are few in number since they are luxury animals, owned primarily
by the wealthy.
The basic diet centers around bread, dairy products, dates, tea, and
meat. The wealthy are able to afford a more varied diet and consume
more rice, meat, and fruits. Pork and alcoholic beverages are taboo
to the Islamized Kurds.
Throughout the Kurdistan area there are two basic and distinctive
types of social organization: (1) a so-called "tribal" system based
on descent, and (2) a feudal system based on class and land ownership.
The nomadic Kurds belong to the descent type, while the settled population,
the agriculturists, may be dichotomized between freeholding, organized
farmers (descent) and sharecropping tenants (feudal). The feudal-type
village structure is progressively being absorbed into the modern
structure of the respective national states. Kurdish towns serve as
trade and administrative centers, and have more complex patterns of
social relations.
The tribal areas are characterized by small endogamous communities
with strong patterns of localism and traditionalism. In the villages
farmers generally own and work their own land, sometimes hiring outside
labor for assistance. Mutual renting or borrowing of livestock may
occur, especially at harvest time when cattle are used for threshing.
Grazing land is owned by the village as a whole, while herd animals
are individually owned. Herding is usually done by one or more full-time
shepherds serving the whole community. The village is composed of
economically independent households, each of which is usually occupied
by a single nuclear family; some households include an extended patrilocal
family. Within the household the division of labor is clear-cut and
follows the traditional rural pattern of men working the fields and
women attending to the household tasks.
Marriage patterns are based on Koranic law. The Kurds practice kingroup
endogamy with the preferred and statistically most frequent mate being
the patrilateral parallel cousin. Bride price is present but is not
fixed as to amount, this being dependent on the wealth and status
of the families involved. The bride price is completely eliminated
for marriages involving sister exchange. Polygyny, although permitted
by Islam, is relatively uncommon, being confined mostly to the wealthy.
The levirate is frequently practiced, but the sororate does not occur.
In accordance with Muslim practice, the husband has a right to divorce
his wife at any time without specifying his reasons. Following divorce,
the woman returns to her father's house leaving the children with
their father.
Residence in marriage is ideally patrilocal, but the usual household
consists of a nuclear family. Traditionally, the father or senior
adult male has complete and unquestionable control of the household;
but in actual practice it has been observed that Kurdish women often
have considerable influence within the family circle (some have even
attained prominence on a higher political level). Nevertheless, obedience
of the female to the male, and of the young to the old, is still both
the ideal and the general rule.
The Kurdish kinship system is distinguished by its small number of
basic terms, twelve in all. From the standpoint of the male, affinal
relatives are of secondary importance. The group of relatives covered
by the basic twelve terms is a bilateral kin group and includes all
individuals in the elementary families of which ego or ego's parents
are members during their lifetime. Kurdish kinship terms measure genealogical
distance between new kin without showing unilineal emphasis.
Kurdish political organization of the tribal type is based on a segmentary
lineage system. A political confederacy, called ashiret, is headed
by a paramount leader (beg), and is composed of a number of units
each of which is called a tira. Each tira is taxed by the ashiret
in terms of armed men and servants who serve in the camp of the beg.
These tira represent the primary political and land-owning groups
in the society with membership inherited patrilineally; in other words,
each tira is the equivalent of a maximal lineage. Each tira is headed
by a raiz or leader, whose position is hereditary. During crisis situations,
tira leaders meet to form a deliberative body or council for the purpose
of decision-making. Population pressure and internal strife sometimes
lead to the split of a tira with the eventual formation of a new unit.
The whole tira rarely camps as a single unit, but instead divides
into a number of tent camps called khel, roughly corresponding to
a lineage segment and held together by both economic and kinship ties.
The khel is headed by an older man selected informally on the basis
of his high prestige, power, and capabilities. Each khel is in turn
made up of from 20 to 30 households, and approximates in size, composition,
and roles the corresponding political unit represented by the villages
of the sedentary Kurds. Instead of being farmers, however, the men
are engaged in fulltime herding and stock breeding. Due primarily
to the Kurdish practice of endogamy, genealogical and local groups
usually coincide and represent the organizational units in the formal
political sense. At the village level, a mukhtar (mayor or headman)
is elected to serve as an intermediary between the village and the
higher political administration. Frequently, the mukhtar is appointed
by the higher administration in an attempt to achieve a balance of
power in the village or full cooperation with the national government.
Vinogradov (1965) is a cultural summary based on material in this
file, and provides a good introduction to the Kurds. Additional sources
to consult are Leach (1940) and Johnson (1940).
Culture summary by John M. Beierle
Barth, Fredrik.
Principles of social organization in southern Kurdistan.
Oslo, Brodrene Jorgensen Boktr., 1953.
146 p. illus., maps, tables.
Leach, Edmund Ronald.
Social and economic organisation of the Rowanduz Kurds.
London, Published for The London School of Economics and Political Science by P. Lund, Humphries, 1940.
74 p. illus., maps.
Johnson, J. C. A. The Kurds of Iraq.
I. Geographical Magazine, 10 (1940): 382-393.
Johnson, J. C. A. The Kurds of Iraq.
II.
Geographical Magazine, 11 (1940): 50-59.
Vinogradov, Amal.
Kurd cultural summary.
13 l. Typescript.
Unpublished manuscript--New Haven, Human Relations Area Files, 1965.
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