MILE-A-MINUTE MARTY
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(Prepared by the National Geographic
Society, Washington, D )
HE Kurds, who have revolted
along the Turkish-Persian bor-
der and against whom large
| Turkish forces have been oper
ating near famous Mount Ararat, have
been fighting periodically against the
established states of Asia Minor for
thousands of years. Always their
favorite method of strife has been
guerrilla warfare. They have been
historic marauders, but perhaps they
have every reason, so for as environ
ment is concerned, to lead such lives
State after state has struck against
them with forces more powerful than
any they could raise.
The days of Assyrian power in
Mesopotamia seem pretty far back
toward the beginnings of history.
Records of that empire show that
time and again its soldiers were sent
into the rough country around the
headwaters of the great rivers to sub-
due the mountaineers—ancestors of
the Kurds—who harried Assyria’s out-
lying settlements. These same moun-
#s fought the Armenians when
ter came into the region be-
,000 and 600 B. C.
Xenophon = retreated from
Asia Minor in 401 B. C. the Kurds
(then called the Carduchi) attacked
his 10,000 Greeks, rolling great stones
down on them from cliffs and moun-
tains. They fought continually against
the Bagdad caliphs. Since the Turks
rose to power In Asia Minor the
Kurds have fought them repeatedly;
in fact, the Turks never established
any considerable measure of control
over these fierce, freedom-loving high-
landers.
Since the World war the European
territory of Turkey has been negli-
gible. The country has consisted al-
most solely of the big, fat peninsula
lying between the Black sea on the
north and the eastern arm of the
Mediterranean on the south, and an
extension to the east about as broad
as the Asia Minor peninsula, reaching
roughly half way from the Black sea
to the Caspian. The southern half of
this eastern extension—the southeast-
ern corner of postwar Turkey—is
what is loosely called Kurdistan. The
other half of the eastern extension,
{fmmediately north of Kurdistan, was
once Turkish Armenia.
Kurdish Sphere Is Large.
Now that tens of thousands of the
Armenian residents have been driven
across the Russian border, while other
tens of thousands have perished, the
region hardly deserves the old name.
The Kurdish population was always
high in Turkish Armenia; now it is
proportionately much greater. The
whole eastern end of present Turkey,
constituting almost a third of the
territory of the country, therefore,
may roughly be considered the Kurd-
ish sphere of influence. It is in the
northeast corner of Turkey that the
Kurds have recently been most active.
Geographic and political and eco-
nomic complications aplenty are
found in this region. On the east
Kurdistan touches Persia, and the peo-
ple for a considerable distance into
that country are Kurds, too. Indeed,
Kurdish people inhabit the entire
Zagros mountain rafige which extends
from Turkey for 600 miles to the
southeast, forming the boundary be-
tween Persia and Iraq.
The Kurds belong to the Iranian
branch of the white race. Because of
the open-air lives which they live,
most of them have harsh features.
The great majority are nominally
Mohammedans.
The plateau region lying partly in
old Armenia, partly in Kurdistan,
where many of the most warlike Kurds
live, presents a good example of the
effects on man of a mixture of rugged
uplands and fertile valleys. Limestone
mountains and recently extinct vol-
eanoes occupy the upper levels. Lower
are magnificent canyons cut by the
Tigris and Euphrates headstreams,
and numerous broad, basin-shaped val-
leys whose floors are fertile plains.
The ancestors of the Kurds were
pushed from many of these desirable
A Kurd of the Turkey-Persia Border.
lowlands by the Armenian invasion
and from others by the later arriving
Turks,
Some Recent Revolts.
Even the fairly recent regime of
Kemal Pasha has had several Kurdish |
revolts on its hands.
effort to set up their own government.
The scrapping of the caliphate at Con
stantinople aroused them and nearly |
every change in old Moslem Customs
has irritated them. Revolt after re-
volt has been quelled but as soon as
the Kurd replenishes his forces and
supplies, he is ready to attack again.
The Kurd farmers of the Iraq plains
are more prosperous than the tribes-
men of the hill country.
climb the trails of Kurdistan for miles
without seeing a village. When one
does appear, it is usually situated in
a well protected spot. Houses are
placed without regard to building line
and a bird's-eye. view of a village re-
veals a jumble of mud and stone
structures.
The peasant’s house is a one-room :
structure which might be mistaken for |
a stable. The tribesmen reserves one
side of his abode for his animals while
his family occupies the other side. |
Kurds sit on the floor when they rest
or eat, therefore they do not need
tables or chairs.
The tribal chief or headman fares
better. He has a house for his family
and a guest house where he lives and
entertains guests. He is offended if a
traveler does not stay with him. Once
the traveler has stopped, he must re-
main for dinner, The food is placed
on the floor in the center of the din
ers. Should a guest stretch his legs
toward another person, convey food
to his mouth with his left hand, or
fondle the dog, his host is offended.
No knives and forks are to be found
in the Kurd silver chest but if a guest
has difficulty in feeding himself with
his hands. a spoon will be handed to |
him. Few meals are served that do |
not include mast (curdled milk) the
favorite dish of the Kurd. A little
water mixed with the mast makes
mastao, the Kurd “national” drink.
The tribesmen like vegetables but sel-
Jom serve meat.
They Buy Their Wives.
Under Moslem law, the Kurd may
take four wives. Wives are bought.
so the peasant usually has only one.
The chiefs take the full quota. Wives
are priced according to their rank.
The tribesman can get a wife in ex- '
change for a pony or goat, or one
may cost the equivalent of $2,500. The
wedding entails a season of merry-
making in which the whole tribe joins.
put it takes less than a minute to dis-
solve a union. The man simply says
“] divorce you” three times and the
parties are free.
To the foreigner, the Kurds seem to
know little else than the “art” of high-
way robbery. Many of the mountain
tribesmen are adept thieves, but fin ;
the hills as well as the plains, many
Kurds earn honest livings by farming
and cattle raising. Kurds are pastoral
people, seldom moving from their vil-
lages except to migrate to higher alti-
tudes during the summer for new pas-
turage.
In spite of exciting events in the
fighting history of the Kurds, the |
tribesmen were almost unknown out-
side the Near East before the World |
When a delegation of Kurds ap- |
war.
peared at the peace conferences in
1919 newspaper men did not know who
the sunburnt tribesmen might be.
When their identity was revealed the |
Kurds went on the front pages and |
frequently have been there since.
The presence of Kurds in the Mosul
region of what is now northern Iraq
was a hard diplomatic problem for the
treaty drafters to solve after the
World war. Except in Mosul City, the
population of this region is almost
solidly Kurdish. It is the odor and
power of petroleum that in some ways
dominate all else in this region. ‘What
promises to become one of the major
oil fields of the world centers about
Mosul.
There was a |
sporadic uprising in 1929; and in 1925 |
the tribesmen made an unsuccessful |.
Travelers
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1923 Ford COUPE ...oooooooomeen $ 20.00 | ARRANGED Ee 3 200
1924 Ford 1 Ton Truck. .§ 35.00 Overland Touring ....$ 35.00
1925 Chevrolet Coach ........ $ 25.00 1928 Ford Model “A” Whippet Roadster ...$ 150.00
1925 Chevrolet Touring ...... $ 50.00 COUPE -...oovrurmemmersarens .-$ 290.00 Pontiac Roadster ....... $ 295.00
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Woman, 90, Uses Telephone
First Time on Visit to U. S.
Mrs. Catherine McManus is
she made her first telephone call.
saw a telephone or a
Helpful
The widow of a farmer was being
, consoled by a neighboring farmer,
who happened to be a widower.
“Cheer up, woman,” he said. *“Ye're
young yet, and good looking, an’ you
could soon get another husband.”
“Oh, no, no,” she replied. “who
would take me?”
“Why, if [ had a better pair of boots
on I'd run away wi’ ye myself.” said
the widower, gallantly.
The widow. lifting her face and
wiping her eyes. said. earnestly: “I
wonder would John's fit you?"—
England Birmingham Weekly Post.
——————————————
Pleasant Time in Store
The umpire had just made a bad
decision. The crowd was calling him
' evil names and hurling pop bottles ir
his direction.
“Why don’t you say something?” said
an irate fan to a quiet, sad-faced spec
tator who sat near him.
“My time is coming,” replied the
stranger. ‘““The umpire is a relative
of my wife's and she has asked him
, to the house for dinner this evening.”
shown in the home of her son in Philadelphia as
Mrs. McManus, who is 90 years
skyscraper until
old, never
she came te the United States from
recently.
Fearsome Creature
Maud Rex Allen says: “As known
in Japan. the conception of the dragon
is undoubtedly derived from the prod-
ucts of the imagination of the early
Chinese, who were especially fond of
evolving supernatural forms by com-
bining parts of various animals. It is
essentially a serpent, with horns of a
deer, the head of a horse, eyes like
that of a red worm, scales like those
of a carp, ears like a cow, paws like
a tiger and claws like an eagle. It has
flamelike appendages on shoulders and
hips. On either foot are three, four
or five claws—the imperial dragon of
(‘hina has five; that of Japan three.”
Ruild New Arena
for Bull Fighting
Madrid, Spain.—The 1930 bull fight
ing season will be inaugurated in Ma
drid in the old Plaza de Tores, but in
April the new plaza will be dedicated.
The new arena seats 26.000 persons.
or double the capacity of the old one.
and one of the first fights to take place
therein will be a benefit for Universit)
¢fiy (Ciudad Universitaria) now un
der construction.
How Telephone Calls Are Timed
on what is known as a ticket, and wh
and restamiped. In this way
with unerring accuracy.
The clock-like device above is the caleulagraph—an electrically operated
mechanism that records the elapsed time on out-of-town telephone calls.
Upon receiving the details of a call from a subscriber,
c : en the conversation starts she places the
ticket beneath the dial of the clock, and pulls a lever,
At the éonclusion of the cdll, a ticket is ag :
the operator writes them
which stamps the time.
ain placed under the calculagraph
the timé consumed in the conversation is computed
This photograph was taken in the operating room of
a dial central office.
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