ishwa
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Even today, right in the heartland Khabur area of former Mitanni lands and present Kurdistan, the most prestigious clan has the name "Sindi"! <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is an email I had got from some scholar, thought it's relevant here:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"The Mittani aristocratic house almost certainly was from the
immigrant Sindis, who survive today in the populous Kurdish clan of
Sindiâagainâin the same area where the Mittani kingdom once existed.
These ancient Sindi seem to have been an Indic, and not Iranic group
of people, and in fact a branch of the better known Sindis of
India-Pakistan, that has imparted its name to the River Indus and in
fact, India itself."
Prof. M. R. Izady (From a Lecture given at Harvard University, 10 March
1993.)
http://web.krg.org/grafik/grafik_create_pi..._ecbatan_02.jpg
Golden rhyton from Ecbatana
http://web.krg.org/grafik/grafik_create_pi...elal_bridge.jpg
Delal bridge in Zaxo
http://web.krg.org/grafik/grafik_create_pi...cheology_01.jpg
Median empire archeology
http://web.krg.org/grafik/grafik_create_pi..._ecbatan_01.jpg
The lion of Ecabtana
Kurdish History and Culture
By: Prof. M. R. Izady
People and Origin
The question of Kurdish origins, i.e., who the Kurds are and where
they come from, has for too long remained an enigma. Doubtless in a
few words one can respond, for example, that Kurds are the end-product
of numerous layers of cultural and genetic material superimposed over
thousands of years of internal migrations, immigrations, cultural
innovations and importations. But identifying the roots and the course
of evolution of present Kurdish ethnic identity calls for a greater
effort. It calls for the study of each of the many layers of these
human movements and cultural influences, as many and as early in time
as is currently possible. And to achieve this, one needs to delve deep
into antiquity, and debate notions as diverse as anthropology,
linguistics, genetics, theology, economics and demography, not to
mention simple old narrative history.
Presently, at least 5 distinct layers can be identified with various
degrees of certainty.
Halaf Cultural Period
The earliest evidence thus far of a unified and distinct culture
shared by the people inhabiting the Kurdish mountains relates to the
period of the 'Halaf Culture' that began around 8000 years ago. Named
after the ancient mound of Tell Halaf west of the town of Qamishli in
what is now the Syrian Kurdistan, this culture is best-known for its
easily recognizable style of pottery which, fortunately, was produced
in abundance. Exquisitely painted, delicately designed Halaf pottery
are easily distinguishable from earlier and later productions. Judging
from the pottery remains alone, Halaf culture appears to have been
extant between 6000 to 5400 BC, a period of about 600 years.
In fact taking Halaf pottery as a prime example, many archaeologists
now point out by that shared pottery style is a simple but crucial
tool in helping to classify prehistoric cultures in the Middle East.
Yet, while shared pottery can imply shared culture, it can no more
imply shared ethnicity for the people who produced them than shared
rug designs can now. Today, for example, the Turkic Qashqai, Luric
Mamasani and the Arab Baseri peoples of southern Iran all share
similar rug designs. Ethno-linguistically, however, these three
peoples share virtually nothing else. This fact should serve as a
clear warning to those who would use shared artistic styles and
plastic arts as an indication of shared ethnicity. Pottery styles must
be taken in tandem with other evidence in order to make a case for
shared culture and ethnicity. But, wide-spread Halafian excavation
sites have much more in common than styles of pottery.
Delal bridge in Zaxo
Solid evidence has now emerged indicating striking similarities in
food, technology, architecture, ritual practices and ornaments, all of
which merge to suggest something more substantive. Archaeologist
Julian Reade, now a curator at the British Museum's Department of
Western Asiatic Antiquities thus states: "While we really know little
about how the inhabitants of a Halaf village thought, let alone what
languages or languages they used for thinking, and what levels of
abstraction could be expressed verbally, it seems likely they had
comparable social structures, sharing many of the same implicit
values, and that even those who did not travel regularly many have met
from time to time in a religious or administrative centers." (footnote
1)
With the aid of these archaeological criteria, J. Reade as well as M.
Roaf (archaeologist and former director of the British School of
Archaeology in Iraq, now at the University of California, Berkeley)
have determined the boundaries of the Halaf culture. They coincide
almost exactly with the area the ethnic Kurds still call home: from
Kirmanshah to Adyaman, and from Afrin near the Mediterranean Sea to
northern areas of Lake Van. The distribution of the Halaf pottery and
the distribution of ethnic Kurds today are a near-perfect match. The
single exception is the Mosul-Tikrit region of the Mesopotamian
lowlands. (footnote 2) James Mellaart, better known for his excavation
at Catal Hüyük, meanwhile, has found many of the motifs and composite
designs present on the Halaf pottery and figurines still extant in the
textile and decorative designs of the modern Kurds who now inhabit the
same excavated Halafian sites. (footnote 3)
It is highly unlikely that the Halaf people constituted an immigrant
population. According to several demographic studies, the Zagros
mountains were the site of perennial population surplus and pressure
from 12000 to 5000 years ago, which must have resulted in many
episodes of emigration. (footnote 4) This population pressure in the
Zagros-Taurus folds was a consequence of successive technological
advances in domestication of common crops and animals, and resulted in
a prosperous agricultural economy and trade, ergo high population
density. The Halafian phenomenon is likely the result of a massive
internal migration which succeeded to culturally unify the population
in Kurdistan.
The fact that the Halaf Culture spread so rapidly over such a
considerable distance across the rugged Kurdish mountains is thought
to have been the result of the development of a new life-style and
economic activity necessitating mobility, namely nomadic herding. All
the pre-requisite technologies had been developed and the necessary
animals, particularly the dog, had now been domesticated by the
settled agriculturists. The Halafian figurines of dogs (with jaunty
upcurled tails uncharacteristic of any wolf), excavated from Jarmo in
central Kurdistan is the earliest definitive evidence of the
development of "man's best friend" and the herder's most prized
protection. (footnote 5) Nomadic herding has since been a very mobile
cornerstone of the Zagros-Taurus cultures and societies.
Ubaid Cultural Period
The Halaf Cultural period ends with the arrival, circa 5300 BC of a
new culture and, quite likely a new people: the so-called Ubaidians.
Named after the archaeological mound of al-Ubaid in modern Iraq, where
their remains first excavated, the people of Ubaid culture expanded in
time from the plains of Mesopotamia into the mountains. The culture of
the Ubaidians, or the proto-Euphratians, as they are sometimes called,
caused a hybrid culture to emerge in the mountains. This new cultural
phase in Kurdistan comprised of the earlier Halafian heritage,
superimposed by this new, but foreign influence. The Ubaid cultural
ascendance predominated in most of Kurdistan and Mesopotamia for the
ensuing 1000 years.
Of the language and ethnic affiliation of the Ubaidians we know
nothing beyond the barest conjecture. However, it is they who gave the
names 'Tigris' and 'Euphrates' to the primary rivers of Kurdistan and
Mesopotamia. (footnote 6)
Personally, I have come to suspect that the Ubaidian people may be
identical or related to the enigmatic "Khaldi." The Khaldi are well
represented in ancient Kurdistan, and were time Kurdicized to survive
today as many Kurdish clans and tribes bearing variations of the old
name, such as the modern Khallikan.(footnote 7) The modern survivors
are found precisely were the classical Graeco-Roman sources recorded
the Khaldi around 2000 years ago: mainly in northern and western
Kurdistan. In support of this one may note the important fact that as
the Ubaidians were found in lowland Mesopotamia as also in highland
Kurdistan, the same is true of the Khaldi who were found in large
numbers in both regions. Like their highland branch, the lowland
Khaldi were also in time assimilated. In Mesopotamia, the Ubaidians
were Semitized, becoming known as the celebrated Chaldeans.
Median empire archeology
The cultural impact of the Ubaidians on the mountain communities,
nonetheless, was vast, although apparently it was not particularly
deep.
Hurrian Cultural Period.
By approximately 4300 BC, a new culture, and possibly a new people,
came to dominate the mountains: the Hurrians.
Of the Hurrians we know much more, and the volume of our knowledge
becomes greater as the time becomes more recent. We know, for example,
that the Hurrians spread far and wide into the Zagros-Taurus-Pontus
mountain systems, and intruded for a time also on the neighboring
plains of Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau. However, they never
expanded too far from the mountains. Their economy was surprisingly
integrated and focused, along with their political bonds, which runs
largely parallel with the Zagros-Taurus-Pontus mountains, rather than
radiating out to the lowlands, as was the case during the preceding
Ubaid cultural period. Mountain-plain economic exchanges remained
secondary in importance, judging by the archaeological remains of
goods and their origin.
The Hurrians spoke a language, or properly, languages, of the
north-eastern group of the Caucasic family of languages, distantly
related to modern Chechen, Lezgian and Lakz. Their direction of
Hurrian expansion is not yet understood, and by no means should be
taken as having been north-south, i.e., an expansion out of the
Caucasus, as often is presumed without any evidence. It may well be
that it was the prolific Hurrians who introduced Northeast Caucasian
languages into the Caucasus, instead of having originated from that
tiny, sparsely-populated region.
For a long time the states founded by the Hurrians remained small,
until around 2500 BC when larger political-military entities evolved
out of the older, Hurrian city-states. Six polities are of special
note: Urartu, Mushq/Mushku, Urkish, Subar/Saubar, Baini, Guti/Qutil
and Manna. The kingdom of Mushku is now believed to have brought about
the final downfall of the Hittites in Anatolia. Their name survives in
the city of Mush/Mus in north-central Kurdistan of Turkey. The Subaru
who operated from the areas north of modern Arbil in central Kurdistan
have left their name in the populous and historic Kurdish tribal
confederacy of Zubari, who still inhabit the areas north of Arbil.
The Guti/Qutils of central and southern Kurdistan, after gradually
unifying the smaller mountain principalities, became strong enough in
2250 BC to actually annex Sumeria and the rest of lowland Mesopotamia.
A Guti/Qutil dynasty ruled Sumeria for 130 years until 2120 BC.
Four legendary emporia, Arrap'ha, Melidi Washukani and Aratta served
the Hurrians in their inter-regional trade with the economies outside
the mountains. With certainty, Arrap'ha is to be identified with
modern Kirkuk, Melidi with Malatya, while Washukani and Aratta are
probably to be identified, respectively, with the rich archaeological
sites of Godin Teppa (near Kangawar in southeastern Kurdistan, Iran)
and Tell Fakhariya (west of Qamishli, in west-central Kurdistan,
Syria). By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the culture and people
of Kurdistan appear to have been unified under a Hurrian identity.
The legacy of the Hurrians to the present culture of the Kurds is
fundamental. It is manifest in the realm of Kurdish religion,
mythology, material and martial arts, and even the genetics. Nearly
three-quarters of Kurdish clan names and roughly half of topographical
and urban names are also of Hurrian origin, e.g., the names of the
clans of Bukhti, Tirikan, Bazayni, Bakran, Mand; rivers Murad, Balik
and Khabur, lake Van; the towns of Mardin, Ziwiya and Dinawar.
Mythological and religious symbols present in the art of the later
Hurrian dynasties, such as the Mannaeans and Kassites of eastern
Kurdistan, and the Lullus of the southeast, present in part what can
still be observed in the Kurdish ancient religion of Yazdanism,
better-known today by its various denominations as Alevism, Yezidism,
and Yarisanism (Ahl-i Haqq).
It is fascinating to recognize the origin of many tattooing motifs
still used by the traditional Kurds on their bodies as replicas of
those which appear on the Hurrian figurines. One such is the
combination that incorporates serpent, sun disc, dog and comb/rain
motifs. In fact some of these Hurrian tattoo motifs are also present
in the religious decorative arts of the Yezidi Kurds, as found most
prominently at the great shrine at Lalish.
By the end of the Hurrian period, Kurdistan seem to have been
culturally and ethnically homogenized to form a single civilization
which was identified as such by the neighboring cultures and peoples.
Sumerians, for example, called everybody in the Kurdish mountains as
"Subaru," while the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians used the term
"Guti/Qutil." To the ancient Jews, they were are all the "Qarduim."
All these ancient appellations have modern representatives in the
names of major Kurdish clans, and were by no means the artifacts of
the imagination of those early Mesopotamians. The lowlanders of
Mesopotamia must have seen the uniformity of the culture (and
presumably the ethnicity) of the peoples of the Kurdish mountains,
prompting them to call these mountaineers by a single native
ethnic/tribal name that was most familiar to them at any given time.
Likewise, today we know all of these same mountain people as Kurds.
This portrait of a culturally homogenized Kurdistan was not to last.
The Aryan Period
As early as 2000 BC, the vanguards of the Indo-European speaking
tribal immigrants, such as the Hittites and the Mittanis (Sindis), had
arrived in southwestern Asia. While the Hittites only marginally
affected the mountain communities in Kurdistan, the Mittanis settled
inside Kurdistan around modern Diyarbakir, and influenced the natives
in several fields worthy of note, in particular the introduction of
knotted rug weaving. Even rug designs introduced by the Mittanis and
recognized by the replication in the Assyrian floor carvings, remain
the hallmark of the Kurdish rugs and kelims. The modern mina khâni and
chwar such styles are basically the same today as those the Assyrians
copied and depicted nearly 3000 years ago.
The name 'Mittani' survives today in the Kurdish clans of Mattini and
Motikan/Moti who inhabit the exact same geographical areas of
Kurdistan as the ancient Mittani. The name "Mittan," however, is a
Hurrian name rather than Aryan. At the onset of Aryan immigration into
Kurdistan, only the aristocracy of the high-ranking warrior groups
were Aryans, while the bulk of the people were still Hurrian in all
manners. <b>The Mittani aristocratic house almost certainly was from the
immigrant Sindis, who survive today in the populous Kurdish clan of
Sindiâagainâin the same area where the Mittani kingdom once existed.
These ancient Sindi seem to have been an Indic, and not Iranic group
of people, and in fact a branch of the better known Sindis of
India-Pakistan, that has imparted its name to the River Indus and in
fact, India itself. (footnote 8) While the bulk of the Sindis moved on
to India, some wondered into Kurdistan to give rise to the Mittani
royal house and the modern Sindi Kurds. Others, still, remained in
Europe, and are recorded in the 1st century AD inhabiting the Taiman
Peninsula on the Sea of Azov between Russia and Ukraine.
Expectedly, the Mittani pantheon includes names like Indra, Varuna,
Suriya and Nasatya is typically Indic. The Mittanis could have
introduced during this early period some of the Indic/Vedic tradition
that appears to be manifest in the Kurdish religion of Yazdanism.</b>
The avalanche of the Indo-European tribes, however, was to come about
1200 BC, raining havoc on the economy and settled culture in the
mountains and lowlands alike. The north was settled by the Haigs who
are known to us now as the Armenians, while the rest of the mountains
became targets of settlement of various Iranic peoples, such as the
Medes, Persian, Scythians, Sarmatians, and Sagarthians (whose name
survives in the name of the Zagros mountains).
The lion of Ecabtana
By 850 BC, the last Hurrian states had been extinguished by the
invading Aryans, whose sheer number of immigrants must have been
considerable. These succeeded over time to change the Hurrian
language(s) of the people in Kurdistan, as well as their genetic
make-up. By about the 3rd century BC, the Aryanization of the mountain
communities was virtually complete.
Since the star of the Mittani shown brightest in 1500 BC, Aryan
dynasties of various size and influence continued their appearance in
various corners of Kurdistan. None, however, was to match, and in fact
surpass the Mittanis as the Medians. The rise of the Medes from their
capital at Ecbatana (modern Hamadan) in 727 coincided with the fall of
the last major Hurrian kingdom: the Mannaeans. Ignoring the proud
legacy of the Hurrian states and even the Aryan empire of the Mittanis
which can squarely be claimed by on every ground by modern Kurds, it
is the Medes that the Kurds have grown most fund of. Medes are claimed
regularly by the Kurds and pronounced by others to be the ancestors of
them. This is strange, when realizing how many millennia of cultural
and ethnic evolution preceded the rise of Medes into Kurdistan. In
reality, Medes are no more the ancestors of the modern Kurds as all
other Halafian, Hurrian and Mittani who came before them or the legion
of other peoples and states that came after them. Nonetheless, today,
even the first Kurdish satellite television transmitter is given the
name "Med TV" (Kurdish for "Median TV"). Fascination of the Kurds with
the Median Federation (a.k.a., Empire) that ended in 549 BC remains
supreme, indeed.
It is surprising to most that among the Kurds the Aryan cultural was
and still remains secondary to that of the Hurrians. Culturally, Aryan
nomads brought very little with to add to what they found already
present in the Zagros-Taurus region. As has been the case, cultural
sophistication and civilization are not what nomads are known for. On
the contrary, nomads are inclined to annihilate what settled life and
culture they find in their path as adversaries for possession of land
and political dominance. We have no ample evidence, including a bona
fide economic dark age lasting for roughly 500 years in the areas
touched by the Aryans, that they behaved much the same barbarian way.
The Aryan influence on the local Hurrian Kurdish people must have been
very similar to what transpired in Anatolia 2,500 years later when the
Turkic nomads broke in after the battle of Manzikert in AD 1071. Much
insight can be learned from this more recent nomadic dislocation for
the older, murkier Aryan episode. Following the Manzikert, the Turkic
nomads gradually imparted their language to all the millions of
civilized, sophisticated Anatolians whom they converted from
Christianity to their own religion of Hanafi Sunni Islam. Almost
everyone in Anatolia gradually assumed a new Turkish identity when
converted to Islam. But, this did not mean that the old cultural,
human and genetic legacy ceased to exist. On the contrary, the rich
and ancient Anatolian cultures and peoples continued their existence
under the new Turkish identity, albeit, with the addition of some
genetic and cultural material brought over by the nomads.
Architecture, domestic and monumental, decorative arts, farming
techniques, herding practices, and religion remained much the same in
Kurdistan following Aryan settlement, while the people progressively
came to speak the Indo-European, Iranic language of these Aryan
immigrants, admit new deities into their earlier Hurrian pantheon, and
become lighter in their complexion. No abrupt change is encountered in
the culture of Kurdistan while this linguistic and genetic shift was
taking place under the Aryan pressure, barring the appearance of the
so-call, "gray ware" pottery.
Near every thing in the contemporary culture of the Kurds can be
traced to this massive Hurrian substructure, with the Aryan
superstructure generally quite superficial and "skin deep"âto use a
pun, in many fundamental ways. Even the time-honored Kurdish tactic of
guerrilla warfare finds its roots among the Hurrian Gutis long before
its was put into good use as a well-tested and developed tactic by the
Median Cyaxares in this Assyrian campaigns in 612 BC. In the Bisitun
inscription, the Persian king Darius I also makes note of this battle
tactic used by the mountaineers against his forces, calling the
guerrillas the kara (a lexical cognate of the term, "guerrilla").
Eight hundred years later, King Ardasher, founder of the Persian
Sasanian dynasty, faces the same defensive tactics by the Kurds. The
term he uses for them is jan-spâr, which means almost identical with
the modern term Kurds give their guerrilla warriors: the peshmerga.
So far the victory cylinder of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I (r.
1114-1076 BC) is the oldest record of the incidence of the ethnic name
of the Kurds. It records the "Kurti" or "Qurtie" among the peoples
whom the king conquered in his mountain campaigns south of the Lake
Van region. The more exact location of these "Kurti" is given by the
same document as Mt. Azu/Hazu. We are extraordinarily lucky that this
"address" was still current until about sixty years agoâover 3100
years after Tiglath-pileser I. The town of Kurti in the Mt. Hizan
region south of Lake Van is the same as the "Kurti in the Mt. Azu" of
the Assyrians. The town of Kurti was still serving as a seat of a
Kurdish princely house when the Kurdish historian Sharaf al-Din
Bitlisi added the dynasty's history into his celebrated history, the
Sharafnâma, in 1597. This "birthplace" of the Kurds continued to be
known with the archaic name until the Turkish government changed its
name and that of its eponymous river, respectively, to Aksar (at 38.30
N, 42.49 E) and Büyük river in the 1930s. The oldest Kurdish place
nameâits "birth place" thus joined history so recent in history.
The Akkadian term "Kurti" denoted vaguely and indeterminate portion or
groups of inhabitants of the Zagros (and eastern Taurus) mountains. To
their very end in the 6th century BC, on the other hand, the
Babylonians loosely (and apparently pejoratively) called most every
body who lived in the Zagros-Taurus system a "Guti", including the
Medes! But Babylonian records also attest to many more specific
subdivisional names such as the Mardi, Kardaka, Lullubi and Qardu, the
last three of which have all been used frequently in the needless
controversy over the roots and antiquity of the ethnic term 'Kurd,'
and the question of the presence of a general ethnic designator.
By the 3rd century BC, at any rate, the very term Kurd (or rather
"Kurti") had been conclusively established. Polybius (d. ca. 133 BC)
in his history when reporting on the events of 221-220 BC, (footnote
9) and Strabo (d. ca. AD 48) in his geography (footnote 10) are the
earliest Western sources I am aware of to have made mention of the
Kurds with their present ethnic name, albeit, in latinized form
Cyrtii, "the Kurti." Historians Livy, Pliny, Plutarch, and much later,
Procopius also mention this ethnic name for the native population of
Media and parts of Anatolia for the classical times. Ptolemy
inadvertently provides us with an array of Kurdish tribal names, when
he records them as they appear as toponyms for where the tribe
resided. Bagraoandene for the Bagrawands or Bakrans of Diyarbakir,
Belcanea for the Belikans of Antep, Tigranoandene for the Tirigans of
Hakkari, Sophene for the Subhans of Elazig, Derzene for the Dersimis
and Bokhtanoi for the Bokhti (Bohtans) etc. These tribes are still
with us today.
When the Aryan Medes and Persians arrived on the eastern flanks of the
Zagros around 1000 BC, a massive internal migration from the eastern
Taurus and northern and central Zagros toward the southern Zagros was
in progress. By the 6th century BC, many large tribes which we now
find among the Kurds were also present in southern Zagros, in Fars and
even Kirman. As early as the 3rd century BC, the "Kurtioi" are
reported by the Greek, and later Roman authors (in the Latin form of
"Cyrtii") to inhabit as much the southern Zagros (Persis or Pars/Fars)
as the central and northern Zagros (Kurdistan proper). This was to
continue for another millennium, by which time, the ethnic name of
"Kurd" had become established for nearly all if not all inhabitants of
the mountains, from the Straits of Hormuz to the heart of Anatolia.
Northern Zagros and Anatolia once teamed with various and related
groups of people speaking Iranic tongue(s). By about 2000 years ago,
many of these, such as the Iranic Pontians, Commagenes, Cappadocians,
the western Medes and the Indic Mitannis, like the earlier Hurrian
Mannas, Lullus, Saubarus, Kardakas, and Qutils, had been totally
absorbed into a new Kurdish ethnic pool. These are among many
mountain-inhabiting peoples whose assimilation has formed genetically,
culturally, socially and linguistically the contemporary Kurds. The
Kurdish diversity of race, tradition and spoken dialects encountered
today point to the direction of this compound identity.
Reflecting on the gradual and organic assimilation of one of these
groups into the larger Kurdish ethnic pool, Pliny the Elder (d. AD 79)
tries to reconcile what appeared to him to be rather a name-change for
a familiar people. Enumerating the nations of the known world, he
states, "Joining on to Adiabene [central Kurdistan centered on Arbil]
are the people formerly called the Carduchi [the Kardukh] and now the
Cordueni past whom flows the river Tigrisâ¦" (footnote 11)
These Carduchi mentioned by Pliny are the same people whom Xenophon
and his fellow ten thousand Greek troops had encountered nearly three
centuries earlier when retreating through Kurdistan in 401 BC.
Xenophon called them the "Kardukhoi" The name is likely the same as
that of 'Kardaka,' (the people who provided a part of the Babylonian
royal guards before 530 bc), and the 'Qarduim' (mentioned frequently
in the Talmud). (footnote 12)
The early Islamic sources enumerate tens of Kurdish tribes and family
clans outside Kurdistan proper in the southern Zagros, the Caucasus,
Elburz, Taurus and Amanus mountains. In time, however, all of these
assimilated into the local. This fact has been an unwarranted source
of puzzlement for many modern writers on Kurdish history. Unaware of
the history and extent of early Kurdish migrations and finding, at
present, very few Kurds in these other mountain areas, they have often
drawn the wrong conclusion that the term "Kurd" could not have been an
ethnic name but rather a designator for all mountain nomads in
general. This facile hypothesis is hardly worthy of refutation,
realizing that no such doubt is cast on any other mobile nations such
as the Turks and that Arabs who have spread and contracted
periodically over thousands of miles of territory. (footnote 13)
From the time the Kurds are Aryanized until the 16th century of our
era, the Kurdish culture remained basically unchanged, despite
introduction of new empires, religions, and immigrants. The Kurds
remained primarily followers of the ancient, Hurrian religion of
Yazdanism, spoke an Iranic language that the medieval Islamic sources
termed Pahlawani. Pahlawani survives today in the dialects of Gurani
and Dimili (Zaza) on the peripheries of Kurdistan. Only the loss of
Kurds of the southern Zagros through their metamorphosis into Lurs and
a fresh expansion of Kurds into Elbruz and Pontus mountains that are
noteworthy events.
Semitic and Turkic Periods
After the Aryan settlement, Kurdistan continued to receive new peoples
and cultural influences, none however, strong enough to alter the
Kurdish cultural and ethnic identity as did the Aryans. Large numbers
of Aramaic-speaking people seem to have only settled in more
accessible valleys of western Kurdistan. Through the introduction of
Judaism, and later Christianity, some Kurds, however, came to
relinquish Kurdish and spoke Aramaic instead despite the paucity of
the Aramaic demographic element. It is fascinating to note through
examining contemporary Kurdish culture that Judaism appear to have
exercised a much deeper and more lasting influence on the Kurdish
indigenous culture and religion than Christianity, despite the fact
that most ethnic neighbors of the Kurds between 5th and 12th centuries
were Christians.
The role of the Arabs and the impact of Islam on the Kurdish society
and culture is less difficult to survey. The Arabian peninsula was
experiencing a runaway population explosion when the advent of Islam
translated that pressure into a massive outburst of Arabian nomads and
brought about their settlement of foreign lands. In Kurdistan Arab
tribes settled near almost every major town and agricultural center.
By the 10th century, the Islamic historians and geographers report
Arabian populations living among the Kurds from northern shores of
Lake Van to Dinawar and from Hamadan to Malatya. These eventually
assimilated, living behind only their genetic imprint (as the
darker-complected city Kurds), and bequeathing of two exotic Semitic
sounds into the speech of many Kurds: glottal a and h.
The same fleeting influence was true of the Turkic settlement of
Kurdistan and its cultural impact. Several centuries of Turkic nomadic
passage through Kurdistan beginning with the 12th century, wrecked
havoc with the settled Kurds and their economy, as the Aryan
migrations had done so 2500 years earlier. The Turkic cultural legacy
was in itself nil, but the forces of internal change it unleashed
within the Kurdish society turned out to be nearly as decisive as the
Aryan invasion and settlement. Kurdistan would surely have turkified
under this tremendous nomadic pressure and destructiveness, had it not
been for one group of Kurdish nomads, the energetic Kurmanj, who
emerged from the Hakkari highlands to fill nearly every niche left
vacant by the agriculturist Kurds and less energetic nomads under the
Turkic pressure. The Turkic nomads were primarily steppe nomads, and
proved less of a match for the Kurmanj mountain nomads in the rough
terrain of Kurdistan. Some Kurds were Turkified to be sure; e.g., the
populous tribes of Dimbuli, Sheqaqi, Barani and Jewanshir. Conversely,
many Kurdish tribes with Turkic names (e.g., Karachul, Chol, Oghaz,
Jambul, Devalu, Ivä, Karaqich and Chichak) are in fact assimilated
Turkish and Turcoman tribes who have left behind only their names and
were in every other respect kurdicized.
This massive tribal dislocation that could have subsided over time
took a new and more destructive turn by the advent of a century-long
holocaust in Kurdish and Armenian territories in eastern Anatolia in
the 16th century. The decisive turn for massive nomadization of the
Kurdish was made by the long Perso-Ottoman wars and particularly the
Safavids' "scorched-earth" policy. More importantly still was the
deadly economic blow brought about by the shift for the sea transport
of the East-West commerce which also commenced at the turn of the 16th
century. Together they heralded the beginning of the end for much of
the social fabric and sophisticated culture of Kurdistan as it had
existed since the time of the Medes. The agriculturist, urban-based
Kurdish culture and society was to shift to a nomadic economy under a
newly assumed identity. The nomadized Kurdish farmers eventually
accepted the Shafiite Sunni Islam from the Kurmanj nomads and began
speaking the vernacular of Kurmanji, a close kin to the old Pahlawani.
In time, the older Kurdish societyâreligion and language
notwithstandingâwas marginalized and physically pushed to the
peripheries of Kurdistan. At present, over three-quarters of the Kurds
speak various dialects of Kurmanji and similar numbers practice
Shafiite Sunni Islam. In a sense, the "Kurmanj" assimilated the
"Kurds," and in the process they assumed the old ethnic name and
inherited all that was left of the older culture. Until only 50 years
ago, a vast majority of the "Kurds" would identify themselves as
Kurmanj and their language as Kurmanji. It was the outsiders and the
educated that continued to uniformly call them Kurds, regardless of
the dialect they spoke, religion they practiced, or the economic life
style they followed. In the past 50 years, however, the term Kurmanj
as an ethnic designator has been ruthlessly suppressed by the native
population themselves and their leadership in favor of the
time-honored term, "Kurd." Only in the most remote areas in the
mountains and the detached but populous Kurdish exclave in Khurasan
and Turkmenistan is the term "Kurmanj" given routinely by the common
people for their ethnic affiliation. This too is disappearing fast
under the influence of the educated Kurds.
There is, as should be expected, a strong correlation between practice
of ancient Yazdani religion and the speaking of Pahlawani, as there is
also a close connection between being a Muslim and speaking Kurmanji.
The shift from the former to the latter identity in Kurdistan is
accelerating, and seems destined to totally submerge the residual
Pahlawani-Yazdani identity of the older Kurdistan. Only a shrinking
number of Kurds still speak Pahlawani in the form of the dialects of
Dimili (Zaza) in far northwestern Kurdistan in Turkey, and as Gurani,
Laki and Hewrami (Awramani) in southeastern Kurdistan in Iran and
Iraq. The old religion of Yazdanism is still practiced as Alevism,
Yezidism and Yarisanism (the Ahl-i Haqq) denominations, but these too
are shrinking in number and import.
With introduction of modern age communication systems into the Kurdish
society, the process of cultural and ethnic homogenization of the
Kurds has inevitably accelerated. The last step in the evolution of
Kurdish cultural and ethnic identity is near completion today. The
Kurdish ethnic identity is thus destined to comprise
Kurmanji-speaking, Shafiite Muslim people, the last layer to be added
to the many former layers which, in combination, render the Kurds what
and who they are today: the heirs to millennia of cultural and genetic
evolution of the native inhabitants of the Zagros-Taurus mountain
systems.
M. R. Izady (From a Lecture given at Harvard University, 10 March
1993.)
Footnotes
1- Julian Reade, Mesopotamia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1991), 17.
2- Michael Roaf,Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near
East (New York: Equinox-Oxford, 1990), 49.
3- James Mellaart, The Neolithic of the Near East (New York: Scribner,
1975).
4- E.g., T. Cuyler Young, T., "The Iranian Migration into the Zagros,"
Iran V (1967); ); Cuyler Young, T., "Population Dynamics and
Philosophical Dichotomies," in L.D. Levine and T.C. Young, Jr., eds.,
Mountains and Lowlands: Essays in the Archaeology of Greater
Mesopotamia (Malibu, California: Bibliotheca Mesopotamica, vol. 7,
1977); Smith, P., "Iran 9000-4000 BC," Expedition 13 (1971 Bridsell,
J.B., "Some Population Problems Involving Pleistocene Man," Population
Studies: Animal Ecology and Demography, Cold Spring Harbor Symposia in
Quantitative Biology 22 (Cold Spring, Colorado, 1957; and
particularly, Smith, P. and T. Cuyler Young, "The Force of Numbers:
Population Pressure in the Central Zagros 12000-4500 BC," The Hilly
Flanks, Essays on the Prehistory of Southwestern Asia (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1982).
5- Charles Reed, "A Review of the Archaeological Evidence on Animal
Domestication in the Prehistoric Near East," in R. Braidwood and B.
Howe, eds., Prehistoric Inveestigation in Iraqi Kurdistan (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1960), 128."
6- As well as the names of almost all the cities that we now recognize
as Sumerian.
7- Khaldi>Kalli+the clan suffix, kan>Khallikan
8- What is known to the west as River Indus, is River Sindh to the
natives of the Indian Subcontinent. Southern third of Pakistan is
still the realm of the Sindhi people and is knwon by that name. The
name "India" is, meanwhile, derived from Sindh through the Old Persian
conversion of the initial letter s to h (a common practice in that
language), to produce Hind. The ancient Greeks, meanwhile, took up
this Persian rendition of the name (i.e., Hind), and dropped the
initial letter h (as is common in that language), coming up with name
"Ind," plus the Greek suffix us, to get "Indus".
9- Polybius.Histories, V.52.
10- Strabo, Geography, V.xi.13.2-3; VII.xv.15.1.
11- Pliny. Natural History VI.xviii.46.
12- In the 20th century, many hypotheses have been advanced to connect
the name Kurd to that of the ancient Hurrian Guti (Hallo, 1971) or the
"Kardukhoi" of the Greek historian Xenophon (Cawkwell, 1979), none of
which can any longer be maintained in light of discovery of the
aformentioned Assyrian stele. The name Guti, at any rate, survives
today clearly in the name of the Kurdish clan of Judikan, inhabiting
the heartland of the ancient Gutis in southeatern Kurdistan. The
"Kardukhoi" who come to subsequently be known as the Gordyene to the
classical authors, are none other than the predecessors of modern
Girdi clan of Kurds who still reside exactaly where the ancient
Kardukhoi/Godyene were found. The name "Kurti/Kurd" seem likely to be
of Aryan originâone of the first, in fact, in Kurdistanâinstead of the
far more common Hurrian clan names encountered at all periods until
today and including the Khardukhoi and Guti.
13- No "proof" beyond a single, vague phrase by a medieval Persian
writer, Hamza Isfahani, has ever been produced to support the idea
that "Kurd" was not an ethnic designator. Hamza states that "The
Persians call the Daylamites the 'Kurds of Tabaristan', and the
Badouin the 'Kurds of Assyria'." What some medieval Persian did or did
not according to Hamza is hardly material to the Kurds and their
ethnic history. Other, far more respected medieval historian such as
Tabari, Ya'qubi, Mas'udi, Yaqut, Jayhani, Juwayni, Rawandi, Miskiwayh
and Mustawfi, arry the Kurds alongside the Arabs and Turks as bona
finde ethnic groups.
http://tinyurl.com/kz4xp
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