Show burds kurds alm bad 10 kye 6 tog 6 A kurd of the turkey hersla border by the national Q geographic society washington D C r ir kurds burds who have revo revolted I 1 ted ri along the turkish persian bor bop JL der and against whom large turkish forces have been operating 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 hai been guerrilla warfare they have been historic marauders but perhaps they have every reason so far as environ meat 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 fat into the rough country around the headwaters of the great due the mountaineers ancestors of the kurds burds who harried As syrias outlying settlements these thesa same mountaineers tai fought the armenians Armen ians when the latter came into the region between 1000 and GOO COO B 0 I 1 when xenophon retreated from asia minor in B 0 the kurda kurds then called the Carduc carduchi hl attacked tits ills greeks rolling grent great ston stones eq down on them from cliffs and motin mountains they fought continually against the bagdad caliphs since the turks rose to 16 power in asia minor the kurds burds have fought them repeatedly in fact the turks never established any considerable measure of control over these fierce freed freedom 0 m loving losing high landers since the world war the european Hur territory of turvey lias has been negligible the country has consisted at al most solely of the big fat peninsula lying between the black sen sea on the north and the eastern arm of the mediterranean on the south find and an all extension to thweatt the east about as broad as the asia minor peninsula reaching roughly half way from the black sen sell to the caspian tile the southern halt half of this eastern extension the southeastern corner of postwar turkey Is what Is loosely called Kurd kurdistan litan the other half of the eastern extension immediately north of kurdistan was once turkish armenia kurdish sphere Is large now that tens of thousands of the armenian residents have been driven drive 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 nov it Is proportionately much greater creator the whole eastern end of present turkey almost a liard third of the territory of the country therefore may roughly he be considered tile kurdish sphere of influence it Is in the northeast corner of turkey that the hurds have recently been most active geographic and political and economic complications aplenty are found in u this region on the east kurdistan touches persia and the people for a considerable distance into that country are kurds burds too indeed kurdish people inhabit tile the entire angros mountain range which extends from turkey for GOO miles to tile southeast forming the boundary between venda and iraq the kurds burds belong to the iranian branch of the white race because of 0 the open alf lives which they live most of them have harsh features the great majority are nominally ally edans the plateau region lying 4 ing partly in old armenia partly in kurdistan where ninny many of the most warlike kurds burds live presents a ft good example of the effects on main man of a mixture lof rugged uplands and fertile valleys limestone mountains and recently extinct volcanoes occupy the upper levels lower anre magnificent canyons cut by the tigris and licad head streams and numerous broad basin shaped valleys whose floors floom are fertile plains the ancestors of the kurds burds were cid from many of these desirable lowlands by the armenian invasion and from others ty by the later arriving turks v some recent revolts Rv olt even the fairly recent regime of pasha has had several kurdish revolts on its hands there was a sporadic uprising la in 1920 20 and in 1925 the tribesmen made an unsuccessful effort to set up their own government the scrapping of the caliphate nt at con aroused them and nearly every change in old moslem customs has irritated them revolt after revolt volt has been quelled but as soon as the kurd replenishes his forces and supplies he Is ready to attack attach again the kurd farmers of the iraq plains are more prosperous than the tribesmen of the hill country travelers climb the trails of kurdistan formales form for miles lles 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 birdseye birds eye view of a village reveals a jumble of mud and stone structures the peasants house Is a one room structure which might be mistaken tor for a I 1 stable the tribesmen reserves one side aide of his abode for his animals while his family occupies the other side kurds burds sit on the floor when they rest or eat therefore they do not need t tables bles or cli chairs airs the tribal chief or headman n fares better lie ile has a house for tits his family and a guest house where he be lives and entertains guests ile he Is offended if a traveler does not stay with him once the traveler has stopped he must remain ma in for dinner the foo food d Is placed on the floor in the center of the diners should a guest stretch his legs toward another person convey food to tits ills mouth with tits his left hand or fondle the dog tits his host bost 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 tits his hands a spoon will be handed to him film 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 gastao the kurd national drink the tribesmen like vegetables but set sel dom serve meat they buy their wives under moslem law the kurd may man 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 tribes ninn can get a wife lu in exchange tor for d a pony or goat or one may cost the equivalent of 2500 2 00 the wedding entails a season of merrymaking in which the whole tribe joins but it takes less than a minute to dissolve a union the man simply says 1 1 I divorce you three times and the parties are free to the foreigner the kurds burds seem to know little else than the art of highway robbery many of the mountain tribesmen are adept thieves but in the hills as well its as the plains many kurds burds earn honest livings by farming arming and cattle raising kurds burds fire are pastoral people seldom moving from their villages except to migrate to higher altitudes during the summer for new pasturage in spite of exciting events in the fighting history of the kurds burds the tribesmen were almost unknown outside tile the near host east before the world war when a delegation deleR atlon of kurds burds ap pear edat the peace conferences in 1919 newspaper men lid did not know who the tribesmen might be when their identity was revealed the kurds burds went on the front pages and frequently have been there since the presence of kurds burds in the region of what Is now northern iraq was a hard diplomatic problem for the treaty drafters to solve after the wol ld war incept except in city the population of this region Is almost solidly kurdish it ft Is the odor and power of petro petroleum leua that ahk in some waya dominate all else in tills this region what promises to become one of the major oil fields of the wo id centers about |