Social and Economic Organisation of the Rowanduz Kurds
E. R. Leach
Percy Lund
The aim of this series of Monographs is to publish results of modern anthropological fieldwork in a form which will be of primary interest to specialists.
Any profits from the series will be returned to a rotating fund to assist further publications.
The series is under the direction of an Editorial Board associated with the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics, and under the chairmanship of Professor Bronislaw Malinowski.
Contents
Chapter 1. Definition of the Problem / 1
Introduction - Note on Kurdish names - The Field of Investigation - Method of Analysis - The External Administration
Chapter 2. Social Organisation. Page / 13
Political Structure - Definition of Units - Inheritance of Land Tenure - The Clan Agha - The Tribal Agha - Kinship Structure - Marriage of Commoners - Marriage of Aghas - Comparison with observations made "by Hay - Points of Analysis calling for further study - Areas other than the Balik - The Nomads.
Chapter 3. Economic Organisation / 28
The Guest House - The Expenditure of the Agha - Economic Balance of the Village Community - Effects of an increase in Tobacco Cultivation - Economic Relations within the Village - Crafts - Traders - Tobacco Marketing - Marriage - Death - The Mulla.
Chapter 4. Social and Economic Aspects of Kurdish Techniques / 47
The Relevance of Technology in a Social Study - Land Scarcity, House Construction and Kinship - Ploughing - Threshing - Land Utilisation - Rice - The Mill - Weaving.
Chapter 5. Factors of Minor Economic Significance / 55
1) Warfare 2) Religion
Warfare - The Feud - Religious Organisation - The Mulla - The Mosque.
Chapter 6. Conclusion / 61
Limitations of Foregoing Material - Positive Contribution.
Appendix. Table of Kinship Terms / 63
Technical Diagrams. A. Kurdish Loom / 65
B. Kurdish Mill. / 69
Maps. 1. Erbil Liwa / 71
2. Rowanduz district / 72
3. Walash Village / 73
Photographs / 74
INTRODUCTORY
The following account is based upon a five weeks field survey carried out during the summer of 1938. It was intended to follow this up with an intensive study of one locality over a period of twelve months. Political developments in Europe made this project impracticable at the time and the scheme has now been abandoned.
For the facilities afforded me in Iraq I am particularly indebted to Mr. C. J. Edmonds, Adviser to the Iraq Government, Captain Vyvyan Holt, Oriental Secretary at the British Embassy Baghdad, and His Excellency Ahmad Beg i Taufiq Beg, Mutasarrif of Erbil, in whose province this research was carried out.
The justification for publishing the somewhat superficial data contained in this monograph lies in the absence of any strictly comparable material elsewhere. The general form of Kurdish social organisation as here described is probably fairly typical of that of a large number of Mohammedan peoples scattered throughout the mountainous areas of western Asia. Concerning such peoples there is at present available very little ethnographic material of any kind and the postulate that the Kurdish form of society is typical is put forward as an hypothesis open to correction in the light of further study.
Of more immediate relevance is the close correlation that undoubtedly exists between Kurdish social forms and those of Arabia in general. This fact is of interest since linguistically the Kurds are of "aryan" rather than "semitic" stock. Concerning the "manners and customs" of various Bedouin and Semitic groups there is of course an enormous mass of literature available, some of it of the highest scientific quality, but the emphasis in every case has been to make an historical record of ethnographic fact rather than to study any particular group as a society in functioning existence at the Present time. The work of*Jaussen, Musil, Lane, Drower and Murray to name but a few, though admirably detailed, is by modem standards somewhat lifeless, since it describes the pattern of various cultural norms without, as a rule, showing their social significance or demonstrating the fundamental interrelationship between them. The earlier studies of Robertson-Smith, Frazer and Westermarck were entirely synthetic in character and gave no true picture of the functioning of any single ...
A. Jaussen - Les Coutumes des Arabs au Pays de Moab
A. Musil - Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins
E. W. Lane - Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians
E. S. Drower - The Mandaeans of Iraq, and Iran
G. W. Murray - Sons of Ishmael
E. R. Leach
Social and Economic Organisation of the Rowanduz Kurds
Percy Lund
Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd.
Monographs on Social Anthropology n° 3
Social and Economic Organisation of the Rowanduz Kurds
By
E. R. Leach
Published for
The London School of Economics and Political Science
By Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd.,
12 Bedford Square, London, W.C.I.
1940
Made and Printed by the Replika Process in Gnat Britain by
Pkrcy Lund, numphriks & Co. Ltd.
London and Bradford
