I shall deal with some Aramaic-speaking villages located
in Eastern Turkey that I have personally visited on several occasions. One
of the reasons for the choice of this subjects that the very existence of
these villages is barely known to the outside world. The best documented
Aramaic-speaking population in Turkey is that of Tur Abdin, the hilly area
of the north-east of Mardin, surrounding the small city of Midiad. In Tur
Abdin, the people speak a rather specific dialect of Aramaic called Turoyo,
and they are followers of the Jacobite Church, i.e., the West Syrian Church.
The villages we shall consider are located at a short distance to the east
of Tur Abdin, on the other bank of the Tigris, in the vicinity of the Hakkari
mountains. Linguistically, these villages speak Sureth, the major and most
common surviving dialect of Neo-Aramaic. Religiously, they belong to the
Chaldean Church which was originally apart of the Eastern Syriac Church that
split to align itself with the Roman Catholic Church.
As indicated above, the existence of some thousands of Sureth-speakers
within the borders of modern Turkey is a fact hardly known to people. The
general feeling is that all of the Sureth-speaking population of Turkey migrated
to Iran and then to Iraq during the First World War. It is therefore pertinent
to point out that this migration concerned only the so-called Assyrian “Tribes”,
the followers of Mar Shimun, whose territory was situated to the eat of our
villages. The villagers under consideration were not followers of Mar Shimun;
moreover, they were not independent like the tribes (Ashiret). Instead, they
were Rayats, subject to the power of certain Kurdish chieftains. Thanks to
the protection of their landlords, they were spared from the massacres of
the War, and they were able to maintain themselves in the area.
In fact, up to very recently, Eastern Turkey was the
only place where it was possible to observe Sureth-speaking mountaineers
leading their traditional life. This situation is rapidly changing since
most of them are involved in a process of some migration to France, where
they settle in the northern suburbs of Paris. It is presumed that very few
of them will stay in their native homeland any longer.
Location of the Villages. The first village, Artvan, is relatively isolated
from the rest; it is situated some kilometers east of Si’irt, the Arabic-speaking
city of the upper Euphrates. The dialect of this village was the subject
of a publication by Otto Jastrow in 1971 in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft. The other villages are located to the east
of the city of Djezire on the Tigris and are very close to the intersection
of the borders of Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
A first group is to the southeast, where the villages occupy different
places along the road from Djezire to Zakho (Iraq), with Hassana in the plain,
Bespina on the hillside, and Harbol on the other side of the pass. A second
group -- including Deran, Djennet, and Birinji -- is found to the northeast,
along the road from Djezire to Sirnak. Further east, on the main road to
Hakkari, one finds Eshshi and Baznayeh, situated on the slopes above Shabona.
A third group, Mehre, is located in the high pastures overlooking Eshshi,
and it is reached in ten hours by foot. The last village, Gaznakh, is located
further east, and some 15 kilometers to the west of Beytishabab..
Description of the Villages To give an idea of the main features of
these villages, I shall select two of them, namely Harbol and Eshshi.
They layout for Harbol is semi-circular. It rests on the mountain slope,
opening to the south at a very short distance from the border of Iraq. At
night, the lights of Zakho are seen from terraces of the houses. It is an
extremely beautiful village with an elaborate street pattern. The houses
are built from dry stones. They have flat-terraced roofs supported by beams
of poplars, used for sleeping during the summer. The houses are very close
to each other, and it is often convenient to move from house to house by
the roof rather than by using the narrow lanes.
The main church was recently destroyed and replaced with a cube in concrete
with nothing remarkable about it. However, a small church dedicated to Bne
Shmuni has survived the tendency toward modernization. This church, which
has a plain structure of dry stones, lies at the outskirts of the village
and is surrounded by a cemetery in a walnut orchard. It is oriented to the
south, and it has two gates that open on a plain courtyard to the west. Incidentally,
the north gate is for women and the south gate is for men. Except for two
plain crosses engraved on the lintel of the gates, the church has no specific
decoration.
Harbol is in close proximity to a coal-mine which is intensively exploited.
Consequently, it is easy to reach the village, since many trucks come to
the mine from Djezire. The road reaches the gardens of the village, but does
not enter it. In fact, the village and the mine are two distinct, autonomous
worlds, which co-exist in immediate vicinity to each other. The mine will
in the end be the cause for the demise of the village. In fact, there are
plans to relocate the village in the western region of Turkey. It is likely
that Harbol no longer exists.
Eshshi sits on the banks of a steep valley dominated by huge cliffs.
It is not as compact as Harbol. Though its houses are similar to those
in Harbol, they are more detached. At the foot of the village runs a stream
which operates two mills. The stream is crossed on a single bridge. The
path goes through the orchards and houses until it finally reaches the
main square, where the priest's house and the church are located. The
church is a massive building in dry stones, and the nave is a single arch
oriented to the east, with light entering only from three openings in
the rear wall. Unfortunately, the structure of the wall separating the
altar from the nave has recently been modified in a less impressive manner.
The nave contains no chairs or benches; the parishioners sit on the ground,
with the women at the back, and the men near the altar.
Public facilities in both villages are either non-existent or very primitive.
There are no roads, no electricity, no water system (other than the stream
running through the village), and no sanitary conveniences. Most of the villagers
are illiterate in their mother tongue. The priest teaches the Syriac alphabet
only to some male children who are trained to become deacons. Recently, the
two villages have been provided with governmental schools where teachers
instruct the pupils in the Turkish language.
Dress, Food and Social Life The traditional dress of the villagers is
similar to that of the neighboring Kurds. Men wear long cylindrical trousers,
a shirt with narrow sleeves, and a waistcoast, all made of wool tinted with
natural walnut color. A broad belt shelters a variety of objects: a knife,
a watch, a gun, a tobacco set, etc. The head is covered with one or two kerchiefs
worn int he Kurdish fashion, or with a republican cap, or with a combination
of both. The old-fashioned shoes made of boarskin belong to the past due
to the inconsistencies in modernization.
The women wear a blouse with long sleeves and a skirt above the trousers
made of cotton fabrics. They generally cover their long hair with a white
scarf and wear heavy earrings and a gold nail in the nose.
The day begins quite early with a breakfast consisting of bread -- basked
either in the clay oven (tanura) or on a reversed iron pan (doqa) --, butter,
honey, yogurt, white cheese, etc. For lunch and supper, more consistent food
will be brought on a large tray with a central dish of rice, bulgur, or pasta,
together with some boiled meat and vegetables. All the males present in the
house, and occasionally some elderly women, will eat first; and then the
women and the children take their turn. In fact, the community is marked
with strong social stratification.
The women are continuously busy with various domestic chores; by contrast,
the men get entangled in lengthy and, at times, endless discussions, while
smoking handmade cigarettes and drinking several glasses of black tea. The
villagers marry quite early -- males at age eighteen, and females at fifteen.
Celibacy is considered eccentric; therefore, the village priest is expected
to marry notwitstanding his allegiance to the Roman Catholic faith. Of course,
the ideal family is one with the maximum number of children that a woman
can bear.
Economic Activities The main business of the villagers is raising sheep
and goats. In winter, the females are kept close to the village; towards
the end of April, assuming climatic conditions allow it, almost the entire
village will follow the flock to the high pastures where the animals mate
and give birth. Each village, whether Christian or Moslem, has a designated
summer territory (Zozan) located a few hours from the village. The summer
months are spent in Zozani, sheltered under long black tents made of goat
hair.
Most of the day, the men follow their flocks along perilous slopes.
If they are too far from camp, they spend the night in the open, protected
by their heavy felt coat. The role of the women is more substantial: They
collect wood from the oak trees, milk the sheep and goats twice daily, and
carry large chunks of snow on their backs to create artificial ponds. These
ponds are the sole source of drinking water. In addition, the women handle
the daily chores of cooking the food, baking the bread, and churning the
milk in a goat skin to extract the butter and to make the cheese and yogurt.
In August, when the snow melts, the villagers return to the villages
to hold the annual big bargain. They sell all the males of the flock in Djezire.
For most of them, this is the only occasion of the year to have some cash.
This is the time to buy necessities for survival through the long winter
ahead. In particular, they buy tea, sugar, rice, and wheat which is either
boiled into bulgur or ground into flour in the water mills.
Before stocking up their winter provisions, they shear the sheep and
dye the wool. Then the women spin it even when they are relaxing. Inf act,
one can hardly see a woman without her spinning top nearby. The girls sit
at the corner of a roof or on a tree branch, in order to have sufficient
height for the spindle to hang down and stretch the wool thread. When this
is done, the weaving is left to the males; they spend most of their winter
days in front of their primitive horizontal looms.
There are only a crops in the villages. They grow some fruits and vegetables,
and they raise some poultry. Another substantial economic activity, profitable
but very dangerous, is trading across the nearby border.
Emigration Until the end of the 1960's, these villages were naturally
oriented toward the south. The border between Turkey and Iraq was purely
an administrative line, with almost no effect on the life of the local
people. They still remember the Jewish peddlers of Zakho who used to tour
their villages before 1952. For them, the main city was Mosul, and they
used to visit their relatives as far south as Baghdad, without holding
any kind of legal documents. The first villager to go west was a young
boy who was sent to Istanbul in the late 1950's for education in a French
seminary. This was a total breakaway for him, as he was did not understand
a word of French or Turkish.
Conditions have changed drastically in the last fifteen years, because
the borders have become less permissive. Also, road was constructed between
Djezire and Hakkari. With the sudden improvement of the transportation system
in Turkey, it became easier to reach Istanbul than Mosul. Moreover, schools
were constructed in the villages, and the Turkish language became familiar
to the people.
The villages were obviously overpopulated, and it was natural that
a significant number of their inhabitants left to seek their fortune in
the cities. Some of them were not satisfied even with their life in Istanbul,
and they went further west, settling in France, constituting there a community
which increased every year. This opening to the west had a strong effect
on the mind of the villagers. In the past two years, they decided collectively
to leave their native homeland and to migrate "en masse" to
France, which they manage to reach legally or otherwise. Today, only a
few Christian families remain in the villages, and many of the houses
are now occupied by local Kurds.
The explanation they offer for their migration is ideological. They
claim they want to join the Christians. But they soon realize, much to their
disappointment, that the French make no distinction between them and other
Turkish migrants. Obviously, there were other reasons for their migration,
both economical and political. Economically, life was getting more difficult
in those mountains; politically, the Turkish military were tightening their
grip on Turkish Kurdistan.
At the present, most of the villagers dwell in compact groups in lodgings
in a rather depressing and unattractive industrial area, apparently without
regret for their native mountains. Somehow, they find their way in French
society. The young men work in the confectionery business, imitating the
Turkish immigrants. The elderly remain idle. In fact, most men over the age
of forty have no social role, and they depend upon their families for survival;
they do not even try to learn French. Interestingly, the womenfolk seem to
adapt better to the ambient society, and to learn the language faster, although
they are confined to domestic jobs.
It is too early to note any deep change in the social structure of their
colonies in the suburbs of Paris, which are an imitation of their native
villages. Undoubtedly, certain changes will occur soon; changes that they
did not foresee when they took the decision to move to the unknown world,
with no hope of returning to their homeland. It is anticipated that these
people, especially the younger generations and the oncoming generations,
will soon learn or acquire the French language, and will adopt French culture,
thus endangering their very existence as an ethnic group. Being only a small
minority, without deep-seated awareness of their language and culture, will
facilitate their early acculturation and assimilation.
Professor Bruno Poizat
Universite Pierre et Marie Curie
France
M A G A Z I N E
Abraham, 48, served one term in the Senate before losing his contest with Stabenowthis
past November. Prior to his six-year stint there, he worked as a deputychief
of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle when Bush's father, former PresidentGeorge
Bush, occupied the White House. He also helped raise money for congressionalRepublicans
in 1992 as an aide with the National Republican CongressionalCommittee.
His flagship issue as a senator was not energy policy but immigration,and he
spent much of his time there seeking to expand opportunities for legalimmigrants
to the United States.