Turkmen.—The
Turkmen tribes are widely scattered through Anatolia.
Already in the beginning of the thirteenth
century, the historian Anna Comnena distinguishes
correctly between Turks and Turkmens. The
Turkmens are all nomadic, while the Turks lead a
settled life. Yet it is certain that Turkmen
villages occasionally put off the nomadic habit
and adopt a settled life; but in that case, they
tend to forget the name Turkmen, and to rank
themselves as Turk and Osmanli. In the large valley
of Metropolis (Tchul-Ova or Turkmen-Ova), I was
told in 1883 that there was one Turk village, and
all the rest were Turkmen. Now, most of them
claim to be Turk: in one village, where we were
very hospitably entertained in 1891, the magnate,
who was by birth merely the Turkmen chief,
admitted with some reluctance and shamefacedness,
that the village had originally been Turkmen:
doubtless his successor will believe that he is
pure Osmanli.
This
process, as I believe, has been going on for
centuries, but it has been greatly quickened in
recent years both by the policy of the government
(which tries to discourage and even forcibly to
stop nomadism), and by the marked growth of the
European spirit in this Oriental land. 1 The
question is, has it not been always going on? Is
the original Turk (as distinguished from the
Mohammedanized Phrygian or Galatian) anything
more than a Turkmen after two or three
generations of settled life? I put this question
to Sir Henry Howorth and other authorities on a
subject in which I am only an inquirer.
An
intermediate stage between the nomadic habit of
Turkmens and the settled habit of Turks is found
in many villages and even towns, whose
inhabitants, having in most respects the
appearance of settled living, go partially out
into summer quarters (Yaila). This custom of
going to Yaila varies from the mild form, in
which it is hardly more than a hygienic
precaution (like the month or two in the country
which is an institution among our own urban
population), to the thorough-going style in which
it is barely distinguishable from the nomadic
habit; and the semi-nomadic habit exists in
practically the same form among some Turkmen and
some Turks who have long rejected the name
Turkmen. Such facts point to an old-standing
process whereby Turkmen becomes Turk in fact and
in feeling.
These
nomad Turkmen tribes are worthy the historian's
attention. It was they, and not the Turkish
armies, not even the terrible raids by which the
Turks harried Byzantine territory, that destroyed
the Roman civilization and prosperity and
population in Asia Minor. The Arabs raided all Asia
Minor in as terrible a way for centuries, and
were for long lords undisturbed of some parts of
the country; yet their conquest was ephemeral,
and left no visible trace behind it. They won
many battles, they destroyed cities, they lopped
off territories from the Empire of the Caesars,
but the fabric of Christian society was not
affected by them. That great organization, the
result of Roman law and Christian teaching and
ecclesiastical unity, defied all such assaults,
and, like the hydra in the fable, it put forth a
new head where one was lopped off; its flesh
closed up and healed as soon as the sword had
passed through it.
In
like manner the fabric of Roman Christian society
would, in all probability, have defied and
outlasted the open attack of the Turks. After the
first fury of their inroad was spent in the end
of the eleventh century, it is obvious that the
Byzantine armies were stronger than the Turkish,
wherever they got a fair chance in the commanders
who were put over them. Yet in spite of many
defeats in detail, the Turkish power grew
steadily stronger. The nomad Turkmens spread over
the face of the land; the soil passed out of
cultivation; the population decreased; the
Christian cities were isolated from each other by
a sea of nomad wandering tribes; intercourse, and
consequently trades and manufactures, were to a
great extent destroyed; and gradually the
Christians in most places acquiesced, as we have
seen, in the Oriental spirit and the Oriental
religion of the dominant race. It is a remarkable
instance of degeneration from civilized to
barbarian society, and one which it would be
instructive to study in detail; but the general
fact is summed up in the phrase, the nomadization
of Asia Minor.1
Turkmens
are almost always exceedingly hospitable. In
1883, at lunch in a Turkmen tent a dozen miles
south of Dorylaion, there was one man who struck
me as being very Irish in appearance, and who was
unusually pressing in his hospitality, inviting
us most urgently to stay a night. I said to the
friend who was with me that I had never met such
cordial kindliness in all my experience, and
remarked on the man's Irish look. As it was only
midday, and there was no opening for work in the
neighborhood, we had to decline the invitation.
At night, while we were sitting at dinner, my
friend said: " Would you be surprised to
learn that that Turkmen whom you thought so like
an Irishman speaks English as well as you or I
do?" It turned out that, when we left, the
man came out with us. I was in front, and he
walked alongside of my friend's horse. After
coming some little distance out of the camp, when
there was no one near, he said, " You
couldn't oblige me with a bit of tobacco, could
you, sir?" My friend gave him all that he
had; but did not ask him who he was, or how he
came to be there. I was exceedingly vexed that we
had not stopped at the encampment: we might have
had an interesting conversation with that Irish
Turkmen. It was obvious that he had come so far
out of the camp in order to talk, and had
selected my friend as having an especially
pleasant manner with natives: but the latter was
so taken aback as to let the opportunity slip. I
have often wished to go back to that camp.
1 Cities
and Bishoprics of Phrygia, i., pp. 16 f., 27
ff., 299 ff., etc.
A
Turkmen Bey, who entertained us royally in 1882,
gave us also an interesting account of his
pilgrimage to Mecca.1He went twelve days' journey
through the Cilician Gates to Messina, where he
found an English ship to take him to Port Said,
thence through the Canal and down the Red Sea to
Jeddah, the port for Mecca. There the Dellil
of his district met him, took charge of him,
brought him to a khan in Mecca and looked after
him during his stay. His journey occupied rather
more than four months and cost altogether £T.
63 (about £$7 stg-)- In answer to a
question, he explained that the Dellils were
men who came from Mecca every second year
collecting gifts for the holy shrine. Each of
these had his special district, and wrote down
the names of those in his district who intended
to go on pilgrimage during the next two years,
and each pilgrim when he came to Mecca inquired
for his Dellil. He also said that the
pilgrims paid nothing to the Dellil while
they were in Mecca, but they were expected to
send gifts afterwards, of which the Dellil received
a portion.
Many of the
Turkmen are Kizil-Bash (Redheads), i.e., unorthodox
Moslems: not merely is that the case with the
nomads, but in many cases settled villages, where
no trace of the nomadic habit remains, are
Kizil-Bash, and loathed by the orthodox Turks.
Impressions
of Turkey during twelve years' wanderings; Sir
William Mitchell Ramsay, G.P. Putnam's sons, 1897