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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



and because they curtail his opportunities 

 for fighting and plundering. He despises 

 the Armenians because they are Chris- 

 tians, and because they can be robbed 

 and ill-treated almost with impunity when 

 the Turks give permission. Yet in spite 

 of this he has a sort of sympathy for 

 them, because they, too, are oppressed. 



The Armenian hates and fears both the 

 Kurds, who plunder him, and the Turks, 

 who oppress and persecute him. He also 

 despises both races because they are not 

 so clever as he. It is only by exerting 

 his superior wits in business or in flattery 

 of his rulers that he can manage to main- 

 tain his position. It is not strange that 

 his character reflects the conditions under 

 which he lives. 



The Turk, in turn, despises the Kurds 

 because many of them are very half- 

 hearted or heretical Mohammedans, and 

 because they are simple, unsophisticated 

 folk. He fears them, also, because they 

 are wild, lawless people, who make the 

 life of the tax-gatherer a burden and who 

 rob a Turkish official with great glee if 

 they find the opportunity. The Turk 

 despises the Armenians because, as he 

 would somewhat unfairly put it, ''they 

 are cowardly Christian dogs." He hates 

 them because he knows that they are far 

 quicker and keener than he, far better 

 business men, and far better educated. 



The Turks realize their own mental 

 and industrial inferiority to the subject 

 race, and they realize, too, that the 

 Armenians owe much of their present 

 advancement in education and industry 

 to American missionaries. The common 

 feeling among the Turks prior to the re- 

 cent revolutionary crisis is well illus- 

 trated by a saying which was common 

 among them two or three years after the 

 sad massacres which were perpetrated 

 upon the Armenians in 1894-96 by the 

 Kurds, with the consent of the Turks. 

 "A few years ago," said the Turks, 

 "these Christian infidels were stripped of 

 everything. Now," as the Turkish idiom 

 puts it, "they eat better than we do. 

 What shall we do about it?" 



Racially the Turk in the upper Euphra- 

 tes region has little reason to despise 



either the Kurds or the Armenians. Two 

 out of three of his ancestors probably 

 belonged to one race or the other. Not 

 only are Kurdish and Armenian women 

 frequently taken to Turkish harems by 

 force or otherwise, but there is a constant 

 process of assimilation going on. When 

 a Kurd comes from the mountains to- 

 work in the city or in a large village,, 

 he forms the habit of speaking Turkish 

 instead of his own semi-Persian tongue. 

 Little by little he gives up Kurdish ways 

 of thought and action and passes himself 

 off as a Turk, especially if he begins to 

 rise in the social scale. All over the 

 country villages can be found which are 

 properly Kurdish, but are situated among 

 Turkish villages and are gradually be- 

 coming assimilated to their neighbors. 

 Other villages can be found which are 

 now considered Turkish, but which have 

 distinct traditions of a time when all 

 their inhabitants were Christian Arme- 

 nians. They were converted by force 

 during some period of persecution and 

 now intermarry with the true Turks, and 

 are zealous Mohammedans. 



A good example of the transition from 

 Armenians to "Turks" is found in the 

 small mountain-girt basin of Bermaz, 

 south of the city of Harput. The vil- 

 lagers are known as Kurds at home, but 

 as Turks when they go abroad. Accord- 

 ing to reliable Armenian sheep dealers 

 who have most intimate dealings with 

 them, the people of Bermaz make the 

 sign of the cross before meals and have 

 a common tradition that their ancestors 

 were Armenian Christians a few cen- 

 turies ago. 



Religious edifices of any kind are rare 

 in these villages, although prayers are 

 said according to the common Moham- 

 medan practice. Apparently the process 

 of becoming "Turks" is only half com- 

 pleted. In a few hundred years more 

 such villages will probably claim to be 

 purely Turkish. 



The mixture of religious ideas among 

 the more remote inhabitants of the upper 

 Euphrates region is singular. Dersim, 

 the region already referred to, between 

 the two main branches of the Euphrates, 



