A Kurdish chief & his Knight-lady in the 19th-century

Was the romantic atmosphere alive and well in mid-nineteenth-century Kurdistan? For some, yes. Brant, the British consul, recounts the story of a Kurdish chief and his Knight-lady, who stood by his side in resistance against the Ottomans:

Our host was an old Kurd chief; he had resisted Reshíd Mohammed Páshá, and his house was in consequence burned; he himself escaped to the mountains, but was afterwards forced to surrender; he was detained as a prisoner at Diyár-Bekr for a twelvemonth, and was then sent to his home and restored to the command of his old district, but his fortunes were ruined, his house destroyed, his dependents dispersed, and his two eldest sons had fallen victims to the climate of Diyár-Bekr. He himself was almost blind from cataracts forming in both eyes, which were nearly inatured; he asked Dr. Dickson for a remedy, and was much grieved to hear that he could not furnish one; he was told that an operation would alone relieve him, and to have that performed a journey to Constantinople was necessary; he said that was impossible, it was beyond his means.

 

This Hájí could scarce speak any Turkish, and he used a native of Diyár-Bekr, his scribe, as interpreter. I inquired through him how he was so imprudent as to attempt to resist Reshid Mohammed Páshá, invested as he was with authority from his sovereign. The Hájí replied that neither he nor his fathers were ever subjected to Páshás, or paid taxes to the Sultán, and he could not understand why he should be forced to do so; he had therefore resisted as long as he could.

 

Seeing most of us engaged in writing and reading (for he was always seated near the tents), he asked whether we could all write. I replied that most of our peasantry could do so. He said such an acquirement was an useless one to a man like him: since he had been able to handle arms he had scarce been for an hour in his life without being called on to use them, either in defending the property of himself and his dependents, or in revenging the injuries inflicted on them by their enemies. He remarked, with an evident feeling of regret for his now powerless and humbled station, that in his younger days he had arms, horses, followers, and money. He was now deprived of all these things. Without doubt, his want of power, the excitement of a turbulent life, added to his loss of sight, must render his present position, as compared with his former, anything but agreeable. His wife was a tall masculine woman. I was informed that whenever attacked at home she was always to be found at his side, loading his rifles while he was firing at the assailants. Such is the usual occupation of the warlike dames of Kurdistán, and not unfrequently they take a more active part in the strife.