The Hamawand tribe serves as an example of why it is not appropriate to extrapolate the frequency of tribal appearances from the sources. Despite being a small tribe in terms of numbers, the Hamawands were able to resist two empires. The premodern sources have led to an unjustified assumption that the percentage of the population that was semi-nomadic was significantly higher than what could be supported by the unreliable impressions of the primary sources.
For observers such as Hay, who spent considerable time among the Kurds, this was a fairly straightforward observation. Another important assumption underlying the stereotype of the predominantly semi-nomadic Kurd is a misunderstanding of what tribal affiliation actually meant.
According to tribal tradition, membership in a Kurdish tribe is often traced to descent from a common ancestor. For relatively small groups such as the Hamawand tribe, this popular understanding of tribal identity may be reasonably accurate. It becomes far less plausible, however, when applied to large tribal confederations or to tribes whose prestige and political influence attracted new adherents.
Many major Kurdish tribes explicitly acknowledged that they were confederations rather than strictly genealogical units. The evidence suggests that populations living under the authority, protection, or influence of powerful tribes gradually came to identify themselves with the tribal name. In such cases, settled cultivators and villagers could become members of a tribe without sharing a close genealogical connection to its ruling lineage.
This process helps explain the emergence of tribal subgroups. Certain branches represented the dominant lineage and claimed common ancestry, while others consisted of populations incorporated into the tribe over time through political, military, or social affiliation. Tribal identity was therefore often as much a political and social reality as a genealogical one.
Additional evidence against the notion of an overwhelmingly nomadic Kurdish society can be found in the historical record itself indirectly. Some tribes conventionally portrayed as semi-nomadic are described in the sources as having mixed members. The Jaff provide a notable example. Some of the earliest written accounts characterize segments of the tribe as semi-nomadic, while other contemporary sources describe members of the same tribe as settled.
The conclusion is therefore relatively uncontroversial. The most plausible estimate is that Kurdish society consisted of a substantial settled rural population alongside a substantial semi-nomadic one. Neither element can be reduced to a marginal role; both formed significant components of the overall population.
Hay writes:
There is this big difference between the Kurd and the Arab, that whereas in the majority of cases the Arab is nomadic by choice and cannot be persuaded to settle, the Kurd, a pastoral race, is nomadic from necessity or by force of habit, and will readily settle when he sees it will pay him to do so. A TRIBE is a community or confederation of com-munities which exists for the protection of its members against external aggression, and for the maintenance of the old racial customs and standards of life. Some tribes have no recognised chief, some have many.
Almost every true Kurd, whether he lives in a town or a village, even though he is a member of no recognised tribe, will refer to himself as a tribesman, by which he means that he recognises tribal law and customs, and expects others to treat him as enjoying tribal rights. "Ashiratam," " I am a tribesman," is the equivalent of "Civis Romanus sum," or "I belong to a Trade Union "-a claim that must be respected.
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