YURUK.—The
Yuruks are nomads, who are found in many parts of
Asia Minor, but almost always, so far as my
experience goes, in mountainous districts,
whereas the Turkmen tribes usually live more in
the great plains. According to Von Luschan, the
Yuruks of Lycia are an immigrant race, akin to
the Gypsies: his earlier view had been that they
were Mongolian, but, in his final work on Lycia,
he abandons his original opinion. I cannot
pretend to hold any ethnological view; but, while
his later opinion seems in some respects
startling and at first sight improbable, it has
the merit of explaining the difference of haunts
between Yuruk and Turkmen. Moreover, it is
certain that there is a decidedly greater
difference in character between Yuruk and Turkmen
than there is between Turkmen and Turk. 1
Differing
from Dr. Humann, who declared that the Yuruks
have no religion at all, Von Luschan maintains
that they are good Mussulmans, regular in the
five daily prayers, and in many cases going on
pilgrimage to Mecca. My own experience is
intermediate; they do indeed claim to be
Mohammedans, and practice circumcision, but I
never saw a Yuruk praying in his own home,
though, when they come into the settled villages,
they put on all the appearance of good Moslems.2
It is, however, possible, as Von Luschan remarks,
that the Lycian Yuruks may differ in character
from those of other regions known better to
Humann and to me.
Von
Luschan heard among the Yuruks a language
different from Turkish. He is, doubtless, right;
but I know nothing to confirm it. In general
appearance and way of talking they seemed to me
very like the Turkmens. In 1880 I spent some days
in a Yuruk winter village in Mt. Sipylos near
Smyrna. After a very wet day, which much impeded
exploration,! next morning asked the chief, a
splendid looking old man of about eighty, what he
thought of the prospect of weather, thinking that
his long experience would have made him
weather-wise. His answer was in the true Turkish
style, grave, measured, sententious: " How
should I know the weather? God knows. If the sun
shines, it will be fine weather; if it rains, the
weather will be bad." So his answer was
translated to me.
1 Reisen
in Lykitn, etc., 1889, ii., p. 216 ff.
1 So
Sir C. Wilson, Handbook, Turkey (Murray),
p. 68.
Dr.
Von Luschan denies that intermarriage ever takes
place between Yuruks and Turks. I have, however,
known an example. In 1886 one of our men, named
Veli, was a puzzle to me in character; he was
always good-humored and light-hearted, always
good company, always idle, never to be trusted to
do anything or take any trouble out of my sight,
in short, utterly unlike a Turk. At last he could
stand the work no longer, shammed illness, got
himself laid up and doctored, and we went on
without him. Our other man, Akhmet, one of the
best Turks I have known, explained matters. Veli
was no Turk, but a Yuruk, who had married a woman
of his village and settled down there. Akhmet had great contempt for
Yuruks, and thought them a useless and worthless
lot; but he would not bring disgrace on Veli so
long as it might do him harm, and therefore told
nothing until Veli had deserted.
That
excellent traveller, Mr. Bent, gives an
interesting account of the Yuruks of Taurus in
the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society, loth Aug., 1890, to which the
curious reader may be referred. He attributes to
them a more polygamous habit than I should have
thought right, and he decidedly differs from Von
Luschan as regards marriage, saying that they are
not very particular where they steal a wife. He
is, however, a better authority than I am on this
point.
Impressions
of Turkey during twelve years' wanderings; Sir
William Mitchell Ramsay, G.P. Putnam's sons, 1897