Table Of ContentANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS
MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
NO. 58
THE YOMUT TURKMEN:
A STUDY OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
AMONG A CENTRAL ASIAN
TURKIC-SPEAKING POPULATION
BY
WILLIAM IRONS
ANN ARBOR
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 1975
© 197W5i lliGaemo rgIer ons
ISBN 978-1-949098-03-7 (paper)
ISB N987-1-951519-13-1 (ebook)
PREFACE
T
HIS monograph is based on field research conducted among the Yomut
Turkmen in 1965-67 and 1970. Most of the material presented here was
contained in a doctoral dissertation submitted at the University of Michigan in
1969. Many members of the faculty of the University of Michigan guided and
encouraged me in various stages of the work leading to the writing of this
monograph. The most important of these were William Schorger, my disserta
tion advisor, Richard Beardsley, Napoleon Chagnon, Mervyn Meggitt, Eric Wolf,
and Henry Wright.
Also I am grateful to the institutions which supported my research
financially. The Foreign Area Fellowship Program supported eighteen months
of field research in Iran (July 1965-August 1966 and October 1966-April
1967) and seven months of data analysis and writing in the United States
(November 1967-May 1968). The University of Michigan Center for Near
Eastern and North African Studies supported six months of research in Iran
(May 1967-0ctober 1967) and five months of analysis and writing in the
United States (June 1968-0ctober 1968). The Johns Hopkins University
financed three months of research in Iran (June 1970-August 1970).
During my residence in Iran (June 1965-August 1966; October
1966-November 1967; June 1970-September 1970), I was shown hospitality
and given assistance by innumerable individuals and it is impossible to thank
them all. By far my greatest debt of gratitude is to the Turkmen of Aj1 QuL
Although I doubt that any of them will ever read these words, I would like to
say that they lived up to their tradition of hospitality to outsiders in a
manner that won my admiration. Among the many others to whom I am
grateful are the following: Hushang Purkarim of the Ministry of Culture and
Fine Arts, Office of Anthropological Research, Mahmud KhaHq1, Director of
the same office, Ihsan Naraghl, then Director of the Tehran University
Institute of Social Studies and Research, Nadir Afshitri Nadir!, then Director
of the Section for Tribal Studies of the above Institute, David Stronach,
Director of the British Institute of Persian Studies, Brian Spooner, then
Deputy Director of the British Institute, William Sumner, Director of the
American Institute of Iranian Studies in 1970, Eugene and Marjorie Garth-
iii
iv THE YOMUT TURKMEN
waite, residents of Tehran, November 1966-April 1967, 'Ata'ulliih Mu'tadil,
then a member of the Iranian Office of Community Development, Yaghan
Muhammad· Shamsi, then Dihyar in Kalaleh, and Barkley Moore, Peace Corps
Volunteer in Gunbadi Kaviis from 1964 to 1970. Also I wish to thank two
individuals who assisted while doing four months of archival research in
Tehran: Dr. Traj Afshar, Tehran University Reference Librarian, and Hajji
Husayn 'Aqa Malik, owner of the Malik Library.
Since completing the research on which this monograph is based, I have
undertaken additional research among the Turkmen of northern Persia. This
research is designed to elaborate and test some of the hypotheses discussed in
this study. I have been able to undertake this current research because of
generous grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant GS-37888
for 1973-74 ), and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations Program in Support
of Social Science and Legal Research on Population Policy (1974-75).
A brief comment is necessary concerning the spelling of Persian and
Turkmen words used in this study. Whenever possible I have used spellings
that appear in The American College Dictionary, or Webster's Geographical
Dictionary. For Persian words which have no standard English orthography, I
have used the system of transliteration employed by Ann S. K. Lamb ton in Land
lord and Peasant in Persia (see pp. x-xii of that study). For Turkmen words, I have
used a system of transcription which is explained in Appendix III. However, I have
made a few exceptions in cases of words which, although not found in any
English dictionary, appear extensively in various relevant sources. Thus, I have
spelled "Basseri" as it appears in Fredrik Barth's Nomads of South Persia, and
I have used the spellings of Turkmen names which appear in V. and T.
Minorsky's translation of V. V. Barthold's "A History of the Turkmen
People." In using V. and T. Minorsky's spellings I have replaced "i" with "t."
The diacritics necessary for Lambton's system of transliteration and for
my system of transcription make it impractical to follow the usual practice of
italicizing foreign words. In order to be consistent, I have not italicized any of
the foreign words that appear in the text.
William Irons
Pennsylvania State University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
LIST OF TABLES . vii
LIST OF FIGURES . vii
LIST OF PLATES . . viii
I. INTRODUCTION . 1
The kinship system and its environment 2
The ethnographic setting . . . . ... 4
The recent history of the Turkmen . 8
Data and research methods 13
II. ECOLOGY ............. . 21
Traditional ecology and economy 21
Recent changes ........ . 27
The current ecology of Aji Qui 30
III. POLITICAL STRUCTURE ..... 39
Descent groups . . . . . . . . . ...... . 40
Residence groups . . . . . . . ...... . 46
The relationship between descent groups and residence groups 49
Peace, war and feud . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 61
Sacred lineages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Relations with the Kajar government .. 66
The office of !_Qaqlau . . . 67
Nomadism and politics . . . . . . . . . 69
Nomadism and feud . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Nomadism and relations with the state 72
The recent political history of Aji Qu1 75
IV. DOMESTIC GROUPS .......... . 83
The normal developmental cycle 84
v
vi THE YOMUT TURKMEN
Exceptional patterns of household development 88
Household types in a particular oba . . 90
Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
V. KINSHIP NORMS AND CATEGORIES 95
Parent-child 95
Grandparent-grandchild 99
Siblings .... 99
Husband-wife . 102
Affines ..... . 104
Uterine relatives . . ..... 112
The contrast between agnatic and non-agnatic kinship 113
The extension of kinship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 115
The place of deceased ancestors in the kinship system 118
Slavery and kinship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
The prominence of the father-son relationship 122
Kinship norms and domestic groups .. 125
VI. MARRIAGE ............... . 127
Choice of marriage partner . . . 127
Endogamy and agnation . . . . 132
Marriage negotiations . . . . . . 134
The development of a marriage 136
Widows, widowers, remarriage and polygyny . 141
Divorce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
The demographic context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Population regulation through social conventions: an hypothesis . 150
VII. DOMESTIC ORGANIZATION AND ECONOMICS 155
Differential productivity and the distribution of wealth 155
Livestock as a form of capital . 156
Shepherding contracts . 157
Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Carpet weaving . . . . . . . . . 159
Other secondary sources of income .. 159
Wealth profile in a particular community 160
The relationship between family size and wealth . 161
Leveling institutions . . . . . . 163
Bridewealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Other leveling institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
The overall effect of economic leveling institutions 168
Household size and economic viability . . .. 169
VIII. OVERVIEW ....... 171
APPENDICES
I. THE WEALTH PROFILE OF AJI QUI .............. . 175
II. INCOME OF A PASTORAL FAMILY OF MEDIAN WEALTH . 179
III. NOTES ON THE TRANSLITERATION OF TURKMEN WORDS 181
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................... . ....... 187
LIST OF TABLES
Page
1. Composition 'of Aji Qui Households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 91
2. Consanguineal Relationships of Wives to Husbands in Aji Qui for First
Marriages ..•...................................... 129
3. Consanguineal Relationships of Wives to Husbands in Aji Qui for Second
Marriages ........•................................ 130
4. First Marriage and non-Yomut Descent in AJ1 Qu1 .............. . 130
5. Second Marriage and Non-Yomut Descent in AJ1 Qu1 ............ . 131
6. Marriage and Sacred Descent: The Case of the Qara Makhtum .... . 132
7. Customary Bridal Payments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8. Age and Sex Composition of the Population of Aji Qui, August 1967 144
9. Dissolution of First Marriage and Remarriage .............. . 149
10. Breakdown of the Yomut Population of AJ1 Qu1 by Age, Sex, and Marital
Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . . . . • 152
11. Wealth Prof'l.le of Aji Qui. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
12. Holdings of Capital in Aji Qu1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
13. Capital, Labor Resources, and Other Sources of Income in Aji Qu1 . . 177
14. Estimated Income for an Aji -Qui Family of Approximately Median Wealth . 179
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1. Principal Turkmen descent groups ........................ . 6
2. Ecological zones and predominant modes of economic production before 1950 23
3. Approximate pattern of Yomut migration before 1930 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4. Predominant modes of economic production among the Yomut of the Gurgan
Plain in 1967 ........................... . 31
5. Migratory pattern of Aji Qu1 residents ............ . 33
6. Descendants of Oghurjlk according to a written genealogy . 41
7. Genealogy of the Yomut . . . . ...... . 42
8. Genealogy of the Da~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 43
9. Genealogy of the Aq-Atabay ............. . 45
10. Locations of tribes in the Gurgan Plain before 1930 50
11. Distribution of Yomut tribes in 1967 ........ . 52
12. Agnatic relationships of household heads in Ajl Qui, 1967 54
13. Lineage A of the Chenthull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
14. Distribution of dominant descent groups among Da~ obas 57
vii
viii THE YOMUT TURKMEN
15. Segmentary political system of the Gurgan Yomut 59
16. Location of Sherep and Choni tribes . . 64
17. Agnatic kinship terms ........... . 100
18. Uterine kinship terms . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
19. Affinal kinship terms: relatives of spouse 108
20. Affmal kinship terms: affines of consanguineal kin 109
21. Ages at ftrst marriage for 133 individuals in Aji Qui ........ . 146
22. Labor resources and wealth for the households of Aji Qui .... . 162
LIST OF CHARTS
1. Turkmen vowels . . . . . 182
2. Turkmen diphthongs 182
3. Turkmen consonants .. 184
LIST OF PLATES
(following page 193)
1. A Yomut woman assembling her family tent after a migration
2. A Y omut woman milking a sheep
3. A Yomut man hunting in the GBk~a Hills
4. Preparing a hide after the slaughter of a goat
5. A nomad camp in the G"Ekcha Hills
6. Setting up camp after a short migration
I
INTRODUCTION
I
T could reasonably be argued that anthropology has contributed more to
the understanding of kinship than it has to any other facet of human social
relations. The topic has attracted the interest of a large number of anthro
pologists for several generations and a voluminous literature now exists on the
topic. Yet, despite considerable progress, there are serious lacunae in the
existing literature. If we are to understand fully the role of kinship in
organizing human social relationships we should presumably strive to docu
ment as wide a range of variations as possible in the form of kinship
organization. An important part of this documentation should consist of
recording as fully as possible kinship structures in the different geographical
regions of the world. Yet many areas of the world are represented only
scantily in the literature.
One group of societies for which documentation is insufficient is that
of the Central Asian Turkic peoples. There are a few good studies (Aberle,
1953; Hudson, 1938; Konig, 1962; Krader, 1963b; Lattimore, 1962; Purkarim,
1966a, 1966b, 1967, 196&z, 1968b, 196&, 1970; Vreeland, 1957), but these
are only sufficient to indicate that these societies present some interesting
variations in the area of kinship. Many more such studies will be needed
before anthropologists can have a full picture of social organization and
kinship among these populations.
The primary objective of this monograph, therefore, is to provide a
description of the kinship system and social organization of one of these
societies, that of the Yomut Turkrnen of northern Persia. In particular, an
attempt has been made to describe those aspects of social organization which
are most likely to be of interest for comparative purposes: the lineage system,
the developmental cycle of domestic groups, norms and modes of inter
personal kinship relations, kinship categories, choice of marriage partner, and
the economic transactions accompanying marriage.
A second objective is to describe the ecological and social context in
which the kinship system operates, as well as the context in which it has
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