'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎106] (115/568)

106
INHABITANTS
the Beni Tamlm on and east of the Baghdad—Khanikin road
between Shahroban and Qizil Eibat; their neighbours here are the
Beni Wais.
lues
Mainly in the hills from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. to the northern end
of the Pusht-i-Kuh country, 30-40 miles south of Q<isr-i-Shlrln,
where they border on the Kurds. In northern Aiabistan and
Behbehan Lurs and cross-breeds of Lur, Arab, and Persian Mood
are found in the plains under the hills. For Faili Lurs in towns
on the Tigris and Shatt el-Hai see p. 108. The numbers of the
Lurs are very variously estimated. Perhaps the hill-tribes who
range within the limits of the area dealt with here, including the
Kuhgalu, the Bakhtiyari, the tribes who appear at certain seasons in
the neighbourhood of Dizful, and the Faili Lurs of the Pusht-i-Kuh,
do not amount to much more than a quarter of a million souls. But
most estimates of these groups would make their total much greater.
Ethnologically the Lurs are related to the Persians and Kurds,
though they would consider it an insult to be classed with the
Kurds, whom they despise. They speak, in various dialects, a
language of their own which is allied to Kurdish and Persian, and
shows the effects of contact with the Arabs. The Lurs as a whole
have occupied their country from time immemorial, though par
ticular tribes may have shifted their ground within this country
comparatively recently.
All these groups of mountain-tribes are at least mainly nomadic or
semi-nomadic. They cultivate the ground, and often have permanent
villages near their fields, but being mainly dependent on their live
stock, they are obliged to move with the seasons between the high
and the low pastures. They live in tents either all the year round
or when they move from their villages with their flocks and herds.
In general they bear the usual character of wild highlanders.
The Lurs may possibly supply Mesopotamia with a useful quantity
of labour. They are employed almost exclusively by the Anglo-
Persian Oil Company, 6 whose experience is that the Lur is more
likely to stay continuously at the same job, and, therefore, better
able to develop into a skilled workman than the Arab'.
[a] Kuhgalu. The bulk of the Kuhgalu are a little-known collec
tion of mountain-tribes living at the southern end of the moun
tain-belt from south of Lurdagan to the Gulf. Their country is
difficult of access, being cut off from the plains by a lofty range of
limestone mountains. In dialect, manners, and customs they re-