'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎115] (124/568)

INHABITANTS 115
' ^ nu 1 *!? 11 territor y ir ! . the Urmia—Salmas district). There are also
iel^ ^naldaean communities in several towns—Baghdad, Mosul, 'Aqreh,
Kirkuk, Amadiyeh, Zakho, JezIret-ibn-'Omar, Sairt
28|Hj Bash QaFah, Mardln, Diarbekr.
atk {h) Jacobites. These are to be found principally in the country
otin n , 0r an< ^ eas ^ 0 f 'TezTret-ibn-'Omar, on the Tur Abdin plateau, along
Mi southern foot, and in the neighbourhood of Mardln, the head-
'Hw ^ ai l ers 0 ' ^ je SGC ^ They are found in several towns besides
•tel ^ ard : n ' e -F- U 1 rfeh ' Diarbekr, Midiat, Nisibin, JezIret-ibn-'Omar,
iVIosui, bairt, Bitlis, and Baghdad. Jacobites and Chaldaeans overlap
; E®r- sorae extent, but on the whole the Jacobites are the more westerly
E» t" e Chaldaeans the more easterly group.
ill j ! . Possibly both groups together numbered within our area some
thing between 100,000 and 200,000 before the present war. But
»iiiii ' Nestonan' Chaldaean mountaineers, who may have been
i rei somewhere about 50,000 strong in 1914, lost terribly in 1915, and
a large part of them had to flee to Persian territory. The Jacobites
suffered a good deal in certain districts.
The Syrian Christians probably represent in the main an Aramaic
population which lived in upper Mesopotamia before the Arab con
quest. But in the plains and foot-hills they are much mixed with
Arab blood and speak Arabic. In some of the villages of the Tur
« b Abdin, and probably elsewhere, they speak Kurdish. Aramaic
»» (Synac) is the language of the 4 Nestorian ' Chaldaeans of the central
Kurdish mountains.
The Chaldaeans and Jacobites of the plains and lower hill-country
AM are mainly a rural population of sedentary village-dwelling cultivators.
In the towns they are traders and artisans. They work on the
Tigris rafts between Diarbekr and Mosul, and Chaldaeans of Tel
rJislij Kaif, a village north of Mosul, used to form the crews of the river-
;liP steamers on the lower Tigris in Irak.
The 'Nestorians' of the Hakkiari country are tribally organized,
sedentary mountaineers of the ordinary type. They are under the
see®,! paramount chieftainship of their Patriarch, Mar' Shimum, who
Aoli before the war resided at Kochannes near Julamerk. His Nestorian
tribes occupied the neighbourhood of the Zab valley from the Tiari
* district, some ten or twelve miles north of Amadiyeh, to the neigh-
ie it* bourhood of the Harefta Dagh above Julamerk. They are a brave
uP and warlike people, who have fought well against their Kurdish
^ { lil neighbours and enemies, and recently against the Turks.
0^ ^ may be noted that * Syrian' is generally used as equivalent
^tlsit to Christian in upper Mesopotamia.
rjr (i,ii Armenians. Within our area there was, in 1914, a considerable
B 2