[
Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
Paul Stirling
CHAPTER THREE
VILLAGES AND HOUSEHOLDS
previous page
Page 30
For the village, this territory is much more than an administrative area, - it is a symbol of village identity (de Planhol (1958) p. 340). If any other village attempts to use land lying within the village boundaries, people mobilise rapidly and are quite prepared to fight, with fire-arms if necessary. Even incursions by other villages' flocks or herds cause at the very least militant indignation. On one occasion, Sakaltutan animals crossed the frontier to Suleymanli, and the Suleymanli headman who happened to be passing on a horse, struck the shepherd in charge with his whip. Many Sakaltutan men talked of immediate armed attack. However, they were restrained by wiser counsel. I never witnessed mobilisation of this kind, but it is clear that all members are expected to defend the village regardless of the quarrels which constantly divide them. Not even lineages cross village frontiers, so that the village from the outside presents a solid front of loyalty. Its members are ready at all times to defend both its reputation and its territories.
This outward solidarity is matched by what one might call internal intensity. Village populations are highly stable. Almost all men and more than half the adult women in a village were born there. If we could measure the intensity of social relationships in terms of emotional strength, of the number of rights and duties involved, and of the frequency of contact, we would find that all residents except the more newly arrived wives had their more intense social relationships almost exclusively inside the village. Of course, many indispensable and controlling economic and political relationships lie outside, but these are not intense in the same way. Even beyond their own immediate circle, all the villagers belong to one another. Even enemies inside the village are intimate enemies.
Village Organisation
Since the village is a community - a group with a multitude of functions and involvements for its members - it is not surprising that a number of offices and corporate rights and duties are attached to it. Roughly, these are of two kinds, the formal institutions laid down by the State, and the informal institutions run by the village for its own purposes to meet the actual needs of its members.
next page
Contents Page