The other large category of migrant labourers were the unskilled. Amele, the normal word in use in the village, distinguished these sharply from the craftsmen, usta. The rewards were comparatively puny - T.L.3 a day (7s. 6d., $I .00). Men away as labourers lived harder and spent less, and generally seemed to save at the rate of about T.L.50 a month. Many of those listed as unskilled migrants were casual labourers in the building trade, often boys, with one eye firmly on becoming an usta. Only a few, too old to learn a skill, or too stupid, were compelled to try to keep a household largely by unskilled labouring alone.
Climatic differences in agricultural seasons have led to traditional seasonal migrations of agricultural labour in many different parts of Turkey, quite apart from migration to the towns (de Planhol (1958) p. 172). In 1950 to 1952 some people from Sakaltutan, Elbashï and the surrounding villages went down to the Kayseri plain, to work there on the earlier harvest. Some even went as far as the Adana plain south of the Taurus Mountains. Probably this type of migration was formerly more important and has declined with the increase in the population of the plains, the increase in alternative possibilities for migrant labour, and the beginnings of mechanisation (Faculty of Political Science, Ankara I952). For those few who still go, this shortlived and well paid migration is worth while, coinciding as it does with the lull in work in the upland villages before their own harvest begins, and requiring only skills that every villager is bred to.
Five other villagers had established other occupations for themselves. Two were porters in Kayseri. Turkish towns are full of porters who will carry more or less anything anywhere.