| Up to 1946, Turkey was ruled by a single party, the Republican People's Party. Elections did take place, but all candidates were members of the party, or at least approved by it. At this stage, most villagers did not understand the ideology of the revolution, and were not at all keen on being made to use the infidel script and wear the infidel hat. But they accepted as inevitable the acts of government, and they had deep respect for Ataturk, the Holy Conqueror of the invading Greek forces in the War of Independence (1919-22).(9) Once they had accepted the new government, their previous experience of government led the people to assume that all officials must be members of the ruling 'party,'(10) and accordingly, all headmen claimed to be supporters of the R.P.P. After 1946, an opposition party was allowed to form, and this began to organize in the villages, calling itself the Democratic Party—now in power in Turkey. In some villages, for example, in Blackrock, people regarded this new choice as a personal matter, and brothers and neighbours took opposite sides quite openly. But in other villages, of which Folkhead was one, existing factions took on party labels. The headman in office was usually R.P.P., because he and the village assumed it was necessary that he should be, and thus his supporters became R.P.P., while his opponents in the village, for local rather than national reasons, declared themselves supporters of the D.P. In Folkhead, the headman in office in 1952, AY4, and his predecessor, were on good terms with each other, and were both supporters of the R.P.P. The village O.P. is led by the other side, B11 and AX2. These facts fit the above interpretation. Previously, B11's eldest son had been headman. During and before his tenure of the office, villagers had been ploughing up village pasture on a large scale. The lands are extensive, but only recently did improved transport and fixed prices lead villagers in large numbers to seek to plough more land than they needed for their own subsistence. In village custom, ploughing village pasture conferred the right to its use; nowadays, after twenty years, this right becomes legally confirmed. My informants describe something of a land rush about the time of the end of the war, which ended in fighting when a section of the village, including AY, objected to the loss of pasture for village animals, and tried to prevent their neighbours, who included AX, from encroaching any further. My surmise is that the split between AY and AX goes back at least to this trouble, and that AY and supporters succeeded in wresting the headmanship from Kara Osman and his faction at this point. At any rate, more fighting took place, with AX 011 on one side and AY on the other, at the 1950 election for headman, when AY4 was elected. At or about this time, AX10 knifed AY3, in a general fight. C lineage, as far as I know, was not tied up with this struggle. They had ties by marriage with both sides, and have a reputation for aloofness. True, they |
| also appear to have acquired a comfortable sufficiency of land at this point, by the same means, but then so did most village households which had men and oxen available to expand their normal activities. Successful acquisition would not necessarily involve their joining a dispute about the restriction of ploughing up pasture. So much for the general background. Now let us turn to the immediate series of events. I have already mentioned the fighting at the election for headman in May 1950. In the autumn of that year, apparently, the main incident which led to the killing took place. Mehmet, the victim, was away on military service at the time. His wife and Yusuf (AX2's son) quarrelled over the washing of grain at the fountain. Yusuf struck the girl, and immediately her lineage took reprisals on a woman of his lineage. A general fight followed. In the spring, apparently, another fight had broken out, also, according to informants, started by Yusuf. No casualties occurred, it seems, on either occasion. Soon after this flare up, the District Officers(11) brought the elders of the two sides together in his room, to eat a meal and make peace. Everyone shook hands, but the general relationship of kus(12) seems to have continued. However, the atmosphere did relax, and conciliation was under way. AX1, a senior member of his lineage, took the very great step of responding to overtures for marriage from AY8, and promised his daughter to AY8's son. (See genealogy) If it is true that marriage ties do not prevent the development of feuding relationships, it is also true that to negotiate a marriage one must be at peace, and be expecting the peace to continue. In the meantime, Mehmet returned from military service, about one month before his death. He is said, with probability, to have told Yusuf what he thought of him, and to have threatened to take revenge for the insult to his wife. Yusuf would certainly have no grounds for supposing that such threats were purely empty. One way of communicating one's feelings on this kind of subject is to abuse with strong language any animal that is within range in the hearing of one's enemy The hearer cannot take exception without admitting the cap fits, but he and everyone else knows quite well for whom the insults are intended. Three days before the murder, AY8 and his kin paid a formal betrothal visit to AX1. On their departure, Yusuf was lying in wait, and fired shots—not, it was said, with intent to kill, but simply into the air in the general direction of the departing guests, to indicate strong disapproval of the proceedings.(13) I was told by members of his lineage that he did this with their support. I cannot be sure of this, since they were anxious to whitewash his character after the event, but it seems plausible that he was aiming to express hostility of his lineage in |
| general to the wedding as much as his own. It appears that AX1 was unmoved, and announced his intention to persist. I received two contradictory accounts of the actual shooting. Yusuf's kin said that he was being chivvied and threatened by Mehmet and two of his agnates, and acted in self defense. The other side, supported by several neutral witnesses, claimed that Mehmet was quietly driving home his cattle and that Yusuf, who was standing by a wall, simply brought out a gun and fired at close range. It seems quite possible that Mehmet was addressing some uncomplimentary remarks to his oxen, knowing that Yusuf was in earshot. During the days immediately before the shooting, Yusuf is said to have been behaving a little queerly, refusing work, and coming and going at unorthodox times. On the day in question, he had been to see the clerk of the local Credit Co-operative, an educated young man from the small local town, who was resident in the village, and who happened to be his kinsman. Yusuf announced to him, with considerable agitation, his intention of taking some sort of action to prevent the wedding, and this seems to have been a part of his aim. But if so, why pick on Mehmet? Mehmet was a personal enema, and was brother-in- law and neighbor to AY1-4. He probably thought to kill two birds with one bullet, to break up the conciliatory wedding, and at the same time settle his private quarrel. Why was Yusuf so opposed to reconciliation? If I am right in saying that lineage solidarity depends on the existence of active quarrels, then peace might threaten the very coherence of the lineage. But more than this, I would say that a tough lineage carries a good deal more prestige than a peaceful one of equal wealth. A young man of nineteen might have very little standing in the village except what he gains from membership of an important lineage. If so, he would be most unwilling to see this group lose its prestige, even perhaps its solidarity as a unit, by making peace. From his point of view, his father's brother's negotiations for marriage with the enemy were not sensible and good, but traitorous. Moreover, although he was himself engaged to B11's daughter, the girl in question was his own preferred marriage partner, which gave a tenuous traditional right to raise objections to her marrying against his wishes. I do not of course know that he actually reasoned in these terms. Obviously, his anger about the reconciliation would be inarticulate, and complex in its origin. In general, Yusuf was probably aiming primarily to upset the peace overtures current in the village. This brings me back to my point that lineages not only protect their members from quarrels, but also tend to encourage quarrels from which they will need protecting. |
| The immediate reaction in the village in general was one of horror. Everyone was deeply distressed, and one heard people complaining continually, "The village is sunk." "The sweetness of the village is turned to sourness." The cold-bloodedness of the attack was much censured—high tempers and flying insults would have made the thing at least comprehensible, but this was so unexpected. I wonder if some of this moral indignation was not partly due to the influence of modernism—acquaintance with western notions, and consciousness of Turkey as one of the European nations. In deference to my presence, they even compared the British, who, according to popular belief based on the accounts of Turkish prisoners of war in British hands during the first World War, settle their arguments with fists instead of knives and revolvers. On the other hand, in a small community of intimately related kin and neighbors, such an act of violence is bound to provoke a strong sense of shock, and it may be that such a killing would always have provoked just such a reaction. C lineage, to which the victim belonged, was and is by all accounts implacable. Both they themselves and all others in the village with whom I discussed the subject declared that sooner or later vengeance was inevitable. They have in any case a reputation for cold aloofness and determination. Twice just after the event, in my presence, ordinary every-day comings and goings were interpreted as a group attack by C lineage. But in any case, such an open attack is not necessary. There is nothing to stop one member of a village lying in wait for and shooting another member of the same village, as Yusuf shot Mehmet. AX2 spoke to me, apparently seriously, of a plan for leaving the village altogether, and going to Ankara. I doubt if he would in fact do so. Vague talk of leaving the villages may well be another standard reaction to the threat of vengeance.(14) I have already said that acts of violence are not infrequent in these villages. If in each case, vengeance is liable to be exacted in cold blood, then a good few people must walk in fear of their lives. The price of belonging to a lineage of consequence is danger of assassination. These feuds are not between sharply separated territorial units, but in all cases I came across, they are within the village. And moreover, in spite of constant inquiries I was unable to unearth any evidence that there exists, or ever has existed, any recognised procedure for the settlement of homicide disputes by compensation or any other means. It has been said, and plausibly, that the existence of unsettled blood debts within a small community is intolerable,(15) and that this is why so often in primitive and peasant societies, some kind of settlement is not only possible, but morally required. Yet it looks as though we have here an exception, a case where people may be in permanent danger from their daily associates. Is there any explanation? |