| included in the group, except Ali, the one whom he had adopted and lived in the household. Between this group and that centering on the oda of Mehmet and Ibrahim (SI 2 and 3) there was some overlap. Little Mustafa (ST) and young Mehmet (SC 2) were the only patrilineal kinsmen. But many of those in the Upper Quarter came from time to time. Fazli (HK) and his son, Osman (KO 1), Ahmet and Seket VA 4 and 6) Nail (KA 4), and even Zubeyr himself. None of these last stood in any known relation to Haci Ahmet but for all of them his oda was within easy reach. In this oda, Haci Ahmet’s old mother, of about ninety, and often his wife were to be found. They did not say anything when the men were talking, and no one took the least notice of them except occasionally during the day when the oda was almost empty. All these odalar were used as part of the household living space; the male members of the household ate in them and the old men and unmarried boys slept in them. This was also the case with Abdil’s oda (AM), which I shall discuss last of the four remaining odalar, but not with the other three, to the same extent. These four all had larger and more regular attendances. The oda belonging to Halil Ibrahim (VA 10) was used mainly by members of that prolific kabile. Although small, airless and lit not by a proper oil lamp, but only by a small lamp made locally from petrol cans, and giving a light like a candle, nevertheless it was always crowded. Those of the kabile living at some distance, for example, Ahmet and Sevket (VA 4 and 6) and Cemal and Haci Ali (PA 12 and 13) did not use it. The households on the spot, on the other hand, attended regularly almost to a man. One young man, a close neighbour, (PA 3’s son) (no kinsman) always seemed to be there, and the two old men Ali and Ibrahim (S) (not kinsmen) were also regular visitors, being also close neighbours. Before the BA oda opened several of the men from the Lower Quarter also went there, especially members of BA. Emin (T 1) was seen there, but on one occasion it was to play cards, on another to get advice from old Hasan (VA 1) on his water buffaloes’ constipation. The other oda which had a very definite kabile following was the communally owned DS-DG oda. Hither came all the members of DS and DG and their children, and also FA, except for Iba (FA 3), who lived apart in the Lower Quarter. Halil Ibrahim’s (FA 1) mother was the paternal grandmother of DS; Mehmet (FA 2) was his brother’s son; and Hasan and Ali (FA 4 and 5) were father’s sister’s sons to DS. The only other oda in which I ever saw any of these was the DT oda before their own opened. I asked them why they had abandoned the DT oda, they explained that when they felt they had done sufficient honour to the newly returned Haci Ali (DT 1), they had moved because they were ashamed to use his hospitality night after night, he was ill, and they could not take their children there. There seemed to be a few odd |
| visitors in this oda. By far the most crowded oda in the village was Selahaddin’s oda (BA 5). This oda did not open till late, because, following the disastrous harvest, no one could afford fuel and there was much complaining about this. In January, with the help of a sister’s husband from another village (see page ), enough fuel was found and the oda was put into use both as a social centre and as a shop. Here again, the core of the regular attendance was the kabile, none of whom, after it was opened, went anywhere else, except rarely to play cards. But not only BA and Ali Osman (BK 1), but almost the whole of the Lower Quarter was usually to be found in this oda, Bilal and Mustafa (VT 1 and 3) Cemal (VA 12), Mustafa (PB 5) and less often his elder brother Abdullah (PB 4), Osman (KA 1); all CS, except Ali (CS 1) and his son. Osman (AG 1), whose wife was a sister of BA 1, Abdurrahman (PA 2), Ali and Sapri (sons of IB 1 and 2) and the sons of Mehmet (T 1) who all lived in the centre of the village near the Mosque were also frequent if not invariably visitors. From the Lower Quarter, a few, Mustafa (C 1) and Mehmet (KA 3), went to Abdil’s oda (AM), while Niyazi (BT) never came to the BA oda but went, if anywhere, to Haydar’s (FB 1). Sukru (PF 1), who had a small oda of his own, not normally used in the winter, and one or two others, did not come either. Lastly, Abdil’s oda (AM 1) remains. His son was the muhtar but this made, except on one or two special occasions, no difference to the composition of his oda group. Only Ali Osman, in his role as village scribe, the muhtar being illiterate, went often to this oda on official business. Osman (AG 1) was the only paternal kinsman who went there, and he was far more often to be found in the BA oda. Seyfullah and Mehmet (KA 2 and 3) regular members, were Abdil’s second wife’s brothers. Musa and Ismail (IB 1 and 2), who were frequently present, were father’s brothers to the muhtar’s wife and claimed to be distant agnatic kinsmen; there presence may be taken as explaining appearances from time to time in this oda of their adult sons, and Ismail’s son- in-law Haci Ali (VK 2). Mehmet (FB 4), no kinsmen but a next door neighbour to Abdil was a rare visitor. Also regular in this oda and nowhere else, were the three brothers (KU 1, 2 and 3), Mustafa (C 1), and Mehmet (PK 2), all of whom were poor. The three brothers lived a considerable distance away in the Upper Quarter. For Mustafa (C 1) I know of no kinship tie, for the others only the most tenuous, such as one might find between almost any two villagers. The brothers were, by distant connection, of the same kabile as Seyfullah (KA 2) and one of them had married a haft sister, by his father’s brother, of Osman (AG 1). Mehmet (PK 2) was mother’s brother to Abdil’s second wife. No oda ever refuses admission to anyone. Only the village watchman |
| sometimes entered odalar without greeting or being greeted. Nevertheless some odalar belonged definitely to a group- for example the DS-DG group, with three kabile represented almost to a man. In such company, another villager might feel an outsider in a way he would not in, say Haci Ahmet’s nondescript group, or in the BA oda. Personal temperament and inclination must, of course, play a considerable part in determining these groups and one which defies sociological analysis. The most puzzling example was the composition of the group meeting in Abdil’s oda (AM), where people come from both ends of the village and sit in an oda whose owner has no close kin ties with them. I do not think strong personal friendship is the explanation - rather a more negative reason, that they found staying at home intolerable and there was no other oda which they did not have some reason for avoiding. Apart from this last problem, most of the odalar have a core of kabile with the addition of matrilateral kinsmen and close neighbours. Kinship and neighbourhood seem to be parallel factors; often, owing to the compactness of many kabile and to the frequency of marriages between close neighbours, they reinforce each other. Where they are in opposition, one or the other may win. Thus Sevket and Ahmet (VA 4 and 6) do not bother to go all the way to their own kabile oda, but Ismail and Mehmet (DS 2) go an almost equal distance to theirs. These groups are the most conspicuous social groups in the village. They are repeated less definitely in the summer groups which form in the open air. Yet they have absolutely no formal or ritual status and are formed on no one single principle. To a certain extent they cut across kabile and neighbourhood. They are spontaneous, indefinite and shifting, and their members have no obligations to each other as such. They illustrate the absence of anything which one might call a system in the village social life. |
| 5. | Personal Friendships |
| Almost all personal relations are either with kin or with neighbours. Hence there is no convenient point in a description of the village for the subject of personal friendships, so I have put in a brief not here. There is a word for comrade or friend “Ahbap”. Personal friendships belong to that part of a man’s life which he spends outside the village in employment or in the army. hence women, since they did not leave the village, do not have any such relationships. The more a man has been away from the village, the more friendships of this sort he will tend to form. A friendship readily develops between two people far away from home who discover they both come from the same area. All the men who went away as skilled labourers |
| had friends of this sort, and other villagers would speak of their “military service friends”. Bilal, who was very proud of his relationship with me, would bring over to be introduced to me any of his “ahbaplar” who came to the village. Of one of these, with whom he had worked for three years as a guard in the local cotton mill in Kayseri, he remarked that he was of more use to him in trouble than his own brother. Others who came to see him from time to time were old army friends, or men who had worked with him in Iskanderum. These friendships might influence relations within the village. For example, Bilal expressed affection and friendship for Suayip, brother of Zubeyr (SI 4), who was by no means on the best of terms with the Lower Quarter in general or Bilal in particular. Suayip, who had migrated to another village, came to Sakaltutan for a wedding, and greeted Bilal with great warmth. They had been in the army together. In some cases, these friendships had an economic strand, since the skilled workers often found work by means of such contacts. There is nothing remarkable in the formation of friendships in a chance collection of men in an army unit or on a job of work. Under such circumstances, any link, especially that of locality, will provide a starting point. What is of interest, perhaps, is the contrast between these ties and those of kin and neighbourhood. Only those who go away from the village make friends outside this circle and the friendships operate mainly when they are away. This element in village life depends for its existence on the village’s membership of the wider social and economic unit, the nation, which provides a context where the villager is without the pressure of his own local environment, and is led by the need of companionship to make these non-kin and non-neighbourhood personal friendships. |
| VI. | KINSHIP AND NEIGHBOURHOOD: WOMEN AND INTER- |
| VILLAGE TIES |
| 1. | Women within the village |
| So far, I have discussed kinship in terms of relations between men, and largely between heads of households. It is obvious that this is not the whole story, since it leaves out both inter-sex relationships, and those between women. For a study of the social structure of this society, relations between men are of essential importance, since in every way men predominate in it. The most obvious and the most important kinship group is the kabile, to one of which almost every man belongs. But as soon as we turn to consider the position of a woman in this scheme, it is at once obvious that she does not belong to one such group, but to two. To her father’s and brothers’, and at the same time to her husband’s and sons’ - sometimes a widow may have personal ties to three |
| or even four kabile. Nor does she belong in the same way - she is not expected to take part in the activities which I have listed as characteristic of the kabile, mainly fighting and economic aid; or if she does so, it is rather out of personal loyalty to her husband or to her father than out of loyalty to the kabile as such. Social life of men and women in Turkey does not overlap except in the household, within, that is, the most intimate degree of kinship. Even cousins are on the borderline, since a women may marry her cousins. Most of a woman’s personal relations with males will, therefore, be with her father and brothers and later with her husband and her sons. During her lifetime, the emphasis of her loyalty shifts, a new bride weeping at the end of each visit home but an older woman becoming increasingly attached to her husband’s household, especially if she has growing sons. Younger women may go back to their fathers and brothers, not only if they are widowed or divorced, but even if they are ill or consider themselves ill-treated; but older women do not, preferring to stay in the village where they have made a lifetime of personal relations even if they are widowed and have no surviving sons. Since the great part of man-woman relationships are within the household, much of the discussion of them is deferred to the chapter on households. Contacts outside the household - between a man and his married sisters, his father’s sisters, and so on - cannot be easily observed by a stranger since such observation would break the rule of sex segregation. Within the village a girl is free to visit her father’s house and will meet in the ev her brothers and their children. Hasan (PA 1) actually divorced his second wife, so I was told, because she was giving his household stores to her own family. As she grows older, and especially after the death of her parents, the contact will grow less. When she has grown sons and daughters-in-law of her own, the relationship with her natal household matters much less to her, and may cease to have much content, except for such special occasions as death and sickness. Thus Bilal (VT 1) and his sister, Mustafa’s wife (VA 5), seemed to ignore each other, and Bilal complained that though she had plenty of milk and he had none, not even for his baby son, she had not sent him any. Equally the day to day personal interest of Ali Osman in his sisters was very little. But if a man’s sisters are in trouble or danger, this day to day indifference changes at once to active intervention or assistance. A woman’s social life is lived entirely in the company of other women. The part played by kinship in her relationship varies greatly. A woman in a strange village forms her ties among her husband’s womenfolk and neighbours, and with any of her own kinswomen or fellow villagers who have |