KURDS, koordz, or an AsiatiC people of Iranian descent dwelling in a section named after them Kurdistan, "the land of the Kurds" (q.v.), located in Persia and Turkey in Asia. They number about 2,300,000 and are nearly all Islamites. They are of mixed char acter, brave, freedom loving, hospitable, rather shy, and, to some extent, true to their word; on the other hand they have no liking for orderly work, are firmly devoted to bloody revenge and consider a robbery equally honor able as heroic acts. They have great family love, the nomads wandenng with their tents of black skins or the settlers living in low houses with flat wooden roofs, that serve in summer time as sleeping quarters. Their women have more freedom than is usual among Orientals, going outdoors unveiled, dealing with men without timidity. The girls, as a rule, are given in marriage at from 10 to 12 years of age upon a dower payment. Only the rich and elite• have a plurality of wives. For head covering they use the Turkish turban or a globular yellow fur cap; they shave the head generally, wearing only a mustache, the aged alone wearing a full beard. Their weapons are long riders' lances, sabres and pistols; the fighters on foot carry guns, and a dagger in the belt. Their history dates back to the Gutu
of ancient Assyria in which empire they ap pear to have had an independent political posi tion; they were merged with the Medes after the fall of Nineveh. Cyrus subjugated them, since which they have been under the domina tion of the Macedonians, Parthians and Sas sanians, successively. After numerous insur rections their chief fortress, Scrmaj, was cap tured, in the 9th century, and reduced by the caliphate of Bagdad, but they appear to have been in the zenith of their power in the 12th century and held sway over the Kurdistan Mountains, and included Khorasan, Egypt and Yemen. The invading Mongolians and Tatars appear to have held them later in subjection. For further facts consult Lerch. fiber die Kurden) (Saint Petersburg 1857-58); Roediger and Pott, Studien' (in Zeitscrift fur Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vols. HI-VII); Schlafli, Beitrage zur Ethnographie rdistams (in Petermann's Mitteilungen, 1863) • Milligen, 'Wild Life among the Koords' (London 1870); Creagh, 'Armenians, Koords and Turks' (ib. 1880) ; Chantre, 'Les Kurdes,' in Bulletins de la Societe d' Anthropologie de Lyox (Lyons 1889).