In The Zagros Mountains   Eva Bell     (c) Copyright 2025 by Eva Bell

Photo by Parastoo Maleki on Unsplash

In 1977, I spent a whole year among the Kurds of Iran. About a third of the world’s Kurdish population lived in those high Zagros ranges. They had given up their nomadic existence and settled down here after the Shah of Iran brought in social reforms and gave them agricultural land. The mountains stood like sentinels, segregating these people from the rest of Iran. To a large extent, they had preserved their racial purity, their customs, their language, and were more or less a law unto themselves.

In the valleys, were villages comprising of clusters of fifty to hundred huts – flat windowless constructions of wattle and daub. They were spread over the flanks of the mountains in terrace fashion.

 I planned to work for a year at a Mission Hospital in Ghorveh, which was the only medical facility within a radius of 100 kilometres. I realised that living here would be like battling a cultural tsunami, with no immediate means of escape. But I soon met my Farsi teacher, the only man who could speak English in this community – a man so proud of his people, that he changed what could have been a depressing and frustrating experience, into one of discovery, of a culture so totally alien, so laid-back and uncomplicated, their lives attuned to Nature’s cycle of seasons.

The Kurds were a colourful people. The men were handsome strapping fellows with ruddy complexions, big moustaches and beards. With their large turbans and knives stuck in their waistbands, they appeared quite intimidating. The women were turned out in layers of colourful velvet and silk. Pajamas bunched at the ankles were worn under voluminous skirts. The ‘shal’ – three metres of material coiled into a rope, was wound around the midriff. Over this was a maroon velvet gown slit at the sides like a nun’s habit, and a waist coat decked with silver coins. Their heads were encased in yards of turban and their brown eyes enhanced with ‘surma.’ Unlike their Iranian sisters they wore no burqa and were beautiful to look at.

But practising medicine in these parts was simply frustrating. Whatever their status in the community and irrespective of occupation or gender, they were all blessed with a sense of drama. The capacity to exaggerate in both men and women was unparalleled. A mild twinge of abdominal pain was feared to be a perforated gut; slight fever was a fatal illness or a spot of bleeding was an exsanguinating haemorrhage. They came trudging through the mountains or donkey riding at any time of day or night. They were not bound by hospital rules neither did they have much faith in mere medicines. What they considered therapeutic was an X-ray (of any part which pained) and a magical ‘suzan’ or injection. Denying them these led to angry words or fisticuffs for the radiographer or pharmacist. So the local staff pleaded with the doctors to prescribe whatever the patients demanded. A British doctor who had worked in Kurdistan for years had his ‘Ampoules Americana’ (distilled water) ready for such emergencies. The X-rays were displayed like photographs on the walls of their huts.

Surgery was anathema. Doctors who suggested operations were in danger of a thrashing. The male doctor had been bashed many times and had to summon the police from the station next door to rescue him. After the initial hullabaloo they would cool down and eventually agree to the operation.

This was a man’s world. Women were merely puppets and led an extremely hard life. They were married off at puberty, begat offspring in quick succession and by mid-twenties, had aged into harried old maids. But they accepted their fate without grumbling, praising Allah for the fertility of their wombs. Many teenagers whose bone structure had not yet reached maturity underwent repeated Caesarean sections until their husbands reluctantly agreed to have them sterilized.

Infant mortality in these mountains was very high. Each season brought in a crop of diseases. Measles was the prime killer. So, even if a woman bore six or seven children, only one or two would survive.

But Infertility was a curse, the worst form of punishment meted out by Allah. A barren woman was held in contempt not just by her family but the entire community. It was also the reason why a man would take another wife.

However, the bonhomie that existed between co-wives was truly unbelievable. Sharing a husband was a small price to pay for extra hands to help with household work. Apart from cooking and cleaning, carpet weaving was entirely in the women’s domain, starting from spinning and dyeing the wool. Their wealth was in the carpets, which were mortgaged to the banks whenever ready cash was needed.

The winter months when the men stayed home were the worst. With no work to do they spent time nagging, quarreling, threatening or bullying, while puffing on their hookahs or snorting opium which was freely available. The only way women could retaliate to such cruelty and insensitivity was to go into aphonia or loss of voice. They made guttural sounds instead.

I had never seen such a psychological phenomenon before and worried that it could be some organic problem like a lesion on the pharynx. But the senior doctor assured me that it was temporary and was the only way they could get their husbands’ attention. He said it was a way of self--preservation.

Because crops and grass were dependent on winter rains and melting snow, there were frequent fights between farmers who tried to divert water from near-by fields. They fought with knives and staves before taking their complaints to the House of Arbitration. Women joined in the fracas, even if it meant telling a few lies in support of their husbands. These men often arrived at the hospital at night, with their cuts and wounds. It gave us a lot of extra work to do.

The Kurds lived in close proximity with their goats and sheep. Because of their lack of hygiene (baths were taken only before Now Ruz or before marriage) dirt and dust were trapped in the layers of their clothes, and body lice thrived and multiplied. Flies, filth and contaminated water were a deadly combination, leading to different epidemics. Other than fruits or vegetables, we were warned against eating anything they brought, especially chunks of cottage cheese soaking in water. This was the most common gift to the staff. Unfortunately, it spread Brucellosis.

The revelries of Now Ruz, the only happy festival began in spring, with a thorough spring cleaning of their homes. Carpets, eiderdowns, clothes were all brought out into the narrow lanes, throwing up clouds of dust. The nights echoed with the sound of drums and flutes which ended in dancing of men and women (in separate groups.) Festivities culminated in the celebration of Now Ruz on 21^st March, the day of the Spring Equinox, with much feasting and celebration. The consequences of indiscriminate gorging, was evident the next day, with patients trooping into the hospital with flatulent abdomens resounding like drums.

Work began in full swing after the feast. The cultivation of wheat and barley and the maintenance of apricot, apple, walnut and plum orchards meant hard work right up till autumn, with only short intervals for prayer and refreshments. The women brought food for their families, sitting astride their donkeys. The fare was spread out on mats, under the trees – paper thin ’nun’ with cottage cheese, boiled eggs and carrot murumba, washed down with innumerable glasses of black tea brought in portable samovars.

When the last of the autumn leaves had fallen, the mournful mood of Moharrum was upon them. Snowfall would soon begin and at these heights, would continue even up till the beginning of February.

My year in Kurdistan was over. I was taking back with me memories of a simple yet proud people. The Farsi teacher whose first son I helped deliver, had composed a poem thanking me. He had very kindly attached a translated copy in English and a bracelet made of Kurdish coins.

Change was already creeping into these sentinel mountains which would no longer be impenetrable. Even before the Shah’s White Revolution could gain a foothold, the Islamic Revolution had already begun.

“We are Sunnis. We dread the Ayatollah’s regime. We don’t know how it will play out in Kurdistan.”

As I left Ghorveh I wondered if the proud spirit of these people would be quelled or would they fight for their dignity and survival against the Ayatollah?

I received a prayer mat as a parting gift, woven by one of my patients. It is now a wall hanging in my study and brings back vivid memories of my unforgettable year among the Kurds of Iran.

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