The Turk

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article.

The Turk

Caste No. 126 I shall not attempt to touch upon the much debated question of the distinction between Turks and Mughals. It will be sufficient to say that a Turk in the Panjab means, probably invariably, a Turkoman native of Turkistfin and of Mongolian race. In the Dehli terri tory indeed the villagers, accustomed to describe the Mughals of the Empire as Turks; use the word as synonymous with official ; and I have heard my Hindu clerks of Kayath caste described as Turks merely because thev were in Government employ. On the Biloch frontier also the word Turk is com monly used as synonymous with Mughal.

The Turks of the Panjab are prac tically confined to tlu' Hazara district, and are doubtless the representatives of the colony of Ktirlagli Turks who came into the Panjab with Tamarlane (1399 A.D.) and possessed themselves of the Pakhli tract in the Hazara district, which apparently included the Tanawal, Dhamtaur, and Swati coun try, and was politically attached to Kashmir, These men were dispossessed of their territory by Swatis and Tanaolis from across the Indus about the beginning of the 18th century ; and the Turks now returned are doubtless their descendants. The word Turk is a Tartar word meaning a wanderer '^ ; thus in poetry the Sun is called the Turk of China, '^ that is of the East, or the Turk of the Sky.'^ The Turks of Gurdaspur are said to be rope makers by occupation (see further sections 412 and 416).