Tkhuma (tribe)

Prior to World War I, the Tkhuma (Syriac: ܬܚܘܡܐ‎, romanized: Tkhūmā[1]) were one of five principal and semi-independent[2] Assyrian Tribes subject to the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction of the Assyrian Patriarch with the title Mar Shimun. The Assyrians claimed the status of a firman of protection from the Arab Caliphate and of an Ottoman millet to preserve their customs and traditions along with the tribes of Jelu, Baz, Tyari, and Deez/Diz, "forming the highest authority under His Holiness Mar Shimun, the patriarch."[3] The Tkhuma Tribe is a tribe of Assyrians that lived in upper Mesopotamia until 1915, when they were dispersed into Persia, Iraq, and Syria during the Assyrian Genocide. In 1915, the representative of the Assyrian Patriarch Mar Shimun XX Paulos wrote that the Tkhuma of "many Christian villages" had "been entirely destroyed."[4] A journalist of Ottoman Turkey wrote that: "The people of Tkhuma put up a great defense on September 27th and 28th [1915]. But while they were building trenches for themselves the Kurds were destroying them with guns. The Turks destroyed ... Inner Tkhuma and many other places.".[5] In 1933, Malik Loco, the chief of the Tkhuma Tribe, went with the chief of the Tiyari tribe and 700 armed Assyrians into Syria, at the outset of the Simele Massacre.[6] The League of Nations took responsibility for the resettlement of the Tkhuma Assyrians, reporting in 1937 that 2,350 Tkhuma had been settled in three villages in Syria.[7]

Tkhuma villages in Khabour[2]
Village Population in 1994
Lower Tell Ruman 108
Al-Kharitah 254
Tell Chame 213
Tell Wardiyat 108
Al-Makhada 286
Taal 468
Tell Sakra 564
Al-Breij 179
Arbouche 399
Tell Hormiz 921
Total: 3,500
The view down stream from the mouth of the Ori valley, a little above Tal. The distant snow peak is Ghara Dagh on the southern side of Tkhuma.


References
  1. Travis, Hannibal (2017). The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-34864-9. OCLC 1119072702.
  2. M. Fernandez, Alberto. "Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River". Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies.
  3. Dr. Khoshaba P. Jasim, The Assyrian Historiography and Linguistics, Presentation to 2nd World Assyrian Conference in Moscow, June 27–30, 2003, http://www.aina.org/articles/ahal.htm
  4. Paul Shimmun, Urmia, Salmas, and Hakkiari, in Great Britain, House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers 584 (1916)
  5. William W. Rockwell, The Pitiful Plight of the Assyrian Christians in Persia and Kurdistan 38 (1916)
  6. John Joseph, The Modern Assyrians 95 (2000)
  7. League of Nations, Settlement of the Assyrians of Iraq 6 (1937)
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