2. The Mekrani Baloches.

Many of the same tribal names, such as Rind, Hot, Lashari, Maghassi, Buledhi,

are found in both tracts, but the notes which here follow apply primarily to the
north-eastern or Sulaimani tribes only.
The complete tribal organization is still retained by those tribes which inhabit the
Sulaiman Mountains south of the thirty-first parallel of latitude to the plain of
Kachi, and westwards to the Bolan Pass, the plain of Kachi itself (called on our
maps Gandava or Kach-Gandava), and the territory stretching from the
mountains and from Kachi towards the Indus, in some cases as far as the Indus
itself, in others stopping short of it. The tribe is known by the name of

tuman, and

is presided over by a chief known as Tumandar. The post is hereditary, and is

always held by a member of one family belonging to one clan of the tribe.

1 Each

tuman is made up of several distinct clans, known as

phara (a Sindhi word

meaning section or share), and these are again subdivided into septs known as
phalli.

2

The name

tuman is from the Turkish tuman, ten thousand, which appears to have

been first used as an apellation of the nomad tribes of Persia in the time of the
Seljuk Sultans. Among the Baloches it is not so old, and never occurs in the
heroic ballads which relate to the events of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The oldest name for a tribe found in the poems is

bolak,3 also, like tuman,4 a word

of Turkish origin (T. buluk, a band or crowd). This word seems rather to refer to
the original clans, and not to the modern composite tribe or

tuman, which is built

up of several clans, connected one with another mainly by acknowledging a
common chief. Within the clan the members are supposed to be of the same
kindred, and as a rule the nucleus of the

tuman consists of a few clans which

consider themselves to be closely connected by blood. These have served as a
centre of attraction for other less powerful or unattached clans, which have lost
their original tribes either through internal quarrels or through the tribe having
been defeated and broken up. The new tie is not always a very strong one, and
such members of a tribe are the first to leave it if it is defeated, and look for a
more powerful protector. Sometimes mere discontent with the chief, or an
internal feud, is sufficient to drive a clan from one tuman to another.