The Yörüks, also Yuruks or Yorouks, are a Turkish ethnic subgroup, some of whom are nomadic, primarily inhabiting the mountains of Anatolia, and partly in the Balkan peninsula. Their name derives from the Turkish verb yürü-, which means "to walk", with the wordyörük or yürük designating "those who walk on the hindlegs, walkers". Yörüks lived within the Yörük Sanjak which was not a territorial unit like other sanjaks but a separate organisational unit of the Ottoman Empire.
Anatolia
Historians and ethnologists often use the additional appellative 'Yörük Turcoman' or 'Turkmens' to describe the Yörüks of Anatolia. In Turkey's general parlance today, the terms "Türkmen" and "Yörük" indicate the gradual degrees of preserved attachment with the former semi-nomadic lifestyle of the populations concerned, with the "Turkmen" now leading a fully sedentary life, while keeping parts of their heritage through folklore and traditions, in arts like carpet-weaving, with the continued habit of keeping a yayla house for the summers, sometimes in relation to the Alevi community etc. and with Yörüks maintaining a stronger association with nomadism. These names ultimately hint to their Oghuz Turkish roots. The remaining "true" Yörüks of today's Anatolia traditionally use horses as a means of transportation, though these are steadily being replaced by trucks. The Yörüks are divided in a large number of named endogamous patrilineal tribes. Among recent tribes mentioned in the literature are Aksigirli, Ali Efendi, Bahsıs, Cakallar, Coşlu, Qekli, Gacar, Güzelbeyli, Horzum, Karaevli, Karahacılı, Karakoyunlu, Karakayalı, Karalar, Karakeçili, Manavlı, Melemenci, San Agalı, Sanhacılı, Sarıkeçili, Tekeli and Yeni Osmanlı. The tribes are splittered in clans or lineages, i.e. kabile, sülale or oba.
Lifestyle
French historian and TurkologistJean-Paul Roux visited the Anatolian Yörüks in the late 1950s and found that the majority of them were practicing Sunni Muslims. The tribes he visited were led by elected officials called muhtars, or village headmen, rather than hereditary chiefs, although he did note that village elders maintained some social authority based on their age. For the majority of the year, they lived in dark wool tents called kara fadir. During the summer, they went up to the mountains, and in the winter they came down to the coastal plains. They kept a variety of animals, including goats, sheep, camels, and sometimes cattle. The focus of each tribe was the family unit. Young men would move directly from their family's tent to their own upon marriage. The Yörüks married endogamously; that is, they married strictly within their own tribe. Children were raised by the tribe as a whole, who told Roux "we are all parents." Although the Yörüks had acquired a reputation for being deliberately resistant to formal education, Roux found that a full quarter of Yörük children he encountered were attending school, despite the difficulties of living a nomadic lifestyle in remote locations with limited access.
Balkans
In 1911, the Yörük were a distinct segment of the population of Macedonia and Thrace, where they settled as early as the 14th century. An earlier offshoot of the Yörüks, the Kailar or Kayılar Turks, were among the first settlements in Europe.
Their nomadic way of life and the fact that they spread through the Balkans led Arnold van Gennep to try to establish a connection between the Yörüks and the ethnically Greek Sarakatsani or Karakachans of Greece. However, the Sarakatsani when for the first time mentioned under this name were Orthodox Christians and speaking Greek. Despite some connections and similarities as to the transhumant, nomadic way of life, there are no actual linguistic or religious links. On the contrary, a popular theory based on cultural and linguistic data suggests that Sarakatsani are of Dorian descent.
Clans closely related to the Yörüks are scattered throughout the Anatolian Peninsula and beyond it, particularly around the chain of Taurus Mountains and further east around the shores of the Caspian sea. Of the Turkmens of Iran, the Yomuts come the closest to the definition of the Yörüks. An interesting offshoot of the Yörük mass are the Tahtadji of the mountainous regions of Western Anatolia who, as their name implies, have been occupied with forestry work and wood craftsmanship for centuries. Despite this, they share similar traditions with their other Yörük cousins. The Qashqai people of southern Iran are also worthy of mention due to their shared characteristics.
