The Turkish Woman

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 6, 8 January 1936, Page 10

The Turkish Woman

Emmal' Pasha may have succeeded in forcing the women of modern Turkey to discard their yashmaks and their centuries-old attitude to life, thereby improving their lot, but he robbed the country of some of its most picturesque characteristics in doing so.

curtains,

In some parts of eastern Europe, however—in Bosnia, for instance, where the Turks held sway for many centuries—almost purely Moslem towns and villages are still to be found. Nor has modern Jugoslavia, in which Bosnia is incorporated to-day, thought it necessary to interfere with customs which still linger, along with the fez and yashmak, to delight the traveller from other lands.

Among the wooded hills and valleys of Bosnia, where little Turkish towns still thrust up pale minarets above the spires of Orthodox or Catholic churches, you may still meet women wearing the wide, baggy trousers of another day, their heads covered with hoods from which dangle the squares of black net, shielding their faces from the passer-by. Very gay they look, in spite of their demureness, for the old sadcoloured garments are no longer woven at home, and their clothes are more often cut out of the cheap, vividly flowered cretonnes which the village shop sells indis-

And her Puffs and Yashmaks

criminately for dresses or for

Still more incongruous is the footgear which often accompanies these oriental-looking garments. For, while in villages wooden sabots are still worn on shapely brown ' stockingless feet, nearer such- towns as Serajevo or Travnik the richer Turkish women wear smart high-heeled shoes and fine silk stockings. Their hands, carried drooping in front of them with the time-honoured eastern gesture, are always gloveless. But if you were to lift the black yashmaks which obscure their faces there would be found powdered cheeks and carmined lips. Look at that little group just entering the kavana or coffeehouse. First three men, two young and one older, all wearing the Turkish fez. Behind, trailing bashfully, her hands submissively folded, comes the wife and mother. It is unusual to see a woman enter a coffee-house at any time, but the party have come from a distance and must refresh themselves. Truly modern, however, is the first action of the woman when she sits down alone at her little table. From the folds of her garments she produces a shining, modern compact of powder and rouge, with which, lifting her veil an inch or two, she proceeds to make up her face . . .