Musa Dagh - Sericulture

Author: Vahram L. Shemmassian 12/08/24 (Last modified 12/08/24)

John Barker’s association with Musa Dagh is crucial in understanding that community’s economy during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Who was he? His biography reads in part:

“Barker, John (1771-1849), British consul-general in Egypt, was born in Smyrna, 9 March 1771. He was son of William Barker, youngest son of Thomas Barker, of “The Hall,” near Bakewell, in Derbyshire, and the descendent of an old county family.... John Barker was educated in England.... About 1797 he left London as private secretary to John Spencer Smith, British ambassador to the Porte.... In 1799 Barker was commissioned by patent, bearing date 9 April, to proceed to Aleppo as pro-consul, and to act as agent ad interim for the Levant and East India Companies.... He became full consul for the Levant Company 18 Nov. 1803, which was the year in which he introduced vaccination into Syria.... In the autumn of 1825 Barker was appointed British consul at Alexandria... In March 1829 he was made consul-general in Egypt.... He retained the consul-generalship for about four years, when he left Egypt, 31 May 1833, for his villa at Suedieh.... He died of apoplexy 5 Oct. 1849, aged 78 ... at a summer-house at Betias, on a commanding eminence of Mount Rhosus. He was buried close to the wall of the Armenian church of the village, where a handsome marble monument, procured from Genoa, was erected in his memory”. [1]

Described by one of his numerous guests as “a perfect gentleman, an accomplished scholar, a sagacious thinker, a philosopher, and philanthropist,” [2] Barker possessed two “modern country seats” in Musa Dagh, one at Bitias and another at Kheder Beg. [3] Barker’s presence in Musa Dagh was in large part responsible for its exposure to the outside world. Indeed, the travel accounts authored by some of his visitors constitute the main published primary sources on pre-1850 Musa Dagh.

Barker also contributed to the improvement of the natives’ lives in northwestern Syria in several ways. In the economic sphere, particularly sericulture and horticulture/agriculture, Barker’s input was very important. Beginning in the 1820s he replenished and thus improved the degenerating silkworm eggs by procuring regular supplies of fresh, superior ones from France and Italy, especially the Piedmont region. [4] The eggs were distributed among the cocoon and silk cultivators in northwestern Syria, including “the districts of his neighbourhoods, Antioch, and Svedia, and of all the mountains near Latakia and Tripoli.” [5] As a result, reversing the trend from an annual loss of a minimum of one-third of the eggs to a one-third increase in the annual silk production, [6] not only did local proprietors profit more, but they enriched the state’s coffers “by millions of piasters.” [7] Barker and his sons likewise established a small factory in Svedia to reel silk in the advanced European method. Two other Englishmen and a Belgian engineer eventually joined the venture, French and Italian machinery were purchased, [8] and “the establishment commenced well, the first year’s [1847-48] profits being about forty per cent., when some unfortunate disputes among the proprietors caused the works to be suspended.” [9] According to another version, “the disease in the silkworms compelled them [the owners] to abandon the speculation.” [10] Whatever the cause, had the enterprise persisted it would have incurred additional benefits to the indigenous populations.

Sericulture constituted the main source of livelihood in pre-World War I Musa Dagh, as in the entire district of Antioch. Referring to the first years of the nineteenth century, the traveler Robert Walpole reported that “the staple commodity of Antioch is well known to be silk.... The average quantity produced by Suedea, and the neighbourhood of Antakie ... is about 200 cantars [11.3 tons]. The silk in this district is divided into four kinds; that of Antioch, of Suedea, of the mountains, and of Beilan.” [11] While compiling commercial statistics for 1836 in Syria, a Briton named John Bowring furnished the following relevant details: “The whole quantity of silk produced at Antioch, Suedia, and their environs, is brought to Aleppo, and is usually from 180 to 200 cantars [10-12.3 tons] but in very favourable seasons 220 cantars [12.4 tons]; of this about 75 to 80 cantars [4.2-4.5 tons], are consumed in Aleppo” and 100 cantars/5.6 tons (from all silk received in Aleppo from other places like Amasia) was exported to England (20 cantars/1.1 ton), France (30 cantars/1.7 ton), and Genoa and Leghorn (50 cantars/2.9 tons). Generally speaking, the Antioch silk was worth 300-320 piasters per 1,000 drams/dirhems (3.2kg/7lb). [12] Another sojourner, Frederick Arthur Neale, speaking of the thirteen richest notables of Antioch in the 1840s, maintained that “amongst them is divided the whole of the territorial possessions, from Jesser il Hadid [the Iron Bridge] on the one side, to the villages of Suedia, Bitias and Cassab on the other—all land in a high state of cultivation, producing wheat, barley, and other grain, or laid out in mulberry plantations for the rearing of the silk-worms.” [13] During the 1860s a tourist by the name of Lycklama a Nijeholt likewise noted that the Armenians of Musa Dagh occupied “themselves in the rearing of silkworms, because nearly the entire countryside is planted with mulberry trees.” [14]

The cocoon was produced during the course of two months falling between April and June. [15] Commenting on the importance of this period in Bitias, an American Protestant missionary wrote: “As everyone in the village must work during the silk-worm season, the school year conforms to the village industry, and opening about the first of July, closes the first of April.” [16] The rearing of silkworms took place either in a special cottage called keokh, usually located in outlying farms, or an anteroom known as madkhan. Their interior walls were cleaned and whitewashed with khavura (limestone) for disinfection, windows were covered with linen or fine net to keep harmful insects at bay, and sulfur was burned in one corner to keep parasites and mice away. [17]As soon as mulberry leaves sprouted in late March or early April, the silkworm eggs were placed in the designated room at a certain temperature to be “awakened.” After a few days the eggs hatched very tiny jijas (worms) which climbed the leaves placed above them.  The leaves were then transferred into containers called kor or chershefe. The kor was made of dried cow manure whose odor kept harmful insects at a distance, whereas the chershefe, a wooden tray covered with linen at the base, was used mainly by the more advanced cultivators. [18] In either case, the caterpillars were fed fresh, shredded mulberry leaves for several weeks as they underwent four molting stages known as maghsem (infant), kuyruk (tail), nakesh (decor), and kasel (stretched or muscular). [19]

During the last phase of growth the caterpillars were carried over onto bateurs (woven bamboo mat trays) especially made to hold avils (brushwood brooms). The bateurs, in turn, were placed on semidis, that is, five- to six-story high scaffolds made of beam-like timber called arudu. Once in place, the mature caterpillars spun their shernek (cocoon) on the avils.  Collectively known as gerdak, the slower worms that stayed behind in the messeur (space between brooms) were gathered and given special care until they too spun their shells.The cocoons were then picked to be sold as such, for breeding new eggs, or for silk extraction. [20] In the first instance, Antioch merchants who had warehouses and or spinning factories in Svedia and nearby Zeytuniye went to Musa Dagh, weighed the cocoons, and with the help of local muleteers transported them to their stores. Most of those merchants were Greek Orthodox Christians, among them Jabra Khuri, Mitri Khuri, Zaki Sukyas, and a certain Antonios. [21]

According to the Trade Report of the British Vice-Consulate of Antioch and Svedia, dated April 10, 1900, “it has been estimated that 120 tons of dry cocoons were exported from Swedia to Marseilles during the past year value for ₤40,000 while the export for the previous year was estimated at 100 tons value ₤35,000. The quantity of raw silk sent to Aleppo from Antioch was estimated at 20 tons valued at ₤22,000.” [22] Although comparable figures are lacking regarding the amount of cocoons produced in Musa Dagh, estimates provided for 1911 demonstrate its importance in the region’s sericulture output. The Bitias inhabitants obtained 40-45 kashes (lift/pull) of cocoons or 51-58 kilograms (112-128 pounds) from 28.35 grams (1 ounce) of eggs, for a total of 20,000 kashes (25.64 metric tons). [23] Musa Dagh, as a whole, yielded 80,000 okes (102 tons) of cocoons. [24] Two conclusions can be drawn from these givens:  first, that Bitias generated at least 25 percent of all cocoons produced in Musa Dagh, [25] and second, that cocoons cultivated in Musa Dagh constituted a high percentage of the annual exports from the Antioch-Svedia district.

The peasants kept their best cocoons for future egg supplies. A few weeks after cocooning themselves in, the caterpillars pierced their shells and emerged as butterflies. The females were then separated and inserted into tiny bags strung like a necklace called khamiuts, where they hatched their eggs and died. The dried butterflies were wetted one by one, crushed in havuns (mortars), and put between lamers (slides) for microscopic inspection. Infected butterfly eggs were discarded, and the healthy ones were washed, dried, and kept in round carton boxes the size of a small “The Laughing Cow” cheese box. [26] Local licentiates sealed and signed the boxes earmarked for exportation to authenticate the high quality of their merchandise. [27]

Because the cultivation of eggs required meticulous work and extra manpower, even little children were employed for a small remuneration. [28] Girls, in particular, seem to have demonstrated strong skills on the microscope. When in 1907 the Public Debt Administration organized a nationwide sericulture contest, most prizes in Aleppo province reportedly went to participants from Bitias, [29] among them at least two females. One of them, Meren Filian Igarian, received a monetary gift, a microscope, and an official permit for egg inspection [30]; the other, a ten-year-old girl by the name of Marta Kevork Sherbetjian (known as Azizints Matushe), was awarded a medal. [31]

The amount of cocoons obtained from one quto (box) of eggs enabled an average family to lead a frugal existence. Households with a four-box output, on the other hand, were considered well-to-do. [32] Indeed, a few individuals reaped exceptional harvests. A case in point was Kevork Baljian, the richest man in Kabusiye, just one of whose mulberry orchards “fed” twenty-two boxes securing him 100 Ottoman liras annually. [33] Similarly, the family of notable Mardir Isgenderian of Haji Habibli in 1915 had some 1,500-1,800 silkworm seed boxes ready for government inspection. In spring 1916, the Isgenderians, some of whom by then had been deported to Hama, received word from Greek sarrafs (money changers) acting as their trustees at Antioch about 2,000 Ottoman gold liras worth of silkworm seeds that the Isgenderian sericulture industry had yielded in their absence. In addition, one of Mardir’s brothers had left a large amount of silken goods with a Greek named Najib Spiridon. Although two Isgenderian family representatives somehow managed to get to Antioch to collect their monies, they returned empty-handed having been swindled. [34]

For some of the poorer villagers, who worked as mere laborers, the sericulture season and with it the entire year’s income came to an end upon the acquisition of cocoons and eggs. Consequently, with no other income to make ends meet, many a peasant faced serious hardships. As a visitor reported, the yearly income of a certain Ibrahim of Chevlik near Kabusiye “amounted to no more than 400 piastres, under ₤2 English money. From this he proposed to save enough to bribe the Turkish officials at the port that they might wink at his escape in an open boat to Cyprus: for, said he, ‘there is no industry here but the silkworms, and they give me work for two months in the year, and for the other ten I have nothing to do and no way of earning money’.” [35] Be that as it may, more enterprising compatriots continued to occupy themselves throughout the year in other sericulture activities such as spinning, weaving, and selling silk manufactures.

The hallajs (spinners) extracted the thin fiber from the cocoon by way of a wooden turbine called dulab (wheel). The cocoons were placed in liughs (troughs) filled with water and heated until the filaments came undone. The spinners then pulled the silk threads gently, attached them to the dulab’s four spindles, and spun. [36] The period immediately following the acquisition of birisem (raw silk) was called bazi dulab, literally meaning, after the wheel and signifying the season’s end.People now dismantled their shelves, put away the trays and tools, and cleaned and whitewashed (again) their workplaces. Significantly, most shopping, baptisms, engagements, and weddings took place “after the wheel” as people got cash in hand. [37] Not all silk-related ventures came to a standstill “after the wheel,” however. During the latter part of summer, fall, and winter quite a few villagers, particularly in Bitias, Haji Habibli, and Yoghun Oluk, worked in a special corner of their houses called hiur (well) to weave textiles on tazgeahs (looms).[38] Numbering between 70 and 80 in Haji Habibli, and between 30 and 40 in Bitias, on the eve of World War I those machines produced a variety of white and colorful articles such as handkerchiefs, towels, “Tosya” and “Tripoli” belts, headgears, shawls, linens, bed covers, draperies, neckties, and men’s suits and women’s dresses. [39] “Famous for the[ir] superior quality and beauty,” [40] these necessities were sold in neighboring Turkmen villages, Antioch, the plain around Lake Amuk, Iskenderun, Aleppo, Aintab, other parts of Syria and Cilicia, and Egypt. [41]

Although the majority of local sericulture experts was self-made, some attended technical school to acquire the most advanced scientific knowledge of the time—the Louis Pasteur method that utilized microscopes. One such renowned establishment was the Sericulture Institute of Bursa, modeled after that of Montpellier, France. From its inception in 1888 by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration until 1914, the Institute graduated 1,251 experts under the direction of an Armenian, Professor Kevork Torkomian, himself a student of Pasteur. [42] During his inspection tours across the silk-producing regions of the Ottoman Empire, Torkomian, accompanied by a Turkish assistant named Nuri, visited Musa Dagh as well, and in the process recruited local youths—usually from among relatively well-to-do families who could afford tuition and other expenses—to study at Bursa. [43] The program entailed up to three years of course work covering “the agricultural, biological and technical aspects of the production of silk and raising of silkworms.” [44] To be able to graduate and obtain a license, the students wrote a thesis and took a culminating exam. [45] The Bursa graduates hailing from Musa Dagh included Movses Chaparian, Rupen Filian, Yeprem Frankian, Armenag Kayekjian (Biderji Armenag), Apraham Renjilian, and Sarkis Renjilian, all from Bitias, and the brothers Isgender and George Isgenderian from Haji Habibli. [46] These licentiates played an instrumental role in upgrading the quality of local eggs after returning home.

Whether school-educated or self-made, many sericulture experts and helpers from Musa Dagh also supervised the silk chiftliks (farms) of rich proprietors in the general district. The territory between Antioch and Svedia, consisting of mulberry plantations in the main, belonged to Turkish, Greek, European, and some Armenian landlords.  Among the Turkish notables of Antioch Bereket Zade Rifaat Agha possessed a large farm in the village of Kurt Deresi adjacent to Vakef.  Abdul Ghani Zade Husni Agha and Koseri Zade Reshid Agha owned groves along the banks of the two Karachay (Black Stream) rivulets adjoining Musa Dagh. The Greek Orthodox Hanna Meren and Hanna Ibrahim had substantial real estate at Magharajik, as did the Lakkani family near the monastery of St. Simeon the Stylite. Among the Europeans mention is made of a certain Italian captain by the name of Domenico di Lupi, owner of a significant plantation located above the water spring at Magharajik. The Armenian Mardiros Misakian, the vice-consul of Germany in Antioch, reaped harvests from two parcels of land in the area of the Seleucid ruins, as did Kerovpe Arslanian of Constantinople, the maternal uncle of the Armenian satirist Yervant Odian, from his possessions within the peripheries of the Alawite villages of Mishraqiye and Mughayrun. [47] The scope of Arslanian’s silk business in the early1920s may be indicative of his pre-World War I dealings as well. His farms yielded fifty-five boxes of silkworm eggs (with the potential of producing another ten boxes), each grove feeding one box valued at 50 Ottoman gold liras, for a total of more than 3,000 liras. The cultivation of eggs took place in seventeen farm houses and one silkworm factory, all inhabited and or run by Alawite marabas (sharecroppers). [48] Arslanian and the other proprietors hired Armenian experts from Musa Dagh to teach their Alawite tenant farmers. One such silk master, Sarkis Sherbetjian of Bitias, oversaw all phases of silk production in two villages belonging to a certain Sabit Efendi. [49]  According to some estimates, commuters or seasonal migrants like Sherbetjian numbered 500-600 persons or 8-10 percent of the entire population of Musa Dagh. [50]

Despite the advanced state of sericulture in Musa Dagh, two factors dealt a heavy blow to the industry and chances of heftier profits: nature’s wrath and usurer manipulations. In the first case, locusts and especially severe weather fluctuations frequently destroyed mulberry leaf and other crops. During the period between 1864 and 1901, for instance, at least nine known seasons (24 percent) proved catastrophic, with Haji Habibli reeling under depression consecutively during 1864-67, and the other villages in 1872, 1878, 1897, 1899, and 1901. [51] A Capuchin missionary stationed at Kheder Beg reported in July 1897 that “the people are suffering because of the failure to gather the silk cocoons due to incessant rains” [52] and that by early September “quite poor is the wheat harvest due to the lack of rain, almost nothing [is obtained] from the olives….” [53] Four years later, in September 1901, a colleague wrote that bad crops “drove the price of the most essential needs to the roof. There is no hope that this difficult condition will become any better in the future, for the government is not doing anything to ease the import of those goods from other countries. In addition, the government continues imposing the cruel taxes as though the people are not in enough misery.” [54]

On occasion a positive outlook prevailed. As a Protestant missionary wrote in reference to Bitias, “it is ... pleasant to record that their crop of 1902 has been a very good crop. The violent fluctuations of the weather have given so much reason for fear that severe hail would ensue and ruin their crop, that it is a great relief to learn that such is not the case, that on the contrary they have had a fine crop for 1902.” [55] But this particular village, it seems, after years of suffering, had learned how to circumvent disaster. A report for the year ending June 30, 1903 explained: “Bitias is the only place in or around Antioch this year, which has a reasonably good crop of silk.  The people of Bitias have so much energy and have studied every phase of the silk industry so faithfully that they have repeatedly snatched victory out of defeat, or rather succeeded in getting a good crop under very adverse circumstances, where others have simply given up and lost their crop.” [56]

The nature of loan transactions constituted the second detriment to silk profits. Poverty compelled many villagers to borrow money from rich merchants at high interest rates, usually 20-30 percent.  What was more, sometimes lenders demanded that they be repaid within five or six months, thus in reality charging double interest for the year. [57] As reported in September 1897, “the wind blows in favor of the lenders, who by holding down lands, lend money with 30 and 35 percent profit, and if they [the debtors] do not pay by the year’s end, the land must be surrendered at half price, as it happened these days. Here [in Kheder Beg and Musa Dagh in general] the right belongs to the stronger and shrewder, and is supported by stealing government officials.” [58] Moreover, the peasants were forced to sell their cocoons below market value to the same usurers, at the same time being urged to replenish the following year’s egg supplies with the expensive European brands sold by the merchant-usurers themselves. [59] In an apparent effort to break this vicious cycle, a Capuchin missionary in the mid-1890s sought to obtain 30 ounces of eggs for his Catholic Armenian constituency directly from a certain Luigi dell’Oro Giosue, the proprietor of a silk establishment in Milan, Italy. [60] But this modest attempt does not seem to have served its purpose for the long haul, because seven years later British Consul H.Z. Longworth of Aleppo described the general situation within his purview as follows: “Rarely is he [the farmer] out of the hands of the usurer; each tries to defraud the other, and life is spent in wranglings.  The money-lender invariably ends by recouping himself amply, and yet the villager shuns the Agricultural Bank. He instinctively prefers to obtain a loan at even more than 30 per cent interest than borrow from the Government. Shrewdness in this may guide him, for he thus avoids in default of payment the certain risk of losing his land.” [61]

The situation in Musa Dagh attained tragic proportions in the wake of the 1909 massacres. Moved by what she had witnessed in Bitias, an American missionary reported: “The people in this village are silk raisers and prepare eggs for sale and do their work on borrowed capital. The eggs all went for they had been given to be paid for when silk was sold and given in Adana and Alexandretta, so of course they have got nothing and will not be able to get anything, but at the same time they are being put to the utmost for their old debts and are not able to borrow capital to begin again. I was up there ... and I came home heart sick.  Poor people!  Hungry, naked and discouraged.” [62]

This chronic economic malaise notwithstanding, some encouraging signs in the final years before World War I existed. One such welcome change involved the appointment in 1909 of an Armenian from Constantinople by the name of Onnig Tosbat as Director of Silk Control of Aleppo province. Significantly, Tosbat established his headquarters not in the provincial capital but in Antioch, from where he introduced new regulations to improve the quality of the local silkworm eggs and related industries. Tosbat’s programs thus benefited the indigenous growers considerably. [63] But his efforts would not have produced good results had it not been for the expert contribution of the Armenian graduates of Bursa. For, by 1911 the people of Musa Dagh had begun to purchase as much as one-third of their annual egg needs from the much-improved local brands rather than entirely from the more expensive European kinds. [64] There was even suggestion to establish a modern silk factory in Musa Dagh that would have the following salutary effects: it would lend money at lower interest rates; sell eggs cheaper; purchase the cocoons at their real value; and provide employment for widows, girls, and other workers. By some calculation, this factory, even if it produced only raw cocoons, would enable the natives to cash in an astonishing $1,500,000 annually. [65] There is no evidence that this suggestion, made in distant Fresno, California, materialized.

• [1] Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biographies, vol. I (London: Oxford University Press, 1921), p. 1,124.  For negotiations concerning the restoration of Barker’s tomb in Bitias in 1935, see Great Britain, Public Record Office, Kew, Foreign Office (FO) 861: Embassy and Consular Archives, Turkey: Aleppo, General Correspondence (Outgoing and Incoming), File 112.
• [2] F.A. Neale, Eight Years in Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, from 1842 to 1850, 2nd ed., vol. II (London: Colburn and Co., Publishers, 1852), p. 59. 
• [3] Ibid., p. 78.  According to Eusebe de Salle, Pérégrinations en Orient ou voyage pittoresque et politique en Egypte, Nubie, Syrie, Turquie, Grèce pendant les années 1837-38-39, 2nd ed., vol. I (Paris: Pagnerre and L. Curmer, 1840), p. 168, Barker’s residences at Bitias and Kheder Beg surpassed in beauty that of Svedia. 
• [4] Charles Fiott Barker, Memoir on Syria (London: Madden and Malcolm, 1845), p. 36; John Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1840), p. 113; Barker, Syria and Egypt, II, pp. 1-2.
• [5] Barker, Syria and Egypt, II, p. 255.
• [6] Barker, Memoir on Syria, p. 36.
• [7] Barker, Syria and Egypt, II, p. 2.
• [8] Ibid., p. 272.
• [9] William Francis Ainsworth, A Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition, vol. II (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co., 1888), p. 403.
• [10] Barker, Syria and Egypt, II, p. 272.
• [11] Robert Walpole, ed., Travels in Various Countries of the East; Being a Continuation of Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820), p. 133.
• [12] Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria, p. 15.
• [13] Neale, Eight Years in Syria, II, p. 31.
• [14] Lycklama a Nijeholt, Voyage en Russie, au Caucase, et en Perse dans la Mésopotamie, le Kurdistan, la Syrie, la Palestine et la Turquie exécuté pendant les années 1865, 1866, 1867 et 1868, vol. IV (Paris and Amsterdam: Arthus Bertrand and C.L Van Langenhuysen, 1875), p. 328.
• [15] The start of the sericulture season actually depended on the climate and varied from place to another. From a letter written in the early 1920s, for example, we learn that mulberry leaves sprouted a month late if eastern cold air hit Musa Dagh in February-March and that the leaves at Chevlik by the sea usually appeared a month earlier than those in cooler Bitias.  Victoria Renjilian Sarafian, private papers, Fresno, CA, Movses Renjilian, letter to “My Dear Children” (Krikor and Victoria Sarafian), May 2, 1923.
• [16] American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) Archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, ABC: 16.9.6, Central Turkey Mission (CTM), vol. 1, Lucile Foreman to Miss Lamson, July 28, 1913.
• [17] Interview with Victoria Renjilian Sarafian, March 30, 1988, Fresno, CA; interview with Hovhannes Hajian, January 8, 1990, Hollywood, CA; Sona Zeytlian, Musa Leran zhoghovrtagan hekiatner (Folktales of Musa Dagh) (Beirut: Hamazkayin Vahe Setian Press), pp. 681-82; Krikor Kyozalyan [Keghuni], Musa Leran azkakrutyune (The Ethnography of Musa Dagh) (Yerevan: Republic of Armenia National Academy of Sciences “Kidutyun” Publication, 2001), pp. 70-72, 77.
• [18] Interview with Renjilian Sarafian.  The chershefe measured approximately 1 by 5 by ½ meters.
• [19] Suren Filhannesian, letter to the author, not dated (1989); Khacher Madurian, “Mer hatse” (Our Bread), in Mardiros Kushakjian and Boghos Madurian, eds., Hushamadian Musa Leran (Memorial Book of Musa Dagh) (Beirut: Atlas Press, 1970), p. 155; Kyozalyan, Musa Leran, pp. 72-75.
• [20] Filhannesian, letter; Zeytlian, Musa Leran, p. 708; Kyozalyan, Musa Leran, pp. 76-77.
• [21] Interview with Marta Sherbetjian Shemmassian, December 28, 1983, Los Angeles, CA; interview with Renjilian Sarafian, March 4, 1988.
• [22] Great Britain, FO 861, File 35, David Dowek to Henry D. Barnham, Trade Report of British Vice-Consulate Antioch and Swedea, April 10, 1900.
• [23] Piuzantion (Byzantium) (Constantinople), April 26, 1911.
• [24] Asbarez (Arena) (Fresno), August 18, 1911.
• [25] Income generated from cocoons in Bitias surpassed those in Yoghun Oluk, Kheder Beg, and Vakef combined.  Similarly, the Bitias cocoons, by virtue of their superior quality, sold for 25 percent more than those produced elsewhere in the Ottoman province of Aleppo.  See Piuzantion, April 27, 1911; Apr[aham] H. Renjilian, “Antakyada ipekjilik (ipek beojeyi bendinin sonu)” (Sericulture in Antioch [The End of the Silkworm Season]), Nor Avedaper (New Herald) 6: 17 (November, 10, 1933): 327.  
• [26] Interview with Florence Igarian Harutiunian, March 4, 1989, Glendale, CA; interview with Renjilian Sarafian, March 4, 1988; Filhannesian, letter. 
• [27] Interview with Renjilian Sarafian, March 4, 1988.
• [28] Ibid.
• [29] Piuzantion, April 26, 1911.
• [30] Florence Igarian Harutiunian, private papers, Glendale, CA, untitled written statement made by Sarkis Filian in 1962 on the occasion of donating Meren Igarian’s microscope to a museum in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia.
• [31] Interview with Sherbetjian Shemmassian.   
• [32] Interview with Renjilian Sarafian, March 4, 1988. 
• [33] Piuzantion, September 8, 1910.
• [34] Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Archives, Yerevan, Armenia, Garo Isgenderian, “Aysbes antsan oreres” (Thus Went by My Days), handwritten memoirs, notebook I, pp. 10, 31-34.
• [35] Gertrude Lowthian Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown (London: William Henemann, 1907), p. 329.
• [36] Interview with Igarian Harutiunian; Filhannesian, letter.  The kajas (stripped cocoons) were not discarded, but rather used to make fake hair and or ropes.  See Tovmas Habeshian, Musa-Daghi babenagan artzakankner (Ancestral Echoes of Musa Dagh) (Beirut: Yerepuni, 1986), p. 88.
• [37] Filhannesian, letter.
• [38] Ibid.; Haroutune P. Boyadjian, Musa Dagh and My Personal Memoirs (Fair Lawn, NJ: Rosekeer Press, 1981), p. 2.
• [39] Zora Isgenderian, Husher badmutian hamar (Memoirs for History) (Beirut: Sevan Printing House, 1974), p. 45; idem, “Haji Habibli,” in Kushakjian and Madurian, Hushamadian, p. 76; Renjilian, “Antakyada ipekjilik,” p. 327.
• [40] Vital Quinet, La Turquie d’Asie.  Géographie administrativem statistique, descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l’Asie-Mineure, vol. II (Paris: E. Leroux, 1891), p. 198.
• [41] Isgenderian, Husher, p. 45; idem, “Haji Habibli,” p. 76; Renjilian, “Antakyada ipekjilik,” p. 327; interview with Sherbetjian Shemmassian.
• [42] Jacques Thobie, Intérêts et impérialism français dans l’Empire ottoman (1895-1914) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1977), pp. 105, 491-92.
• [43] Interview with Sherbetjian Shemmassian; Renjilian, “Antakyada ipekjilik,” p. 327.
• [44] Elizabeth Frankian Standen, letter to the author, September 12, 1988.
• [45] Interview with Renjilian Sarafian, March 4, 1988.
• [46] Ibid.; interview with Sherbetjian Shemmassian.
• [47] Serop Sherbetjian, Badmutiun svedahayeru (History of Svedia Armenians), Yesayi Havatian, ed. (Beirut: Hamazkayin Vahe Setian Press, 2010), p. 30.  Sometime before World War I, Yervant Odian traveled to Antioch together with his grandmother to sell several orchards found within one of her farms in the district.  Their sojourn lasted a whole year, during which Odian visited Musa Dagh, Kesab, and Aleppo.  When he returned to Constantinople, he published a brief geographical account on Antioch in the Arevelk (Orient/East) paper.  See Yervant Odyan, Yergeri zhoghovadzu (Collection of Oeuvres), vol. IV (Yerevan: Haybedhrad, 1962), pp. 19-20.   
• [48] Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia Archives, Antelias, Lebanon, File 22/1, Jebel Musa-Svedia, 1920-1940 (Musa Dagh-Svedia, 1920-1940), Fr. Apraham Der Kalusdian to Catholicos Sahag II Khabayian, October 12, 1926.
• [49] Interview with Sherbetjian Shemmassian.  One of the villages was Minet Kerbi, also known as Asi Kira.  The other village could not be identified.
• [50] R.P. Jérôme, “Au pays des massacres,” Les Missions Catholiques 41: 2,091 (July 2, 1909): 315; Paul Jacquot, Antioche, centre de tourisme, vol. III (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1931), p. 507; Asbarez, June 18, 1909.
• [51] ABCFM, ABC: 16.9.5, vol. 4, P.O. Powers to N.G. Clark, March 19, 1872; Corinna Shattuck to N.G. Clark, August 14, 1878; idem, vol. 14, C.S. Sanders to Judson Smith, August 30, 1899; idem, vol. 16, Annual Report—Aintab Station, July 1901-June 1902; Tavit Der Tavtiants, “Sdorakrutiun aytselutian … Perio nahankin kiughoreits” (Description of a Visit to the Armenian Villages of Aleppo Province) Arshaluys Araradian (Dawn of Ararat), no. 808 (June 24, 1867): 3; Punch (Bouquet) (Constantinople), June 12, 1899.
• [52] Curia Generale dei Frati Minori Cappuccini, Instituto Srorico, Archivio Generale dei Cappuccini (hereafter AGC), Rome, Italy, H 93, Cartella V, Marcellino da Vallarsa to V. Rev. Father, July 16, 1897.
• [53] Ibid., September 2, 1897.
• [54] Ibid., Apollinare dal Tretto to Rev. Father, September 4, 1901.
• [55] ABCFM, ABC: 16.9.5, vol. 16, Annual Report—Aintab Station, July 1901-June 1902.
• [56] Ibid., General Report of Aintab Station, July 1902-June 30, 1903.
• [57] Piuzantion, September 8, 1910; Asbarez, August 11, 1911, August 18, 1911; Arev (Sun) (Alexandria, Egypt), October 8, 1915; “Jebel i Musayi hayapnag kiughere” (The Armenian-Inhabited Villages of Musa Dagh), Avedaper (Herald) 63:39 (September 24, 1910): 914-15.
• [58] AGC, H 93, Cartella V, Da Vallarsa to V. Rev. Father, September 2, 1897.  See also idem, July 16, 1897. 
• [59] Piuzantion, September 8, 1910; Asbarez, August 11, 1911, August 18, 1911; Arev, October 8, 1915; “Jebel i Musayi hayapnag kiughere,” pp. 914-15.
• [60] AGC, H 93, Cartella V, Da Vallarsa to Excellency, August 1, 1895; Da Vallarsa to Rev. Father General, August 5, 1895, January 3, 1896. 
• [61] Great Britain, FO 424: Correspondence Respecting the Affaires of Asiatic Turkey and Arabia, 1878-1913, File 212, H.Z. Longworth to N. O’Conor, April 15, 1903.
• [62] Friend of Armenia (London), no. 44 (Winter 1911): 52.
• [63] Renjilian, “Antakyada ipekjilik,” p. 328.
• [64] Piuzantion, April 26, 1911.
• [65] Asbarez, August 11, 1911, August 18, 1911.