The origins of the Bakhtiyari and their division int two major groups of Haft Leng and Chahar Leng” have long puzzled historians and observers of Iran.
“Who the Lurs are,” says Curzon, writing in 1890, “and whence they came is one of the unsolved and in- soluable riddles of history.” He quotes Rich, who declared the Bakhtiaris to be Kurds, and mentions the further speculation that the Bakhtiaris are the relics of one of the Greek colonies left by Alexander in Asia, a hypothesis for which the further support is claimed of the similarity of the Greek and Bakhtiyari national dances. It has also been suggested that they are Turks, Semites, and Kurds, and it has even been suggested that they originated in Bactria, owing to the similarity to European, but not to Persian, ears of the “Bactria” and “Bakhtiari.” Recent research into Bakhtiari tradition suggests that none of these assertions is entirely correct, but that there is an element of truth in all of them.
Two contemporary Bakhtiyari historians-‘ point out the similarities of the Bakhtiyari, Luri, and Kurdish dialects and their relationship to Persian and suggest that the Bakhtiyari have had a long residence in their territory. They also draw comparisons between the dress of the Bakhtiyari and that depicted in Achaemenian and Sassanian reliefs and sculpture. Interestingly, one of these historians, Hosain Pazhmln, writes that ”Bakhtiyari” is synonymous with “Bactria.” Bakhtiyar” itself means “bearer of luck or good fortune,” and it is possible that some tribal leader was given this name, and his followers, and eventually the entire confederation, became known by this name. (When tribal fission occurs the followers of a tribal leader and their descendants frequently become known by the leader around whom they rallied.) Hajj Khosrou Khan Sardar Zafar believes that this name dates from some time in the Safavid period (l501-1732) .
The Bakhtiyari have a number of tribal legends about their origins, and one of these is that they came from Syria. Another says that they are descendants of the men who were allowed to escape from the fate of having their brains fed to the serpents sprouting from the shoulders of a legendary Iranian hero, Zohaq. Similarly there are tribal myths regarding the division of the Bakhtiyari into Haft Leng and Chahar Leng. Sardar Zafar suggests in his informative Tarikh-e Bakhtiyari that the etymology of Haft and Chahar Leng is impossible to trace, but that it was possibly based on a division of taxes between the two groups, and the Haft Leng, the wealthier of the two, paid at a rate of one and three-quarters to the Chahar Leng one.
Sardar As’ad, a full-brother to Sardar Zafar, also writes that the origin of this division is derived from the taxes paid by the tribes. These taxes were paid in kind: by the Bakhtiyari in mules, the Qashqa’i in sheep, and the Shahsavan [a Turkic speaking tribe of pastoral nomads in the vicinity of Mount Savalan on the Iranian-Russian border] in camels. The Bakhtiyari paid at the rate of three mules: the Haft Leng, one and threequarters; the Chahar Leng, one; and those tribes who had recently attached themselves to the Bakhtiya—r i, one-quarter.
There is yet another tradition that one of the ancient khans had seven sons from one wife and four from another, and the present day division is a result of the grouping of the brothers in a fight over their patrimony. This in turn reflects the frequent struggle over a legacy between brothers and between nephew and uncle (father’s brother) among the Bakhtiyari.
However, the origin of these two divisions is unknown, and their function is not clear. Sardar Zafar writes that he knew of only two occasions when all of the Haft Leng faced all of the Chahar Leng in battle. And at the conclusion of the last of these, late in the Safavid period, the two sides made peace, and they killed a dog or an ass and spread it on the ground saying: Whosoever among us breaks this promise of peace, may we be sacrificed instead of this ass or dog. Eighteenth and nineteenth century western sources describe the hostility between these two divisions, yet the political alignments within the Bakhtiyari in this period do not follow them, some Chahar Leng tribes are aligned with the Haft Leng and vice versa.