ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses tax avoidance and tax resistance practices among the tribes of Mutki, who lived in a frontier and mountainous zone located in the Ottoman East during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By focusing on selected case studies which are well-documented in the Ottoman archives, the chapter discusses how taxes, particularly the tithe and sheep tax, turned into sources of contention between civil and military officials and various tribal groups during the era of fiscal centralisation and modernisation of the Ottoman Empire. The chapter argues that long-lasting tax avoidances and practices of tax resistance among the tribal groups not only contributed to the reproduction of the notion of the “cultural and social inferiority of the tribes” by the Ottoman officials but also led them to pursue “unusual” methods in order to maintain the flow of taxes. Such methods ranged from military expeditions to mediation with tribal chiefs. In sum, the plans and projects drawn up by the central government regarding the taxation of tribes had to be redefined and adapted to local conditions because of tribal responses.
