Painting (watercolour). Folio 82 from an album showing Turkish costume. Deveci (deveciler = name of the first five regiments of the Janissaries). Wearing a dark blue kaftan and a white cap (kuka) which tapers to a rounded end and had a broad green brim.
Deveci
One of the aghas of the Janissaries, the deveciler (camel drivers) were also called sarban. They wore green trimmed headgear.
Source: Osmanlı kıyafet albümleri (1770-1810) by Nurdan Küçükhasköylü
DEVEDJI, a Turkish word meaning cameleer, the name given to certain regiments of the corps of janissaries [see YENI ČERI], forming part of the djemāʿat, and performing escort duties with the supply columns. They were also called by the Persian term shuturbān. The Devedjis originally formed the first five ortas of the djemāʿat (four according to D'Ohsson), and were later augmented to include many others. They wore heron's feathers in their crests (see SORGUČ); when attending the dīwān they wore velvet trimmed with sable and lynx fur. Devedji officers enjoyed high precedence among the ortas. According to Marsigli, the captains of the first five ortas were always preferred to the command of garrison centres. Their chief, the Bashdevedji, ranked high in the ladder of promotion, after the Khāṣṣeki Agha and above the Yaya-bashi.
Source: Islam Encyclopaedia by Brill
Bibliography: Marsigli, LEtat militaire de l'Empire ottoman, The Hague 1732, i, 72; DOhsson, Tableau géneral de l'empire othoman, vii, Paris 1824, 343; Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire, iv, 217, 436; idem, Staatsverfassung, ii, 209; Aḥmed Djewād, Taʾrīk̲h̲-i ʿAskerī-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī, Istanbul 1299 A.H., 12 etc.; I. H. Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti teşkilâtindan Kapıkulu Ocakları, i, Ankara 1943, index; Gibb-Bowen i/I, 321-2.
(B. Lewis)
