Sevgul Uludag
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Today I would like to share with you a touching story written by Dr. Dervish Ozer entitled `The handbook of the organisations…` Dr. Dervish Ozer has sent me this story and I published in YENIDUZEN and now we are sharing it with our readers in POLITIS. Here is the story of Dr. Dervish Ozer:
`The handbook of the organisations…`
Dr. Dervish Ozer
Actually there is no such book, I made it up…
As I was sitting down and thinking today, I thought of hundreds of shepherds killed on this island. The shepherds killed and thrown in wells (lakkos)… I thought of their sheep that remained behind, their children, their sticks (topouzi), their bags (vourka), their flutes (bityavli) in their bags and their water carriers made of gourd (nerokoloko)… I thought of the trough made up of palm trees and used to water their animals at the edge of the wells and I thought of their `jiboyi` - the long stick with a hook to catch the sheep – that has been used by shepherds tending sheep for thousands of years on this island.
In the old times, they used to evaluate children at a certain age – they would make the kids wrestle in the centre of the village. Those who would prove to be strong would be sent to tend the ox used in tending fields. Those who would be a bit weaker but whose ear would pick up easily the sounds, those who could blow good whistles, those with a strong voice would be sent to tend flocks of sheep. The weaker ones would be sent to become apprentices to seamstresses and boot makers. The worst ones would be went to school since they were no good for anything with the thought that perhaps they would study and become a `katip` (clerk) so they can keep a record of the wheat, barley, goats and sheep in their weak state as clerks…
Those who would be sent to cut wheat and barley would become `djabbar` (powerful) and would be strong enough to handle two mules easily… A little bit more fragile and with a nice voice would be given to take care of the flock. They would put on his back a shepherd's bag made up of the whole skin of the sheep and they would put water in the water bottle of the shepherd made of gourd and shake it behind him and behind the sheep. And the only thing he would be this, that is taking care of his flock. In the beginning hundreds of sheep would be no different from each other but in time the little shepherd would find out that each sheep in fact has a name and a different character. The little shepherd would learn about their diseases, how to treat them, how to milk them and how to help them deliver their baby lambs… The little shepherd would stay for a long time in the fields and would learn to talk with sheep more than with humans. He would understand
from the eyes what a sheep was trying to tell him. On long summer nights to protect himself from the heat and on long winter nights to protect himself from the cold, he would be sleeping between the legs of the sheep...
And of course, he would learn to make `chakari` (bells hung around the necks of sheep)… After many years the growing little shepherds would come to know that each chakari would produce a different sound and each beat of the hammer on the copper would make the sound of the chakari more beautiful… They would learn that the most hammered copper would produce the best sound and during long nights of winter they would beat sheets of copper to make chakari for their sheep. With each beat of the hammer, they would be able to produce a bell through which they could differentiate the sheep and recognize them from this sound. In short each chakari hung around the neck of sheep would have a completely different sound and would sound different as each sheep walked. Imagine how the shepherd would perceive the sound of a whole flock with chakari producing such a sound… And imagine what sort of an ear that shepherd would have. Being a shepherd needed exactly that
sort of ear in those times…
During the long nights of the summer the flock would be staying on the outskirts of the village, the shepherd would start playing his flute (bityavli) made of bamboo and that flock would listen to that music and would accompany the shepherd's music with their own chakari – there has never been better music composed on this island ever… It would be an amazing sound when especially when the zirziro (crickets) and the owls and the bats would participate in this music but only the Shepherd's God and those who lived on this island would know what a beautiful sound this was…
And then sleep would come… The whole village would sleep with this sound on the threshing floor of the wheat, on their roofs, in their gardens. The shepherds would sleep too but with their ears tuned to only one sound, the sound of the chakari… And if they heard the sound of a chakari, they would know which sheep was not sleeping. Five hundred sheep and on the neck of each sheep a chakari, five hundred chakari and each with a different sound and the shepherd would know which chakari he hung around the neck of which sheep and from the sound of the chakari would know which sheep felt uncomfortable, which one was going where and which one was about to give birth… And he would know their troubles. The shepherds would know which sheep were sad and would take special care of them…
And there were the wells (lakkos) where the sheep would be watered. Those who knew where in Mesaoria they could find water, would take a stick of the English tree and go round and where the stick shivered would put stones to mark this place and two or three persons would dig for days in the heat of the summer with short shovels and short picks (`guspo') until they would find water… Then with donkeys they would carry stones to put around the well so it would not tumble down… It was a skill to dig wells and to find water, not only finding water but also protecting that water was a skill… It was a lifestyle to keep the water in its bed on those long summer days and nights, to pull water with chingo buckets, to put this water in troughs made of marble or palm trees, to water the sheep, to fill the water bottle nerokoloko and to put a little bit of salt in your mouth wrapped in a towel and kept in the vourka… This was a lifestyle of those times…
that is why those who live on this island and the gods know that not a single pebble should be thrown in a well. And will not be thrown. This is only known by those who live and who want to live, they know that they don't own that water and whoever wants can use the well to satisfy their thirst. They all knew that water can be used by whoever was coming there and that some salt would be wrapped in a towel and hidden among the stones for those passers-by to find.
This is known by those who live and who want to live, they know how insolent and how unforgivable it is to throw a stone in a well. And for hundreds and thousands of years on this island, not a single pebble was ever thrown in the wells, until the `organisations` (`teşkilatlar') came along…
The `organisations` came to this island. Everything changed, the old order was destroyed, no respect remained. There came men with guns and started going around. When `organisations` surfaced on this island they produced a book with orders. When `organisations` decided that the easiest target to kill for propaganda were the shepherds with their water bottles, their `jiboyi`, their bags made of sheep skin (vourkas), tending their flocks in the fields, everything changed on this island. The shepherds started being shot treacherously by people who came next to them imitating friendship and with whom they had smoked cigarettes. But the shepherds, just as in the old times had thought of them as friends and would roll a cigarette and give it to them, searching for a little friendship and conversation in their loneliness… How would the shepherds know of the organisation or Enosis or Taksim (`partition`)… Their only concern was how many the yellow headed
sheep would give birth to and how many beats of the hammer they would make on the copper sheets to make chakaris for the newborn and what names they would give to the newborns…
In those years of `organisations`, the shepherds learnt other sounds other than the chakari… They learnt that the sound of the pistols pulled out of the waists of those they came around them and smoked rolled cigarettes with them were quite different. And they learnt that those they rolled and offered a cigarette whom they knew as friends were actually not friends. And the shepherds who had learnt and had taught not to throw a single stone in the wells had to learn that there were different sounds other than the chakaris, that the sound of the flutes would no longer be heard on this island, that the gods of love and the gods of the shepherds had left the island and that the wells were filled up with dead shepherds.
And all of these were written in the organisation books on the island.
Who would be killed for propaganda?
How is a shepherd killed?
And how a shepherd would be thrown in a well dug years ago when throwing a single pebble in a well had been a taboo…
And how about now?
First the gods of the shepherds left the island.
Then as shepherds were killed more and more, there was no shepherd left who knew how to make chakari…
There is no shepherd who knows how to play the flute anymore…
There isn't even wells left behind since wells have been filled up with those who had been killed and buried in wells…
Because in the handbook of the organisations, it was written how to kill a human and how to make that human disappear…
(DR. DERVISH OZER – JUNE 2015)
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of July 2015, Sunday.
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