Berber Motifs

2020-09-28T06:23:15+02:00

There are more than a hundred thousand Berber motifs. Distributed for millennia throughout North Africa, they are everywhere: on murals, paintings, carpets, pottery, tattoos, carved furniture, brassware, leather goods, jewelry, dresses, architecture, wrought iron...

Our whole environment is marked by their presence.

It is obvious that all the Berber motifs cannot fit together in such a small work as this one.

Currently the meaning of the symbols has not been our concern. We have, however, noted the very close relation of the basic elements composing the Berber motifs and the Lybic-Tifinagh alphabet. The older the patterns, the more obvious the resemblance.

When a drawing evolves, it becomes a symbol; at the height of its evolution, it becomes part of a writing system.

So far, the research in Berber motifs has been incomplete, but it seems to us as that the peoples of the Mediterranean basin as much as those of the interior of the African continent (N'si bidi of Nigeria and even the Afro-Cuban Anafurauana) could to be, for the most part, the owners of the meanings of the Berber symbols that the major religions are trying to erase from North Africa.

The shapes of the symbols, just like their meaning, have evolved in time and space but remain, once stripped of all sophistication and embellishment, a subject worthy of research. The research to which this collection will make, we hope, its modest contribution.

The lack of fast memory media, like paper, explains why lybic-tifinagh writing could not evolve. The great variety of slow memory media such as pottery and tapestry explains why the Berbers kept the symmetry of their writing, which ended up in the world of decoration. This bilateral or rayed symmetry is copied from nature.

If among the Tuareg the tifinagh writing is still used today, it is because they have a fast medium without memory, which is the desert sand in which they teach their children to write.

The rock paintings and engravings constitute a slow memory medium par excellence.

If the Berbers were perhaps the first to invent writing, on the other hand they did not invent literature, because they had not been able to invent the best of fast memory mediums: paper. But this is another story, because our Atlantis has yet to be built.

When a drawing evolves, it becomes a symbol; at the height of its evolution, it becomes part of a writing system. When the symbol is confined to slow domestic memory media, such as pottery or tapestry, a world ruled by women, it becomes a motif. The beauty of the sign represented by symmetry, repetition and flourishes relegates meaning to the background. The meaning of the sign remains present nevertheless, becoming a code that only women can understand, erasing the border between the real and the imaginary. Magic and superstitions find their outlet there.

The explanation of this essentially feminine symbolism must be taken care of by women researchers in order to obtain the most objective information possible.

For reasons of economy, so that everyone, and especially craftsmen, can acquire this work, we have limited ourselves to black-and-white print. The conventional colors, limited by the palette offered by nature, are of decreasing importance: red ocher, black, kaolin white and yellow ocher. These colors are still used today.

If among the Tuareg the tifinagh writing is still used today, it is because they have a fast medium without memory, which is the desert sand in which they teach their children to write.

—
Adapted from the publication Motifs berbers by Rachid Sadeg, published by Bibliothèque centrale d’Alger, 1991.
Translated from French by The Travel Club.

Cartographer: Matrakci Nasuh

2019-07-23T12:15:48+02:00

Nasuh bin Karagöz bin Abdullah el-Visokavi el-Bosnavî, or Nasuh el-Matrakči ibn Karađoz ibn Abdullah el-Visokavi el-Bosnevi, commonly known as Matrakçı Nasuh for his competence in the game of Matrak, invented by himself, (also known as Nasuh el-Silâhî, Nasuh the Swordsman, because of his talent with weapons; 1480 – c. 1564) was a 16th-century Bosniak statesman of the Ottoman Empire, polymath, mathematician, teacher, historian, geographer, cartographer, swordmaster, navigator, inventor, painter, farmer, and miniaturist. He was brought to Istanbul after being recruited by the Ottoman scouts in Rumelia, educated, served several Ottoman sultans, and became a teacher at Enderun School.

Aleppo

Matrakçı Nasuh (bin Abdullah; son of Abdullah), born in the Bosnian town of Visoko, was a gifted Janissary who went through both the Infantry and devşirme system, a gifted swordsman, and sharpshooter well known for his intellect; he spoke five languages and was recruited into the Ottoman Navy.

Baghdad

Although born to Bosnian Muslim parentage, Nasuh was drafted into the devşirme system, otherwise reserved for the Christian populace of the empire. Exceptionally, however, in Bosnia, the devşirme was also extended to local Muslim families.

Dinever

After a long period of studies on mathematics and geometry, he wrote his works Cemâlü'l-Küttâb and Kemalü'l- Hisâb and submitted them to the Ottoman sultan Selim I. He wrote also the two books named Mecmaü't-Tevârih and Süleymannâme. They deal with the history of the period of 1520–43. He also wrote a historical piece on the Persian campaign of Suleiman I titled Fetihname-i Karabuğdan. A recent study of his book Umdet-ul Hisab revealed an unknown fact that Matrakçı had invented some genuine multiplication methods. One of the significant results displayed in this book was that the lattice method had been widely used in the Enderun School nearly 50 years before John Napier reintroduced it to Europe.

Eskisehir

Besides his works on mathematics and history, he is famous because of his miniatures. He created a naturalist style which focuses on panoramic views of landscapes and cities painted with the greatest detail (his most famous work, the Istanbul landscape picture, shows almost every street and building of the city). In Ottoman miniature art, this was later known as the "Matrakçı style". The most important of his four historic volumes of miniatures is the one dealing with Suleiman I's Safavid war, upon which he had written his historical work Fetihname-i Karabuğdan. Besides illustrating the march of the Ottoman army from Istanbul to Baghdad and then Tabriz and its return via Halab and Eskisehir, Nasuh also includes all the cities met by the army along the way. The Library of Istanbul University hosts the only copy of this work.

Hereke

Nasuh was also a soldier and a master bladesmith. He worked as a weapons teacher at Enderun School. He and his students demonstrated their skills in a show which was part of the circumcision celebrations of Suleiman I's sons. Because of his success in this demonstration, Nasuh received the honorary title of Ustad ("master") and Reis ("chief") from the Sultan. He also wrote a book about usage of various weapons and techniques of cavalry and infantry fight, called Tuhfet-ül Guzât.

Tabriz

Zanjan

Erzincan

Istanbul

Sultaniye

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Source: Wikipedia

Codex Zouche-Nuttall

2021-08-27T12:55:41+02:00

The Mixtecs were one of the largest indigenous nations in Central America. They lived in several warring city-states, the most famous of which was Tututepec, which flourished in the 11th century under the leadership of king Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, the only ruler who managed to unite several cities into a single state. Like other indigenous peoples of Central America, the Mixtecs were conquered by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. In pre-Columbian times, their population numbered about a million and a half, while today there are about 800,000 of them, and they are mainly engaged in agriculture.

Codex Zouche-Nuttall is a pre-Columbian document created between 1200 and 1521 on the territory of today's Mexico. It was discovered in San Marco Monastery in Florence in 1854, from where it was bought five years later by John Temple Leader and sent to his friend Robert Curzon, the 14th Baron of Zouche. A facsimile version with a preface by Zelia Nuttall was published in 1902, by Harvard University. The Baron of Zouche loaned the document to the British Museum in 1876, which later purchased it.

Codex Zouche-Nuttall consists of 47 plates made of deer skin, painted on both sides. It contains two stories: on the obverse side, the history of the most important centers of the Mixtec kingdom is painted, while on the reverse there are stories about the origin, marriages and political and military successes of Mixtec ruler known as Eight Deer Jaguar Claw. Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist, a specialist in pre-Astec cultures and pre-Columbian manuscripts. In the foreword to the facsimile version of Codex Zouche-Nuttall of 1902, she explains how this document came about:

Like the nine other Mexican Codices in existence, which constitute the finest remaining specimens of native pictography, the present one is painted on prepared deer skin, the strips of which are glued together, at intervals, and form a long, folded band. The surfaces of both sides of the skin are covered with a thick layer of white substance which presents a smooth, slightly glazed surface. On this the artist first drew the outlines of his figures in black, and subsequently filled these in with color. A careful study of the original reveals that the artist prepared small quantities of each color at a time, and that he did not always succeed in obtainin exactly the same shade twice. The scheme of color on the obverse is, moreover, different from that on the reverse, which presents a greater profusion of detail. The paints employed were so fine and skilfully prepared, that for nearly four centuries they have preserved, undimmed, their exquisite beauty and delicacy. According to Bustamante, the native artists purposely witheld from their Conquerors the secret of the knowledge they had attained, through centuries of experience, of manufacturing beautiful and lasting colors from vegetable and mineral substances.

Diwan Abatur and the Mandaeans

2021-04-04T08:23:01+02:00

Mandaeans are the adherents of Mandaeism, a gnostic religion that originated in Mesopotamia in the first tree centuries CE. The majority of Mandaeans today live in Iraq and Iran, and speak a dialect of the Eastern Aramaic language. As their religion has always been secretive and their society very private, most of the historical accounts of the Mandaean religion and culture come from outsiders, and are thus often superficial, biased and incorrect. In her book “The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, their Cults, Magic Legends and Folklore”, published in 1937, British cultural anthropologist Ethel Stefana Drower tried to offer a systematic, balanced account of Mandaean culture. Ethel managed to procure the manuscript of Diwan Abatur, a Mandaean religious text written on a scroll. The translation of Diwan Abatur was published in 1950. Here are several excerpts from her 1937 book, followed by the preface to the 1950 book and selected illustrations from Diwan Abatur.

In Mandaean legends, as well as in those of India and Persia, one finds perpetual reference to wandering dervishes, the wanderers who set out in search of intellectual and spiritual peace.

In the following pages an attempt is made to relate what the author has seen, heard, and observed of the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. of Iraq and Iran. Observations were made over a number of years and furnish a considerable body of new evidence as to their customs, beliefs, cults, and magic. This evidence, we submit, is useful, not only to the student of anthropology, folk-lore, and ethnology, but to students of the history of religions, for the Mandaeans are what the doctor calls a case of arrested development. Their cults, which are regarded by them as more sacred than their books, and older, have been tenaciously retained; their ritual, in all its detail, most carefully preserved by a priesthood who regard a slip in procedure as a deadly sin. Segregated since the coming of Islam from those amongst whom they dwell by peculiarities of cult, custom, language, and religion, they have kept intact and inviolate the heritage which they had from their fathers.

Mandaeans do not adore the heavenly bodies, but they believe that stars and planets contain animating principles, spirits subservient and obedient to Melka d Nhura (the King of Light), and that the lives of men are governed by their influences. With these controlling spirits are their doubles of darkness. In the sun-boat stands the beneficent Shamish with symbols of fertility and vegetation, but with him is his baleful aspect, Adona, as well as guardian spirits of light. The Mandaeans invoke spirits of light only, not those of darkness. All Mandaean priests are at the same time astrologers.

In the sun-boat stands the beneficent Shamish with symbols of fertility and vegetation, but with him is his baleful aspect, Adona, as well as guardian spirits of light.

The great alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates lie between the Far East and Near East and in constant contact with both. From earliest times, highroads have run from the uplands of Iran, from the steppes of Asia, from the deserts of Arabia, from the plains of India, through what is now modern Iraq, to the Mediterranean seaboard. From the first its inhabitants have been subject to influences from all quarters of the civilized globe and ruled by race after race. There could be no better forcing ground for syncretistic thought. Babylonia and the kingdoms of Persia and Media offered natural conditions favourable to the growth of religious conceptions compromising between ancient traditions and cults, and ideas which had travelled from the old civilization of China by way of the Vedic philosophers of India ideas whichspiritualized, revived, and inspired man's belief in the immortality of the soul, its origin in the Divine Being, and the existence of beneficent ancestral spirits. Moreover, in the five centuries before Christ, there was a steady infiltration of Jewish, Egyptian, Phoenician, and Greeki nfluences into Babylonia. Before the Captivities, Jewish communities of traders and bankers established themselves in the land of the two rivers, while mercenaries and merchants passed to and fro between the Far East and the seaboards of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece.

Speculation in the West is mostly conducted from a chair: the adventurer into the realms of thought goes no farther than the laboratory or the study. In the East, seekers after truth were peripatetic : their intellectual vagabondage was physical as well.

The soldier and the merchant, though they contributed as intermediaries in the exchange of ideas, could never, however, have been more than passive 'carriers' of religious thought. In Mandaean legends, as well as in those of India and Persia, one finds perpetual reference to wandering dervishes, the wanderers who, like Hirmiz Shah in the Mandaean story, like Gautama the Buddha in India, or, in medieval times, Guru Nanak, set out in search of intellectual and spiritual peace. Speculation in the West is mostly conducted from a chair: the adventurer into the realms of thought goes no farther than the laboratory or the study. In the East, seekers after truth were peripatetic : their intellectual vagabondage was physical as well. It is certain that where the merchant penetrated, religious wanderers followed; travelling philosophers, ranging from China to India, Baluchistan, and Persia, and from Persia and Iraq to the Mediterranean, using the passes of Kurdistan and the waterways of Iraq.

The Oriental loves metaphysical argument and seeks it: the higher his type, the more addicted he is to this form of mental exercise, and the readier to listen to the opinions of a guest. The result, a leaven of unorthodoxy amongst the intellectual, eventually spread to the masses, first, possibly, as secret heresies, and then as new forms of religion. Here lies the importance of the Mandaeans. Extremely tenacious, while adopting the new at some far distant syncretistic period, they also conserved the old so religiously and faithfully that one can disentangle the threads here and there, and point to this as Babylonian, to that as Mazdean, to this as belonging to a time when animal flesh was forbidden, to that as suggesting a phase when zealous reformers endeavoured to purge out some ancient and inherent beliefs. At such a period as the last-named, the scattered religious writings of the Mandaeans were gathered together and edited. One may surmise that the editors and collectors were refugees, sophisticated priests who, returning to peaceful communities in Lower Iraq, were scandalized at their incorrigible paganism. The emended writings breathe reform and denunciation.

The core or nucleus, of the Mandaean religion, through all vicissitudes and changes, is the ancient worship of the principles of life and fertility. The Great Life is a personification of the creative and sustaining force of the universe, but the personification is slight, and spoken of always in the impersonal plural, it remains mystery and abstraction. The symbol of the Great Life is 'living water', that is flowing water, or yardna. This is entirely natural in a land where all life, human, animal, and vegetable, clings to the banks of the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates. It follows that one of the central rites is immersion in flowing water.

The second great vivifying power is light, which is repres ented by personifications of light (Melka d Nhura and the battalions of melki or light spirits), who bestow such light-gifts as health, strength, virtue, and justice. In the ethical system of the Mandaeans, as in that of the Zoroastrians, cleanliness, health of body, and ritual obedience must be accompanied by purity of mind, health of conscience, and obedience to moral laws. This dual application was characteristic of the cults of Anu and Eain Sumerian times and Bel and Ea in Babylonian times, so that, if Mandaean thought originated or ripened under Iranian and Far Eastern influences, it had roots in a soil where similar ideals were already familiar and where ablution cults and fertility rites had long been in practice.

The third great essential of the religion is the belief in the immortality of the soul, and its close relationship with the souls of its ancestors, immediate and divine. Ritual meals are eaten in proxy for the dead ; and the souls of the dead, strengthened and helped, give assistance and comfort to the souls of the living.

The appellation 'Subba' (singular Subbi) is a colloquial form which this people accept as referring to their principal cult, immersion; but the more formal name of their race and religion, used by themselves, is Mandai, or Mandaeans. Arab authors have sometimes confounded the Mandaeans with the Majus, or Magians, and not without reason, since

the cults are similar. Travellers in the East were wont to refer to them as 'Christians of St. John', and Europeans who have come to Iraq since the Great War know them as 'the Amarah silverworkers'. As the community is small and peace-loving, with no political aspirations, it has no place in history beyond the occasional mention of its existence, and the record that some of the most brilliant scholars of the early Moslem Caliphate were of its way of thought.

Today, the principal centres of the Subba are in Southern Iraq, in the The Mandaeans (or Subba) of Iraq and Iran marsh districts and on the lower reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris ; in the towns of Amarah, Nasoriyah, Basrah, at the junction of the two rivers at Qurnah, at Qal'at Salih, Halfayah, and Suq-ash-Shuyukh. Groups of them are found in the more northerly towns of Iraq: Kut, Baghdad, Diwaniyah, Kirkuk, and Mosul all have Subbi communities of varying size. The skill of the Subba as craftsmen takes them far afield, and Subbi silver-shops exist in Beyrut, Damascus, and Alexandria. In Persia the Mandaeans were once numerous in the province of Khuzistan, but their numbers have diminished, and the settlements in Muhammerah and Ahwaz along the banks of the Karun river are not so prosperous or so healthy as those in Iraq.

Like the followers of other secret religions, the Mandaeans, when talking to people of another faith, accentuate small points of resemblance between their beliefs and those of their hearers. To inquirers they will say, 'John is our prophet like Jesus' (or 'Muhammad', as the case may be) 'is yours'. I soon found that John the Baptist (Yuhana, or Yahya Yuhana) could not with accuracy be described as 'their prophet' ; indeed, at one time I was tempted to believe that he was an importation from the Christians. I became gradually convinced, however, that he was not a mere accretion, and that he had real connexion with the original Nasurai, which was an early name given to the sect. Mandaeans do not pretend that either their religion or baptismal cult originated with John; the most that is claimed for him is that he was a great teacher, performing baptisms in the exercise of his function as priest, and that certain changes, such as the diminution of prayer-times from five to three a day, were due tohim. According to Mandaean teaching, he was a Nasurai; that is, an adept in the faith, skilled in the white magic of the priests and concerned largely with the healing of men's bodies as well as their souls. By virtue of his nasirutha, iron could not cut him, nor fire burn him, nor water drown him, claims made to-day by the Rifa'i darawish.

Jesus too, according to Mandaean theologians, was a Nasurai, but he was a rebel, a heretic, who led men astray, betrayed secret doctrines, and made religion easier (i.e. flouted the difficult and elaborate rules about purification). The references to Christ (Yshu Mshiha) are, in fact, entirely polemical, and for the most part refer to the practices of Byzantine Christianity which awake horror in Mandaeans, such as the use of 'cut-off' (i.e. not flowing) water for baptism, and the celibacy of monks and nuns. The Haran Gawaitha (D.C. 9) mentions the establishment of Christian communities on Mount Sinai. In the cults, Jesus and John are both unmentioned.

Jesus too, according to Mandaean theologians, was a Nasurai, but he was a rebel, a heretic, who led men astray, betrayed secret doctrines, and made religion easier

During the British occupation and the early days of the mandate, as one walked between the Subbi silver-shops in River Street, Baghdad, one sometimes saw a board announcing the proprietor to be a 'St. John Christian', but these, now that Iraq has a national government, have disappeared.

The religious writings of the Mandaeans have never been printed. Down through the centuries, priestly scribes who derived part of their income from such labours copied them by hand for pious Mandaeans who believed the possession of holy books ensured for them protection from evil in this world and the next. Few laymen could, or can, read or write Mandaean ; literacy is mostly confined tothe priestly class. Laymen have complained to me, 'The priests will not teach us to read or write (Mandaean)'. The reason is a practical one : if laymen knew these arts, the priest's prestige would suffer; moreover, writing of talismans and charms would cease to be a priestly monopoly. Mandaeans have nothing to compare with the Gospels which, in their claim to recount the life and teachings of Jesus, have a certain unity, or of Manichaean books containing the actual doctrines of Mani. The Mandaean religion has no 'founder', indeed, from the critical standpoint, few religions can be said to have 'founders' or to be 'new'.

In the year 1622, a Carmelite father, R. P. Ignatius, was despatched by the propaganda in Rome to the Nestorians of Mesopotamia. Whilst in Basrah, he met with members of a sect who, as is their custom when dealing with Christians, told him that their prophet was St. John the Baptist. From them he obtained a roll illustrated by curious drawings of beings which they described as angels or demons. On his return to Rome, Ignatius published a treaatise in Latin about this interesting group of "heretics" whose ceremonies were at once like and unlike those of Oriental Christians, and whose creed was so "strangely perverted and pagan".

The roll found its way into the Museo Borgiano in Rome, where Julius Euting was it in 1879. Euting was deeply interested and persuaded a friend, Dr. B. Pfortner, to photograph the manuscript. This photograph was published in Strasbourg in 1904, under the title "Mandaischer Diwan nach photographischer Aufnahme, von Dr. B. Pfoertner mitgeteilt von Julius Euting". It was not translated.

Early in my dealings with Mandalean priests in the marhes of Lower Iraq, I was shown a copy of Diwan Abatur and after long negotiations, it was arranged that I should have the roll that I had seen after its owner had copied it for himself. The copy was made with skill and care, and the original sent to me. Judging by the paper and other indications, my roll, D.C. 8 of my collection, is about the same date as the manuscript taken to Rome by Ignatius. Neither the Borgian manuscript nor mine is dated, although each has a long list of copyists, showing that the text was an ancient one. A considerable part of the beginning is missing from the Roman roll, but I have been able to compare the remainder of the Borgian manuscript with my own. I discovered no other copy of the text in Iraq, although, of course, other priests may have concealed possession of a copy since, in spide of the inferior and childish quality of the composition and mistakes due to constant recopying, it is looked upon as a precious and holy book.

The illustrations, archaic and suggestive of a Cubist form of art, are identical in both manuscripts. The Subba are clever artists and craftsmen, but tradition dictates that representation of celestial and infernal beings must follow a certain pattern. Drawings like these in the Diwan Abatur are found in the ritual rolls, so that we have here no childish inability to portray a subject, but deliberate convention of a very individual order. A Subbi smith who drew naturalistic pictures for engraving on his silverwork, when asked by me to draw pictures of some celestial beings, produced similar odd geometrical-looking designs.

Emma Fick: Serbia Through Illustrations

2015-01-19T00:10:00+01:00

Emma Fick is a young American whose family originates from the Balkans. She is currently based in Belgrade, where she is on a cultural exchange program. Why do we find Emma so interesting? It is because she developed her own manner of speaking about travel - through illustration, regardless of the general opinion that such stories can only be told using words or photos. This time, we present you her insight into Serbia.

For more interesting illustrations visit Emma's website: www.emmafick.com.

Ingratitude

2012-07-03T14:08:38+02:00

A comic based on an Eskimo fable. Every day, brothers go hunting, but - alas! While they're away, someone is sneaking in and sewing clothes for them! One of them makes an ambush to catch the uninvited tailor. It turns out that the tailor, apart from the clothes, knows how to sew one or two other things as well...

Japan: a Fashionable Melange

2019-08-09T19:21:56+02:00

The commercial power of the English-speaking race which now rules the world drives our people into some knowledge of their commercial ways and habits. The absolute necessity of mastering the English language is thus forced upon us. It is a requisite of the maintenance of our independence in the community of nations. Under the circumstances, our meagre [sic] language, which can never be of any use outside of our islands, is doomed to yield to the domination of the English tongue, especially when the power of steam and electricity shall have pervaded the land.

These words were written in 1873 by Mori Arinori, the Japanese Minister of Education and the first Japanese ambassador to the United States.

After the United States Navy landed on the coast of Japan in 1853, forcing this previously closed country to modernize and integrate into world affairs, Japan's imperial authorities concluded that imitating the West was the only way for Japan to remain competitive on the world stage. So they quickly adopted all the Western ideas, tools and technologies that could help them. One such tool was the English language.

At the time, many prominent Japanese intellectuals suggested that Japan abandon its language and replace it with English. They argued that English had already become the language of science, commerce and global communication, on its way to becoming the only important language of the modern age.

The introduction of English as the official language never came, and Japan did not go the way of Singapore or Hong Kong. Increased interest in Western culture, as well as the penetration of English words, value systems and habits into Japan, came much later, with the advent of Hollywood.

In 1887, Japanese artist Makekichi Tsunajima made a series of prints entitled Ryuukoo Eigo Zukushi, translated as A Fashionable Melange of English Words, printed on hōsho paper. Some of the pictures show objects that were considered western and advanced at the time (toothbrush, pocket watch, hat, gentleman, etc), but for most it is difficult to see why the author chose them. Although some of the words were misspelled, and many even back then, by the end of the 19th century, were by no means modern, the work is a curiosity from a time when it looked like Japan might have gone a different route.

Lost in translation

2014-12-27T11:12:00+01:00

"Words belong to each other," Virginia Woolf said in the only surviving recording of her voice, a magnificent meditation on the beauty of language. But what happens when words are kept apart by too much unbridgeable otherness? "Barring downright deceivers, mild imbeciles and impotent poets, there exist, roughly speaking, three types of translators," Vladimir Nabokov opened his strongly worded opinion on translation. Indeed, this immeasurably complex yet vastly underappreciated art of multilingual gymnastics, which helps words belong to each other and can reveal volumes about the human condition, is often best illuminated through the negative space around it — those foreign words so rich and layered in meaning that the English language, despite its own unusual vocabulary, renders them practically untranslatable.

Such beautifully elusive words is what writer and illustrator Ella Frances Sanders, a self-described "intentional" global nomad, explores in Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World, published shortly before Sanders turned twenty-one.

—

The article originally published on brainpickings.org.

The article was adapted by The Travel Club editorial staff.

Maps: Religions, Plants, Diseases

2021-04-06T06:11:39+02:00

In addition to their obvious purpose and function, maps can be many things: educational and didactic tools, scientific tools, works of art, documents on political history - or all of that at once. Maps can be read as non-linear, non-narrative books, rich in information not only about the places and phenomena they present, but also about their compilers and their views of the world. Almost no map, except the purely physical-geographical ones, can be observed independently of its cultural-political dimension, context and subtext. If we map out religions, only one step separates us from connecting religious distribution with the economic aspects of the regions shown. If we map out diseases, at the same time we have said something about states and people, political arrangements, medicine and health, and the effectiveness (or lack) of public programs for disease prevention and treatment.

Alexander Keith Johnston (1804-1971) was a Scottish geographer, cartographer, engraver, lexicographer and publisher from Edinburgh. Together with his brother William, he founded the cartographic company W. & A. K. Johnston, which printed numerous maps and several atlases since the 1840s. Here we bring three of his maps.

Religions:

A moral and statistical chart showing the geographical distribution of people in accordance with their religious beliefs, with the most important Protestant missionary offices, in the mid-19th century. The map was compiled by Alexander Keith Johnston, a member of the Edinburgh Royal Society. Engraved and printed by William Blackwood and Sons, based in Edinburgh and London. Published May 1, 1854

In addition to religions, this map contains other interesting data, such as a language map of Europe, and an "education progress chart" (percentage of the population aged 7 to 14 considered to be educated at school or from other sources, in the lower right corner). In the lower left corner, there is a legend that explains which colors refer to which religions, and at the same time shows the number of people of each religion, noting that the current population of the planet is estimated at one thousand million inhabitants, which means - one billion.

Protestant missions are shown in particular detail in British North America, India and South Africa, as separate maps.

Click on the map of religions to see it enlarged.

Plants:

Geographical distribution of plants, and distribution of plants in the vertical direction in hot, temperate and cold climatic zones, with marked average annual temperatures, and the coldest and warmest months. The map was published in 1848.

Click on the map of plants to see it enlarged.

Diseases:

The map of health and infections, primarily in connection with natural phenomena, was created in 1856 in accordance with the data of the Royal Epidemiological Society from London. In the lower right corner of the map there is a Graph of the comparative value of life in the countries, as well as a Graph of the comparative value of life in cities and towns. The map also contains a note that the red line represents the movement of cholera from east to west, with the dates when it appeared. The blue lines along the coast represent foreign outposts of the British Navy. The nutrition zones are defined by the crab and goat reversal, and a curved line that begins near the Arctic Circle in the north. In the lower left corner are charts that show tuberculosis ("consumption") and rheumatism.

Click on the map of diseases to see it enlarged.

Maps can be read as non-linear, non-narrative books.

The Jinn of Mehmed Siyah Qalam

2021-04-08T16:12:34+02:00

Jinn (sg. jinni) are supernatural beings in Arabian folklore; some regard them as angels and some as demons, yet they are neither. While man was built from clay and angels from light, as related in the Quran, jinn were created from smokeless fire. And so these creatures were cast into being: with their own powers and free will and the troubles that come with it. In the many stories told about them in “Arabian nights”, jinn posses people and make them commit heinous crimes, but they also grant wishes and give gifts, and visit poets to inspire them with art. The chaos and the confusion they could cause has earned them a spot in the Arabic language; the word for crazy, majnūn (مجنون) means “possessed by a jinni”.

Jinn are invisible to humans, but they do on occasion present themselves in the form of animals, plants, human-like beings or even inanimate objects. The ancient collection of jinn illustrations, known as Mehmed Siyah Qalam (known in Turkish as Siyah Kalem, meaning "Black Pen") contains around eighty paintings of jinn, who are represented as anthropomorphic beings.

While man was built from clay and angels from light, jinn were created from smokeless fire.

It is unknown exactly when and how Mehmed Siyah Qalam came into existence. As the pictures are of varying sizes and artistic styles (many of them influenced by Chinese, Persian, Turkish or Mongol artistic traditions), it is believed that the collection was compiled over several centuries, receiving its current form in the late 14th and early 15th century. One theory is that it might have served as a storytelling prop at the Persian royal court.

Most of the illustrations in Siyah Qalam show jinn, but some also contain historically valuable portrayals of nomadic life, as well as rituals related to the last rites and the culture of the dead.

Even though jinn predate the Quran, they have been acknowledged in it and later as Islam spread across the world so did the they. They found their place in a wide range of cultures, from the Maghreb to the Balkans and Middle-East, all the way to Indonesia. These mythical beings are even present in today’s Western World. The word jinni has been anglicized to genie, and the stories from “Arabian nights” have served as the inspiration for Disney’s classic “Aladdin”, with Robin Williams’ as the benevolent Genie. They have been among us for many centuries and it seems that they will stay for many more to come, with all the mischief, apathy and good will that they had with them so far.

Many of the portrayals of jinn have been inspired by the illustrations in Mehmed Siyah Qalam. The collection is nowadays kept at Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, where it is believed to have arrived following the Ottoman war with Persia in 1514.

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