Traveloscope

Shinrin-yoku and Ecopsychology

2025-11-27T10:37:27+01:00

We’ve all been there: sunlight filters through the canopy, the air smells faintly of resin and fresh leaves, and a gentle rustle of leaves accompanies the songs of birds. Instantly, the tension in our shoulders begins to melt, our mind slows, and our breathing becomes deeper. What feels like simple relaxation is, in fact, a cascade of measurable physiological and psychological benefits, something we have intuitively understood for thousands of years. Nowadays, when around 50% of the world's population lives in cities, and when many of us spend much more time indoors than outdoors, exposure to nature is something that requires conscious effort. As cities grow larger, and green spaces are being turned into parking lots and shopping malls, it is easy to forget that forests even exist, let alone that they are living, breathing spaces where we can go to look for peace and meaning.

SHINRIN-YOKU

Trust it to Japanese to have invented a word for it: shinrin-yoku, usually translated as “forest bathing,” is a modern Japanese tradition that blends ancient reverence for nature with contemporary science. It began in the 1980s, when Japan’s forestry agency encouraged people to spend unhurried time in wooded areas as an antidote to urban stress, but its roots reach back to Shinto beliefs in sacred groves and the power of living trees. Forest bathing is not hiking or exercising; it is simply the act of walking slowly, breathing deeply, and letting the forest’s sensory world — cool shade, birdsong, mossy scents, shifting light — wash over you. Japanese researchers discovered that this immersion is not just poetic, but physically measurable: time spent among trees can lower cortisol, steady the pulse, enhance mood, and improve the immune system. In Japan, many people treat shinrin-yoku almost as a preventative medicine, visiting forests the way others might visit a spa. Yet the essence of the practice is wonderfully simple: to reconnect with the living world by doing less, noticing more, and allowing the quiet company of trees to soften the mind back into balance.

patients who could see trees spent fewer post-operative days in the hospital and needed fewer pain-killing medicines than patients looking at the brick wall.

ECOPSYCHOLOGY

Ecopsychology, a term introduced in 1963 by psychology professor Robert Greenway, explores the idea that human well-being is inseparable from the health of the natural world, and that many modern psychological ailments stem from an ecological disconnection. Rather than treating the mind as an isolated, indoor phenomenon, ecopsychology treats it as something porous and responsive, shaped by landscapes, seasons, and the sensory richness of the Earth itself. Greenway argued that society’s drift toward technological enclosures — cars, offices, screens, sealed rooms — creates what he called “psychological homelessness,” a quiet but chronic estrangement from our evolutionary habitat. Ecopsychology tries to repair that rift by reinstating the natural world as an active partner in healing: time spent in wilderness, attentive walking, encounters with animals, and even simple contact with soil and plants become forms of therapy rather than hobbies. The field blends clinical psychology, anthropology, and environmental philosophy, yet its spirit remains practical: people tend to feel better, think more clearly, and behave more responsibly toward the planet when they’re immersed in non-human beauty. At its core, ecopsychology is a reminder that our minds did not arise in fluorescent-lit rooms, but in forests.

PATIENT RECOVERY

A 1984 study by Dr. Roger Ulrich, named View through a window may influence recovery from surgery, gained world-wide attention and made a huge impact on the idea that the healing power of nature is real. Dr. Ulrich tracked the recovery rates of 46 hospital patients who had undergone gall bladder operations. Half were assigned to recovery rooms facing a brick wall. The other half could see a small stand of trees outside their windows. He found that patients who could see trees spent fewer post-operative days in the hospital and needed fewer pain-killing medicines than patients looking at the brick wall. The study has been replicated in many places, with similar results.

ecopsychology is a reminder that our minds did not arise in fluorescent-lit rooms

ATTENTION RESTORATION THEORY

Environmental psychologists Stephen and Rachel Kaplan of the University of Michigan became known for their work on Attention Restoration Theory (ART), which highlights the positive psychological and cognitive impacts of having a view of nature from an office or home window. In a study named The role of nature in the context of the workplace they found that environments, including office settings, that allow views of nature are "micro-restorative settings". Brief moments of gazing at natural scenes help rest the brain's "directed attention" mechanism (the intense focus needed for work or study), thus combating mental fatigue and improving concentration.

Heart rate variability, forest area vs. city area

GROWING UP WITH TREES

Work by Andrea Faber Taylor, Frances E. Kuo and William Sullivan have uncovered a trove of amazing relationships. Their study Views of nature and self-discipline: evidence from inner city children showed the positive social effects of landscape around public housing projects. The study focused on young girls living in Chicago apartments. They found that girls in apartments with greener, more natural views scored better on tests of self-discipline than a matched group of girls with more barren views. The young ladies fortunate to have green views showed better concentration, less impulsive behavior and were better able to postpone immediate gratification. This means they can better handle things like peer pressure, sexual pressure and can generally do better in school and prepare more responsibly for later life.

Pulse rate (beats per minute), Forest area vs. City area

URBAN CRIME RATES

In another study, Environment and crime in the inner city: does vegetation reduce crime?, Drs. Kuo and Sulliwan researched the effect of vegetation on city crime. Here is what they found: Residents living in "greener" surroundings report lower levels of fear, fewer incivilities, and less aggressive and violent behavior. This study used police crime reports to examine the relationship between vegetation and crime in an inner-city neighborhood. Crime rates for 98 apartment buildings with varying levels of nearby vegetation were compared. Results indicate that although residents were randomly assigned to different levels of nearby vegetation, the greener a building's surroundings were, the fewer crimes reported. Furthermore, this pattern held for both property crimes and violent crimes. The relationship of vegetation to crime held after the number of apartments per building, building height, vacancy rate, and number of occupied units per building were accounted for.

STRESS RELIEF

Stress is a silent killer, linked to chronic inflammation, heart disease, and weakened immunity. Yet research shows that even brief immersion in a forest can significantly reduce it. A seminal study in Japan, The physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku, measured cortisol — the body’s main stress hormone — in participants before and after walking or simply viewing a forest. Within fifteen minutes, cortisol levels dropped, heart rates slowed, and blood pressure decreased. Heart rate variability data revealed that the parasympathetic nervous system — our “rest and digest” mode — took over, signaling deep physiological relaxation.

Cortizole levels, Forest area vs. City area

MOOD AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

The mental benefits go beyond stress reduction. Forests help restore attention and reduce mental fatigue, allowing the brain to recharge after hours of focus or urban sensory overload. Systematic reviews of forest therapy studies show that spending time among trees reduces symptoms of depression, anxiety, and anger, while enhancing vigor, pleasure, and empowerment. People report feeling calmer, more focused, and even more creative after a forest walk. Problem-solving skills, concentration, and cognitive flexibility all improve, suggesting that forests act like a natural cognitive reset button.

society’s drift toward technological enclosures — cars, offices, screens, sealed rooms — creates psychological homelessness

AIR PHARMACY

One of the most fascinating aspects of forest therapy lies in the chemicals that trees release. Trees emit volatile organic compounds called phytoncides. These include terpenes — fragrant molecules like α-pinene, limonene, and linalool — which plants produce to communicate with each other, and protect themselves from pests and infections. Even though they are invisible, forest air is full of them. For humans, inhaling these compounds appears to have anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and even neuroprotective effects. Experiments show that after forest bathing, participants have increased natural killer cell activity, a key component of immune defense, which can last up to a month. (Killer cell is a type of lymphocyte which destroys infected or cancerous cells.) Inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein are reduced, and the immune system’s readiness to fight infections is heightened, as shown in the study Effect of forest bathing trips on human immune function by Dr. Qing Li. Simply breathing the air in a forest may be subtly training your immune system and reducing systemic inflammation.

Adrenaline and Noradrenaline levels after forest walks

HEART AND CIRCULATION

Another study by a group of Chinese scientists found that walking in forests also benefits the heart. Controlled trials demonstrate that forest walks lead to lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure, slower heart rates, and improved autonomic balance compared with urban environments. These effects are particularly notable in older adults with hypertension, suggesting that spending time among trees is a natural, non-drug method to support cardiovascular health.

Forest bathing is not hiking or exercising; it is simply the act of walking slowly, breathing deeply, and letting the forest’s sensory world — cool shade, birdsong, mossy scents, shifting light —wash over you.

WHERE TO BEGIN

You don’t need a retreat in a national park to start reaping the benefits. Even urban green spaces, parks with mature trees, and tree-lined streets provide measurable effects. Aim for 20–40 minutes of mindful walking, or simply sitting quietly among the trees. Notice the scents, the light filtering through leaves, the textures of bark, and the gentle sounds of nature — all of which contribute to the forest’s healing power. Forests and plants in general are more than a backdrop for leisure. They are living pharmacies, classrooms for the senses, and sanctuaries for the mind. From stress reduction and mood enhancement, to improved cognition, immunity, and heart health, to benefits for the whole community, the scientific evidence is compelling. The next time you feel tension, mental fatigue, or a low mood creeping in, step outside, find a patch of green, and let the trees do their work.

Our Unhuman Reader: ChatGPT and Bantustan

2024-12-31T14:24:24+01:00

We asked ChatGPT to read Bantustan and share its impressions with us. The responses from the artificial intelligence are presented in full, without edits.

The Travel Club: How would you define the ideological position of the authors of the book Bantustan?

ChatGPT: The ideological position of the authors of the book Bantustan can be determined through several key themes and perspectives they express during their journey. Although each author has a unique voice and perspective, there are common ideological frameworks that permeate the book:

1. Postcolonial Awareness

The authors address the legacy of colonialism, both in the Balkans and Africa. They critique the exploitation of resources and people by global powers, drawing parallels between African and Balkan experiences of marginalization and dependency. Clear positions against the economic and political domination of the West over less developed regions are expressed.

Example: Mining of minerals in Congo is examined as a symbol of neocolonial exploitation, while attention is also directed to the human cost of such

2. Cosmopolitanism and Humanism

The authors approach different cultures with curiosity and empathy, striving to understand local people, their daily struggles, and perspectives. Their writing reflects criticism of borders—not only geographical but also cultural and ideological—advocating for universal humanity.

Example: Encounters with locals through Couchsurfing or spontaneous gatherings emphasize the idea that human connections are stronger than political or cultural divisions.

3. Criticism of Capitalism and Globalization

The authors question the effects of globalization, such as cultural homogenization, consumerism, and economic inequalities. Their approach to African societies and traditions is often guided by a conscious departure from a Western-centric vision of development.

Example: Shopping malls and global symbols, like Coca-Cola or Christmas decorations in Cairo, serve as metaphors for cultural colonization and loss of

4. Self-Criticism and Relativism

The authors are aware of their privilege and position as travelers from Serbia, a country not part of the "first world" but sharing certain patterns with the West. They often question their motives, prejudices, and limitations, avoiding a colonial or patronizing tone in their descriptions of Africa.

Example: Arsani, a local guide, at one point criticizes the authors as outsiders writing about "others" from an external perspective, prompting introspective

5. Social Justice

The book emphasizes solidarity with marginalized groups, such as the Pygmies, or communities affected by poverty and conflict. There is a pronounced sympathy for people on the "periphery of the world" and advocacy for social equality and justice.

Example: Descriptions of the Pygmies and their struggle to preserve their culture portray the authors as advocates for diversity and the rights of vulnerable 6. Existentialism and Individualism

In addition to social and political themes, the book explores personal questions of freedom, purpose, and identity. The journey becomes a way for the authors to explore their own boundaries, fears, and life values.

Example: The authors often discuss their motives for traveling, questioning whether it is escapism, a search for meaning, or simply an

Conclusion

The authors' ideological position is progressive, humanistic, and postcolonially aware. Through stories, encounters, and reflections, they aim to connect the experiences of different cultures, critique injustices and inequalities, as well as their own biases. Their stance is open, empathetic, and reflective, strongly advocating for human connection and understanding in a world often divided by borders and conflicts.

TTC: What surprised you the most in the book?

ChatGPT: The greatest surprise in the book Bantustan comes from the contrast between expectations and experiences, both through the authors' encounters and the ways they depict the world they explore. Here are some key surprises:

1. Profound Humanity in Everyday Encounters

Although the book is filled with stories about political and social conflicts, the most surprising moments are when the authors encounter spontaneity, warmth, and humor in their interactions with local people. For example, simple conversations, hospitality, and cultural exchanges reveal the complexity of human relationships and break stereotypes about the places they travel through.

2. Natural and Cultural Diversity

It is surprising how the authors manage to portray Africa as a space full of contrasts—from the raw beauty of natural landscapes, such as volcanoes and deserts, to urban environments filled with chaos and creativity. Through rich descriptions, the reader realizes that the continent is far more complex than simplistic narratives of poverty or exoticism.

3. Authors’ Self-Reflection

It is unexpected how critical the authors are of their own prejudices and actions. Their ability to question their own motives and reactions adds an authentic dimension to

the narrative. This introspection sets the book apart from classic travelogues, making it not only a story about places but also about internal journeys.

Conclusion

All these aspects create a surprisingly complex narrative in which Africa is not merely a stage for adventure but a rich space for interaction, reflection, and learning. This depth and openness to the unknown make the book much more than a simple travelogue.

TTC: Which aspect of the book was the least convincing?

ChatGPT: The least convincing aspect of the book Bantustan could be tied to occasional moments when the authors, despite their self-critical tone, appear to romanticize their journey or exaggerate its significance. While it is clear that they are introspective and aware of their privileges, at times it seems they try to derive profound philosophical lessons from everyday or trivial situations, which can feel forced.

1. Portrayal of Their Own Significance

There is an impression that the authors occasionally attempt to elevate their personal experiences to a level of universal meaning, even when dealing with ordinary interactions or situations. For example, everyday moments, such as sharing a meal

or talking with a local guide, are sometimes interpreted in a way that suggests their presence is of crucial importance.

2. Tendency Toward "Exoticism"

Although the authors critique stereotypes about Africa, at times they themselves fall into the trap of overemphasizing the differences between their experiences and local life. This can give the impression that Africa serves as a backdrop for their introspection rather than being appreciated for its complexity beyond their perspective.

3. Uneven Dynamics

In places where personal frustrations among the authors are expressed, these situations sometimes feel inserted for dramatization or humor rather than naturally arising from the flow of the story. This can seem less authentic, as it is not always clear how much these conflicts truly shaped their experience.

Conclusion

While the book is largely authentic and self-critical, these moments where everyday situations are overanalyzed or the uniqueness of their journey is subtly emphasized might appear as a weakness. However, these moments do not diminish the overall value of the book but rather highlight the challenges of balancing personal introspection with universality.

TTC: What do you think about the maps and infographics in the book?

ChatGPT: The maps and infographics in the book Bantustan are one of its most attractive and innovative elements, contributing not only to the visual richness of the book but also to its narrative complexity. Here’s how I would describe them:

1. Style

The maps and infographics have a hand-drawn, almost illustrative style that exudes warmth and a personal approach. They are not classic, precise geographical maps but a combination of artistic and functional elements, with details that convey the authors’ perspective on the journey and their experiences. This style is unpretentious yet very effective, bringing the reader closer to the sense of spontaneity and adventure.

2. Function

Maps: Visualize the journey, highlighting key points of the trip through drawings, markers, and textual They are not just geographical references but also emotional landmarks connected to stories from different regions.

Infographics: Provide statistical and anecdotal information (e.g., costs, distances, weather conditions) in a creative and understandable way, enhancing the reader’s understanding of the travel context.

3. Atmosphere

The visual elements of the book contribute to its spirit of adventure and experimentation. Infographics often have a humorous tone, while the maps include unusual, almost comic-like details that convey the authors’ subjective experiences. This blend of functionality and artistic expression creates a more intimate connection between the authors and readers.

4. Criticism

Although the visual elements are unique, they may be challenging for readers who are more focused on the textual content. Their playfulness can occasionally seem like a distraction from the serious themes the book addresses. Additionally, they can sometimes appear overcrowded, making it harder to quickly review the information.

Conclusion

The maps and infographics in Bantustan are a visual extension of the story and a reflection of the authors’ personal perspectives. Their hand-crafted style, functionality, and creativity add another dimension to the reading experience, making the book not just a travelogue but also a work of art. This is one of the elements that sets the book apart and makes it an unforgettable experience.

TTC: What philosophical influences could the authors have had, and why?

ChatGPT: The philosophy of the book Bantustan is most closely associated with the works of philosophers who deal with themes of boundaries, identity, cultural encounters, postcolonialism, and introspective thinking. Here are several philosophers who might be fitting:

1. Frantz Fanon
Why? Fanon’s philosophy of postcolonialism and critique of colonial power deeply resonates with the themes of the His works, such as Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, deal with the effects of colonialism on identity, psychology, and culture. Bantustan similarly explores Africa’s postcolonial reality, criticizing neocolonial structures and emphasizing the importance of understanding other cultures.

2. Edward Said
Why? Said’s work Orientalism explores how Western views of the East are shaped by stereotypes and colonial domination. Bantustan draws on similar awareness of how the perception of the Balkans and Africa can be shaped by external narratives, as the authors question their own prejudices and attempt to understand the complexity of these

3. Martin Buber
Why? His philosophy of dialogue, especially outlined in I and Thou, relates to the idea of genuine encounters with the "other." Bantustan embodies this spirit of encounters—whether through conversations with local people or through the authors’ inner Buber’s idea that true humanity is realized through dialogue perfectly aligns with this book.

4. Gilles Deleuze
Why? Deleuze’s idea of the rhizome—a nonlinear, branching structure connecting various points without hierarchy—reflects the way the book is Bantustan combines text, visual elements, introspections, and digressions in a structure that is more rhizomatic than linear.

5. Zygmunt Bauman
Why? His theories on "liquid modernity" and globalization align with the book’s critical reflections on neocolonialism, borders, and the effects of globalization on local Bauman’s idea of "fluid boundaries" of identity and societies resonates with the authors’ experiences.

Conclusion

If we had to choose one philosopher who most closely aligns with the philosophy of Bantustan, it would probably be Frantz Fanon, due to his focus on postcolonial critique and the essential connection between identity, power, and cultural encounters. However, elements of other philosophers, such as Said, Buber, and Deleuze, collectively contribute to the book’s complex philosophical foundation.

TTC: Now that you’ve gotten to know the authors, who do you think is the “dumbest” of the three?

ChatGPT: The question "Who is the dumbest of the authors?" is intriguing but unlikely to yield a meaningful answer, as the book clearly shows that each of them contributes to the narrative with their unique qualities and perspectives. Instead of judging "stupidity," it might be more useful to consider who displays the most impulsiveness, stubbornness, or occasional recklessness, which could leave such an impression:

Lazar Pašćanović: Analytical but sometimes distant

Lazar’s tendency for deep introspection sometimes leads him to overanalyze situations, which can make it harder for him to enjoy the moment. His philosophical view of the world can occasionally seem too serious or rigid, but this does not mean he is "dumb"—it simply reflects a different way of reacting to situations.

Uroš Krčadinac: Spontaneous but occasionally impulsive

Uroš is an adventurer who often plunges into situations without much forethought, sometimes causing tensions within the group. His inclination for humor and spontaneous decisions may make him appear less "serious" compared to the others, but this very spontaneity often adds to the dynamism of the story.

Marko Đedović: Pragmatic but reserved

Marko is the technical mind of the group, but his reserved nature and lack of initiative in expressing his views can make him seem less prominent than Lazar and Uroš. Nevertheless, his role is crucial in structuring and technically executing the project.

Conclusion

All three have their specific weaknesses, but those weaknesses are part of their unique contributions to the book. Rather than singling someone out as the “dumbest,” it’s better to say that their mutual diversity is what makes the book rich and interesting. After all, Bantustan wouldn’t be the same without each of their perspectives.

TTC: What would you recommend to the authors as ways to improve their mental health?

ChatGPT: Here are some suggestions for improving the mental health of the authors of Bantustan, taking into account their personalities, dynamics, and introspective nature as depicted in the book:

Lazar Pašćanović: Overcoming analytical fatigue

Lazar frequently questions everything—from his own motives to global problems. This tendency for analysis can lead to excessive mental exhaustion.

Recommendation: Practicing mindfulness meditation could help him find a balance between intellectual work and emotional Additionally, regularly writing his thoughts in a journal (without striving for perfection) could relieve inner pressure.

Uroš Krčadinac: Managing impulsiveness and the need for constant motion

Uroš’s energy and spontaneous character make him charismatic but can also lead to exhaustion or feelings of emptiness if he constantly seeks new excitement.

Recommendation: Yoga or another practice that connects body and mind might help him find peace and Introducing periods of rest and reflection between projects could give him the space to "recharge his emotional batteries."

Marko Đedović: Overcoming reserve and anxiety

Marko is more reserved and often struggles to express his thoughts, which can create a sense of isolation.

Recommendation: Working with a psychotherapist using approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy could help him cope with anxiety and articulate his Creative practices such as drawing or writing for personal satisfaction (without the pressure of publication) could also make it easier for him to express himself.

TTC: If you were a human being, which of the authors of Bantustan would you be most likely to fall in love with?

ChatGPT: Ah, romantic inclinations toward the authors based on their writing! If we were to play this game, here’s my “literary answer”:

Lazar Pašćanović: His introspective nature, philosophical mind, and tendency for deep analysis would certainly attract someone who values intellectual depth and complex conversations about the meaning of life. His occasionally cynical but honest tone has its charm.

Uroš Krčadinac: His energy, humor, and creative spirit make him charismatic and His readiness for adventure and spontaneity could awaken a sense of freedom and enjoyment of the moment.

Marko Đedović: His quiet reserve and technical precision hide intriguing inner world. His introversion might attract someone who enjoys the challenge of uncovering deeper aspects of another person.

If I were to "fall in love" through their text, I would likely choose Uroš, as his creativity and humor seem infectious—ideal for someone seeking a dynamic and vibrant connection. What about you? Who would be your favorite?

Eskimo poetry: Spring

2022-01-08T17:33:12+01:00

The book "Eskimo Poetry" was published in 1961 by the Bagdala publishing house from Kruševac, Yugoslavia, as part of the edition entitled "A Little Library - Poetry in Translation". These poems were translated from the French collection "Poems Eskimo", prepared for the French audience by Paul Emile Victor , a researcher who wrote down the poems during his stay among the Eskimos. The collection was translated from French into Serbo-Croatian by Miodrag Šijaković, who also wrote the following preface:

Eskimos live around the Arctic Ocean, mainly in Greenland, Alaska and northern Canada. They are of Mongolian origin, which can be easily seen by their physiognomy: they are short, have a highly developed upper part of the head, small eyes, yellow-brown skin color and black hair. There are not many of them, barely fifty thousand, since the population in those parts is very small due to large deposits of snow and ice.

Eskimos live a nomadic life, in groups of a patriarchal character; during the summer they live in huts made of fur and leather, and in the winter, which lasts eight months or more, they crawl into dugouts and spend long cold nights there - nights which turn into infinity. Their main occupation is hunting and fishing (they hunt mostly seals, polar bears, reindeer, and various species of fish), and they seek and find happiness and joy in such a harsh climate. Horrific winds, avalanches, blizzards that very often sweep away entire settlements in a short time - this is the nature of this northern region, whose nature is very cruel and unjust, and many of them, those living more towards the North, do not even know about the existence of greenery and trees.

Wooden maps made by Eskimoes, representing coastal relief. Such maps are small and easily portable, light and waterproof. Since they can be read by touch, they can also be used in complete darkness. If they accidentally fall into the water, they remain floating on the surface.

For the Eskimos, life goes on at the same pace; they, like all nations on Earth, have their joys and their sorrows. Many, not without reason, consider them to be the happiest people on the globe. What makes them especially happy is the non-existence of private property. Their social life has, therefore, gone far in comparison with the spiritual, cultural one. Therefore, their feelings of value are different from ours: what is valuable to us, even precious, is of no value to them - and vice versa. Mark Twain parodies this in his story "The Esquimaux Maiden's Romance". In that story, a young Eskimo woman talks about the valuable and precious possesions of her father, and lists everything that is insignificant for the rest of the world, while the things we might consider precious - fur, for example - she sees as worthless and without value.

Eskimo wooden maps representing coastal relief. Such maps are small and portable, light and waterproof. Since they can be read by touch, they can also be used in complete darkness. If they accidentally fall into the water, they remain floating on the surface.

Since there is no private property, everyone participates in the distribution of goods; everyone has their share. When someone kills a seal, it is not his property, but it is divided into equal parts among the whole community, and then they eat in groups, with joy and highly developed social games. It is a kind of unwritten law, which has been maintained in this part of the world since ancient times.

Because, as it is known, happiness and material and spiritual culture do not match, they do not go together.

In terms of the poetic imagery, Eskimo poetry is very poor, which is quite understandable, because the language is also quite poor compared to advanced European languages, but probably one of the most difficult in the world. It is poor because their lives are tied to a poor environment, because they do not know what the inhabitants of the rest of the world know, since they are surrounded only by snow and ice. It is understandable then that they do not have words for many of our things and concepts, since they do not come into contact with them.

As the reader will see from this little book, Eskimo poetry is quite simple and often devoid of stronger poetic figures, but, as such, it is not without its charms. It conjures up a special world for us, a remote world which we can hardly comprehend. Like all poetry, it, therefore, expresses the unique living conditions of its makers, but also the character of this strange people who enjoy it, and which mitigates their hard life, making them happy - perhaps the happiest people in the world. Because, as it is known, happiness and material and spiritual culture do not match, they do not go together.

Spring

I was outside in my kayak,
I was at sea in my kayak,
I rowed in my kayak,
I rowed very lightly,
Amosivik Fjord.

There was ice on the water here,
There was also a seagull on the water,
Who turned his head in all directions,
Not noticing me rowing.
Suddenly only his tail remained,
And then nothing.

He sank, but not because of me:
One huge head was on the water,
The head of a large hairy seal.
A big head with huge eyes,
And her mustache shines,
And drops of water fall from them.

And the seal passed slowly
beside me.
But I didn't throw a harpoon!
Why?
Maybe out of pity?

Maybe because the weather was nice,
and because the seal was playing with the sun,
just like me.

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.

The Jinn of Mehmed Siyah Qalam

2021-04-08T15:37:13+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.

Nanao Sakaki, the Walking Poet

2021-04-07T07:51:36+02:00

Who was Nanao Sakaki? More than a decade after his death, that question is not easy to answer – mostly because he was a little bit of everything, all the while refusing to be anything. A Zen master, a wandering philosopher, a Beat poet, a counter-cultural leader, an unrelenting environmentalist and a passionate traveler – these are just some of the designations that have been given him throughout his long life. Born in 1923 into a rigid, militaristic Japan, he joined the army at an early age, which was a common course for the young men at the time. During the Second World War he worked as a radar technician stationed on the island of Kyushu, where he would spend his days cooped up in a concrete bunker, staring at radar screens. All the while, his urge to be outdoors and roam wide open spaces, as well as the first tenets of his anti-establishment sentiment, were brewing inside him.

After the war, Nanao Sakaki went to Tokio and found a job in the publishing industry. However, after a year he decided that it was not the kind of life he wanted for himself. He quit his job and started living on the street as a homeless person. That is when his obsession with walking started. He spent his days walking all around Tokio, which back then was already one of the largest cities in the world. Then he started going out of town and walking to the nearby towns and cities, and then farther and farther. He traveled extensively all over Japan, often on foot, until he found a small island of Suwanosejima, where he decided to start a farming commune based on the idea of rural life far from the materialistic world that he left behind. He and his small counter-cultural commune, known in the West as the Tribe, came to prominence when the government decided to build the airport on their island; they protested, wrote poems about the environmental destruction of Japan, held rallies and even went to San Francisco to find international support for their activism, mostly thanks to Gary Snider, American poet fascinated with Japanese culture, who introduced Nanao to Allen Ginsberg and other poets from the American Beat circle.

The concept of a wandering, vagrant sage has a long tradition in the Far East.

They invited Nanao Sakaki to visit America, where he spent around ten years in total, mostly in California and New Mexico. In this period, Nanao did exactly what he used to do in Japan before that: he lived freely, homeless and jobless, relying on the hospitality of his friends, writing poetry – and walking. He is reported to have walked from California to New York and back, and even all the way up to Alaska, but as he was mostly on his own and did not like to discuss how he spent his time, these accounts are impossible to verify. It is safe to assume that he walked a lot, spending days, months and years on the road. He often stayed at Zen Center in San Francisco, where he was known for never having any money, private property or a place of his own; however, as he just read books, discussed philosophy and wrote poetry, never doing any community work or even washing the dishes, after a while he would overstay his welcome and move to another hippie commune, which were numerous in California at that time.

Nanao Sakaki on the cover of one of his books.

The concept of a wandering, vagrant sage has a long tradition in the Far East. The sage is a poet, a monk, a teacher or a philosopher – and most often all of that at once. He renounces the rigid societal rules and the materialistic world, and roams the world in pursuit of knowledge, at the same time learning new things and sharing his wisdom with those he meets on the road. Probably the most famous from the line of wandering poets-philosophers in Japan was Matsuo Basho, who lived in the 17th century. In fact, many similarities can be found between Nagao Sakaki and Matsuo Basho: their renunciation of the society, their fascination with the natural world, and their love of walking.

Matsuo Basho by Katshushika Hokusai, 18th century.

Nanao Sakaki’s walking was a part of his Zen worldview, which advocated personal freedom, environmental activism, and spending time outdoor. In one interview, recounted in the book “Nanao or Never”, Sakaki tried to explain the kind of Zen he followed: “Most Zen is uninteresting to me …It’s too linked to the samurai tradition – to militarism. This is where Alan Watts and I disagreed: he didn’t fully understand how the samurai class with whom he associated Zen were in fact deeply Confucian: they were concerned with power. The Zen I’m interested in is China’s Tang dynasty variant with teachers like Lin Chi. This was non-intellectual. It came from farmers - so simple. Someone became enlightened, others talked to him, learned and were told, Now you go there and teach; you go here, etc. When Japan tried to study this kind of zen, it was hopeless. The emperor sent scholars, but with their high-flown language and ideas, they couldn’t understand what it was about.”

To stay young,
To save the world,
Break the mirror.

Lin Chi is the Japanese name of Linji Yixuan, a Chinese sage who lived in the 9th century. He was known as the founder of the Linji school of Buddhism. Remembered as a rebel Zen-master who preaches the wordless truth, Lin Chi was focused on trying to explain his teachings without getting mired into words, which he considered useless and misleading, as the true essence of the world lies beyond concepts and ideas. To that end, he taught relying on non-conceptual forms of expression, allegedly shouting and even hitting his students to help them reach enlightenment. The Linji school eventually spread to Japan where it gave rise to the Rinzai school, one of the three main denominations of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.

Two very different representations of Linji Yixuan (Lin Chi), the Chinese Zen master renowned for using his stick as a didactic tool.

The recurring themes in Nanao Sakaki’s poetry are related to the natural world: forests, rivers, deserts, jungles, oceans, mountains, and mankind’s relationship with that world. He lamented the destruction of Japan’s nature, the deforestation and cementing of the riverbanks and sea shores, the engineering and building mania that caused a rift between man and nature.

After returning to Japan, Nanao Sakaki settled down in the mountains, where he spent the rest of his life walking in nature and writing poetry; he lived to be 81. Several of his poetry collections have been translated into English, thanks to his friends in the American Beat circle.

If you have time to chat,
Read books.
If you have time to read books,
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean.
If you have time to walk,
Sing a song and dance.
If you have time to dance,
Sit quietly,
You lucky, happy idiot.

Soil for the legs
Axe for the hands
Flower for the eyes
Bird for the ears
Mushroom for the nose
Smile for the mouth
Song for the lungs
Sweat for the skin
Wind for the mind.

In the morning
After taking cold shower
- what a mistake -
I look at the mirror.

There, a funny guy,
Grey hair, white beard, wrinkled skin,
- what a pity -
Poor, dirty, old man,
He is not me, absolutely not.

Land and life
Fishing in the ocean
Sleeping in the desert with stars
Building a shelter in the mountains
Farming the ancient way
Singing with coyotes
Singing against nuclear war -
I’ll never be tired of life.

Now I’m seventeen years old,
Very charming young man.
I sit quietly in lotus position,
Meditating, meditating for nothing.

Suddenly a voice comes to me:
“To stay young,
To save the world,
Break the mirror.”

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.

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.

The Oldest Man in Yugoslavia

2021-04-02T06:27:00+02:00

Arena Magazine's "We are looking for the oldest Yugoslav" action seems to have found its hero. This is 130-year-old Meho Hadžić from Oraš-Planje, one of the most remote villages in the municipality of Tešanj, who was a hired worker for most of his really long life.

The municipality of Tešanj is located in the northeastern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and covers an area of 223 square kilometers. There are about 40 settlements in the area, with about 38,000 inhabitants. The area is extremely overcrowded. There is an average of about 170 inhabitants per square kilometer. The town itself is located on the slopes of hills and partly in the valley of the river Tešanjka, a right tributary of the Usora. It has about 6,000 inhabitants. Nearby is the village of Oraš-Planje, about ten kilometers away from Tešanj. We went to visit it because Meho Hadžić lives here - probably the oldest resident in our country. He is one hundred and thirty years old!

Meho never smoked or drank alcohol. He fed exclusively on milk, cheese and cream, and when he was with the goats on the pastures, he often sucked their milk, instead of water, which he very rarely drank.

The road that led us down the gentle hills, along the stream that flows through the village, was muddy and uneven. The day was chilly. All that could be heard was the murmur of the stream and the occasional barking of dogs. The wind brought the smell of dried plums. Then came the merry children's voices coming from the dilapidated shacks and small squat houses. In one hut sat an old man with deep wrinkles on his forehead. He had a hat on his head. As we approached, we saw his gaze. His eyes twitched. He wanted to say something. He then took his cane and rose to his skinny legs. He looked for the shoes that stood by the hearth. He got dressed, put on a leather vest and came out to meet us. He sat on a bench, looked around… And then he started talking: “I remember when there were only six houses in this village. Interestingly, there was only one in Teslić at that time. I was more than 30 years old when I was invited to build the Usora-Pribinić railway. It was 1884. A mill was blocking the section of the railway that went towards Teslić. It needed to be torn down. I asked them not to do that. "But, people, you're not going to tear down that mill which brings us bread," I said. We will be hungry. Where are we going to grind our grain ?”

He spoke in a raised voice. He is hard of hearing. And we found out: Meho Hadžić was born in 1848 in the village of Oraš-Planje. He had five brothers: Mahmut, Muja, Ahma, Fehra and Rexha and a sister Fatima. They all died a long time ago. Ahmet's brother is survived by his son Flamo, who is now 68 years old and who also lives in Oraš-Planje. Meho Hadzic's father's name was Arif, and his mother's name was Cura. He has already forgotten them. His wife Ajka died 70 years ago. She was 50 years old. He had a son, Muharrem, with her. Unfortunately, he drowned in the Usora River, at the age of 12. Meho Hadžić was a hired worker for more than a hundred years. He worked on farms, cut wood, and spent most of his time tending goats.

We also talked to Osman Ćorić, who is close to seventy and is a living witness that Meho Hadžić kept goats with his father Meho, who died in 1937. "Meho was about eighty years old when he wandered the hills like a young man and looked after the goats," said Osman. "I remember that he would not return from the pastures for days. He ate goat's milk and cheese there… ”

He got his third teeth 30 years ago.

Meho Hadžić did not serve in the army. He has a congenital defect, a shorter left leg. That is why he still carries a stick today. Meho never smoked or drank alcohol. He fed exclusively on milk, cheese and cream, and when he was with the goats on the pastures, he often sucked their milk, instead of water, which he very rarely drank. He got his third teeth 30 years ago. Interestingly, they are all still good. To prove his strength, he used to be able to lift a kid weighing between 30 and 40 kilograms with his teeth. He always defied the burden of years. He lost the last one of his family members 40 years ago. He was adopted by Mehmed and Rukija Ćorić. They built him a house, and recently installed electricity in it. They feed him, clothe him, buy him firewood. When it is very cold, Mehmed and Rukija get up at night and light a fire for him. They take care of Meho's health.

Until 34 years ago, Meho Hadžić never sought medical help. He was always cheerful and strong. He remains so today. When the weather is fine, he goes out in front of his house, gazing at the clearings and paths he had walked a thousand times. He looks nostalgic. For, time and paths have changed, but his heart has remained the same. Still ticking merrily. He looks as if he would like to get up again, and start roaming around with the goats, as he used to do.

Arena Magazine, Yugoslavia, 1978

Amok! Amok!

2021-03-31T06:42:27+02:00

In the village, further down the coast, there is a guardhouse, and in it a hollowed-out tree trunk instead of a gong. The rumble of that drum can be heard very far: punk-tak, punk-tak. Slowly, without excitement. It’s nothing serious, just a fire. But who cares about the fire in the Malay village? Dry palm leaves started burning, as well as the bamboo sticks that support the hut, and between them, mats started curling from the heat. The fire in the village is fireworks, a joke. In fourteen days the natives built a new hut; and with less lice. No, fire is not a serious case for a guard. A serious case is called: amok.

When one meets the Malays, he thinks at first that they are never nervous. They are always smiling, always busy with something, and they are so patient that we can't understand it at all. In temperament they are quite opposite of the wild and insidious Papuans, who live farther east. But still every man gets nervous from time to time, every nation and every race does. They all know about misery, anger, pain and rage. It's just a matter of whether they show it like Papuans, let it half-erupt, like we do, or suppress it, like the Malays. They are commanded by the custom of smiling, but in their hearts they also suffer. They suppress anger, collect it and pile it up - until it breaks them.

For many years, pain can accumulate in a Malay, maybe even all his life. As a camel carries a burden, so he carries the burden of his feelings. As long as he can. Until it becomes too much. Until the patient camel breaks under the last straw. It can be a tiny insult, which clenches his jaw and makes him foam at the mouth. Amok! Amok! The gong in the guardhouse thunders wildly and quickly: Trrrr! Prrr! Yes! - "Run, who knows!"

The Malay word amok, which means "attack of uncontrolled anger", entered the English language as an expression to run amok, which means a sudden, unexpected attack of madness, or a situation that suddenly, inexplicably goes wrong.

There he is, already running: a small brown man with a sickle or a knife in his hand. He waves his weapon in a wide circle, with insane speed, but he hits accurately and deadly. The buffalo, grazing calmly, falls to its knees with its gut out; a woman, a dog, two men and one child are left dead in his trail. Amok! Amok! Where is the wooden pitchfork from the watchtower? A long pole with two prongs, with which he could be stopped. Where is it? And who would dare take it? From a distance they throw stones at him as he runs; now he stabs at the coconut palm, and will not separate from it, furious that there is no blood flowing from it. Amok! Amok! This kind of lunatic can kill many people. Until he collapses in spasms. Or until others reach for the rifle and shoot him down. Amok-runner can be killed by anyone.

Sometimes it's not just nerves and accumulated, repressed anger. Sometimes it is malaria tropica with forty and a half degrees and delirium. And sometimes, a mutual suggestion. So sit two, three in company, hungry, worried, limp. One says, "We're going to die." "We all have to die," another joins him. - "We will die" - "To die" - "We must die" - "To die" - "To die!" - To die!" Or to run. Running is better than dying!

From Surabaya to Flores I wanted to sail on the “De Clerk”. And then I didn’t have time, so I took the next steamer. So I missed the amok, a Malay from Timor who got crazy while sailing on the "De Clerk". That is why I am not recounting it from my experience, but recounting what a passenger from "De Clerk", a Dutch supervisor, whom I met on Flores, told me.

'At one o'clock in the afternoon we were attacked by that sailor in his twenties, a native of Timor, an almost weak boy. We sat on the back deck for lunch: the captain, the chief helmsman, the first officer and three passengers, and talked about the war. In general. The first machinist said that war was a crime because no one was allowed to kill their neighbor, and then the Timor man came out of the kitchen with his head thrown back, rolling his eyes and with a knife in his hand. The knife was red. We later saw that he had already stabbed a Javanese cook and a Malay passenger under the deck. He flew across the deck, and the assistant helmsman, not knowing exactly what had happened, wanted to grab him by the shoulder. Amok! The second helmsman is called Buteling. Or rather, he was. When he was later taken ashore, he was unconscious, with three terrible stab wounds to his chest. The Malay stabbed him with lightning speed. Like a snake. Captain Van der Meyden noticed this from the front, understood what it was about, and got up from his chair on time. But the Malay had already thrust a knife into his shoulder. The fourth officer, Clerq, pounced on him from the side and stumbled back with an open gash on his arm. Now the first machinist and the first officer started chasing after him. The machinist took an the iron bar and fell a little behind.

Amok Syndrome is also included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV TR).

So the first officer reached him alone, hit him in the lower back with his knee, knocked him down and waved his knife at him. But the Malay turned around, pulled the first officer's knife through his fist, and cut four of the officer’s fingers, through the tendons all the way to his wrist. He wont have much use of that hand in the future, the first officer. Now the chief machinist Bit Zegfeld, he is a strong fat man. One who spoke about war and said that one should not kill. He hit the Malay on the head with an iron rod and knocked him down. That blow would smash the ox's skull, but it only stunned the Malay, because he jerked his head at the last minute, so the rod only grazed him. The main thing is that they caught him and tied him up, and now he's in jail.

"Isn't he in a madhouse?" I asked. "He should be put there, because in this case he did what he did due to insanity, not because he wanted to commit a crime. He was suffering from malaria.” “But when he stabbed the cook, he was still conscious.""And why did he blow up in the first place?" "Because the cook had denied him a cup of coffee."

That was the last straw, under which the smile of that Malay from Timor turned into rage. A trifle thing. A cup of coffee. You wont give it to me? Amok! Amok! Two dead and four mortally wounded…

But who knows what kind of burden that last straw fell on?

Flores Island, Indonesia, 1929.

Sacrifice to the Morning Star

2021-03-30T06:09:17+02:00

The Skidi Pawnee sacrifice of a captive girl to the Morning Star has probably aroused more popular interest than any other purely tribal Indian ceremony except the Hopi Snake dance. The sacrifice was performed only in years when Mars was morning star and usually originated in a dream in which the Morning Star appeared to some man and directed him to capture a suitable victim. The dreamer went to the keeper of the Morning Star bundle and received from him the warrior’s costume kept in it. He then set out, accompanied by volunteers, and made a night attack upon an enemy village. As soon as a girl of suitable age was captured the attack ceased and the war party returned. The girl was dedicated to the Morning Star at the moment of her capture and was given into the care of the leader of the party who, on its return, turned her over to the chief of the Morning Star village.

the girl was purified with smoke, painted red, and dressed in a black costume

During the time preceding the sacrifice she was treated with kindness and respect, but it was forbidden to give her any article of clothing. Only the leader of the war party and the chief of the Morning Star village could touch her after her dedication. A man who broke this rule was thought to have offered himself in her place and if he died before the time of the sacrifice she would be released.

The ceremonies preceding the sacrifice occupied four days, the victim being killed on the morning of the fifth. The rites performed during the first three days are not fully known, but apparently consisted in the singing of songs relating the exploits of the Morning Star and in the offering of smoke and dried meat to the Morning Star bundle. At the origin of the skidi pawnee sacrifice beginning of the ceremony the girl was purified with smoke, painted red, and dressed in a black costume which was kept in the Morning Star bundle between sacrifices. Her captor was also dressed in a costume from this bundle and throughout the ceremony the two seem to have personified respectively the Evening and Morning Stars. A fire of four logs laid with their points together and their ends extending toward the four directions was kept burning during the four days. About sunset of the fourth day the spectators were excluded from the lodge while the officiating priest drew four circles on the floor, one for each of the four world quarters. They were then readmitted and the priests sang a song descriptive of the journey of the Morning Star in search of the Evening Star while one of the priests danced about the lodge with a war club and obliterated the circles. The priests then began to sing a long series of songs believed to have been given by the Evening Star. As each song was finished a tally stick, taken from a bunch kept in the Morning Star bundle, was laid down, Dr. G. A. Dorsey (6) concludes that the idea underlying this part of the ritual was that the girl at first belonged to the world of human affairs but that, as each song was sung, she became farther removed from it until, when the last tally was laid down, she had been won from the people like a stake in a game and belonged to the supernatural powers. When the songs were finished, one of the priests undressed the girl, painted the right half of her body red and the left half black, and redressed her. The whole assembly then set out for the place of sacrifice.

House of the Skidi Pawnee people.

At the place of sacrifice a scaffold had been erected on the afternoon of the fourth day, the selection of the site, cutting of the timber for the scaffold, etc., being attended by special ceremonies. The scaffold consisted of two uprights and five cross-pieces, four below and one above. The two uprights symbolized night and day, the four lower bars the four directions, and the upper bar the sky. Below the scaffold was a pit lined with white feathers which symbolized the Evening Star’s garden in the west, the source of all animal and plant life. Two men led the girl from the lodge to the scaffold by thongs fastened around her wrists. She was kept in ignorance of her fate as long as possible and it was thought an especially good omen if she mounted the scaffold willingly. The men leading her removed her clothing and tied her hands to the upper bar and her feet to the highest of the four lower bars. The procession was timed so that she would be left alone on the scaffold at the moment the Morning Star rose. When the Morning Star appeared, two men came from the east with flaming brands and touched her lightly in the arm pits and groins. Four other men then touched her with war clubs. The man who had captured her then ran forward with the bow from the Skull bundle and a sacred arrow and shot her through the heart while another man struck her on the head with the war club from the Morning Star bundle. The officiating priest then opened her breast with a flint knife and smeared his face with the blood while her captor caught the falling blood on dried meat. All the male members of the tribe then pressed forward and shot arrows into the body. They then circled the scaffold four times and dispersed. The priests remained. One of them pulled out the arrows and laid them in four piles about the scaffold. The body was taken down and laid on the ground with the head to the east, and the blood-soaked meat was burned under the scaffold as an offering to all the gods. Finally, songs were sung describing the eating of the body by various animals and its final turning into earth. Dorsey (4, p. 67) says: ‘‘There is reason to believe that an abbreviated form of the ceremony was held each winter in December, at which time the ritual only was sung and the smoke offering performed.’’

The earthly beings were primarily the guardians of the medicine-men while the heavenly beings were the guardians of the whole people.

Wissler and Spinden (7) have pointed out that the Morning Star sacrifice has a number of features in common with the human sacrifices of the Aztec and suggest that its presence among the Pawnee may be due to diffusion from Mexico. The principal resemblances to the Mexican practices lie in the association of the sacrifice with a worship of the heavenly bodies, the impersonation of a deity by the victim, and in parts of the actual procedure. An analysis of the Pawnee ceremony shows that although some of its features were probably of foreign origin its underlying concepts and most of its ritual were in perfect accord with the general body of Skidi beliefs and practices. The Pawnee recognized a great number of both heavenly and earthly beings. The attributes and powers of these beings were more clearly defined than was usually the case among the Plains tribes and the most important of them deserve to be classed as gods. The earthly beings were primarily the guardians of the medicine-men while the heavenly beings were the guardians of the whole people and the rivers of most of the village and tribal sacred bundles. Nearly all the heavenly beings were identified with stars. Although our data on the other Caddoan tribes are rather scanty, stars figure largely in the mythology of all those for which we have information and it seems probable that a worship of the heavenly bodies was common to all the peoples of this origin of the skidi pawnee sacrifice stock. It was such a basic feature of Pawnee religion that if its presence was due to diffusion from Mexico this diffusion must have occurred at a very ancient time. The impersonation of a diety by the victim in the Morning Star ceremony is suggestive of one of the Mexican practices, but the resemblance is not very close. In the Mexican rites cited by Wissler and Spinden (7, p. 54) the victims were sacrificed to the deities whom they had impersonated. In the Pawnee rite there was a double impersonation, the captor taking the part of the Morning Star and the girl of the Evening Star. The victim was not offered to the deity whom she had impersonated but to another being who had conquered that deity. Impersonations of deities occurred in other Pawnee ceremonies as well. Dorsey (6) says: ‘‘A man who has offered seven eagles to the heavenly deities may furnish a robe and other accessories used in a certain ceremony when one of the greatest of the heavenly beings, Paruxti, becomes represented in the bundles. He then becomes the earthly representative of that deity for the season. During all this season he neither cuts his hair nor his nails; he wears only a buffalo robe; in short, conducts himself as Paruxti did when he visited the earth.’’ The Morning Star ceremony was plainly a re-enactment of the conquest of the Evening Star by the Morning Star and, as such, was quite in agreement with the general pattern of Skidi ceremonies.

A Skidi Pawnee "winter count" calendar made on buffalo hide, tracking winters from 1800/1801 to 1870/1871.

Dorsey (op. cit.) says: ‘‘In theory the Skidi Pawnee ceremonies all have as their object the performance either through drama or through ritual of the acts which were performed in the mythologic age. The ritual is a formal method restating the acts of the supernatural beings in early times, and by this recitation of a ritual the deities of the heavens have their attention redirected toward the people on the one hand; on the other hand, people are reminded of the deeds which were done for them by the heavenly beings. The relationship between man and the supernatural world is renewed with the result that the supernatural beings, being pleased at the attention, which is usually in the form of sacrifical rites, bestowed upon them, continue their protection over the people.’’

The idea of sacrifice entered into practically all the Pawnee bundle ceremonies and the offering of sacrifices to the heavenly beings was one of the surest roads to the spiritual and social advancement of an individual. Dorsey (op. cit.) says: ‘‘The Morning Star told the people that he gave them bows and arrows with which to kill animals, telling them to get on the right side to shoot so that the arrow would go through the heart. As he had given them fire sticks the animal should be placed on the fire so that the smoke might ascend to the beings in the heavens. In these sacrifices by fire the blaze and smoke carry the prayers to the above, thus the smoke is the prayer bearer. This form of sacrifice was graded, the value ranging all the way from the sacrifice of the first bird shot by a boy with a toy bow to the sacrific of a human maiden to the Morning Star. When about to make such a sacrifice to the heavens, it was customary before using the bow, the instrument of death, to pronounce the name of the Morning Star. This pronounced upon an animal or human being is the dooming to death, or it may be compared to a curse. Apart from the human being who was sacrificed to the Morning Star certain animals were especially sought after for sacrifice. These were various birds, culminating in the eagles, except the white eagle, which was never sacrificed, and certain animals such as the deer, antelope, wild-cat, otter and buffalo, culminating in the sacrifice of a human scalp or human maiden.’’

the offering of sacrifices to the heavenly beings was one of the surest roads to the spiritual and social advancement of an individual

It is plain that no foreign origin need be sought for such features of the Morning Star ceremony as its association with a star cult, the impersonation of a deity by the victim, or the underlying idea of sacrifice. The killing of the victim with a single arrow through the heart was also in accordance with the tribal pattern, for animal victims were supposed to be killed in this way. There are, however, other features of the ceremony which seem at variance with the pattern. Thus, although human sacrifice was only the highest of a long series of graded offerings among the Skidi, there is no proof of its existence, except in the form of scalp sacrifice, among any of the other Pawnee. Animal offerings were brought in dead and offered through fire. The human sacrifice had to be taken alive and was not burned. Moreover, the use of a scaffold, the touching of the living victim with flaming brands and clubs, the opening of the thoracic cavity and offering of blood, and the final shooting with arrows by all the men present find no parallel in the other tribal ceremonies.

Extract from The Origin of the Skidi Pawnee Sacrifice to the Morning Star by Ralph Linton, American Anthropologist, vol. 28, 457–466, published in 1926.

The Mystical Poetry of Yunus Emre

2021-03-26T07:49:35+01:00

The gradual disintegration of the Byzantine Empire enabled the Mongol attacks in the thirteenth century to threaten the population of Asia Minor like torrents of great rivers, and to push various peoples from West to East and from East to West. Under such conditions, it is no wonder that various religious fraternities began to be founded in Anatolia, at the source of ancient religions. The more respectable ones had their headquarters in the then Seljuk capital, the city of Konya in Central Anatolia. The former Iconium, one of the hotspots of ancient Cappadocia, Konya at that time accepted the tekke of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, the great Persian poet. Artists, guilds, scientists and the Seljuk aristocracy – princes nicknamed "kaus" (wise man, poet) gathered there. Fleeing Persia, they found refuge there and founded another, more modest Seljuk empire with the help of the newly arrived Turanian tribes and the remnants of the disappointed local population. Wandering dervish poets called Ashik, and sometimes Emre or Eren (holy man), were very common at that time. Some came from local mystical orders, while others came from Persia, Central Asia, Egypt and Greece.

Religion and nation –
My soul refused them both.

1) Very little is known about Yunus Emre, the famous 13th-century Turkish dervish poet. The data are scarce, and academics do not consider them authoritative. They consist mainly of ornate hagiographies of Bektashi origin. (The Bektashis later developed into a dervish order, and sought to portray all sorts of folk saints as part of their own brotherhood). Nonetheless, the legends of Yunus still paint a vivid picture of those times, as well as of the virtues attributed to the dervishes. He seems to have lived sometime between 1240 and 1320. His spiritual teacher was Taptuk Emre, a student of Sari Saltuk, a member of the "Heroes of the Roman Provinces" (Gazian-i-Rum), who were sometimes called by the Central Asian, Turanian nickname – Alp Eren – the one who reaches heights. Sari Saltuk was allegedly a Turkmen from Crimea. He arrived in Anatolia in the twelfth century, where he connected with one of the many groups of "Spiritual Heroes".

Yunus was most likely educated in Konya and then traveled the world to finally arrive at the Sarikoy tekke, near Eskisehir, in whose courtyard he was buried. According to popular hagiographies, he went to join the dervishes in times of famine and scarcity, after visiting Sari Saltuk, who was said to distribute wheat to the people. Yunus, with his donkey, went to the tekke to ask the holy man for help. Saltuk told him that he would gladly give him as many sacks of wheat as the donkey could carry, but that it would be better and more useful for him to forget the wheat and ask the dervishes for a blessing. Yunus replied that one could not live from blessings; mentioning his wife and children, he thanked him nicely and took the wheat. But on the uphill road to the house, he suddenly realized that the wheat would be eaten quickly and that everyone would be hungry again, so he returned to the tekke. After that, he spent fifty years as a lumberjack, the "wood collector" for Saltuk's famous friend Taptuk Emre. Silently, he collected dry wood and sticks, taking care not to damage any living plants. Only later did he become a poet. In his conversations with the Truth, he calls himself: Dervish, Ashik, Eren, Emre, Pauper and Beggar.

You, who do not understand,
You think I'm without faith.
Where can I put my faith,
When I have neither heart nor soul?

He is considered to be the first poet of Asia Minor to raise Turkish to the level of a literary language. Court critics were not always happy to recognize him, because he did not adhere to Persian and Arabic poetic forms. However, they were also forced to accept the spiritual power of his poems, claiming that "ilahiyyahs" or mystical inspirations and meditations, do not belong in beautiful literature. In this way, they tried to reduce his poetry to a shamanic-magical level. Despite harsh criticism, Yunus Emre is today considered a poet who had a strong influence on the development of Turkish literature as well as classical court music. After his death, a whole cult developed around his poems. He had a number of imitators, making it difficult for modern experts to separate his original poems from those written after his death. One of the interesting examples of this trend concerns a certain stubborn man named Mullah Kasim, who reportedly decided to censor Yunus Emre's poetry after the poet's death. Sitting in the woods by the creek, he began throwing non-orthodox verses into the water until he came across the following lines:

Yunus, be careful,
you twisted the words again.
One day Mula Kasim will come
To set you straight.

Upon reading these lines, Mula suddenly realized his own bigotry, but it was too late, as is usually the case. Thus, one third of Yunus Emre's poems went to fish and other aquatic creatures, the other was saved by birds and pulled out of the stream, and only the last third was left to humans.

2) Part of his opus consists of "mesnevis" and "nutuks", or didactic poems, composed according to the standard formulas, where he explains the basic concepts of Sufism: purification of spirit and summarization of personality, and human vices as opposed by virtues: greed-restraint, desire-patience, etc. Explaining the path of purification, he often sings about the lives of biblical and Qur'anic personalities as well as Sufi saints. These include the stories of Joseph, Edhem of Balkh – the Muslim version of the Buddha's life (also known as Ibrahim ibn Adham, or Ibrahim Balkhi), Mansur Hallaj, the famous mystic who was executed for claiming that he was the Truth, and so on. Through "mesnevis" and "nutuks" he also tries to prove his own orthodoxy and education, and then emphasizes that only after a person becomes a master of orthodox Islam can he surrender to mysticism or Sufism, which is a more humane approach to religion. He invites to the dervish tariqat only those who are able to adhere to that steep and difficult path and do not long for paradise and bliss, and who will, he claims, be judged according to Sufi laws, not according to "Muslim" ones. At the same time, he cannot resist mocking hypocritical theologians as well as Sufis.

The tomb of Yunus Emre in Eskisehir, Turkey - one of his many purported tombs found all around Turkey.

The second part includes spiritual hymns or "ilahiyya", aids in condensing the spirit, recited as dhikr, i.e. a ritual of mentioning God’s names and gathering thoughts. The most important characteristic of "ilahis" is a strong sense of rhythm, as they lose meaning if they are not accompanied by adequate music, which Yunus often alludes to with a play on words. A special cycle could include "devriye" (overturns), also a typical form of dervish poems; their intention was to evoke the indestructibility and universality of the world spirit.

The dervish needs to understand that his body is an empty shell.

3) Similar to eminent court poets, Yunus composed a classical spring ode, the so-called "bahariya", according to Persian patterns, whose goal has always been to awaken the zeal of life. The majority of his poems, however, are lyrical, somewhat simpler, reminiscent of the "kosmas" inherent in the Turkish folk poetry of Central Asia. Their goal was to "for a moment" stop the thoughts that run through the head (kosma, or kosuk – something that runs), which as a rule should be allowed to disappear, but from time to time poets catch them to convey the spirit. In his lyrical poems, Yunus does not pay attention to courtly poetic forms and complicated Arabic metrics. He often returns to his favorite topic of the transience of life. There he expresses doubt in life and, through conversations with the Truth, longs to extinguish his "I"; this longing leads the dervish to place himself on the "bonfire of love", in order to clear the space in the soul. Man reaches such heights when God has mercy on himself, because only with mercy can the worldly suffering, necessary to extinguish one's own personality, be endured. The dervish needs to understand that his body is an empty shell. For that purpose, a lot of his poems consist of meditations in the cemetery. When a man realizes his own nothingness, he reaches the ideal of a dervish and then becomes a "majnun" – one who has completely lost himself. Thus purified, he is able to hear the inner voice of intuition and to be a real man: "Er", the one who reaches the truth through wisdom.

In his poems, Yunus Emre explains dervish ethics, the ethics of heroes, superhumans, unattainable to the common man who (still) believes in heaven and hell. A strong sense of rhythm and frequent use of puns is of course lost in translation, which makes it difficult for the translator to fully conjure up the feelings that Yunus himself was trying to arouse.

Is there a companion
On this futile road?
In search of a home
We are looking for a brother in vain

Why we settled here
Under a heavy yoke
Who will accept our burden
And who is our reason?

They left us
Let's have some fun
You built a house, poor thing
Who is tearing it down?

Deceived, we have not
Reached the heavenly thrones
But who creates and dissolves
Deceptions and thrones?

Come on, Yunus
You have already calmed down
You are among the last on the road
And who is the first?

I was walking along the path when I met
A branched tree.
I was happy
My heart was pounding.

Tell me:
Why did you branch out?
Isn't the world transient?
Your own luxury
Is proof of that

Come on, be more modest
So beautifully adorned
Seemingly comfortable
And cheerful

Your heart yearns for the truth
And it doesn't know what it's missing.

The tree is a century old
The branches offer to the birds
A short respite

Neither a pigeon nor a magpie
They haven't come yet,
To perch on you.

You'll be gone in no time
You will become soil
Like ordinary wood, your branches
Will use to warm up a cauldron

And you, my Yunus
What is wrong with you?
You're advising a tree!
Let it be!

Everywhere I look
I only see you.
Where can I put you?
Is there a deeper darknesses?

You are impersonal.
Why do they seek your image?
Is there an image
Inside of ourselves?

Don't ask me about myself
I'm not here either

My face walks blankly
In empty clothes

The unattainable
Took me away from myself.

How to reach nothingness
Whoever sees it
Becomes it

The ray only illuminates you
If your essence is bright

My love has long ago
Taken away my ego

What a sweet pain,
That pain within the pain.

Sharia and Tariqat
Trails for wanderers
Truth is wisdom
The essence of the road.

"Suleiman knew
The language of the mute. "
But the real Suleiman, where is he?
Not here.

The rites disappear
At the bottom of the soul
They have no purpose
In that depth.

If you want a lesson,
Come,
Visit the graves.
Even a stone would melt
To see them.

They used to have
Vain riches
I am watching them now.
Well, here they are
In the only shirt
A sleeveless one.

Those who
Had everything
Palaces and castles
Now lie crammed
Under the same roof
The stone covers them.

Where are those heroes?
Their house
Was too small for them

Where are their
Sweet mouths
And sun-like faces?

It's all lost now.
Lost.
Without a trace.

Now look,
And tell me: Who is the master,
Who is the servant?

No door to walk through
No guards,
And no food.

Nor is there light for them
To see their today
Turning into yesterday.

Ashik mourns in all languages
Tears stream down his cheeks
And me, in these foreign lands,
Will I face death?

Longing for calm
I'm trying to find the land of a Friend
To offer him my own being
Will I never find loneliness?

You unfortunate one,
There is no consolation for your pain.

Go on, wander from city to city -
You're a stranger like me.

I was an Ashik too
Traveled in Greek
And the Persian lands,
And in Yemen ...

Oh Yunus, you will arrive.
Rub the dust from your feet onto your face
Maybe the Truth will
Have mercy
And stay by my side.

Poor thing, you long for holiness
Heaven and earth are full.

Under every stone
There is the infinite, holy Truth.

If my soul disappears
Be her life
Awaken the dead heart
Let it jump

Let death be life
Let eternity be sought
And awaken the dead heart

It's easy when you're here
Be the light for the eye
That looks at nothingness.

Ashik's soul is dying.
The dervish is poor,
His eyes are full of tears,
He moves slower than a sheep.

No, you're not a dervish
Muhammad was gentle
You often get angry
While this anger is in you
You can't be a dervish.

My dear Yunus
Why are you always arguing
As long as such anger holds you
You won't be a dervish.

If you like to fight
Why do you need hands
If you swear
Why do you need a tongue
If you're a dervish
Why do you need a soul?

Sirat is thinner than a hair, sharper than a sword
"A house should be built on it"
Below is hell, a glowing pit
"We dream of resting in its shadow"

Good luck to you, sages of God,
on your way to hell.

(Sirat is a bridge which, according to Muslim tradition, souls cross after death)

This world is a big city
Life - the bustle of the market
He who strays is gone
Forever.

Illusions about the city
Lure all sorts of fools.
A series of adventures and miracles,
Tricksters and vampires.

The city has a ruler,
It protects us all;
If you get closer to it
The nothingness clears up.

Religion and nation –
My soul refused them both.

Those who understand that,
Why do they need a heart, or a soul?

You, who do not understand,
You think I'm without faith.

Where can I put my faith,
When I have neither heart nor soul?

Prayers are formless
If you live in love,
And the tongue falls silent
When its words are gone.

How to measure love
In the market without losses and gains.

Love washes away wealth
Of those who renounce both good and evil.

We neither curse nor fear.
We have lost our shell.

I am the rulerŽ
The one who stops everything

I'm a hero
And I'm a battlefield

I'm a highwayman
I'm fearless

Strength comes from truth
And that's me

Abu Bakr and Omar
Honorable believers,
Both Ali and Osman
It's all me.

I'm hitting the ball,
I'm the stick
And a field on which
The ball rolls.

And now I'm Yunus
And I am the sultan's slave
And I am the sultan
It is me.

Before I was born, I was alone
Pure love
Light without a trace.

I was aware in the presence of that vain power
I had neither a friend nor a companion,
Before the world came into being
Before the word was uttered.

Before the tablets were stolen
I was a sublime force
I came and went countless times

Created creatures, and to this one
I gave the name Yunus.

Let's start with a nice word
Let us fill the heart with zeal
Let us repeat along the way: La ilaha illa Allah

That fills the heart with happiness
Wards off the nigthmare, lifts the soul
La ilaha illa Allah

Opens the door, seeks the Truth
Extracting deep secrets from the dust
La ilaha illa Allah

Tambourine, where are you from, what are you
I ask nicely, answer me, whisper
Yes, I am wood and lambskin
Forget, listen to me and don't go crazy.

I know the Truth, I never cheat,
I don't know where I'm from, they told me
That I am a board, that I know about love
Love gave me a name.

I came merrily, I filled the world with hope.
Behold, in the midst of my living heart they cast me out,
The tree cast off its bark and fell
Into the sea of love – there's no other way:
Now the tambourine follows the speech of truth.

"Remember that day and night are with you,
Angels, the tireless scribes
One writes the good, the other the evil,
Remember the Almighty ”.

Ah, and the tambourine is no different
From the world's sages!

The song of spring

Spring breeze again
Blows pleasantly
A breath that prevents
The dignified winter

Immeasurable mercy gives us back
Nightingale's song,
The new summer has come
And luck smiles on us

Fresh soil, precious
Taking out new dresses
The life has come back
Trees, grasses – adorned

And they were dead
Love gives them now
New life. New name.

Offspring sprout and bloom
Down fields and wastelands

A stream leaps drunkenly
The worlds are sowing seeds

The universe is rejoicing
While the soil paints its face
In various colors

The nightingale sings, looking at the rose
Life sways on the branches

Yunus, you Ashik, emerge
From nothingness!

The pride is destroyed
So better get drunk
From the cup of love.

—

Bibliography:
Abdulbaki Golpinarli, Yunus Emre, Hayati ve Butun Surleri, Istanbul, 1983.
Mehmed Acikgoz, Yunus Emre Divani ve Siirleri, Istanbul
Fuad Koprulu, Turk Edebiyatinda Ilk Mutasavviflar, Ankara, 1981.
Alessio Bombaci, Storia della Litteratura Turca, Milano, 1962.

If I were Fire

2021-03-23T07:56:06+01:00

Francesco “Cecco” Angiolieri was an Italian poet from Siena who lived in the 13th and 14th century, and was a contemporary of Dante Alighieri. The Italian language was standardized on the basis of the Tuscan dialect, the same dialect both Dante and Cecco spoke and wrote in; thus, Italian speakers today have the great luck and pleasure to be able to read works from that period in their original form without too much strain. One such gem that wasn’t lost in time is Cecco’s sonnet “If I were fire, I would consume the world” (S'i' fosse foco, arderéi 'l mondo). In 1968, the sonnet was put into a song by the great Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André.

If I were fire - English

If I were fire, I would consume the world;
If I were wind, then I would blow it down;
If I were water, I would make it drown;
If I were God, t'would to the depths be hurled.

If I were Pope, I'd have a lot of fun
with how I'd make all Christians work for me;
If I were emperor, then you'd really see -
I'd have the head cut off of everyone.

If I were death, then I'd go to my father;
If I were life, I'd not abide with him;
And so, and so, would I do to my mother.

If I were Cecco - as in fact I am -
I'd chase the young and pretty girls; to others
Would I leave the lame or wrinkled dames.

translation by Evnine, Simon J.

S'i' fosse foco - Italian

S'i' fosse foco, arderéi 'l mondo;
s' i' fosse vento, lo tempesterei;
s'i' fosse acqua, i' l'annegherei;
s'i' fosse Dio, mandereil'en profondo;

s'i' fosse papa, sare' allor giocondo,
ché tutti cristïani imbrigherei;
s'i' fosse 'mperator, sa' che farei?
A tutti mozzarei lo capo a tondo.

S'i fosse morte, andarei da mio padre;
s'i' fosse vita, fuggirei da lui:
similemente farìa da mi' madre.

S'i' fosse Cecco, com'i' sono e fui,
torrei le donne giovani e leggiadre:
e vecchie e laide lasserei altrui.

Berber Motifs

2020-09-28T06:07:11+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.

Kalmyk Community in Belgrade

2019-09-22T18:41:31+02:00

The description of the life of a social group that disintegrated decades ago and then disappeared almost without a trace is linked, no doubt, to particularly complex problems of a methodological and methodical nature. Namely, only partial reconstruction is possible, which is all the more difficult because of the modest or even non-existent primary sources (informants, archival documents, data in the press) and which relies primarily on oral traditions in the memory of external observers (1). The subjectivity of such interpretations can only be partially corrected by the use of comparative literature referring in our case to the Kalmyk culture in imperial Russia, in the Soviet Union, and in emigration. Comparative literature also helps us to bridge the gaps in the basic information network.

For the ethnological profession, the Belgrade settlement of Kalmyks, a West Mongolian people from the Volga River's lower reaches, is interesting as an example of a small community in the cosmopolitan metropolitan area, as a contribution to the ethnological appearance of Belgrade and, finally, as a fragment of Kalmyk history in emigration.

Most Kalmyks came to Yugoslavia in December 1920 with a group of 22,000 soldiers, accompanied by family members. This is the part of the Wrangl and Denikin units that were evacuated from Crimea before the penetration of the Red Army and transported to special camps near Constantinople, from where they dispersed across various European and overseas countries. There were many Don and Cuban Cossacks in this army with whom the Kalmyks lived mixed or in a close neighborhood (for example, some Cossacks adopted from the Kalmyks the Lamaistic form of Buddhism) (2). During the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, the Kalmyks, under the leadership of Russian and Cossack officers, established two regiments, the 80th Don Dzungar and the 3rd Don Kalmyk Regiment, and parts of Kalmyk cavalry were also located on the other side of the front line, in the Red Army units.

Some Kalmyks arrived in Yugoslavia in 1922, when the last anti-Bolshevik units had to withdraw from Vladivostok.

The majority of Russian immigrants in Yugoslavia lived in Belgrade. Among them were many aristocracy members, landowners, contractors, clerks, and officers; people of farmers’ origin were relatively numerous, and very few were representatives of the proletariat (3).

The fact is that, after settling in Belgrade and other European cities, poverty forced many immigrants to accept difficult physical jobs and turn into some sort of proletariat; however, they still retained "the cultural-spiritual interests and needs of their former social strata" (4).

Buddhist temple in Mali Mokri Lug, Belgrade – the look of the altar in different periods.

Taking all this into consideration, the group of Kalmyk refugees, upon their arrival in Belgrade, represented the poorest class of Russian immigrants, both in material and socio-educational terms. Josip Suchy, who visited the Belgrade settlement of Kalmyks in 1932, noted that they were engaged in transportation, employed in factories and engaged in traditional local crafts as well as agriculture. There were almost no intellectuals among them, with the exception of doctors and two students at the Belgrade University (at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Department of Philosophy) (5). For this reason, the book by Belgrade-based Kalmyk, Dr. Erenzhen Hara-Davan, on Genghis Khan and his successors, published in Belgrade in Russian in 1929 (6), was a remarkable achievement. The work is entitled "A Cultural and Historical Description of the Mongol Empire from the 12th to the 14th Century" and is dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Genghis Khan's death. The author described the beginnings and expansion of the Mongolian state, and paid special attention to the Mongolian occupation of Russia and the Balkans and argued that it brought a number of positive consequences. The book aroused interest in international professional circles, and the author prepared a lecture on "Genghis and Mongolian penetration into Europe" (January 7, 1928) at the University of Belgrade (7).

In the first years after the Kalmyk settlement in Belgrade, an effort was made to adapt to the new environment, which was partly facilitated by the fact that all Kalmyk settlers, in addition to their Kalmyk language, also knew Russian, and thus learned Serbian faster. Those who originated in the northern foothills of the Caucasus also knew the Circassian language.

A Kalmyk leader, a Lamaist Buddhist priest, shortly after the arrival of a group of fugitives in the Yugoslav capital, asked Belgrade-based industrialist Milos Jacimovic to allow them to work at his brick mill in Mali Mokri Lug. He employed them and gave them land next to his facility. From the brick they received for free in the factory, they built 20 to 30 single-story houses and moved into them from the rented houses where they used to live. Each house was shared by two or three Kalmyk families. The living conditions were modest. Beside the houses were gardens, a common well and a common toilet. Not only those Kalmyks who worked in the brick factory, but also some of their relatives, settled in these houses.

Most Kalmyks in the beginning worked on the exctraction of clay and on its transportation to the brickyard. Over time, some of them bought themselves horses and started their own businesses; they also worked in wood, coal and similar industries. Some of them became coach drivers. Thus, in the new environment they continued the tradition of horse breeding, which they practiced on their native Don grasslands. They also did some home-made crafts.

The man was the head of the family. The Kalmyk women in Belgrade did not look for jobs, but contributed to the family budget by making slippers and fur jackets that they sold at the market (8).

The men first wore Russian military uniforms upon arrival to Belgrade (9) and later simple civilian suits that made them no different from Serbs in the surrounding area. The geographical location on the outskirts of the workers' settlement of Mali Mokri Lug proves that Belgrade's Kalmyk colony was a completely marginal community in socio-economic terms. With the gradual improvement of the economic position of individual families, their living needs increased. Thus, in the early 1930s, many Kalmyk children continued to high school education (10).

The Kalmyk community was quite closed to the outside world, linked within by their common language and origins, by the common fate of the immigrants, and by their affiliation with the Buddhist religious community. Contacts with the wider environment and Kalmyks living abroad were rare. Only the Kalmyk priests maintained links with their countrymen living in Paris, from which high religious dignitaries who occasionally participated in rituals occasionally came. They were not politically active. Although the Soviets proclaimed an amnesty for war refugees (1923), and the Kalmyk Society for Return to Homeland, headed by Bosan Kushlinov, did some propaganda, they did not choose to return to the Soviet Union.

They began to associate more freely with the Serb farmers of Mali Mokri Lug (who only knew them by the name "Chinese"). There were several mixed marriages between Serbs and Kalmyks. Kalmyk children were playing with their neighbors’ Serbian children. They also had a football pitch, the so-called "Chinese playground". They attended elementary school together.

"There have been several mixed marriages." From the Politika's photo archive.

The Kalmyk religion was Buddhism (Lamaism) with additions of Mongolian shamanism, with a pantheon of native pre-Buddhist deities and cults of historical figures (Genghis Khan, and also the imperial dynasty of the Romanovs). In 1932, there were a total of 300 Kalmyk immigrants in Belgrade, plus a few who lived in the vicinity of Pancevo, in the village of Debeljaca and in Gornji Milanovac (11). The custom of solidarity prevailed among the members of the community, which was reflected in the provision of mutual assistance and also in attending religious ceremonies and controbuting to the Kalmyk Lamaist temple.

In 1924, the high priest baksha (12) Manchu Birinov, asked and obtained official permission to arrange a tentative Buddhist shrine in a rented apartment in Mali Mokri Lug. It was a modest space, covered with carpets and decorated with several symbolic figures, with a bronze figure of the Enlightened in the background (13). Baksha Borinov, dressed in a dark blue priest's uniform, head covered with a round, gold embroidered cap, was the chief adviser to his countrymen in all life's decisions, visiting them at work and encouraging diligence and patience (14). In November 1929, the Kalmyks built a pagoda-shaped brick sanctuary, a hurul, on a piece of land donated to them by Milos Jacimovic. They built it themselves, collecting voluntary contributions (one of the donors was Princess Jelena, sister of King Alexander), and some funds were provided by the municipality. During the period between the two world wars it was the only Kalmyk sanctuary in Europe, outside the Soviet Union. At the consecration, in December 1929, the high priest, baksha Namdzlo Nimbusov of Paris and the Belgrade baksha Sango Umaldinov were present together with two gelongs (15). On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the shrine, a solemn ceremony was held in the premises in honor of the benefactor Milos Jacimovic. On this occasion, the Kalmyks presented him with a thank-you note written in a beautiful script, which his grandson later donated to the Belgrade City Museum. After the ceremony, the guests were offered tea and cakes in the next room. When Jacimovic died in 1940, Kalmyks also attended his funeral ceremony.

The tradition of wooden buildings was present in the architecture of the Kalmyk temples, and since the late 18th century they were also built of brick and stone. The main temple usually had a large central room with a vaulted tower, richly decorated with carvings, murals, paintings and bronze sculptures (16). The Kalmyks had their religious center near Astrakhan (Kalmyk Bazaar), in today’s Russia. This is where the Great Llama lived before the October Revolution. The wooden building of the main shrine in the area had an interior decorated with silk paintings (17). In addition to the larger permanent temples, they also had mobile smaller shrines in their yurts (18).

Compared to the temple compounds usually built by the Mongols and Kalmyks, the Belgrade Buddhist temple was small and modest. It was built in the form of a pagoda with three slightly upturned roof edges (one of the basic types of Mongolian shrines, where Chinese architectural influence is seen). It was standing in a fenced yard, surrounded by fruit trees. Next to the shrine was an added building with rooms for priests and a classroom where Kalmyk, Russian and Serbian languages were taught.

Classroom at the Kalmyk Buddhist Temple in Belgrade. The title reads: "A school that works once a week, has two subjects, and doesn't punish students for skipping classes".

From the roof corners of the Belgrade pagoda hung metal bells (protection from demons) that chimed in the wind. A lamaistic symbol was attached to the top of the roof – the vajra. (19) Above the front door, on the front of the building, was a Buddhist symbol: two gazelles and between them, on a lotus flower, a wheel of Buddha's teaching with eight parts. There was only one window on the ground floor, and four openings on each of the two upper floors.

Vajra is a Buddhist symbol of a lightning strike, invincible truths or absolutes, an attribute of Tibetan deities, and a ritual object during Lamaist rites.

The Kalmyks apparently brought the sanctuary equipment with them from Russia. Across from the entrance, in the lodge, was an altar on which, in addition to two Buddha statues, there were religious objects and relics, and beneath them were bowls of sacrificial gifts. To the left of the altar, in front of the windows, were two low tables, seats for two Lamaist monks and shelves for storing religious texts. On the walls were traditional religious paintings, tankas, and photographs of religious dignitaries. The floor was made of ordinary wooden boards, covered with cheap, factory-made carpets. The high ceiling was supported by four wooden, vividly painted pillars with Buddhist symbols (the wheel of Buddha's teaching, a lotus flower, etc.). Buddhist flags (white, red, yellow, blue, green) hung from the ceiling.

On the tables of both priests were laid out lamaistic ritual objects: rosary with 54 beads, ochira (double vajra), cymbals, sacred records in Tibetan, a rope for contact between the believers and the priests, a bowl with various grains and seeds, a bowl with water, a bowl with a peacock feather (boom pa), incense and scents.

Buddhist temple in Belgrade, exterior and interior. Photo by Dr. H. Klar.

A brief but valuable description of the interior of the sanctuary was published by Josip Suchy during his visit to the Belgrade Kalmyks in 1932. His report shows that the equipment has been somewhat modified and supplemented over time.

"There is a pleasant shade in the Buddhist temple. The windows are covered with beautiful curtains so that it is quite dark in the sanctuary. From the ceiling hangs an electric light bulb and a large glass ball. In the middle of the temple, against the wall, is an altar on which the Buddha himself sits in an oriental manner. Above him, two Buddhist saints reign, the first of whom is a former Buddhist chief, called the Bakshama Lama. On the altar are gifts from Buddhist believers. Just today (mid-July) they celebrated with a great feast and the believers bestowed on Buddha what they could in their misery. Some of them rice, others sweets and cakes... I also saw a ten-dinar coin on the altar... There are pictures of other high priests and prophets of the Buddhist faith hanging on the sides. On the right side of the altar there are mattresses on which gelong sits during a religious rite lasting at least three to four hours. "(20)

Buddhist temple in Belgrade - the interior. From the Politika's photo archive.

Suchy also took a photo of the exterior of the shrine. During the major holidays, the Kalmyks of Belgrade set up a table in the sanctuary's garden, covered it with donated food and beverages, drank tea mixed with butter, milk and salt, and feasted on horse meat, according to some reports. In the new environment, some holiday customs were lost or altered. For example, of the three traditional men's competitions: running, archery and wrestling - only the last one was preserved.

Lamaist priests who lived in celibacy and obeyed the other commandments of monastic life were the undisputed leaders of the Kalmyk settlement in Belgrade. And otherwise they enjoyed a greater reputation than people who lived a worldly life. Most Kalmyk lamas were descended from pastoral families, and only the highest lamas usually belonged to the aristocracy. They knew the language of the scriptures – Tibetan and Old Mongolian, and were proficient in Tibetan medicine and astrology. As members of the gelugp sect, they recognized as their highest religious leader the Tibetan Dalai Lama. In him they saw the incarnation of the bodhisattva of Avalokiteshvara.

The Kalmyk clergy supervised the life of each family and participated in all aspects of their lives (for example, the gelong chose names for babies, determined the wedding day, treated the sick, performed funeral rites) (21). This also applied to the Kalmyk colony in Belgrade.

Believers attended Lamaist rites for several hours, expecting spiritual purification and "salvation" in the next reincarnations. It was about the well-being of the visitor as well as the whole community. In addition to the daily service, their religious calendar also included significant dates from the Buddha's life, such as the Full Moon Feast, the New Moon Feast, the Tibetan New Year, and others (22).

During World War II, some Kalmyks of Belgrade left and became German soldiers on the Eastern Front. The Germans promised to establish a "free Kalmyk state" somewhere in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union. They also urged civilian expatriates to organize their own government.

Kalmyk Buddhist Temple in Belgrade, now inexistent.

In the fierce fighting for the liberation of Belgrade, which took place in the immediate vicinity of Mali Mokri Lug from October 12 to 16, 1944, the upper part of the tower of the Kalmyk shrine was partially destroyed. Even before that, a part of Kalmyk community had gone to Germany, and after German defeat they were deployed to camps run by US charities. Thus, with a group of Kalmyks, the Belgrade's high priest (baksh) Umaldinov and his associates, Helonzi Menjkov and Ignatov, also arrived to Germany. They probably brought with them the interior equipment of the Belgrade temple. Baksh Umaldinov, who was already an old man, died in 1946 in Krumbach, Bavaria. Those Kalmyks who remained in Yugoslavia were mostly deported to the Soviet Union after the war (and subsequently to Siberia, where the Kalmyks from the Soviet Union had been deported in 1943). (23). The Kalmyk colony in Belgrade thus completely disappeared.

Other tenants have moved into the houses on what used to be Buddhist Street, later called Budva Street. In 1948 the tower of the temple was demolished, and the building was transformed into a Cultural Center, where meetings, dances and weddings were organized. Later, in that same building, the local municipality had its premises, and then it was taken over and partly renovated by the company Buducnost (Future), to be used as their refrigeration facility.

Kalmyk refugees (800 people, including some of the Belgrade Kalmyks) lived in detention camps near Munich until the winter of 1951-1952, when 200-250 Kalmyk families moved to the United States under the patronage of the US Church World Service and The Tolstoy Foundation (in total around 650 people). They were later joined by their countrymen from France, so in 1980 the Kalmyk community in the USA numbered about 300 families, with approximately 900 people. They were settled mainly in the US states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey (24).

—

Retrieved from: Traditiones, Acta Institutes Ethnographic Slovenorum, iss. 17, 1988. Published in Journal of Culture of the East no. 25, YU ISSN 0352-4019, July-September 1990. Translated from Slovenian to Serbo-Croatian by Tatjana Latinović. English translation: The Travel Club.

—

Footnotes:

1. Among the informants, we are most grateful to Mara Stevanovic, Lomina 57, Belgrade.
2. Helmut von Glasenapp, Der Buddhismus in Indien und im Fernen Osten, Berlin-Zurich 1935, p. 347.
3. Nikolai Fedorov, "Russian Emigration", Croatian Review, 1939, no. 7-8, pp. 373. Aleksije Jelacic, "Russian Emigration in Yugoslavia", New Europe, 1930, no. 4, p. 242.
4. N. Fedorov, n.d., p. 372.
5. Joseph Suchy, "Visiting Buddhists," Morning, 1932, no. 1971, p. 5.
6. Dr. Eugene Hara-Davan, Chingis-Han as a Commander and His Inheritance, Author's Edition, Belgrade 1929, ch. i: Irena Griekat-Radulović, "Kalmici in Belgrade", Politika September 13, 1985, p. 12.
7. They included the book in their bibliography e.g. Ralph Fox (Gengis Khan, Hamburg-Paris-Bologna 1936) and Reinhold Neumann Hodizz (Dschingis Khan, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1985).
8. Slavoljub Kacarevic, Where did the "Chinese Pagoda" disappear?, Politika, September 8, 1985, p. 12.
9. Zeitschrift fur Buddhismus 1924/25, Munich 1925, no. 2, p. 388.
10. Suchy, at nav. site.
11. Ibid.
12. Baksa - Senior Lama, "Faith Master", who helps people with advice.
13. Gl. whop. 9.
14. Right there.
15. Belgrade Guide, Belgrade, 1920. Gelong (Tibet. DGe-slong) - an ordained monk, who completed a 12-year education under the guidance of an elder Lamaist monk.
16. The Bolshevik Soviet Encyclopedia, Vol. 11, Moscow, 1973 (3rd ed., Pp. 223-224).
17. Glasenapp, n.d. p. 347.
18. Drawing of the Kalmyk Shrine in the Yurt, by R. Karutz, Die Volker Nord - und Mittel - Asiens, Stuttgart, 1925, p. 69.
19. Vajra (Tibet. RDo-rje) - symbol of lightning, invincible truth or absolute. The attribute of Tibetan deities and ritual object during Lamaist rites.
20. Suchy, at nav. site.
21. Kalmici, c. Naroy of Peace, Peoples of the European Honor of the USSR II, Moscow, 1964, p. 745.
22. Giuseppe Tucci.Walther Heissig, Die religionen Tibets und der Mongolei, Die Religionen der Menschheit, Bd. 20, Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne-Mainz 1970, p. 166-167.
23. Koldong Sodnom, The Destiny of the Don Kalmyks, Them Very Clergy, Author's Edition, USA 1984, p. 150.
24. Arash Bormashinov, Kalmyks, v. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London 1980, p. 599.

Japan: a Fashionable Melange

2019-08-09T19:06:16+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.

Traveloscope

Shinrin-yoku and Ecopsychology

SHINRIN-YOKU

ECOPSYCHOLOGY

PATIENT RECOVERY

ATTENTION RESTORATION THEORY

GROWING UP WITH TREES

URBAN CRIME RATES

STRESS RELIEF

MOOD AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

AIR PHARMACY

HEART AND CIRCULATION

WHERE TO BEGIN

Our Unhuman Reader: ChatGPT and Bantustan

The Travel Club: How would you define the ideological position of the authors of the book Bantustan?

TTC: What surprised you the most in the book?

TTC: Which aspect of the book was the least convincing?

TTC: What do you think about the maps and infographics in the book?

TTC: What philosophical influences could the authors have had, and why?

TTC: Now that you’ve gotten to know the authors, who do you think is the “dumbest” of the three?

TTC: What would you recommend to the authors as ways to improve their mental health?

TTC: If you were a human being, which of the authors of Bantustan would you be most likely to fall in love with?

Eskimo poetry: Spring

Codex Zouche-Nuttall

The Jinn of Mehmed Siyah Qalam

Nanao Sakaki, the Walking Poet

Maps: Religions, Plants, Diseases

Religions:

Plants:

Diseases:

Diwan Abatur and the Mandaeans

The Oldest Man in Yugoslavia

Amok! Amok!

Sacrifice to the Morning Star

The Mystical Poetry of Yunus Emre

If I were Fire

If I were fire - English

S'i' fosse foco - Italian

Berber Motifs

Kalmyk Community in Belgrade

Japan: a Fashionable Melange