Musa Anter. Photo Ozgur Ulke.
Recaizade Ercument Ekrem Talu (he is from the elite of the Ottoman Empire). In his biography he describes his birthplace like this: the Marmara region is the most civilised area of Turkey, Istanbul (Constantinople) is the most beautiful city of Marmara, Bosporus (Bosphorus) is the most pleasant part of Istanbul, Sariyer is the loveliest suburb of Istanbul, Yeni Mahalle is the best part of Sariyer. The Recaizade family's villa is the most beautiful villa of Yeni Mahalle. I was born here of course he is the son of Recaizade Ercument Ekrem Talu.
Musa Anter. Photo Ozgur Ulke.
Let us look at my situation: Kurdistan is Turkey's most backward region, the city of Mardin is the most backward city of Kurdistan, Nusaybin town is the most problematic town of Mardin. Stelile (renamed Akarsu, by the Turks) is the poorest small town of Nusaybin. Zivinge (renamed Eski Magara by the Turks) is the most backward village of Stelile and according to the registry office I was born at Caye Door Number 2.
You could say "What is the point of knowing about such a dull and backward life?" I think there is a reason. We know that experiments on mice and rabbits have resulted in many lives being saved. They are humble animals unlike the lion, tiger or elephant. But they have helped humans and equally my life has been as humble and simple as that of the mice or rabbits.
Over the last 50 years the regimes in power (in Turkey) have made so many experiments on me just as laboratones make experiments on mice and rabbits. What I hope to do here is to inform you of all these experiences both good and bad. I am sure that having read about them, my readers will achieve a better understanding of Kurdistan and my part in it. While these regimes' carried out their experiments on me I suffered a lot, I was beaten, I was kept for months in a cell which was only the size of a grave and had mice, fleas and excrement in it. My business life was deliberately ruined by the regime causing me to go bankrupt. While I was under arrest and my wife was in hospital, professional thieves burgled our house in Istanbul (in broad day- light). I never wanted anything from anybody for all my suffering, neither reward or punishment, but I have received both.
If you imagined that I deserved punishment ment, I have certainly received more than my fair share. But I also had my rewards as well. For a writer, to predict the future in his work and when 20 or 30 years later his predections become reality, that is reward enough for him or her. My past writings which resulted in me doing time in prison, is the reality of Turkey today. My second reward is that I was able to get out of my cave and am writing for you- my readers. Traditionally writers say: "my life is part of my country's life which cannot be taken away from me or readers can find my country and the history of humanity in my memories". This is not my way of writing. Napoleon's or Hitler's memories would cover their military greatness but my memories cover the minutiae of life. To cure some illness, the surgeon needs at times to remove a small part of the patient's body. The surgeon then works on these small parts to prepare a report in order to make a decision sion. I am like one of those small parts taken from my country's body. The authority which took mj sick country took 40 years to decide I was not a cancerous growth. By the time they reached this decision they had opened many holes in my body. So my memories were originally conceived and were going to be written in the Kurdish language, but with the Fascist regime banning our Kurdish language and identity I have been forced to write my memories in a foreign tongue-Turkish. It is for this reason I ask my readers to forgive me if my Turkish is not perfect. If Turkey in my lifetime ever becomes a civilised country I would like to rewrite my memories in my mother-tongue, Kurdish. I am sure that written in the Kurdish dialect of Kurmanci, my writing would be more beautiful and more meaningful. Perhaps then readers could compare the two versions and understand how sad it makes me to write in a foreign language. I wanted to write my life story ages ago. But alas, 70 years have come between myself and my memories! When two young people, Bahoz Savata and Mehmet Selim Okcuoglu entered my life and in such a sensible way asked all manner of questions about my past then I again thought of my memoirs and they gave me the incentive to start. I want to thank my family and friends and all the other people who have encouraged me to write these memoirs but most of all I thank those two young people. I embrace them and give them my love.
Musa Anter.
March 1990, Dragos
I don't know where I was born. After all, who would be interested in the life of a child born in a cave. I was approached several times to write my life story, but because I thought it of little interest I never seriously considered it. However as with all humans I grew older and my memoirs accumulated until I felt the need to write them down. This is what the great and famous Kurdish poet, Ahmede Xane says in preface of his Kurdish-Arabic dictionary Nubara Bicuka; "I did not write this book for the famous and the intellectuals but as an inspiration for Kurdish children".
So I take my inspiration from this great man and write my memoirs for the children in the hope that it will hold a light for other cave children. The village I lived in was called Zivenge which in Kurdish means "winter place". This was no sports and leisure area the like of which people from rich nations frequent. The caves were where the flocks were kept in the winter. There are many places in my country named Zivenge, but each takes its tribe's name as well. So ours would be called Zivenge Tamika, while others were called Zivenge Habizbinya, Zivenge Bohtan etc. There have always been some people from the caves who were interested in education. The famous Kurd, Mele Ehmede Cizri's literature was translated from Kurdish into Arabic by Mele Ehmede Zivinge. He later became a religious leader for the Syrian town of Kamisli. For 7,000 years our caves were known as Zivinge but now without consulting the inhabitants the brutal government, just as if they were naming a cat or a dog, renamed our caves Eski-Magara (Old cave ). So after 65 years I suddenly became a resident of Old-caves. It is interesting to reflect that when Bulgaria allegedly started changing Turkish names to Bulgarian there was an uproar as being against human rights. I wonder if the Bulgarians learnt this trick from the Turks? It was not just the caves that changed names, but again without asking the Kurdish inhabitants, village were given Turkish names as were cities, so that, Diyaribakir became Diyarbakir, Elaziz- Elazig, Dersim-Tunceli and Samrah became Mazidagi etc. Some cities were allowed to keep their original names but Turkish names were added to these. I do not know why but they forgot to change the name of Mardin city, I suppose they could have called it Poor Mardin! The village of Old-cave is situated in the middle of the plain where the mountains of Tur Abdin meet the plain which stretches to Iraq and Syrian. It consisted of 20 houses and this area had been inhabited by humans through four geological ages..
Some parts of the caves are natural while others are man made. There is no drinking water but rain water which is collected in tanks for use. An attempt was made to pipe water from Stelile (new name Akarsu) but it was unsuccessful. Even as a child I can remember whenever the water ran out, people going to neighbouring villages to collect water at standpipes. The village's income comes somehow from an agriculture sans water. Lentils, wheat, chick peas and barley are grown. Some land grows hairy cucumber. melon. water melon, but one of the most important crops is Soya-bean (gene and oil from this plant is used for lighting as it has been for centuries. Our village has very big caves, making it suitable for cattle breeding. There are no strangers in the village. Our farm was the village. When the Ottomans first came our village was registered in my great grandfather's name Antere Mihoteze. Since then the family has grown and divided between our relatives. The village is 25 km north-west of the town of Nusaybin. There.are signs that this area once had vineyards but today you would not be able to find a single grapevine. There are still 8 barrels for squeezing grapes and the discovery of so much broken pottery around indicates that wine was made here even before Islam. After the arrival of Islam, people changed to making heavy syrup (grape juice boiled to a sugary solid grapemolasses) Other people living here who were not families were allowed any land that we had no use for. These people would work for us and take orders from us and would also give us one tenth of whatever they produced. It was all done in an agreeable and happy way. When the tractor arrived everything began to change, with people becoming more selfish and leaving the area. We called the people who worked for us neighbours. Our neighbours went to the towns and cities to work and found suffering there, but because they are still our friends whenever we meet we hug and talk about the good old days. My experiences with my family and our life together helped me be successful at school and that was perhaps the reason I wanted to become a writer; my family were small landowners. Traditionally a landowner's income is like a family charity and my father and mother, like their ancestors, carried on this tradition. We used to have an area with a room just like an hotel. Whoever came to visit the village stayed in this room free of charge. As well as visitors, troubadours or religious people would call regularly and were provided for. Some of these visitors played traditional Kurdish music on traditional instruments and also told stories, while the religious singers would have their own special instruments to accompany their singing. They would also sing the classical songs of Kurdish poets. I now know that these songs were taken from the poetry of Melaye Cizire and Feqiye Teyran. These songs told of the brutal treatment and the genocide that the Ottoman and later on the Republic (Turkey) inflicted on the Kurds. They told of the 1925 Sheikh Said uprising and of the women losing their husbands, children and possessions. People came from the towns of Lice, Kulp, Dicle and the city of Diyarbakir to take refuge in our caves. My mother and the other villagers fed them. Amongst the refugees was an old women called Xeco who had lost her husband, two sons and two son-in-laws in the Sheikh Said uprising. 65 years later I can still hear her tell her story with a voice full of bitterness and choking with tears. It left a lasting impression. Despite these stories we also played happily just like any other children. We used to play Vesartok, Xezale, Holi, Qijimkal, Lak and other games I no longer remember. We used to Dlay with pieces of glass bottle and mar parties girls and boys did not play together, because the games the boys played were tough, mostly like army training Some games were like karate and judo. For example Pein was a kick game and Vesartok consisted of climbing on each other' s backs. In Xezalok we boxed each other while other games were like modern hockey, only the Kurdish ball unlike the European, was made of wood. The teenagers played a game called Xuckanik. At feast times (Xuckanik game) the teenagers of neighbouring villages would come and stand in rows opposite each other and then start boxing each other. It could look like a war zone and sometimes boys would be injured. Nobody was offended by this, hut would look upon it as a display of bravery and training. It w as all good training and every Kurdish boy and teenager took part in it. There is a saying in Kurdish: when a boy's age is asked, the father replies "Gihaye Tifinge", he can use a rifle! When this saying was applied to me I was about 14 years old.
The lack of water in the village and the need for it meant that in winter when the small river by the village flooded, we thought we were beside the river Tigris. But it never lasted long.
Once the winter was over we would become sad again.
There is a story of the Grand Vizier (of the Ottoman Empire) Mehmet Pasha and the carob fruit. The Grand Vizier was walking in Gulhane Park when one of his aides plucked the best Carob fruit off the tree and offered it to him. Pasha takes the fruit and asks what it is. His aide explains that it is a fruit that has power in it, like a drop of honey. The Pasha gives the fruit back say- ing "Take it back, you rascal. I would not eat all that pod for just a few drops of honey".
I feel my stories are just like drops of honey in a carob fruit... For example, we have forgotten our New Year celebrations, Newroz and have adopted the Roman New Year. The Kurdish New Year is 13 days after the Ist of January. This was celebrated and is still celebrated in some rural areas. The real Kurdish New Year, Newroz is more a celebration of freedom in remembrance of the mythological Kurdish heroblacksmith Kawa who fought against the brutal dictator Sami Dehak and freed the people. This is the reason why in the old days Kurds celebrated Newroz in the New Year and Kawa's freedom celebrations on the 3 Ist August. Later they gave up the 31st August celebrations. According to the old Arab calendar Newroz celebration night was 8 March but, with the new calendar the celebration came on the 21st March. The Arabs, Armenians and Byzantines called the celebrations "Idi" which means Kurdish feast. The Arabs and Turks hate Newroz Feast, because it is a Kurdish festival which helps to give the Kurds their own special identity. All over Kurdistan families (according to their income) prepared for the feast on the day designated by the Roman calendar. The vilage children and teenagers choose one of their number and dress him/her up as a clown. The Kurds call this 'Qirdik'. Children then follow the Qirdik visiting all the houses in the village. I remember a song we sang for this event; Beginning of the year, End of the year, God forbid the youngsters of the house Where is the gift from this house. The householder would open the door to the clown and the children smiling and joking with them and then would give them dry-fruit and money.
Also the Kurdish singers known as 'Mitrip' would come to visit the landowner in his home and leaving a cockerel in his lap. However, the landowner with great pride would hand the cockerel back to the singer together with some tips. The religion of Kurdish people is Zoroastrianism taken from the peacock. Of course the poor singers could not take a peacock when visit- ing the villages, but they would take as a substitute (deputy) a cockerel. The cockerel is an honourable bird according to the Kurds.
Another of my honey-sweet memories is 'Beri' (mating-and-milking of the herd) and the Kurdish name 'Berivan' is taken from this. The herdsman allows the ram to mate with the ewes. According to the season in the region the breeding time can vary over a period of five months, the animals not being allowed to mate during the worst of the win- ter. In our region mating occurred in September so that the sheep give birth in February. Obviously they are not milked during February and March as all the mother's milk is needed for her lambs. When April comes and the grass is more lush milking-and-mating-Beri begins again. It is usually the young women and girls who do the milking. They prepare themselves and their bags beforehand and then happily and singing as they go, make their way to the area where the herdsman (shepherd) takes his flock. We children would also go to the festivities and enjoy ourselves running around. One of the reasons we enjoyed joining the women was so that we could drink the cream off the milk when it was fresh and warm. The shepherd would tie a ribbon on his best ram's horns and give it to the senior woman. It could be the daughter of the village headman or the daughter of the person who owned the herd. The women
would give the shepherd a present they had bought for him and in exchange accept the ram. They would then let the ram into the herd to mate. It was things such as these or new clothes or putting the special Xina (henna) on our hair and hands which made Kurdish children like us happy. At almost every wedding celebration we as children would be given something. The bride would arrive on a horse at the bridegroom's house (these days it would be a car) . She did not dismount until she had received a gift from the groom. The groom would stand on the roof of the house holding a pot of money and sweets. The bride having received a gift from the family elder would dismount and then walk toward the grooms where the pot would break. The children jostled each other to get the sweets and money on the ground where the pot would shatter. It was not the value that mattered to us, but who could be cleverest and quickest. We knew that our families took pride in our skill.
One of the more sad and painful memories for a Kurdish boy was his circumcision. This is a religious act for us following Islamic (Mohammedan) practice. But, both the Kurds and Jews practiced circumcision well before the Muslims. In our region and all over the middle-east as far as Egypt, cir cumcision was practiced by the Kurdish Sheikhs from the city of Siirt's Tillo area. During spring these religious Sheikhs would travel all over the area and perform circum cision on the children presented to them by the parents. Despite the embarrassment, I will tell you of when it happened to me. My family bought me new clothes from the town of Nusaybin. They put henna on my hair and stuck a large golden coin to my forehead with candle wax. As it was a big celebration, food was specially prepared for everybody (and more). A bed for me was made up with material brought from Damascus and Mosul. They gave me sweets and oranges to try to keep me occupied (to us oranges were not for eating but to play with like toys).
I had been told what circumcision meant, but I never thought about it being done with a knife and bleeding. When the time came I was on someone's lap (my "kirve"-godfa ther) while the Sheikh prayed over me in Arabic. I was still ignorant about what was to happen until my legs were parted and Sheikh Tahir completed his task. Before I had time to scream, a sweet was put in my mouth and my pet partridge which I loved was given to me to keep me occupied. The people who did the circumcisions knew what plants, which grew naturally in the rural areas of Kurdistan, to use as medi cine. It was a secret the Tillo Sheikhs never divulged to anyone. Within three to five days my wound was healed and I was back running about and playing with the other children.
30 years later I went back to Tillo village and asked about the grasses and plants that had healed me. Sheikh Tahir's grandson gave me a handful of these plants. In 1959 when I was arrested I lost my bunch of herbs. I do wish the Kurdish youngsters would go to the Tillo area and investigate the plants and grasses which grow naturally there for perhaps they could be used in place of penicillin and antibiotics which can have such side effects.
For seven months of the year people in our village slept on the roof of their houses. We used to sleep in a bed (as big as a room) called a "text". We were orphans, so my 3 younger brothers and older sister and I slept together and as the bed was so. big, we even had space for the baby' s cradle. Our mother slept with us and we were like mother hen and her chicks. Our mother would cuddle us and show us such love.
Sometimes she would tell us stories and explain the stories. The movement of the stars could tell humans so much: from when the fruit would ripen to all about love. I was very impressed when I was told travellers could find their way by the stars. There were individual stars and there were stars in groups. The big bear was called 'Terme Merxe' which means the coffin of planet Mars'. The last star of this group was called 'Istera Xura' (north star/Polaris). The small bear was called Terme Adem and small star beside the big star which is on the right hand side of the small bear was a wishing star.
Terme Adem, sware bi rim,
Ex mirade xwe ji te dixwazim.
(The coffin of Adem with a spear! I want my wish from you.)
There were stars called Leyla and Majnun (the Romeo and Juliet of the Middle East), Majnun appears from the North, Leyla from the West. During August these two stars converged until eventually they became one star before disappearing. If the young people were lucky enough to see this moment they believed that their wishes would come true.
When the star Peyr u Mezin travelled from North to South in the summer and then moved North again, the harvest of grapes, melons and water melons was going to be good.
The Komika Sewiyan (Orphans Group) was a symbol of pain. One star that was encircled by smaller stars was a symbol for the love and togetherness of mother and child. If there was a shooting star, it was called 'Hurmuz' un Ehremendi' and it was believed to be angels chasing the devil, with fire. When there was an eclipse, we believed it was the fault of a big dragon called 'Hut'. During an eclipse people fired guns and made loud noises banging drums and tins. This was to frighten the dragon away. An eclipse of the sun was an indication of calamity and evil.
My mother had acquired all this knowledge plus a vast general knowledge despite being unable to read or write.
Musa Anter