Folksongs from the Mountains of Iran

Culture, Poetics and Everyday Philosophies

Erika Friedl

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781788310178
• eBook ISBN: 9781786722782
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythic Literary Criticism
• Index: Social Sciences

In Iran, folksongs are part of folklore and offer an intimate portrait of a vanishing era. They are also 'the voice' of ordinary people, providing a medium to express emotions, opinions and concerns. This book is based on folksongs collected over a 50-year period among the Boir Ahmad tribal people in the Zagros Mountains of West Iran. Erika Friedl has recorded, transcribed and translated more than 600 lyrics from a Lur community, and her analysis of the folksongs provides an intimate portrait of local people's attitudes, attachments, fears and desires. From songs of love, sex and mourning, to lyrics discussing beauty, infatuation and the community's violent tribal history, Friedl's solid understanding of the cultural background, lifestyle and worldview of these people lets her add ethnographic details that illuminate the deep meaning of the texts. In this way, Friedl goes far beyond a translation of words: she sheds light on a culture where beliefs, critical evaluation of circumstances and philosophical tenets are shown to be integral to each song's message.
Based on fieldwork that began in 1965, Erika Friedl's research on the folklore in Boir Ahmad represents the best-documented modern folklore compendium on an Iranian tribe. This new book will be important for future generations of scholars, including ethnographers, Iranists, linguists, ethnomusicologists and those researching Persian literature and cultures of the Middle East.

CHAPTER 1

OLD TIMES USO, THEN

During our first visits in Boir Ahmad many songs preserved the recent history of wars and their heroes. Since then most of these songs have vanished, and degenerative changes that are unavoidable in an oral repertoire made some surviving verses partly unintelligible. Still, the aura of fear and violence comes through, many decades after the events they comment on. The verses telling dark stories of the past may be sung as mourning songs, too.

1. To ve sangar beneshin, sangar nahuvāre.

Beiramad bisafate, sozete derāre.

Sit in the rock-blind, the rock-blind is not strong.

The bad Boir Ahmadi will take out your spleen.

The people outside Sisakht are lumped together as ‘Boir Ahmadi’, described here as bisafate, having ‘no good character qualities’. When looking back, the people of Sisakht talk about the hard times they had defending themselves against the proverbially aggressive tribes from Boir Ahmad, until the 1970s. (Most memories of their own participation in the various hostilities have faded.) To ‘take out a spleen’ means to make a lot of trouble. The song also is a mourning song. For Boir Ahmad/Beiramad and sangar see Glossary.

2. Kāghazi bālā umade si Nasrein Shāh.

Beiramad jang ikone Torkel tamāshā.

A letter arrived for Nasreddin Shah:

Boir Ahmad makes war [and] the Turks look on.

Nasreddin Shah (Naser al-Din Qajar, 1831–96) had a troubled relationship with the feuding, fiercely independent Zagros tribes. A few verses about this traumatic time survive to this day. The ‘Turks’ are the Qashqa’i, the largest tribal confederacy in Fars, adjacent to Boir Ahmad. For Qashqa’i and Boir Ahmad/Beiramad see Glossary.

Songs about Kerim Khan (or Khoda Keram Khan – the two chiefs get confused in songs and stories. See Glossary).

3. Sarčenār tā Damčenār asbom vedou bi.

Rafiqom Soulat čupun, bakhtom ve khou bi.

From one end of Chenar to the other end of Chenar my horse was galloping.

My companion was Sowlat the shepherd, my luck was asleep.

Khoda Keram Khan complains that Sowlat al-Dowla, in the early twentieth century the paramount khan of Boir Ahmad’s powerful neighbours, the Qashqa’i, betrayed him. The region of Chenar was the centre of Khoda Keram Khan’s area in the summer pastures of Boir Ahmad. The sedentary and by their own accounts more progressive Sisakhtis derogatorily called the pastoral, nomadic Qashqa’i ‘shepherds’. The khan’s lack of the type of luck (bakht) referred to here rests on the ancient idea of a personified ‘luck’, a person’s invisible companion who, weak or asleep, renders the person unlucky. For bakht, Qashqa’i and Sowlat al-Dowla see Glossary.

4. Sarčenār, yādet bakheir, bishtar molke ziret.

Čarkhe gardune falak mena bos ve diret.

Upper Chenar, bless your memory, you have so much land.

The wheel of the world has thrown me far from you.

This is a sad song (sharbe), praising the area of Chenar, the summer quarters of Khoda Keram Khan (see Glossary) of Boir Ahmad, when he was imprisoned for insurrection by the government. The ‘wheel of the world’ (or ‘wheel of time’) is said to be a power inherent in the workings of the universe that influences the fate of people. The khan’s attachment to his realm is legendary.

5. Khom Kerim khodam Kerim, asbom kurančāl.

Soulat Doula (or: Qashqā’ï) či vam nakerd, koshtom nokhodkāl.

I am Kerim [Khan], I am Kerim, my horse is brown with a white spot on the head.

Sowlat al-Dowla (or: the Qashqa’i) has done nothing for me; the pea-farmer killed me.

A beleaguered Kerim Khan is complaining about the powerful neighbouring pastoral Qashqa’i, who did not support him against the Shah’s army and did not prevent the chief of Sisakht at the time, Qobad Nikeqbal, from killing him. The more migratory, bigger tribes of Boir Ahmad called the sedentary Sisakhti people, ‘pea-farmers’ and did not mean this kindly. In a version from 2006 the singer changed the by now unfamiliar name of the Qashqa’i khan into ĉār doulat, that is, ‘four countries’, turning the complaint into bragging: four armies could not defeat famous Kerim Khan until the pea-farmer killed him. The singer obviously did not know or care that the killer was Sisakht’s own famous chief. For Sowlat al-Dowla and Qobad Nikeqbal see Glossary.

6. Qobād, kurr Mahqoli, sit bad nabidom.

Sardāri pus samur sit ikharidom.

Qobad, son of Muhammadqoli, I was not bad for you.

I bought you a coat of sable.

Again, Kerim Khan berates Qobad Nikeqbal, the son of the founder of Sisakht, and a powerful ally/enemy of other chiefs, for having killed him. Qobad was frequently at odds with the tribal politics of Kerim Khan. Sable is indigenous to the area and was coveted for its pelt. For Qobad Nikeqbal and Kerim Khan see Glossary.

7. Neninom ve Shah Qāsom, beninom ve Mokhtār.

Bong ve gurom bezane il ke ikone bār.

Don’t take me to [the shrine of] Shah Qasom, take me to [the shrine of] Mokhtar, [so that my] tribe may hail my grave as it breaks camp.

Kerim Khan wants to be buried in the south of the tribal region, to be greeted by his people when they depart for the summer quarters. The wish to be buried next to a shrine of a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad signals his piety, but he weakens this signal in the next line: the shrine of Mokhtar is on the migration route of his people, and it is important for him to be remembered by them as they move by. Shah means ‘exalted, great’ in conjunction with a descendent of the Prophet. For Kerim Khan and Imamzadeh (shrine) see Glossary.

8. Berrom vou tei khodā, bekonom shikāyat.

Bengeram kārom čenne dar in velāyat.

I’ll go to God with a complaint.

I want to know what is my purpose in this realm.

Reportedly this was a complaint-verse of Kerim Khan or another khan mired in the Boir Ahmad wars. In 2015 a mother recited this old song half-jokingly about her son who had a bachelor’s degree but could not find work and was just hanging around with other, likewise idle, friends.

Several songs circulate about Bibi Zoghra, perhaps the daughter of Kerim Khan, a fabled beauty coveted by powerful chiefs in the area. The historical details are lost to the singers, but the aura of competition, fighting and courtly chivalry pervading her time is present in the songs in a schema of ‘nobility’ that structures thoughts, feelings and action.

9. Zoghra, Bi Zoghra, madune shoukan,

Ke Ali Khun haf sāleye bash ikone jang.

Zoghra, Bibi Zoghra, [has a] black mare.

Ke Ali Khan fights for her (or: fights her) for seven years.

The historical details are clearly much less important than is the fighting around the lady. The horse and the title ‘Bibi’ mark her as belonging to a khan’s family. Ordinary tribesmen rarely had horses and their women were not called Bibi.

10. Ali Khān khosh Vali Khān bi pei Koh Dināye

Ye qadar jang ikonen si Zoghrāye.

Ali Khan and Vali Khan at the foot of the Dena

Fought a long time over [Bibi] Zoghra.

11. Zoghra sorkh o safid pahlele kemandi,

Ali Khun bernou andakht si harfe nangi.

Beautiful (‘red and white’) Zoghra with the many braids –Ali Khan shot the Brno rifle for some bad talk (or: a bad reputation).

The historical event behind the lyrics is lost: Ali either felt insulted or else was living up to his bad reputation when he shot somebody. Zoghra, however, emerges again as an important tribal woman from a chief’s lineage, who, probably as a widow, politically was holding her own. This was the spin the singer, a woman in Sisakht, gave the words. For red/white and Brno see Glossary.

12. Khod bezan, bezan, bezan, dastet nalarze.

Shire zard (or: shal) Bi Zoghra qalena base.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, may your hand not tremble.

The yellow (or: lame) lion shut Bibi Zoghra’s fort.

‘Lion’ stands for royal power or a potent chief, feared and admired. Here it i...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Transliteration and Translation
• Map of Iran
• Introduction
• The Lyrics
• 1. Old Times uso, then
• 2. Looks, Desire, Passion
• 3. Spoken for and Married nuzād, zan o mard
• 4. Relationships
• 5. Mourning garye, garye (crying, crying)
• 6. Religion din
• 7. At Work badbakhti, sahmat, kār (misfortune, trouble, work)
• 8. Other Places, All the Same (jei da, hamash yeki)
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Back Cover