“The Zar Tale”, a novella, Chapter One.

It’s almost summer and nothing delights like a engrossing book to read.  My husband started to read Chapter One and kept going.  “You should post this on your blog”.  “But people have such little attention span these days.”  “It’s a short book.”  He’s right.  And this will free me up for other things.  After all, story tellers love to entertain, but even these folk need a vacation.

Lady Nyo

–

Shakira is Sheikha, Wise Woman, leader of the Zar ritual and general organizer of the women and women’s issues. Previously, Ali the Demon has jumped from young Aya to the arms of Shakira, a middle-aged woman. (“A Turkish Tale”) Zars have been outlawed in most Islamic countries since 1983 as pagan worship. However, it flourishes in rural areas and also in some big cities. It is considered part of ‘women’s religion’ by the officials and yet it continues in spite of being outlawed. It is one of the main mental health outlets for women in these countries. Possession by a Zar usually is a woman’s way of sassing her husband and expressing her unhappiness with marriage and her life. 
–

CHAPTER ONE

Shakira, wise woman, daughter of the veil, Sheikha to the village like her mother and grandmother before her, stood before the window of her small stone house. She could see to the village pump and watch dark clad women like so many black crows, fill their water jugs each morning and again in the afternoon.

It was still early in the morning, but a sultry wind blew in from the south. It would be no different than any other day of the season, for the rains would not return until late fall.

Mixing the humble mashed chickpeas, oil and garlic, she prepared the day’s humus. Not a task to try her powers, but one that fed her, important enough. The flat bread was already cooked, the yogurt curdling in the heavy glass jars sitting outside in the sun.

She wondered where Ali had gone so early this morning. Probably lurking around with other Zars on the mountain, playing at knucklebones.

“Shakira! Have you enough water this morning? I will draw you some if not.”

A woman walked by the window, her black dress and head scarf no different from any of the other middle aged women. Except for her voice and that limp from a club foot, she would not be distinguished from any other black robed woman.

“I have enough, Leila, enough for this morning. Later I will go draw more.”

Leila was Shakira’s relative, their families as mixed as a bowl of wheat and barley. Not much had changed in this mountain village in centuries, except the convenience of electricity, a central, motorized village pump and a few motor cars that brought dignitaries from the far flung cities once a year. New was old by the time it got to their village, for they were isolated in the mountains of eastern Turkey.

Shakira’s Ali was a Zar, a demon who came to Shakira for a man’s comfort up under her dress. He was young, younger than middle-aged Shakira, but he only appeared young. Ali was at least a thousand years old. He was killed by one of his tribesman around the age of thirty. Shakira knew very little about his circumstances, because Ali did not talk. It was a man’s prerogative to keep secrets, and Ali, though a Zar, was once a man.

Shakira first saw Ali when he appeared before her a shimmering, golden ghost at the Zar ritual a year ago. She struck a deal with the handsome devil and Ali was glad to jump into the welcoming and much more experienced arms of Shakira. He had more room to sleep than in the womb of Aya, the young women he formerly possessed. He liked the strong thighs and women’s quarters of Shakira.

At times, when the weather was cooled by breezes blown down from the mountain, Shakira would close her door and draw the curtain over her front window. In the other room serving as her bedroom she could watch the constellations revolve in the sky from a small window cut high in the wall. There she would hope to entertain Ali, dancing the slow, sensuous movements, caught in the moonlight from that window.

“Come, my Habibi, come and comfort me,” Shakira would call out, her eyes closing in expectation, her voice shaking with her need. And Ali would magically appear, materializing in the room, glowing like a golden shower of tiny stardust.

Ali would then sit on her bed, hovering as demons do, a few inches from the woven wool covering. He would smoke his hookah and his eyes would sparkle through the stardust as he watched Shakira, now naked, seduce him with her dance.

“My Habibi, I dance for you, I dance with my limbs and my heart and my soul. Do you like what you see, my dearest?”

We must remember that Ali was a Zar, a Spirit, and there wasn’t much of flesh on him…or of him.

Somehow Ali would answer her, but not in words. He would speak into her heart, into her soul and Shakira always heard this unspoken language.

“You are my heart’s delight, my beautiful and wise Shakira. Your movements would inspire the dead to rise and dance in the streets, so lovely are you to my eyes.”

Shakira’s body was mature and ripe, her skin the color of Turkish coffee filled to the brim with rich cream. Her hair was still black as the night, with just a few strands of silver, and when she danced, freed of the day’s covering, it swung in waves down her back to her full, muscular buttocks. Her belly was rounded and jiggled when she laughed, not like the slim, flat bellied girls like Aya before her baby, but full like the clay jugs made to carry the precious water from the village well. Her hips were strong and fleshed out like ripe fruit from a sacred and ancient olive tree.

Shakira had some vanity about her, and since Ali had appeared and taken up residence, she rubbed scented oils into her skin. In the dim light of the oil lamp, Shakira’s skin rolled and wavered like watered silk. She raised her strong and muscled limbs above her head, snapping her fingers like zils to her humming. Her breasts swayed and pushed themselves out proudly, and if they sagged a bit with age, Ali didn’t mind. She was a woman after all, and the scent of her body and the oils rubbed in her skin put him in a narcotic trance. Her dark eyes rolled back in her head as her shoulders rolled forward, and her hips gyrated in the age-old movements of seduction.

Ali was enchanted. Their nights were filled with strange lust and if Shakira woke in her bed alone, she was not deserted. Ali had climbed into her woman’s garden to sleep, folding himself and resting in the warmth below her womb. She would rub her belly, and say: “Good morning, dearest”, smile and start her day. Some mornings she would feel Ali rush out of her like a warm breeze and disappear into the day, off to converse and argue with other Zars around their mountain village.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted 2010-2018

“The Zar Tales”, published by Lulu.com, 2010

 

 

“The Zar Tales”, Chapter One

 

 

In 2010 I published the novella, “The Zar Tales” with Lulu.com.  It started out as a short story, but had it’s own ideas.  That happens when the characters have more life than was supposed.  The writer loses control and some times that isn’t a bad thing.  This is dedicated to my dear friend of many years, Bill Penrose, who is an excellent writer and believed in my own undeveloped abilities as a writer.

Lady Nyo

Shakira is Sheikha, Wise Woman, leader of the Zar ritual and general organizer of the women  and  women’s issues.  Previously, Ali the Demon has jumped from young Aya to the arms of Shakira, a middle-aged woman. (“A Turkish Tale of A Zar”)  Zars have been outlawed in most Islamic countries since 1983 as pagan worship.  However, it flourishes in rural areas and also in some big cities.  It is considered part of ‘women’s religion’ by the officials and yet it continues in spite of being outlawed.  It is one of the main mental health outlets for women in these countries.  Possession by a Zar usually is a woman’s way of sassing her husband and expressing her unhappiness with marriage and her life.

 

THE ZAR TALES

CHAPTER 1

Shakira, wise woman, daughter of the veil, Sheikha to the village like her mother and grandmother before her…. stood before the window of her small stone house. She could see to the village pump and watch dark clad women like so many black crows, fill their water jugs each morning and again in the afternoon. 

It was still early in the morning, but a sultry wind blew in from the south.  It would be no different than any other day of the season, for the rains would not return until late fall.

Mixing the humble mashed chickpeas, oil and garlic, she prepared the day’s humus. Not a task to try her powers, but one that fed her, important enough. The flat bread was already cooked, the yogurt curdling in the heavy glass jars sitting outside in the sun. 

 She wondered where Ali had gone so early this morning.  Probably lurking around with other Zars on the mountain, playing at knucklebones. 

“Shakira! Have you enough water this morning?  I will draw you some if not.”

A woman walked by the window, her black dress and head scarf no different from any of the other middle aged women.   Except for her voice and that limp from a club foot, she would not be distinguished from any other black robed woman.

“I have enough, Leila, enough for this morning.  Later I will go draw more.”

Leila was Shakira’s relative, their families as mixed as a bowl of wheat and barley. Not much had changed in this mountain village in centuries, except the convenience of electricity, a central, motorized village pump and a few motor cars that brought dignitaries from the far flung cities once a year.   New was old by the time it got to their village, for they were isolated in the mountains of eastern Turkey. 

Shakira’s Ali was a Zar, a demon who came to Shakira for a man’s comfort up under her dress.  He was young, younger than middle-aged Shakira, but he only appeared young. Ali was at least a thousand years old. He was killed by one of his tribesman around the age of thirty. Shakira knew very little about his circumstances, because Ali did not talk.  It was a man’s prerogative to keep secrets, and Ali, though a Zar, was once a man. 

Shakira first saw Ali when he appeared before her a shimmering, golden ghost at the Zar ritual a year ago. She struck a deal with the handsome devil and Ali was glad to jump into the welcoming and much more experienced arms of Shakira.  He had more room to sleep than in the womb of Aya, the young women he formerly possessed. He liked the strong thighs and women’s quarters of Shakira.

At times, when the weather was cooled by breezes blown down from the mountain, Shakira would close her door and draw the curtain over her front window.  In the other room serving as her bedroom she could watch the constellations revolve in the sky from a small window cut high in the wall.  There she would hope to entertain Ali, dancing the slow, sensuous movements, caught in the moonlight from that window. 

“Come, my Habibi, come and comfort me,” Shakira would call out, her eyes closing in expectation, her voice shaking with her need.  And Ali would magically appear, materializing in the room, glowing like a golden shower of tiny stardust. 

 Ali would then sit on her bed, hovering as demons do, a few inches from the woven wool covering.  He would smoke his hookah and his eyes would sparkle through the stardust  as he watched Shakira, now naked, seduce him with her dance.

“My Habibi, I dance for you, I dance with my limbs and my heart and my soul.  Do you like what you see, my dearest?” 

We must remember that Ali was a Zar, a Spirit, and there wasn’t much of flesh on him…or of him.

Somehow Ali would answer her, but not in words.  He would speak into her heart, into her soul and Shakira always heard this unspoken language.

“You are my heart’s delight, my beautiful and wise Shakira.  Your movements would inspire the dead to rise and dance in the streets, so lovely are you to my eyes.” 

 Shakira’s body was mature and ripe, her skin the color of turkish coffee filled to the brim with rich cream.  Her hair was still black as the night, with just a few strands of silver, and when she danced, freed of the day’s covering, it swung in waves down her back to her full, muscular buttocks.  Her belly was rounded and jiggled when she laughed, not like the slim, flat bellied girls like Aya before her baby, but full like the clay jugs made to carry the precious water from the village well.  Her hips were strong and fleshed out like ripe fruit from a sacred and ancient olive tree.  

Shakira had some vanity about her, and since Ali had appeared and taken up residence, she rubbed scented oils into her skin.  In the dim light of the oil lamp, Shakira’s skin rolled and wavered like watered silk.  She raised her strong and muscled limbs above her head, snapping her fingers like zils to her humming.  Her breasts swayed and pushed themselves out proudly, and if they sagged a bit with age, Ali didn’t mind.  She was a woman after all, and the scent of her body and the oils rubbed in her skin put him in a narcotic trance.  Her dark eyes rolled back in her head as her shoulders rolled forward, and her hips gyrated in the age-old movements of seduction. 

Ali was enchanted.  Their nights were filled with  strange lust and if Shakira woke in her bed alone, she was not deserted.  Ali had climbed into her woman’s garden to sleep, folding himself and resting in the warmth below her womb.  She would rub her belly, and say: “Good morning, dearest”, smile and start her day. Some mornings she would feel Ali rush out of her like a warm fart and disappear into the day, off to converse and argue with other Zars around their mountain village.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010-2014

A Chapter from “The Zar Tales”……

*”All the carpets of Persia cannot match the softness of her hands

The roses of the Sultan’s garden have not the bloom of her cheeks

The trees blown by a gentle wind have not the sway of her delicate gait

And my heart travels with speed to lie at her feet.

Ah! She steps on my heart, invisible beneath her flowery foot,

And trots upon my senses, scrambling them like eggs for the breakfast.”*

…..poem of Ali, a former student of Rumi. A thousand years ago.

In 2010 I published “The Zar Tales” with Lulu.com.  This was a novella about women in modern Turkey who were bedeviled by ancient Berber (and Persian) Zars…..spirits who had done something to displease the mullahs of Paradise and were sent back to suffer for a thousand years or so in the form of spirits.  Now Zars are djouns….without material substance, rather like talking vapors.  They like to inhabit married women and they cause martial conflict.  In the form of the Zar ritual, they are also an important element in social and mental health for women in Africa and the Middle East.  Ali was the leader of these zars who have now (through a particular event) have become mortal men:  Spirit made into Flesh.  Ali is soon to be married to the Sheika Shakira. (Sheika is loosely translated as ‘wise woman’.)  The setting of this novella is in a mountainous village in Turkey in 1983.

Ali was sitting on the bench early one evening when the village men gathered outside the baker’s shop. They lit the hookah and passed the hoses around. He was enjoying the mixture of babble and smoke rising like spirits above their heads.  Eyes half closed against the blue haze circling his head, he basked in the fading sunlight.

There was a lot more energy needed to be a mortal, Ali thought.  Being a Zar was easier. That Shakira was insatiable.  Now she would grab his hand and lead him to bed, and she would stay there, full of demands and little shame for a woman!  On top of that, she was feeding him too much and he was getting heavier.  She told him he needed the weight, but he thought she just was in love.  Ah! Women acted differently in love.

This was something he had forgotten over the past thousand years.  He was adjusting to a diet of rich foods he had not tasted before.  The foods of his Berber clan were simpler.  The woman was making flaky walnut and honey pastries and stuffing dates with sugared almonds and tempting him with candied ginger, orange and lemon peel.  Also, wheat salads with golden raisins and garlic and herbs from her garden.

And he was eating too much meat.  This goat and lamb was not stringy, as he remembered in the desert, but stuffed with lard and fat and served with stewed apples and apricots and more delightful than even her sweetbreads. Ah, he was going to get fat and slow!  But he had a thousand years of nothing on his stomach, and Shakira was sure to kill him with all these rich dishes!  Or, he supposed, her demands in bed.  One or the other was going to shorten his life.

So, the smoke and silence this evening was a restful time for Ali.

But it wouldn’t last long.  The murmur of men made him open his eyes. Walking towards them was Emir and Hasan.  Ah! Two old Zar friends now as flesh and blood– thanks to mullah kabobs!

Hasan wore the indigo blue turban. There was always a kinship between them, and if nothing but their hooked noses and the colors of their robes and turbans showed this, well it was enough.  Emir was Persian; his robes were white and black.  Ali stood and embraced both men, and kissed each on both cheeks as was custom.  He introduced Hasan as a kinsman from a village in the mountains and Emir as an old friend.  How old, Ali didn’t reveal, but they had been Zars together for many centuries.  Ali called for more of the strong Turkish coffee and the baker came out with the tiny cups and the long ladled copper coffee pots.  The village men, as in all regions of Turkey, prided themselves in their hospitality, and welcomed the two strangers. Besides, they might bring gossip or news and that was better than reading weeks- old newspapers dealing with city issues and rarely those from the mountains.

Hasan and Emir were passed the piping of the hookah. They filled their lungs with the sweet scent of dried apple tobacco.  After a while, Ali mentioned Emir was a poet, and a wonderfully inventive one at that!  Emir beamed with pride and delight and looked at Ali, a broad smile wreathing his sun darkened face.

“Ah!  My Brother Ali here is a fine poet in his own right!  I cannot hold a candle with my poor verse!  I have heard Brother Ali expound at length and his verse is prodigious!  The angels in heaven get dizzy with the beauty of his lyrics. They spiral almost to the ground and Allah sucks them back up with his breath!  Ah! The Great Rumi would have treasured the verse of Brother Ali had he but heard it!”

Ali laughed to himself.  Emir knew well Ali had been a student of the great Rumi almost a thousand years ago.  It was not in his mortal flesh he sat as Rumi’s student, but a time when he was condemned as a Zar,  without purpose or a woman to possess.

When Ali was a young Berber chieftain, and still with mortal connections to this earth, he was taken by the beauty of verse and was a very good Berber poet.  This was unusual for his region, for the women of the tribes were known to be the poets and the literate ones.  But Ali was a favorite amongst the women, and they loved to have him around as a young boy, before he was of age where he would not be welcome company with the women.  His dark eyes shone hearing the verses the women chanted while washing at the river. He learned how they took from the beauty of nature and the joys, sadness of their lives and wove them into carpets of verse.  The knots and threads of these beautiful verse-carpets were full of color and the softness of dreams, not sheep wool.

He learned to stroke the phrases, to rise to the lushness of the Berber language.   When he was older, he would sit on his horse in the desert and roam the dunes until he lost himself in lyrics and sand.  His horse knew the way home, and Ali could compose his poetry away from the chatter of wives and children, growls of camels, the bleating of goats and the general noise of the camp.

Ali had a hunting hawk, as had most of the Berber men, and he would put his beautiful girl on the leather pad at his wrist, gently pull off the hood and launch her into the desert sky.  She would wheel and soar high and turn into the sun, and Ali would lose sight of her.  But before he did, he would compose verses in praise of his bird.  Her wings, her grace, her sharp eyes that saw from high on the wind.  She would fold her wings and plunge like a daytime falling star, and stretch out her claws.  Make short work of desert rats.

She was fast as the sandstorms that carried the wind up to the foot of the mountains, and a fierce as any warrior on his steed.  Her coat sparkled with a million colors, like a piece of bronze mirror, or like pearls glistening fresh from the sea.

Ali could never stop praising his hawks.  They lifted him into the wilds of their heaven and left his human travail behind.  Ah, his birds made his soul soar!

Ali was as proud of his hawks as he was of his poetry. His father and most of his kinsmen would sew shut their bird’s eyes shut and release the strong thread before they launched them. But Ali saw many hawks blinded this way, and what good is a blind hunting hawk?  So he patiently molded hoods of new lambskin, sewed and decorated them with dyed feathers.

Hasan’s voice cut into his thoughts, and Ali shook his head to clear.  He hadn’t thought about the hawks in many years, centuries actually.  Now, with his feet again mortal, he could capture and train young tercels and hunt again like his ancestors.  This promise brought tears to his eyes, and opening them, saw the compassionate gazes of both Hasan and Emir.  They had suffered as much as Ali, and now, thanks to the good mullahs, they had their chances at life again.

“Give us a verse, Brother Ali!” said Emir, with a broad smile.

The men of the village perked up with his words, for there was nothing that men loved more than the soft, lulling words of a poet.

Unless it was the soft moving hands of a woman.

The men had hard lives in the mountains, tilling the stony earth for their grain crops, but they made time for any poet.  It was music to their ears without instrumentation.  It was the fine music of human voice and colorful words.  It gave precious beauty to their routine lives.

Ali shook his head, and said for Emir to give them a poem, but Emir insisted Ali give them a verse of his own making.

“Ah! You ask the impossible, my dear brother.  It has been long since I thought of any verse. Life had glued shut those pages of inspiration.”

Ali smiled to himself and took up one of the mouthpieces of the hookah, sucking in a long plume of smoke smelling of apple.

“If marriage next month to the Sheilkha Shakira doesn’t open those pages, my friends, then all the poets of Persia have lived for naught!”

This from one of the men in the village made them all laugh.  They were curious how this stranger had been able to attract the affections of their desirable Sheikha. But their eyes, even the eyes of men, could tell he was handsome enough to attract a woman’s gaze.

Better he marry the Sheikha now.  The women would have no claim on him then.

Ali stared at Emir through half opened eyes.  They spoke volumes, were masked by the heavy smoke he expelled from his lungs.  Ah, brother Emir would push him, but perhaps he could think of something.  Surely the men would want a love sonnet or a verse of the beauty of mortal life.  Make that Paradise, for these men were jaded by their mortality.  It was new to Ali, Emir and Hasan, and precious and confounding to them daily.  After being a Zar for centuries, feet on the earth were heavy but strangely comforting.

*”All the carpets of Persia cannot match the softness of her hands

The roses of the Sultan’s garden have not the bloom of her cheeks

The trees blown by a gentle wind have not the sway of her delicate gait

And my heart travels with speed to lie at her feet.

Ah! She steps on my heart, invisible beneath her flowery foot,

And trots upon my senses, scrambling them like eggs for the breakfast.”*

At this last line, the men guffawed.  Even they, in their isolated village, could discern good verse from bad. Ali was having his fun with them.

“I warned you I had nothing to say,” he said with a bemused look on his face.

“Ah, Friend Ali!” said one of the men loudly.  “If you think you have nothing to say now, marriage will shut up your mouth then.”

The others laughed, for the truth of the matter was so.  Marriage changed both men and women.  It made one side more quarrelsome and the men more silent and fearful of the wrath of the other.  Ah! Men could not win in this battle.

Ali had been married, with a number of wives.  His eyes glazed over as he blew out more smoke from the hookah.  The first one was Lela, when he was 20 years old.  She was young and so shy, she wouldn’t look him in the eyes for two months after the wedding.  She cried most of the first month.  Ali was aware she missed her family, but a marriage is a marriage and it must be endured.  He would take his horse and his hawk and ride out and hunt.  Only when Lela had her first child, luckily for her a boy, did she perk up.  She became right bossy, too.  The older men would laugh when Ali made a hasty retreat from their tent, usually followed with a string of invective from his young wife, and sometimes wooden stirring spoons and knives.  Ah! This was not a good situation, and his father decided Ali had suffered enough and gave him another wife. Sela was a cousin of Lela and at first; she was as shy as Lela.  But she soon overcame that and became a favorite wife.  There were two more, but one died in childbirth.  All in all, Ali had four sons and four daughters. Sela was killed in the arms of Ali, when Ali was murdered making love to her.  Their second child died with them, for Sela was very pregnant.

“Ah, my wife will be angry if I don’t return home soon.”

The words of one of the men cut into Ali’s thoughts.   The sun was setting, and the sky was red from its fading luster.

“Soon, my friend”, answered another, putting his hand on the shoulder of Ali in a compassionate gesture.   “You will be yoked like the oxen in the fields to our Shakira and you too will watch the hours like the rest of us, knowing they are linked to the tempers of women.  Ah Allah! You had many wives, but we have just one each, and our lives are made miserable still!”

The laughter went around the benches where they sat in the fading sunlight. Men all over had the same issues, and now that Ali and the others were mortal again, they faced their own temperamental women.  Perhaps it was easier before as Zars, for they could just float out of earshot of women and gather in the forests in the mountains to share the hookah with other Zars. But the good outweighed the bad, for the cooking of the women went a long way in filling appetites that had been lost for centuries.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted 2010-2014

A Thank You, and a beginning to Chapter 3, “Tin Hinan”.

I want to thank people who read this blog yesterday and either wrote or called me about that surprising royalty check for “A Seasoning of Lust”.

Writing seems like a solitary venture, but really, the formulation of this book  was a long slog through a couple of years and a lot of friendships.  I was guided by many people, and some actually remained as friends! Actually, the majority of them have.  And besides their congratulations, there is also the fact that this book was born in a cauldron of a lot of doubt and angst.  That came about because of a particular situation I entered freely.  But that has its  legitimacy as to the development of some of the works of the period and some them  made it into the book.  These mental and emotional ‘spurs’ were as viable as all the other influences. They should be acknowledged.

I believe  good lessons, strong lessons can come  from adversity and also, can come some special creativity.  It might take a while to sort out the lessons and the people, but one should,…..ultimately, be grateful in some important way.

To them, the friends and the irritants, I am.  They were all part of the mix that made this book, and it wouldn’t necessarily exist without their presence.

Lady Nyo

TIN HINAN

CHAPTER 3

As I think back to those times, so long buried in memory, I wonder what I was doing.  Only eighteen years old, such a tender age, and Takama even younger.  We were two maidens driven by Zar-induced madness. There was no other accounting for what I did. Vigorously consulting the goddesses every night I never got an answer.  False goddesses they were, or silent to my pleas.  Safi. (enough)

The first few nights in the desert were sleepless with grief and anger.  I didn’t think of the future danger.  I didn’t dare.  If I did, I would have turned back and then what face would I have?  Our men were known warriors, but our women were just as strong.

Takama made the fire each night, bending over the fire bow and feeding our tiny blazes with twigs and dried camel dung from a sack. She drew precious water from the skins, threw in millet, salt, and we ate some of the dates.  There was no variety in our diet, but I made sure Takama had packed my jewelry.  Sold in a market town or oasis, this silver would bring a different food for our bellies.

Niefa and the donkey fed sparsely on the brush and wild grasses that pockmarked the desert.  We had to be careful with our water, but Niefa was afterall, a camel and she could manage without much water.  Takama’s donkey was another problem.

The first few days had the nature of adventure, and except some expeditions with my father and mother over the mountains, I had never been on my own.  Takama, being a slave, had not even that knowledge. She never left the oasis.

I followed the sun to the east as it rose, and the desert still stretched out before us, endless and unbroken to the horizon.  Some days I wondered if we would die here, the four of us, bleached bones in the desert.  There was little shade except for crouching beside Niefa when we stopped to stretch our legs and squat in the desert.  Takama laughed at me, for I still carried the behaviors of a woman.  I squatted down to pass water, instead of standing.  I would have to remember when we came close to an encampment.

Since we expected to meet others, Takama would be my ‘wife’, and I her young husband.  That would give us at least some sort of story.  But our biggest problem would be explaining why we were out in the desert away from our tribe, and traveling alone.  This was foolhardy at best and dangerous in any case.  A young couple travelling without the cover and protection of at least a small caravan could be runaway slaves. If we were perceived to be such, we would be slaves fast enough.

We talked around our pitiful fire at night, when the stars stretched from horizon to horizon, a blanket of diamonds over us. There was only the sound of the desert wind moaning in the nighttime air.  It got cool as soon as the sun dropped to the horizon and cold when the stars and moon rose into the dark bowl of heaven.

“Aicha, do you think we will soon fine an oasis?”  I heard the worry in her voice.

“Do I look like one of those old, smelly fortune women? Do I look like even a Sheikha? How do I know?”  I was cross with her, for I was fearful myself.  I hide me fear with my fierce words to my slave.

“What if the Arab raiders catch up with us here in the desert?  What will we do?”  Her eyes were wide with her thoughts.

“Ah, Takama, you can dance for them and I will hold them off with my sword.”

Stupid girl, I thought.

“A quick slash of a takouba (sword) and all our problems will be over.  But I would bet even the hated Arabs aren’t stupid enough to kill women. If they guess at my sex I will be raped along with you and sold as a slave.  In fact, from what I hear, even if they didn’t know my sex for sure, they would still rape me.”

Takama’s lip started quivering, and soon her childish tears would fall.

“Takama”, I said in a softer voice, “Soon we will find an oasis and good bread and salt will be offered.  You know our traditions.  The desert tribes are the most generous on earth! We will find a safe haven around their fire and protection from all else.”

Suddenly, Takama screamed and jumped up.  A big desert scorpion, as big as a clay bowl, was crossing towards the fire.  I took my takouba from my girdle and sliced it in half.  It was a lucky blow for these creatures were fast.

After a week, the indigo-blue dye had stained my face, and I had the look of a young man.  Takama tried to line my veil with white cotton, for she did not want to see her mistress degraded in such a way.  I fought with her over this, and threatened to pummel her with my fists like a man would, but we only ended up laughing and rolling in the sand.  I was glad for company, but felt guilty I had taken her from everything she had known for my own selfish reasons. She was a slave, and bound to follow my whims, but she now was also a friend.  Throwing destinies together out in the desert is a great equalizer.

We rose early with the sun, and plodded slowly to the east. After a week, we began to see a change in the dunes.  Off far to the east and north were mountains, and although our steps seemed not to bring us closer, we knew that it was just a matter of time before we would reach some oasis.  Our water was low, and we rationed it out carefully, making sure that the donkey first, then Niefa, had a drink.  Soon we saw shrubs, and more and more grasses.  We pulled up the tough grasses to bite at the tender stalks where they joined the roots, but there was little moisture in this desert grass.

Finally we saw the faint glimpse of palm trees and we knew soon we would arrive at an oasis.  We were coming up to the foot of the mountains and like our own oasis back home, the runoff from the mountains would give some water and pasture.  That was where tribes would gather, and not all of the tribes were nomadic. Most were sheepherders, tied to the land until it was used up by the herds of goats, sheep and camels. Then they would move on, over the mountain passes until they found more pasture.  This was the life of herders back into history.  This was our history.

Winter was coming on, and already the nights were colder.  Takama had brought enough heavy blankets for us, and we had the heat of Niefa to warm us as we huddled together under the covers. A stop at an oasis where we could obtain food, water and shelter was becoming urgent.

I don’t remember all the events of this journey, but I do recall the strong urge to keep running away from the scene of my shame.  Hasim had found me wanting in some way, or had found another more desirable.  Each time I thought of this, my heart overflowed and bitterness and shame rose up like a ghost before me.  I could not quell my liver.  I was single purpose in my need to put as far a distance from my memories as possible.  Running was the only way I knew to change what had happened back there.

As we came closer to the oasis, we saw green grass and date palms.  It was a big oasis, and soon we could see the black tents of nomads.  Niefa bellowed as she smelled fresh water, and even Takama’s donkey picked up his hooves.

It was early evening, the star called Venus had risen when we plodded into the encampment.  They saw us off in the distance, but since we were only two, no general alarm was sounded.  Children ran out, curious as children are, and shyly made a ring around our beasts.  They wanted to know where we came from, but knew those questions would be rude from children, and anyway, desert tribes did not ask.  Hospitality was given first, and what a man wanted to reveal was all that was expected.

We proceeded to the middle of the camp, where men were assembled, and the women behind them.  Now several boys came and grabbed the bridles of both Niefa and the donkey, and I slipped off her back and stood there, my good ‘wife’ Takama coming up behind me.

“Welcome, welcome, come and eat and drink with us”.  A tall man, obviously a chieftain, came up to me, and touching the tips of my outstretched fingers to his, he then clasped together his hands in the traditional desert greeting.

I remembered to keep my veil around my face.  No man would remove his veil from across his mouth in the presence of authority, and this man looked like he was fully invested with the leadership of the tribe.  He carried a dagger in his girdle and the takouba, at his side.

Bowing to him, placing my hands crossed over my chest I answered.

“We have come a long way over the desert, and seek water and supplies.  We have need of rest and a safe place to recover our spirits, praise the Gods and Goddesses.” I remembered to pitch my voice low, and tried to make my eyes look fierce.

“My wife is in need of sleep. The desert is hard on one so young and this is the first time she crosses it.”

I caught a slight flicker of a smile in the eyes of the man before me.  We nomadic people are versed in reading the eyes, for they are the gateways of the soul. The soul resides in the liver, but the eyes are the portals.

“We welcome you to our camp. Come and sit with us, and tell us how you found the desert, the mother of us all.  Your wife will be refreshed by the women.”

I didn’t look at Takama, for to do so would give too much regard for her welfare.  Only if she were sick or breeding would a man publicly show his concern, and then in a very small way before strangers.

I sat and ate good mutton stew, and was grateful that darkness was falling fast, for when I lowered my veil to eat, perhaps my features would appear as that of a woman.  But the blue dye had soaked into my face, and I thought I passed for a young man.  Young I would appear to all, and there was nothing I could do about it.

There would be no questions, for this is not our way, and I offered little about our journey, except to say the desert was a wide sea indeed, and we had come from afar.  What I didn’t then realize was anything I said about the journey, these nomads would already know. If I said we had been journeying for two weeks, they could probably pinpoint our tribe’s oasis.    If I said a month, they would know I was lying, for there was only this oasis and we would have passed by two weeks ago. Stuffing my mouth with mutton and washing it down with goat’s milk, I was grateful for the hospitality and the few questions.

(END OF PART ONE, CHAPTER 3 OF TIN HINAN)

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2009

“Tin Hinan” Chapter Two

NB:  The soul resides in the liver according to Berbers.

“TIN HINAN”

CHAPTER TWO  “Damaged Goods”

Early the next morning, I rose from my pallet in the corner of my mother’s large tent. I knew my path.  After a sleepless night, I had time to refine it.

Sending Takama to gather dates, millet, barley and to fill two large water leathers,  I told her to pack for a journey, to roll up clothes for both of us, and to also pack blankets.  We were to go away, and with big eyes and trembling lips she listened in silence. I told her I would beat her to an inch of her worthless life if she slipped up and made anyone notice her doings.  Takama was a good girl, and she nodded in silence.  Although only two years younger, she was now my travelling companion.

When I listen to myself relate this story, so many years ago, I think I was what the Turks call “burnt kebobs”. A bit crazy, desert-mad,  I had lost all my senses.  Perhaps I would do things differently if given another chance, but I was so young and the young are not known for their wisdom.

I took a piece of wood used in the setting up of tents, smooth and about as long as my forearm, and walked far into the desert.  There, after prayers to Isis and Ifri, I threw off my gown, and placing the wood stake upright in the sand, I lowered my body over it and fell down in one fast motion.

With a scream, I cried out to Isis.  The pain was tremendous, this pain that I would have felt on my wedding night.  I destroyed my value as a bride, for my life as a woman was over that moment.  Now I was not marriageable, I was damaged goods.  I took my virginity so I would not be burdened with thoughts of marriage and  happiness any longer.  No such dreams fit with my plans for the future.  Now that I had dispensed with my value as a bride, I was freed in my mind.

I drew on my gown and walked back to my mother’s tent.  I bled down my legs and I almost fainted when I entered her side.  Takama had gathered the stuffs I had demanded and hid them under a blanket in my father’s side of the tent.

No one was there, in either the east or west side, and even my little brothers and sisters were out running around the settlement.  Only my old great-grandmother was there, but she was stricken dumb by some elder’s infirment.  Her eyes rolled in her head, but she could not speak.  She did watch me closely, but her face could not form an expression. It was frozen into a mask.

I took my hair down, dropping the bone pins on the carpet. Taking a large sharp knife I cut off my two braids as close to my head as I could.  My crowning glory as a woman was now gone.  Great-grandmother Tuba watched me, her eyes widening in alarm.

“Do not worry, Grandmother Tuba.  I know what I am doing.  I am shaping my destiny with my two hands.”

The two black braids lay like snakes on the carpet.  All those years growing and oiling my hair, pinning it up and brushing it out were now in the past.  I went and opened a cedar chest and drew out men’s clothes.  Putting on the loose pants and the over- dress of cotton, I drew on the outer robe and walked to my father’s side of the tent where he kept his many weapons.  Picking a short curved sword, light enough for me to use, I also chose a dagger to wear in my girdle. I outfitted my feet with a good pair of sturdy men’s sandals.  The final part of my new costume was to wrap a dark indigo-blue cloth around my head many times and cover my nose and mouth with the tail.  It had a funny smell but I supposed I would get used to it, and I would be stained blue like the other men, even Hasim.  At the thought of his name, my stomach churned, but I can’t now remember if it was in anger or sorrow.

Takama came into the east side of the tent and stopped suddenly when she saw a man standing there.  Then she saw the two black braids on the carpet and her eyes grew wide. I took down the veil from my face and smiled at her.  She would have screamed but her shock made her silent.  All she could do was stare and shake. And she knew also I would beat her silly if she made noise to alarm others.

“Come, Takama, we have one more thing to do before we leave.  Saddle my white camel, and bring her to the tent.  Saddle yourself a donkey and get the boys to load up both beasts. Meet me back here quickly.”

Takama did as she was told.  My camel, named Niefa, kneeled and I mounted her, the saddle feeling strange to my buttocks for I was sitting like a man would on a camel.

“Coosh, coosh, Niefa”, I called out to her as she rose up with a groan.  Camels talk a lot, and my Niefa talked all the time.

We rode to the elder’s tent, an open- sided covering with large rugs laid on the sand.  There sat all the tribal elders, and the women of status, my mother prominent amongst them.

I was an object of immediate curiosity, for although I was not recognized, my Niefa was.  I came up to the tent, and stopped a respectful distance from them.  Niefa moaned and kneeled, and I toppled off her, and saw some of the older men smile at this young man who did not gracefully descend from his beast.

I walked up to them and bowed, and drew aside my indigo veil.  Immediately I was recognized, and my mother gave up such a wail that my stomach flipped.  My father stared and stared and said nothing.  My presence for a few minutes threw them all into confusion.

“I stand before you, no longer Aicha.  Aicha is dead to me and to this tribe.  I know that satisfaction is demanded for the behavior of Hasim Ghanim Iher and his family and tribe.
I know you meet to discuss what is to be done.  But I would not have the blood of my tribesmen on my head.  I will seek my own revenge in time on Hasim Ghanim Iher and his tribe, but Ammon and Isis will lead me to that moment.  Now I will leave our oasis and my family and with Takama as my companion, I will go through the desert until I can find peace.”

Those words were the most I ever uttered in public.  A girl of eighteen does not presume to address her elders. But of course, in my mind, I was no longer Aicha, a member of my family or my tribe.  I was now a stranger to both, and I could see the doubts as to my sanity in my parent’s eyes.

“Ah, Aicha has lost her senses! A Zar must be commanding her. Whoever would believe that this child could cast off her name and do such a thing?”  My mother’s voice rang out in agony, and I winced at her pain.

There was a general hubbub, a confused mingling of voices, when I heard my father cut through all of them with his own low voice.  Immediately, everyone stopped talking out of respect for this shocked father.  He stood up, drew himself to his full height, and addressed me.

“My daughter, I know your grief.  I saw you former happiness and I know how oppressed your liver is now. Do you understand what you do?  It is heresy in the face of your tribe to appear in men’s clothing.  Do you understand the weight of your actions?”

With tears in my eyes that I shook from my head, I spoke to him, the daughter of his old age and his favorite.

“My father and mother, I do this for the great love I have for my tribe.  I know bloodshed will follow the breaking of our wedding by Hasim and his parents.  Our people will die because of this man and his family. Leave them to their shame.  I have my own. But I am born anew and I left Aicha in the desert when I prayed to Isis and Tanit.   She is dead, but I am alive and I go to meet my destiny.”

I did not tell him what else I had done. That was for me only, for that revealed would have me stoned to death.  Such a violation would not be tolerated by the traditions of our tribe.

My father came forward to embrace me, and turning to the others, with tears running down his face, he addressed them.

“My daughter Aicha, for she will always remain my daughter, has consulted our Ammon and the Goddesses.  If they spoke to her, she is bound to obey.  Aicha is a good girl, and would not lie to me.  I will bless her with my deepest blessings and let her find her destiny.  Anyone who would move against her now, moves against me first.”

I mounted Niefa and with the indigo veil wrapped tightly around my face catching my tears, I turned my camel and Takama and I walked out of our oasis.  I did not dare look back, for I knew if I did so, I would not be able to leave my tribe and my family.

The desert spread out before me at the edge of our oasis, like a vast, white ocean. I turned my eyes to the east where I knew my future was waiting. What I would find, not even the God and Goddesses would tell me.  I was, with the exception of a slave girl, on my own.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009

“TIN HINAN”, Chapter 1

It’s summer here, the dreaded month of August.  I am rewriting another novel, a just finished one, and trying to keep my nose to the grindstone. I would rather be doing other things, like blue-ing the white parts of the cats and dental-flossing between cabinets, but I’m stuck in a commitment to rewrite “Devil’s Revenge”.  A couple of people are holding sticks and look like they aren’t afraid to use them.  So….I am offering “Tin Hinan” as entertainment and there are lots of issues with this novel.  One, I haven’t looked at it in two years, and two, all of us are different people after a course of time.  And this is especially true about writers.  So I warn any reader, this work has much to reconsider, but I just don’t have the time right now for this.

Lady Nyo

(I started this story two years ago this summer. It grew legs and ran away with me. When I was dancing (I am a bellydancer, but NOT in the summer….) I had a number of Berber friends where I danced, and they patiently told me about their culture and customs.  I was fascinated by their stories, and from these came this novella, “Tin Hinan”.

Tin Hinan was an actual historical figure in the 6th century in Algeria.  She gathered the tribes from Morocco and Algeria into a nation.  There is not much known about her so this is a work of pure fiction.  I did try to stick to the ‘facts’ in her journey across the desert with her slave. That was known about Tin Hinan.

Considering the tribal traditions of any century, what Tin Hinan did in just this venture, leaving her tribe and setting out across these mighty deserts is amazing. Considering the odds of her survival, it is especially wonderous.

The Berbers opened the trade routes across northern Africa, and defended those routes from the Arabs.  Interestingly enough, Berbers were originally Christian, and resisted Islamic influence into the early 20th century. (Though Islam made great inroads from the 7th century onward.)  Between Christianity and Islamic religion, they were closer to the Egyptians in their worship of Ammon and Isis.

The story seemed to weave itself like a rug, knot by knot and color by color.  It’s 14 or so chapters and I plan next year to  finish it.

One important fact of Berber culture:  The Soul resides in the Liver. )

TIN HINAN

CHAPTER 1

I am called Tin Hinan. I had the destiny of a woman ‘rooted in flight’.  Even my name means “Nomadic Woman”.  Sometimes I forget my birth name before I became Queen. It is now lost in the sands of the Great Desert.

I founded a nation from the stirrings of my womb.  This is my story.

I was born in an oasis near what is now called Morocco.  My people were nomadic, but if our tribe had a name, we would be Tagelmust, meaning “People of the Veil”. The Arabs, our enemy, rudely called us Twareg, “Abandoned by God”. We now are known as Tuareg, or Berber by the white Europeans. But since I am speaking from my short time of fifty years on this earth and now only spirit,  you should know my story and life harkens back to the sixth century.  Life was very different then. But men and woman were not so different from now. Hearts are the same.

Our tribe is matriarchal.  All things, possessions, are passed down through the women.  The men still make the laws, but we women have great power.  Nothing is decided until the council of elder women and men meet.

We basically had  two classes of Tagelmust people, Imajeren, the nobles, and Iklan, the slaves.  There are subgroups in all that, but that’s not important. My family were Imajeren, my father a tribal elder and leader.  My mother had great status as the first of his four wives.

I was born in the spring, during lambing time.  I was exceptionally tall for my sex, and poems were written by my mother and other women about my hurry to reach up to the stars.  That is the reason they gave for my height.  I had long, thick black hair and hazel eyes, which was not rare. As I grew to marriageable age, more songs were sung openly around the fires as to my beauty.

Perhaps you wonder when you think of Arabic women with the chador and burkah covering their features, how would you sing to a black sheath of cloth with two dark eyes staring back at you?  We, the Berber, are blessed by Ammon and Isis, for The Veiled People only applies to the men!  They wear the veil, an indigo dyed cloth that wraps around their heads and covers their faces, with only the eyes and the bridge of their noses exposed.  We, the women, carry our faces proudly to the sun, to the wind, and when it comes, the blessed rain.  The men are mostly stained a dark blue, like a devil or zar because their sweat makes the dye run from the indigo and stains their faces.  They look funny for it does not wash off, but seeps into the skin.  So when you marry, you beget children from a  Zar-looking creature.  Perhaps that is why children are such little devils.

“Aicha, Aicha!” The aunties were calling me in from where I was loafing.  I liked to stand at the edge of the oasis, and look at the sea of sand before me.  I would think of great spans of water, for some travelers once told me about the great ocean to the north.

I turned and ran towards my mother’s tent. To ignore the aunties would be rude, and besides, they had many surprises and secrets in the folds of their robes.

“You, Aicha!  Your mother wants you to come to her, hurry!  Here, be a good girl and take this basket.”

I slipped the large basket over my arm and went into the tent side of my mother.

She was sitting on the floor of the tent, shelling dried beans. There were other women, most of them my aunts, her sisters, also working on the floor.  Our clan was a large one, one of the largest that made up this particular desert tribe. Growing up, there were women enough to pull my ears when I was bad and to soothe me when I was mournful.

My mother looked up, noticed me standing there and motioned for me to sit down.

“Aicha, you are of the age when you should be married, or at least engaged.  Your father and I think it time that we look around for a husband for you.”

I knew it!  I saw the sly glances of the aunties, and heard the laughter when I passed a group of women. At the river, when I carried down the washing, I got looks and giggles even from those women and girls I didn’t know well. Something was brewing and this time I was the last to know.

“Come, you graceless girl.” My mother’s oldest sister, Aunt Aya called out to me.  She reached behind her broad hips and pulled out a packet wrapped in wool.  Slowly opening it, she revealed a heavy silver and amber necklace made up of many silver rounds and large amber beads.

It was fun for them, to dress me in the women jewelry like I was a child’s doll.   But they were serious in their business.

“Hold still, you silly girl. This kohl will poke out your eye if you don’t”.

My face and hair were fiddled with, and I suffered the blackening of my eyes and their hands twisting my hair into designs.  It hurt.

That day they had their fun, and I emerged from the tent at evening to be walked around the fire to the vocalizing  and comments of the collected tribe.  My hair was braided in intricate styles and small silver discs peppered my head like tiny,  beaten full moons.   Heavy silver and wood earrings weighted down my earlobes.  I was of course, without a veil, and two women held my hands, leading me around the tribe’s main fire to the sound of drums and the ney flute.

Although I could not to marry within my tribe, I was being presented for our tribe’s delight.  Grooming for marriage was a ritual and my blushes showed appropriate modesty.

********************

There was a young man who was part of a neighboring tribe a day away.  During marriages, celebrations and festivals, I would see him and he would look for me.  We are modest women, but we do stare in the eyes of a man we are interested in marrying. We even wink at them.  Are you shocked?  Well, we did.   We had many customs, but  Berber women, before the hated Arabs, had much freedom.

Hasim was his name, and he was a tall man, taller than I was.  I thought only proper I be married to a tall man. What woman wants to look down on her husband?  It sets a bad example for a woman.  She starts looking down on him in other things.  Hasim was a few years older and at one marriage celebration, I danced a line dance with other maidens and gave him one of my bracelets.  This was an accepted way of flirting. When the musicians took a rest, I went to get my silver bracelet back, and he slipped it down the front of his robe. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled boldly. I should have known then Hasim was trouble, but my foolish heart flip-flopped.  Ah! Girls can be so silly.

Hasim was handsome, already a man though only about twenty-two years of age.  He had golden skin where the sun had not burned him dark and black eyes like deep shaded pools of water in the oasis.  His nose was long and slightly bent, like the hunting hawk, and his mouth was full and red, like a split pomegranate.  His teeth were white like bleached bones in the desert.

How do I know this, if our men are veiled?  My Hasim, for I already claimed him mine with the certainty that he would be…. had unwrapped his indigo blue veil from his face. And yes, his cheeks were stained a light blue where his beard would be.  I should have known that the Zar blood was deep in him, not just on the surface, but Isis! How was I to know then?

“Come, little sister, fish deep in my waters and you will find your bangle.  You want your precious silver back, do you not?”

Ah! My father would kill him if he heard his words!  But Hasim just grinned, playing a man’s game and my head whirled inside.  Other parts of me were disturbed, but I only knew of this by our women’s bridal parties before the weddings.  My heart flipped and my stomach turned over, too.

I am not known for being shy, perhaps it is because I am so tall, but shy I was before Hasim.

He reached out his hand and traced my cheek to my chin, gently pushing the back of his thumb over my lips.  My eyes were locked to his and I could not pull away. I must have looked like a little fool, for my mouth opened a bit with the firm  pressure of his finger.

Hasim dipped into his chest and reluctantly pulled out my bracelet.  “Little sister, be careful in what hands you place your silver. .  You might come across one who will take more than your jewelry.”

I heard his voice off in the distance.  He closed his eyes slightly, his long, black lashes brushing downwards, and the spell was broken.  I staggered a bit, and he threw out a hand to steady me, an enigmatic smile on his face.

I saw Hasim a few times after this first occasion and each time grew dizzy by the sight him.  During the last harvest festival, Hasim was mounted on a large, white camel as he raced across the desert with the other riders.  The groans and bellows of the beasts, the yelling of the men placing their wagers and the dust churned up from many feet made it hard for me to concentrate.  I could only follow the white of his camel for he was surrounded by mounted men.

That autumn, my mother and father called me before them, and announced that it was time I marry.  I of course had no choice, I was of age, but I noticed an exchange of smiles between my parents.  Unknown to me, my father had consulted with the marriage broker and a visit had been made to Hasim’s parents.  He was considered a good prospect, and with the status of our tribe and that of my father, I was considered a likely bride for Hasim.

My heart was light and leaping about in my chest.  I walked now with confidence, my breasts pushed out and a smile upon my face.  I would have the status of a wife, not just a common, unmarried girl.  There were many things to settle, preparations to make and issues far beyond my concern.  These were the matters of the elders and my mother’s family. But I was to be a bride!  Finally, I would take my place in the tribe with all the authority of a wedded woman.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
2007, 2009
Copyrighted by the author.