Читать книгу Armenian Legends and Festivals - Louis A. Boettiger - Страница 5
ОглавлениеThe Geography of Armenia
Armenia is a huge plateau, a westward extension of the great Iranian highland, bounded by the Caucasus Mountains on the north, the Taurus Mountains and Kurdistan on the south, the Persian lowlands on the southeast, and the Black and Caspian seas. The average height of the plateau is 6,000 feet. As it ends abruptly at the Black Sea on one side, so on the other it breaks down in rugged terraces to the Mesopotamian lowlands; on the east it sinks gradually to the lower levels of Persia, and on the west to the plains of Asia Minor. The chief mountain ranges run from northeast to southwest, rising above the general level of the plateau to an altitude ranging from 8,000 to 12,000 feet and culminating in Ararat, the lofty summit of which stands 17,000 feet above sea level. Broad, elevated, and fertile valleys range themselves between the mountains, the main lines of which are determined by the four chief rivers of the country, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Aras, and the Kur. All four rise in the plateau, the two former emptying into the Persian Gulf, and the latter two into the Caspian Sea. The Euphrates divides the country into what is known as great and little Armenia, or Armenia major and Armenia minor, Armenia major on the east and Armenia minor on the west. Although the valleys are generally broad expanses of arable land, grass covered and treeless, the gorges of the Euphrates and Tigris can not be surpassed in grandeur and wildness. The winters are long and severe, and the summers short, dry, and hot. In the city of Erzerum the range of temperature is from −22° to 84°, and snow is usually present in June.1
In consequence of the long and severe winters the villages are built on gentle slopes of the hillsides in which the houses are excavated. Robert Curzon, who traveled through the country about 1850, has written the best description of them.2 A rectangular plot of ground about the size of an English acre is laid out and excavated to a depth of seven or eight feet at the back side, decreasing gradually with the slope of the hill to a depth of about two feet. After a careful leveling of the ground, trunks of straight trees are cut and arranged in rows for the support of the ceiling, which consists of cross-beams interspersed by a wooden frame-work upon which the removed soil is laid to a considerable thickness. The walls are made of stone. In entering the habitation at the lower slope of the hillside, one is obliged to descend three or four steps to the outer door, which opens to a passage six to ten feet in length, at the end of which is a second door, constructed of wood like the first. This door swings to through the operation of a curious wooden weight passed over a kind of pulley, in order to keep the outside cold from entering the inner chamber. The inside of the door is usually covered with a rough, red-dyed goatskin. Directly before the inner door is a wooden platform raised some two feet above the ground and known in Turkish as the “Salamlik,” the hall of reception of the head of the family. Chairs and tables it possesses none, only divans richly draped with Kurdish stuffs placed against the stone walls that bound the two sides of the platform. The floor is carpeted with tekeke, a kind of grey felt, and the walls are decorated with swords, knives, pistols, and other weapons. On the other two sides, the Salamlik is bounded by wooden rails to keep away the sheep and cattle which occupy the greatest proportion of floor space, and whose breathing helps materially to keep the chamber warm. The other members of the household are confined behind the stone wall where the space is sometimes split up into two or more chambers for the various families of the patriarchal household. One of these rooms is the common eating-room, and is provided with an open hearth, fireplace, and chimney which leans forward over the fireplace and draws up the smoke through a hole in the turf-covered roof. A great stone is placed over the chimney to keep children at play and grazing animals from falling through. In traveling through the country on horseback, particular care must be taken lest the horse step through an old chimney hole and break his leg. The windows are funnel shaped holes through the ceiling spanned with oiled paper.
Such is the Armenian household in which the people live day and night during eight winter months of the year in the coldest section of the country, as Erzerum and Mush. That many of the evenings were passed in listening to the tales and gossip of a wandering minstrel, or to the legends and folk-beliefs of the grey-haired members of the family, there can be no doubt. That the national tradition was passed on in this manner from the aged to the younger, to be again passed on in their turn, is a matter of as much certainty as that part at least of this same tradition has been preserved through the continually recurring storms of the passing centuries. The recounting of national legends and folk-lore is a chief means of amusement even in the warmer sections of the country, where the climate makes a free community life possible. How much more place, then, must it have had in these colder sections where only the head of the family ever left the household in winter-time, and then only in case of absolute necessity.
As has been suggested, this style of dwelling-place is not common to all parts of Armenia. In some places the houses are built entirely above ground, usually of stone, and sometimes, especially in the case of the poorer inhabitants, of mud. Though the winters are not so long or severe as in the district of Erzerum, they are nevertheless sufficiently cold to require a fire six or seven months of the year. The characteristic feature of every living- and dining-room is the large “toneer” or circular fireplace dug out to a depth of three to four feet in the center of the room. Here the fire is built in the morning, usually with “tezek,” the most common variety of fuel which is a sun-baked mixture of straw and sheep or cow dung. The bread is baked and the meals are cooked in the “toneer” and when it is time to eat, the members sit about the open space, letting their feet hang over the fire to keep warm. In the hut described by Montpèreux, there was but a single opening in the roof which served for window and chimney at the same time, and which was often carefully sealed up with straw to keep out the cold.3 This author has given a clear picture of the common family fireplace and sleeping chamber in which each person fell asleep as best he might upon rugs and skins, keeping as near the “toneer” as possible. And if the traditions, legends, and folk-lore that will make up the body of this thesis are the common possession of the people, as I have reason to believe them to be, in spite of drastic measures taken to suppress them, how better could they have been told and retold than while lounging about the “toneer” during long winter evenings before sleeping time?4
In what other respects the natural environment of the people moulded the common life, one can only conjecture. That the cold winters and deep river valleys have tended to the formation of isolated communities, clannishness, and provincialism, as is contended by some writers, has not generally been true. Tidal waves of conquering civilizations have passed over the country too frequently to make such an influence possible.5 Furthermore the people are bound together by a national religion, whose chief officials are chosen by the lay members and priesthood of the many communities.6 These representatives to the national religious assemblies return to their own people brimming with news and reports of political as well as religious and social matters. Such facts together with a common ancestry, a common tradition, and a common language have moulded a nation, and not a thousand differentiated groups among a people who were once a nation. They have tended to solidify and unify the national character, and it is just this process of solidification that gives significance to the whole fabric of beliefs, legends, and festivals of the people.
As a nation, the Armenian people are exclusive, but this is an entirely different matter. For three years I have had occasion to observe groups of students belonging to different nations, chiefly Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, Jews, Persians, Turks, and Armenians, and the latter always showed a most persistent determination to confine their friendships and social intercourse to themselves. Perhaps this is due to the fact that nearly all of the nations above mentioned have at one time or another dominated the Armenians; perhaps it is due to the persecution they have recently suffered, which, though it has been a sufficiently important fact to result in serious social and psychological changes, has by no means been characteristic of the history of the people, as it has been, for example, of the Jews; or perhaps it is due to the solidarity and oneness of the people as a whole. I am inclined rather to the latter explanation, and may perhaps be able to prove it so.
Nevertheless, the singularity of the physical environment has placed its irremovable stamp upon the people. The words that best describe the country are not trees, hills, forests, gently flowing streams, such words as commonly express American landscape, but rather, gorges, mountain ranges, broad river valleys, treeless expanses of country. There is space to make one think of other worlds and other shores, and there are mountains suggestive of strength, that rise majestic above the plateau, to fill one with awe and wonder. Religious the people are naturally, but more than that, they are thoughtful, reflecting, considering. No writer that I have read but has spoken of the Armenian as intellectually alert and capable. That this thoughtfulness, this robust element in their idealism is in part the stamp of physical nature, there can be little doubt.
1 Detailed descriptions of geography and geology may be found in Lynch, Armenia; St. Martin, Mémoire sur l’Arménie, 2. Summary descriptions may be found in the New Schaff Herzog and Britannica encyclopedias.
2 Robert Curzon, Armenia.
3 Dubois de Montpèreux, Voyages 3:400.
4 There is a belief that the toneer is sacred. “Nur der alte T’onir, der offen Backofen, der von den Iraniern entlehnt ist und am fünften Jahrhundert schon gebraucht wird, gilt überall in Armenien als heilig.” Abeghian, Der armenische Volksglaube p. 3.
5 Surrounded as Armenia was with almost all of the ancient civilizations, including the Parthians, Scythians, Medes, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, she was inevitably involved in continual warfare, while the central situation of the territory made it a common stamping ground for hostile armies. Langlois 1:ix.
6 Ormanian, The Church of Armenia pp. 151–54.
