Özge Ersu is in Edirne, Türkiye.
Dear Friends,
In this work, I would like to share with you my favorite details and impressions about the Roma, the 'must-haves' of this land, about whom you hear and hear a lot in Edirne, our 'Capital of the Balkans' Serhad Province', which we make false and false comparisons and make judgments about, which I love very much and go to whenever I have the opportunity. . Let's take a quick tour with you in Edirne, Thrace and around the world, from 'Demeter Festivals' to 'Kakava', from 'Seeing Babafingo' to 'Seventy-Two and a Half Nation'. By the way, I would like to point out that I use the word 'Gypsy' instead of 'Roma' from time to time in my discourses, without any complexities, and that I briefly explain this distinction at the end of my article.
Preface
Actually, the focus of my article is the Kakava Festival held in Edirne every May . However, in order to explain these festivals properly, we must first look at the beliefs of humanity from a larger perspective. Because when we say Kakava , tracing the spring and fertility ceremonies spread across many different cultures and reaching out to other springs in different societies will make what we say more understandable.
Greek Mythology and Demeter Festivals
First, I would like to start with Demeter , the goddess of agriculture (harvest) , abundance and fertility in Greek Mythology . Frankly, we can go even further back in history, but let's leave the scene to a bitter love story without going off topic.
Especially during my travels in Anatolia and Italy , my narratives eventually come to a point where they intersect with Greek (and subsequently Roman) Mythology countless times. I think the Tunca River is one of the places where I think Greek Mythology mixes sweetly with Edirne. Come with a few sentences, let's remember this tragic scenario from thousands of years ago.
Our protagonist is Persephone , the beautiful daughter of Demeter , one of Zeus ' wives . Our story begins with Hades, the God of the Underground, whom no one wants to marry, falling in love with Persephone and making a treacherous plan with Zeus , kidnapping the girl underground and marrying her.
But while mother Demeter is searching for her daughter in pain, she learns about the intrigues from the Titan Helios , the lord of the sun, and leaves Olympos , the mountain of the immortal Gods, in anger and begins to live among people. With this departure, abundance ends all over the world, crops dry up, and famine and winter begin. I won't make it long, but those who intervened later ensured that Persephone came to earth to be with her mother during a certain part of the year. When this beautiful girl meets her mother, the Goddess of Fertility, spring comes, crops sprout, abundance and fertility begin. This is the origin of the Demeter (Spring) Festival, which has been celebrated in Greek culture and Anatolia for a long time .
Starting from Ruz-ı Hızır Hıdırellez
Demete r, of course, we cannot pass without mentioning Hıdırellez, which we celebrate as a seasonal holiday in Turkish culture, which I want to write about in detail in a separate work in order to return to our topic. As you know, Hızır Day is celebrated on May 6, known as 'Ruz-ı Hızır' and considered the day when Hızır and İlyas met on earth, with wishes of abundance and abundance as the herald of the beginning of spring. Kakava Festivals are also celebrated on the same dates within this framework.
Maying
Similarly, when we look at Anglophone cultures, we see this spring resurrection as 'Maying' . Instead of explaining this concept in detail, I would like to give you only two small and pleasant artistic suggestions.
The first one is 'Corinna's Going A Maying' by Robert Herrick, which is one of the most beautiful poems that impressed me during the years I studied at Boğaziçi University, Department of English Language and Literature . It is very difficult to translate into Turkish, but those who know English will love this masterpiece, which combines reunion and reunion in the fast-flowing time with the theme of spring and rebirth. Secondly, if you listen to the theatrical dance piece 'Now Is The Month Of Maying', written about four hundred years ago on these subjects , especially by the British a cappella vocal group The King's Singers , founded in 1968 , and pay attention to the lyrics, you can understand the concept of 'Maying' more clearly. will make it understandable.
Edirne Kakava Festivals
Let's now put Greek Mythology, Anglophone Maying philosophy and Hıdırellez aside and return to our 'Gypsy Time' in Edirne .
This resurrection, the return of abundance and abundance, which we encounter in almost every society at every moment of history, in short, spring festivals, is celebrated by the Romani population of Edirne with extremely interesting and enjoyable ceremonies. First, a giant fire is lit in the area where Kırkpınar Wrestling is held, people jump over it, wishes are made, and it turns into a festival where song mixes with dance, dust mixes with jazz, and the makams mix with Hijaz. Edirne is not the only place where this festivity takes place. For example , at the same time, thousands of colors were intertwined in Satan Creek in the neighboring Thracian city of Kırklareli .
Let's go back to Edirne again: This sweet excitement actually starts on May 5th. Today, these celebrations have almost overtaken the Historical Kırkpınar Wrestling with participants from home and abroad and have become an important tourism movement and source of income for Edirne.
Gogo Hacıçeşme Cemetery
One of my favorite places to watch this sweet chaos is Hacıçeşme Cemetery, which the Roma people call 'Gogo' . All else aside, I think the residents of Menzilahir Neighborhood have a big part in all this coming to this day. On the other hand , we should also give credit to the former Mayor of Edirne, Hamdi Sedefçi, who protected this culture and moved the dusty Kakava to Sarayiçi , where it was celebrated more joyfully .
Let's get back to the celebrations. The Fifth of May ends with these colorful images. The next day, early in the morning, almost all Romani people put on their wedding dresses and groom's suits. They gather first in the Gogo Cemetery , then in the morning on the banks of the Tunca River, which empties into Meriç . The aim is both to be purified and to see 'Babafingo' .
Babafingo
Stop! Don't immediately think of Babafingo, the slang name for the male sexual organ, inspired by Italian nautical terms, 'Pappafico', the name of the tallest mast in the middle and the knob on top of old large sailing ships .
So, what is Babafingo and who is it? According to belief, he is a leader, a god, a figure who once guided the Roma people . It is not known what it looks like, it is not talked about. It is believed that he will come out of the water again at the beginning of May, on Hıdırellez day, in the morning.
According to some legends, Babafingo was one of those who chased the Prophet Moses through the Red Sea as he left Egypt . When the Prophet blocked the water with his staff after his passage, he and his men remained at the bottom of the water. This Babafingo tries to rise above the water and return to the world every year on this day, but has not been able to do this for thousands of years. But oh, if one day this can happen, then all the gypsies of the world will be saved and maybe even the Great Romani State will be established.
Have You Seen Babafingo?
Unfortunately, 'Seeing Babafingo', which is among the disturbing definitions of street language today , is actually the historical legacy of such an old and deep-rooted belief.
It is a part of this belief to dive into the Tunca River to be purified during the Kakava Festival , to commemorate this event, to experience it, and perhaps to see Babafingo, who "will be able to emerge from the water that year ."
I said that Roma people gather at the water's edge at the first light of the morning and wash and purify themselves in the river. This ritual always reminds me of the boat rides I took at dawn on the banks of the Ganges River in India , or the ceremonies I encountered during my walks on the banks of Pashupatinah in Nepal .
Don't worry, the water is not very warm at the beginning of May every year, sometimes it becomes almost freezing. As I have already observed, Romani people used to dive completely into the water, but now most of them just wash their hands and faces. This is such a spectacular sight that everyone, from small children to elderly grandfathers, looks for Babafingo that morning . But alas! No one has seen it yet.
Those who "couldn't see it" express their sadness with bitter excitement by saying , "We couldn't see Babafingo this year either, now we'll look at the Kakavas in the future." On these holidays, children who wake up late and are late for the celebrations are also deceived and say, 'Oh no, while you were sleeping, Babafingo came out, came, saw the man and then left!' is made fun of. Who knows? Maybe Babafingo will come in the next Kakava ...
Gypsy and From Gypsies to World Roma
Finally, I would like to briefly tell you about the terms Gypsy and Roma , which I mentioned at the beginning of my article , and the origins of these colorful, cheerful world citizens.
First, let's resolve our 'Etymological problems' : It is accepted that the word 'Gypsy', which we know and use from time to time, is actually derived from the Old Turkish word ' Çıgan', which means 'poor, poor' . Çıgan or Çigan in Turkish has evolved as Zigeuner in German , Czigány in Hungarian , Cigánu in Romanian , Tsigane in French and Zingaro in Italian .
When we look at the other etymological distinction of the word, we come across Gitanos in Spanish , Gypsie in English , Gifti in Greek , Evgit in Albanian, again from the German root Ägypter . However, Gypsy men call themselves Rom, which means 'human, man' , their women are called Romni , and their language is Romani .
As for their origins... Everyone has a theory about where they come from, but the generally accepted idea is that, based on their language, they belong to a low caste group that spread all over the world from Central India . They were dispersed throughout Europe and other parts of the world during the great population movements of the four hundredth century AD and the tenth and fifteenth centuries .
Their intense migration to Turkey, especially Edirne, was during the First World War . It is thought that their number in our country is between five hundred thousand and one million, of which, as far as I know, at least one hundred thousand are unregistered and unidentified.
Gypsy and Roma in Turkey
Well, instead of ' Gypsy' , which is almost considered an insult, we said 'Roma' in the Aegean, Thrace and Edirne . Are you wondering how they are called in different provinces of Turkey?
The people of Van call it 'Mutrip' , the people of Ankara, Konya and Kayseri especially call it 'Elekçi ', the people of Erzurum call it 'Poşa' , and the people of Adana call it 'Cano' . In daily use, they are also called 'dark citizen, köçer' or coachman in different regions .
Epilogue Here is the name of
the 'Seventy-Two and a Half Nation' for a long time , although we do not accept such a shame today, they are sometimes paired with bad definitions in old encyclopedias, they are always in the class of suspicious individuals, they are thought to have no religion and beliefs, so it is known, the expression 'Gypsyization' in our language. These beautiful people who are targeted have always been excluded and marginalized, even though their identity cards say 'Turkish' . Although most of them do not have a job and they work in fields such as local musicians, horse grooming, and sometimes scrap collecting and environmental waste collection, the fact that these lines of work are on the verge of extinction today is among the biggest problems of Roma people . A few associations have recently been established with the aim of increasing awareness about them.
I hope that all the 'girls and girls' who read this article will now look at these 'world citizens' with more pleasant eyes, whether they call them Roma or Gypsies !
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