Kurdish Storytelling Project
Notes from Diane
:
For almost a decade, I have been traveling to the Kurdish region of Turkey in search of storytellers, collecting tales and documenting this beautiful but endangered culture. What an amazing and eye opening journey it has been. I knew that the storytelling tradition was in peril, but it was shocking to see how quickly it was disappearing. The young people, forbidden by law to study their language, are not learning and passing along the tales, nor are the legends being written down. Most Kurds have been kept illiterate in their native Kurdish tongue due to government policies forbidding reading or writing in Kurdish. (Laws not lifted until 1992)
Sometimes, after arriving at a village and being introduced to the storyteller, the teller would say these words: “Ne zanim” or “I don’t remember.” Several of the storytellers had recently had strokes that left them without the words and the memory to tell the ancient tales. All those who remembered stories said, “No one has asked me to tell a story for twenty years.” These were heartbreaking moments made less painful by the many times I was able to successfully document very old tellers. Some like a shepherd who had recently been forced to leave the nomadic life and move to the city, knew wonderful intricate legends that had been in his tribe for generations. As he told the tales his eyes grew distant. He was lost in the memory of stories more real to him than the small room or the whirr of the video camera.
Kurdish storytellers see themselves on camera for the first time.
Although I have archived many tellers, and written A Fire in My Heart, a book of Kurdish folktales published by Libraries Unlimited, there are many tellers who are very old and need to be documented as soon as possible. Because of this, I wil
l return to Turkey, soon, to continue my work. Please consider making a donation to this endeavor. Your contribution will help me to travel safely, to hire a translator/guide, rent a car and pay for food, airfare and for the many smaller expenses that occur. The legends and heritage of a culture are part of the riches of mankind and we will all be the poorer for losing them.
About the book:
A valuable introduction to the Kurds of the Middle East, this unique collection, the first of its kind in English, fe
atures tales collected first-hand by the author during several years of travel to the Kurdish region of Turkey. From the Kurdish Cinderella story and humorous animal tales to stories based on legendary figures such as the Herculean Rustemê Zal, these thirty-three tales from the varied regions of Kurdistan are a wonderful resource for storytellers, folklorists and scholars. The tales are complemented by traditional Kurdish recipes, games and a brief history. Rare color photos from Iraqi Kurdistan in 1955, a map of the region and recent photos of Kurdish village life augment and give context to the stories.
