The Nergz Ring

A friend of mine in Kurdistan transcribed and translated a fairy tale that his grandmother told him. He sent it to me and told me that I could edit it so that its quality in the English language would be of a readable level. This is the result!

Centuries ago in a big city situated along the Zagros Mountains, there lived a man with his lovely wife and their daughter, Chyavan (“someone who goes to the mountains”), who was their only child. The man was a very skillful jeweler. So much so that his name was spreading beyond the city limits and permeating the whole country. His products were so well crafted that it seemed he must be using some sort of magic.

The jeweler had a rather hidden and retired personality. He was seldom seen or heard from, so he was something of a mystery to the people. Little was known about him except that his skill as a jeweler was unmatched and that he loved his wife more than anything. Together they lived a very happy life with their daughter, who they cherished greatly.

One day the Jeweler decided to make a very special gift for his wife in celebration of their anniversary. A magnificent gold ring was made for her which featured two golden Nergz flowers crafted atop the golden ornate band. Wanting to give something to his daughter as well, a golden tooth was made for her. They were both extremely grateful and appreciative of their gifts.

Their lives continued happily until the jeweler’s wife became gravely ill. Having been bedridden and knowing her end was near, she gave her will to her husband and died two days later. The Jeweler was overcome with grief. He never thought he could have a life that did not include her.

The usual ceremonies needed to be put in order for her funeral though, and this led him to read her last will and testament. Very plainly it stated, “I know you and my daughter will be so lonely after I am gone, but I don’t want this to happen. For this reason I want you to take another wife. But, there are two conditions which must be met. First, you must take care of our daughter and love her endlessly. Second, the ring you made for me must perfectly fit the finger of the woman you choose to marry, or else she can’t be your wife. If you don’t honor these requests, I will never forgive you and will be eternally sad.”

The Jeweler was distraught by the death of his wife, and his love for her led him to decide he must honor his wife’s last wishes.

So, he began searching for someone to marry, travelling to many towns and cities. Unfortunately, the ring did not perfectly fit a single woman. It was as if the ring was bewitched because it was made for their anniversary, so that only the ring itself could choose who was worthy to wear it.

After three years of searching, the jeweler came home disappointed. Now, his daughter did not know about her mother’s will and one day finds the beautiful wedding band. She decided to try it on out of curiosity and found that it fit her perfectly. How strange! It was made for her mother after all.

But just then her father walks in and sees the ring perfectly wrapped around her finger and realizes that she is the only woman it has ever fit, and so the ring has chosen her. He begins to become so overwhelmed with his love for his lost wife and his duty to fulfil her will such that he becomes blind to rationality. He tells his daughter that she must marry him, her own father. If she does not then his wife will never forgive him, and that is the last thing he will accept. But she cries out that she cannot marry her own father. It’s a crime.

Hearing this, the Jeweler became very angry. He went into a rage and Chyavan was terrified. He was out of his sense. He even began to seem more monster than man in his anguished rage.

The Jeweler turned to his daughter and told her that if she would not marry him and fulfill her mother’s Will, he would have to kill her by his own hands. After being threatened so, his daughter fearfully relented and agreed to become his wife. But, she asks if she can have a little money to get something for the wedding, and her father acquiesces.

The next day, she went to the city’s bazaar, seeking out the tailor. She finds him and asks for a cloth to be made which will cover her entire body except for her hands and eyes. The cloth will be ready in two days’ time.

Over those next two days, she tried hard to stay away from her father because he was out of his mind and had become unpredictable. She had no idea what he might say or do next.

When the two days passed, she went back to the bazaar with some supplies, she picked up her cloth, donned it and left the city. She escaped to the mountains and began living alone in a cave she found. When her father realizes she is missing, nobody knows where she has gone. Her father becomes enraged and vows to get revenge by killing her because she disobeyed him and the will of her mother. If she won’t marry him, he believes killing her is the only way for his wife to rest in peace.

After a month of her new and lonely life, Chyavan ventures into the mountain forest. There she comes across a group of people. At first she is frightened, but soon realizes they are huntsmen. The leader is a man named Ahmed, the son of a Duke of a nearby city. He comes to the forest every year with his companions to hunt for game.

However, the huntsmen needed supplies and water and food since they had been out for two days and nights without killing a single thing to eat. She sees they are in need and shows herself to them, still covered in her cloth. They ask for food and so she invites them to her cave.

Ahmed, the duke’s son, asks her why she is alone in the mountains. At first she says nothing, but then Ahmed asks her to uncover her beautiful face so that he can admire it. She takes off the cloth and then, when he asks again, she tells him the whole story about her father the jeweler and how she ran away. Ahmed decides that he must take her with him to his home and keep her safe, promising to protect her from her father.

She goes to live with him and after two months together they begin to fall deeply in love. Their days started happily and their life together was ideal. After some time, she even became pregnant, and they had a son together. Having begun a family, they were happy and felt nothing could go wrong.

Years pass and they continue to live as if God had showered all of his blessings upon them. But, they did not know that there was trouble lurking. A very old man, strange, peculiar, and internally full of anger, had come to their city. A man who had searched countless villages and cities trying to find his daughter who ran away from him long ago.

The Jeweler has become a conjurer, and was wandering the city performing magic for people and saying that he will give a prize to a woman who comes and smiles at him, and that this prize will be a medal for her son that he had made. While Ahmed was away in another city, Chyavan was wandering the city and heard of the prize she could get for smiling at this man. She does not recognize her father because of his beard and cracking skin, and he doesn’t recognize her at first because of how much she has grown up. But, when she smiles at him he sees the gold tooth that he made for her years ago, and recognizes her as his daughter and decides that the time for revenge has come. He gives her the medal for her son and when she turns and leaves he follows her to her house.

That same night, at midnight, when all is quiet and everyone is asleep, he sneaks into the house. He can’t kill his daughter right there, so he decides that to get revenge he will do something else. He goes into her son’s room and slices his throat. He then goes to her room, drips the blood onto her dress, and hides the knife behind the couch.

He set up the scene so that the Duke’s family would think that she killed her son herself, and that is exactly what they believed. Their son Ahmed was still away and knew nothing of it. They would not listen to Chyavan’s protests, as there was no other explanation. In this city, which the Duke’s family held a lot of power in, the result of murder was a shameful and serious punishment. They had one of Chyavan’s breasts cut off and made her carry the corpse of her expired child on her back through the main street of the city, in front of the eyes of everyone, as she was sent into exile.

Chyavan returned again to the mountains wearing the same cloth she wore to escape her father and carrying her dead child upon her back.

Before reaching the cave, she sits down exhausted underneath a tree to rest. She soon falls asleep and dreams that her mother comes down to relay a prophecy that could cure her unpleasant situation. Her mother tells Chyavan that she feels her husband has betrayed her with how he has acted and will be punished for his sins. She tells her daughter that she will see two pigeons in a tree. One black, one white. One will fall to the ground as the other flies away. If God wants her child alive again, the white pigeon will fall and its blood must be fed to the head of her dead child. If the black one falls though, her son will remain dead as this is what God wants.

Suddenly, she awakens from her sleep and above her in a tree sees two pigeons. One black, one white. After a short time, the black one flies away and the white one falls to the ground. Remembering the dream, she takes the white bird and feeds its blood to her dead son and he comes back to life.

Happiness returned to Chyavan and they built a cottage there in the mountain forest. After ten years of living there, on the same date when she first met her husband Ahmed and his fellow huntsmen, she remembers that he and his fellow huntsmen must be returning soon.

Just as she expected, her husband and his men returned to the woods. She prepares lots of food for a big dinner and tells her son, now twelve years old, to go and invite the men for dinner. Of course they accept, because they are hungry and tired and far from home.

She welcomes them and sets out a proper meal but never identifies herself. While they are eating, she tells her son to take the ring that her father had made for her mother and set it in one of Ahmed’s shoes.

As the men prepare to leave and put on their shoes, Ahmed feels something hard inside of his and checks it. He can’t believe what he finds! Seeing the ring, he becomes shocked and unable to utter a single word. Finally he cries out, wanting to know where his wife is. She comes out and uncovers her face, and Ahmed recognizes her. They both begin to cry and she tells him everything about what happened, how she was innocent and the brutal reaction of his family toward her after their son was murdered. Ahmed asks for forgiveness from his wife and son for what happened and what his family did. Chyavan will forgive her husband on one condition. Her father must be found and revenged.

Ahmed agrees, saying that if he cannot fulfill her wish then she has the right to give him any punishment but that if he can do it, she has to forgive him.

After a long process of searching cities and villages, the old magician jeweler is found. Ahmed and his men capture him and declare that his punishment for his crimes will be to have his legs tied to two oxen, one per leg. One ox won’t be allowed to eat for seven days and the other won’t be allowed to drink for seven days. On the seventh day when the man has one leg tied to each ox, they will be set free to run toward a pile of food for the first and a large barrel of cold water for the second.

The punishment is carried out, and the jeweler’s body becomes severed. After what he caused to happen to his daughter, the result was deserved. Chyavan was no able to live safely and securely, restarting her life with her husband and son, with happier days ahead.

The Importance of History

Lounging atop his mushroom throne, the hookah-puffing caterpillar asked, “Who are you?” Alice began her timid response with, “I- I hardly know sir…”

                Alice’s crisis of identity as she tried to navigate the phantasmagorical Wonderland is similar to what awaits those of us who forget where we’ve come from. That is, those of us who don’t know our history.

                The significance of the need for and search of identity in the human experience cannot be downplayed. Whether we acknowledge it consciously or not, we all understand that it is a necessary aspect of our lives. I was once told that you can’t know who you are if you don’t know where you came from, and this emphasizes the point.   On the scale of the individual to the national, we must interrogate our past to know who and where we came from.

                The engineers of culture and civilization never take this for granted because a shared identity is a prerequisite for a nation’s existence.

                As a sinister example of how well this is understood, the world’s ethnic cleansers who want to rid their territory of a group of people demonstrate their understanding of the necessity of history to identity. The destruction of a people, or the attempt of it, often begins without taking lives. This is done by destroying their history, taking away their language, erasing the sources of their identity. Turkey attempted this by outlawing the language of its subjugated Kurdish minority, as well as any recognition of their existence or anything distinctly Kurdish, such as their folk songs (considered to be Kurdish propaganda). The government even went as far as to label them “mountain Turks” and deny the existence of any ethnic minorities in Turkey.  

                On a more benign level, the source of common identity in history is why the subject is taught in public schools, and taught in a certain way. Though many pause at the idea of the government commissioning a certain curricula for the purpose of molding a collective perception and self-image, this should only be worrisome if history is taught dishonestly and to achieve immoral ends.

Any country you choose to inspect will have some history of egregious violations of human rights. For this reason there are always those who see a need to downplay the shameful parts of their country’s past. The fear is that to do otherwise might breed generations of unpatriotic citizens no longer held together by any common love of country. Such a fear seems to have played a role in the decision by Oklahoma Republicans in 2015 to cut funding for Advanced Placement U.S. History courses because, they said, it emphasized the negative aspects of America and didn’t teach American exceptionalism.

                In America at least, the better parts of our history are emphasized and often mythologized, and not until reaching high school do we begin learning the sordid and often bloody details of the country’s past. This shouldn’t receive pushback though. History is the study of people and how they respond to change, and our great capacity for both good and evil is borne out in those responses. The past is violent, beautiful, intriguing, oppressive and hopeful all at the same time.

Moreover, without understanding the real history of one’s own nation, they can’t know what threads are woven together that have rendered the fabric of society as it currently exists. Further, without giving some emphasis to the manifestations of the worst parts of our nature, we will be helpless to miss the warning signs of their reemergence and repetition both domestically and abroad. But, treading the line between caution and “the sky is falling” hysteria, we need to be scrupulous before asserting just how closely some present-day issue contains analogous warnings from the past.

 Never coming around exactly the same way twice, the worst atrocities do still recur with similar themes. Often attributed to Mark Twain, the old saying tells us that “history never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.” This ought to inspire a greater attention for detail and demonstrate the imperative of education. Civilization as we know it is on the line, and the citizens of the world are responsible for its maintenance.

A tangential benefit of this is necessary self-reflection. Easy though it is to pass judgement on others, to critique yourself and your country is difficult, and for some impossible, until you’re placed in front of a mirror and forced to gaze at the reflection staring back at you. This is precisely what must happen and is often best done through literature, which is one of the most indispensable vessels for teaching history and conveying ideas. To this end, I can’t help thinking of books by great authors like Arundhati Roy and Toni Morrison, among an extensive but hardly exhaustive list of others.

To understand anything, from the Israeli-Palestinian crisis to the inability of Marxism to ever gain a strong foothold in the U.S., we look to history and the deeper we dig, the more we realize just how complex an explanation is often needed. This is another advantage of studying history; you gain an appreciation for complexity, a patience to understand that complexity as thoroughly as possible, and a recognition that there rarely are simple answers to questions of human civilization. In fact, anyone who proffers simple answers to complex situations ought to be approached with a healthy skepticism and may well warrant your distrust.  

                Learning history is therefore multi-purposeful. The pursuit of it as a basis for understanding how we’ve arrived at the present should instill the virtues of patience, skepticism and complex analysis. Without it, we lack identity. With it, we also hold the tools to learn from the errors and successes of our forebears as we move forward toward a more perfect future.

Life After Religion

                When religion is lost, more life may be found. In fact, it should be. But in the process of turning away from belief there is usually a fear that the opposite will happen. 

I have a Kurdish friend in Iraq who has been moving further away from religion every day, and so we’ve talked about belief and the difficulty of beginning to walk away from it. Unable to believe the stories and explanations in the Quran any longer, he recently raised a concern that’s been echoed by almost every person who, from Kurdistan to America and everywhere in between, began to leave religion. That is, if religious claims aren’t true and there’s no higher power, then there must be no point to life. While this can come in the form of either a question or a statement, at the heart of both is a fear of nihilism and that unbelief may necessitate it.

                This is the ostensible impasse most people come to at some point, but a little thought and creativity is enough to break the deadlock.

                “Meaning” comes from whatever makes us feel connected with the world and emotionally full. What makes us feel live. If “purpose” is anything different, it comes with the add-on of what we think we can and ought to do to impact the world. No supernatural belief is needed to find either of these, and in fact it devalues them. To say God has a plan for you is to deny your own freedom. It’s the belief that someone else has decided your fate for you.

                We’re also told by the Good Books that if we have any common purpose, it’s to secure our spot in the dubitable hereafter. For this, the one requirement above all others is the acceptance of astounding propositions on no evidence, or else expect an eternity of torture. This is neither very meaningful nor desirable.

My own view is that rejecting faith opens a door to a more appreciative and meaningful life. Dismissing religion often means rejecting the idea of a greater plan, which puts the determination of your own purpose in your own hands. You and I get to wake up every day and decide how we want to impact the world and leave those around us feeling after each interaction. We decide who we are going to be by the end of the day. We can even change our minds, too.

Atheism also generally brings a disbelief in an afterlife since there is no reason to think we survive after our brain stops functioning. Many worry that this sucks the meaning out of life. What it should do is make you keenly aware of your own mortality. Rather than despair at this thought, it ought to fill us with an increased appreciation for every day we have to take in the heat during our brief moment under the sun. Do you enjoy a favorite food, sex, or conversation with your best friend any less because you know it must end, and will one day occur for the last time? Of course not. The experiences only become more cherished.

                We’re forced to recognize the transient quality of each fleeting moment, and how celebratory it is that we are here to live through it. Awareness of death, and deeply understanding that we’re always a breath away from it, gives us a special opportunity to really live as if each day might be your last, because it may well be. Most people would give anything to know they were having their last kiss with a loved one while they were having it, or to know, as Andy Bernard said, that you’re in the Good Old Days while you’re still in them. Every day is one of the Good Old Days, and each kiss may well be the last. This elusive yet obvious fact can transform your attitude.

The moral implication of this comes from recognizing your own impermanence is shared by everyone else. Everyone can feel ecstasy and extreme pain, and their experience as a sentient person is just as real and important as your own. Anyone who approaches their mortality as I described is certainly able to extend that sentiment to the lives of others. Wanting to build the best possible existence for ourselves while we are here, any feeling person must then extend this desire to the well-being of others too. This was expressed well when Sam Harris implored, “Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?”

The approach of the nonbeliever to purpose is more liberating because it puts the creation of that purpose into the hands of each individual. You choose, or perhaps discover, what your purpose is from what you are passionate about and how you feel you can impact the world in what you think is the best way possible, whether on the large or small scale. You are your own architect of meaning.

Life without religion only seems unfulfilling while one is still in the midst of doubting and unsure about leaving the only construct they have always known. But as you move further away from faith, the exit from Plato’s cave only brings into view expansive landscapes and a heartwarming light that makes every day afterward all the more profound. You may even feel, ironically, born again. There’s a saying that that life is two dates separated by a dash. Knowing that the second, final date is always just around the corner, you’ll treasure and make the most of that dash.                

Oh Say Can You See That He's Not A He?

Perhaps it is a superficial understanding of 19th century America that would lead you to be surprised by the writing of Angelina Grimke. A white, a northerner, and a woman, she attacked slavery and argued for the rights of she and her fellow members of the "gentler sex". This argument at times had to be taken up against other women, too, who truly believed a woman's place was in the home under the authority of men. In 1837, prompted by one such woman named Catherine Beecher, she wrote a series of letters. In her last one she said: 

When I look at human beings as moral beings, all distinction in sex sinks to insignificance and nothingness; for I believe it regulates rights and responsibilities no more than the color of the skin or the eyes. My doctrine then is, that whatever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do.

This was written at a time when coverture legally stripped the rights from a woman, once wed, and placed her under the control of her husband. Though some husbands of the time were not so abusive of this accepted norm, it certainly helped Deborah Sampson that she remained single until after the end of the Revolutionary War when she was honorably discharged from the army. Otherwise it might have been impossible to join the war, as she had disguised herself as a man and assumed the fake name of Robert Shurtliff in order to fight for her country's independence, simultaneously defying the law and proving the point that Grimke would write years later. That which it is moral for a man to do is moral for a woman to do also. 

Born in Plympton, Massachusetts to the descendants of illustrious Pilgrims (most notable of which being her mother’s great grandfather, the early Plymouth governor and signatory of the Mayflower Compact William Bradford), Deborah Sampson led a life that lacked the luxury one might expect to have come from her pedigree. She lost her father at five years old when, trying to make some money for the family, he died on a sea voyage. Unable to keep the entire family together, her mother would indenture her to the family of the Deacon Benjamin Thomas, who was also a successful farmer, living in Middleborough, Massachusetts. Once 18 and freed from her servitude, she stayed at the Thomas home while she took on jobs teaching and weaving from 1779 through 1780.

Never one to allow confinement to the more womanly duties even while working on the farm, it seems less surprising that she would decide to join the Revolutionary War, which was in full swing. In 1782, she found someone to act as an agent to go enlist her for the army under the name Robert Shurtliff in exchange for a portion of the recruit’s signing bonus.

It must be noted, as a tribute to this young woman’s moxie, that this was her second attempt to sign on to the war. This was done only after leaving Middleborough, where she had earlier tried to enlist herself as Timothy Thayer while in disguise. During this first attempt she was found out when a woman reportedly noticed "Thayer" holding the signing quill the way Deborah Sampson held a pen, which was recognizable due to a finger injury. (Highly concerned with the most pressing and morally imperative issues as religious institutions always are, the First Baptist Church in Middleborough excommunicated her for this, because dressing like a man was not Christian-like.) With her second and successful attempt at enlistment though, Deborah Sampson became the first woman in American history to impersonate a man and join the American Army. 

During the summer of 1782, Sampson volunteered with about thirty other soldiers to scout and flush out Tory soldiers (those colonists who were loyal to the crown) and was wounded in the fighting. She allowed herself treatment for a head injury but, for fear of having her true sex discovered upon examination, this furtive and plucky lady concealed from the doctor a bullet wound in her leg. Such was her determination to continue, Sampson removed the bullet herself, from her own leg, and then returned to her duties.

The secret would soon come to light though. About a year and a half into her enlistment, the truth was found out by the doctor Barnabas Binney in Philadelphia, where she had come down with a severe fever that had been making the rounds in the city. The discovery reportedly happened when, while unconscious from fever, Binney put his hand to Shurtliff's chest to feel for a heartbeat, thereby accidentally discovering that he was in fact a she. 

Rather than sell her out, Binney opened his home to her until the War’s end in 1783, when she had to return to West Point, New York and report under Major General Paterson. Upon seeing her off, Binney gave her a letter for Paterson, which, once delivered, informed him of her true identity and heaped praise upon her character. She would be given an honorable discharge by General Henry Knox in October of 1783 after serving as an American infantrywoman, end up receiving a full military pension, and embark on a lecture tour about her experiences. Seemingly, she was the first American woman to do all three of these.

I'd be surprised if more than a handful of you have heard of her, and what a shame that is. A courageous, venturous, and smart woman, she defied the conventional wisdom of her time and made herself a model for the equality of the sexes. (Such equality was a concept both doubted and denied at the time, and still to some unfortunate extent, today).

I can't help saying that I don't believe her example should teach that in order to prove their equality to men, women must take on the roles traditionally confined to men any more than men must do the corollary. (Though, one can't deny the pressure has historically been on women, while the assumption of dominance has been on men). With that being said, it certainly doesn't hurt, and at the time was perhaps necessary. She not only took on such a role (apparently only out of the desire and ambition sourced in her personality) but surpassed any expectations one might have had of her. She did what she wanted. She proved herself. She looked the social norms and legal restrictions of her day in the face and said "Fuck you." And she contributed to the birth of a new nation. Whether she wanted to be one or not, Deborah Sampson is a feminist hero, and a hero of character. 

Deborah Sampson 

(Photo Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/modern-day-female-civil-war-re-enactors-honor-women-who-fought-men-north-and-south-180951249/)