Olivier Aymar - Once Upon A Time, Zazaki Tales

It is true that most people have never heard of the Zazas and yet they do indeed exist. The Zazas are the descendants of the Anatolian and Mesopotamian civilizations. Their ancestors were first the Sumerians, then the Hattis, the Hittites, the Luwians, the Hurrians, the Parthians and the Sasanians. Just after the invasion of the Zazanid (Sasanid) Empire in 634 A.D., the Zazas’ country was repeatedly invaded by the Arabs, then the Seljuqs, the Mongols, Genghis Khan and Timur, the Persians and the Turks.

After 1514, the Zazas were decimated by the Ottoman Sultans and the Kurds. From this date forward, the Zazas disappeared from the pages of history and their History, culture, language and ethnicity were attributed to the Kurds who fought hand in hand with the Ottoman Turks up until 1940. The tales you will read in this book are part of the oral culture of the Zazas.

One day, a king called his three daughters to his side and asked his eldest daughter, “How much do you love me, my child?”

His daughter answered, “Father, I love you as much as sugar.”

The king was reassured. “Good,” he thought, “that means she loves me very much.” He turned to his second daughter, “And you, my child, how much do you love me?”

“I love you as much as honey.”

The king was thrilled. “Excellent,” he thought, “she, too, loves me very much.”

When the youngest daughter’s turn came, she answered, “Father, I love you as much as I love salt.” The king was not expecting such an answer. He felt offended. Thinking he was loved as much as salt, that is to say, not at all, he withdrew to his chamber to reflect upon a solution for this offense. After a while, he decided to send his “cursed” daughter away from his court.

He called two of his servants and said to them, “Take my youngest daughter and give her to the laziest man in the kingdom.”

The next morning, the two servants took the young girl and set off in search of the laziest man in the kingdom. Along the way, they saw a man lying under a date palm with his mouth wide open, hoping the dates would fall into it on their own.

The two servants stopped, thinking they could not possibly find a lazier man than this one.

They called out to him, “Hey, you there! Can you hear us?”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“We bring one of the king’s daughters to be your wife.”

“Very well, send her over here,” answered the man, and the two servants left the girl with the man and returned to the palace.

The lazy man’s name was Memet. He was so lazy that he hardly ever rose from his mattress. His mother would carry him on his mattress every morning to the shade of a date palm, and every evening she would bring him home. This had been going on for a very long time.

His new wife refused to accept her husband’s condition. She asked her mother-in-law, “Why do you carry him every morning and every evening like that?”

Her mother-in-law answered, “What can I do, daughter? God has given me a lazy son; all I can do is put up with it.”

The king’s daughter thought about it. She told herself that this had to stop and that a solution had to be found. That very evening she said to her husband, “My dear husband, you know that in order to live, you are going to have to work. Otherwise we shall soon have nothing left to eat.”

Her husband answered, “But my dear, I do not know how to work.”

“That is not a problem, you will learn! You will start by going to buy a rope, then you will go to the marketplace to work as a porter. You do not need any training for that.”

Her husband said nothing. The next morning, he bought a rope and went to the marketplace.

A man hailed him. “You there, porter!” Memet ran to him.

“Yes sir?”

“Carry these sacks of flour to my house, while I look for some other porters to carry the rest of the sacks.”

“Yes sir,” responded Memet, and he immediately set to work.

While the man was looking for other porters, Memet made several trips and carried all the sacks. When the man came back with two other porters, he did not see any sacks. He asked Memet where they were.

“I brought them to your house, sir!”

The two other porters took an instant dislike to this newcomer who was stealing all the work. They decided to warn all the other porters, who immediately held a meeting in order to find a solution. They unanimously decided to pay Memet a certain sum on the condition that he stop working as a porter.

They went to Memet and said to him, “We will give you a sum of money if you stop working here as a porter.” Memet, delighted, accepted this proposal. He took the money and returned home. When he arrived, he showed the money to his wife, saying, “Look, dear, look how much I earned today!”

Upon seeing how much he had earned in a single day, his wife was both happy and astonished. She asked her husband, “How did you earn so much money in one day?”

“The other porters gave it to me so that I would stop working as a porter,” he answered.

Delighted with her husband’s success, she responded, “Since you can no longer work as a porter, you are now going to work at a construction site.”

The next morning, Memet went to a worksite, where the foreman immediately hired him as a mason’s hand. Memet worked all day without a word of complaint. When the mason asked for mortar, he gave it to him right away, when he asked for cement, he gave him that, too. In this way, he accomplished an amount of work that several hands would normally not have been able to accomplish. His energy and zeal worried the other workers. They thought that if he kept on like that, there would soon be no work left for them. They, too, came to the conclusion that it would be best to give him a sum of money so he would stop working on the site.

Once again, Memet, delighted, took the money and returned home, where he said to his wife, “Look, dear, they have paid me not to work again.”

His wife was very happy to see her husband come home with so much money, but she did not want him to stay home and do nothing. So she said, “This time, you are going to buy a horse and work as a traveling merchant. You will sell candy, shoes, socks, clothing and other little things from town to town and village to village.”

“Very well,” answered Memet.

The next day, Memet went to buy a horse and some knickknacks, then he set off to travel from town to town and from village to village.

On his way, he came to a well where many other merchants were waiting for water. To get water, someone had to go down to the bottom of the well to ask the guard to turn on the tap. No one there dared to go down into the well. Seeing this, Memet offered his services and they immediately tied him to a rope and let him down. At the bottom, Memet found an old man and two women sitting on a couch.

The old man, upon seeing Memet, asked him, “What are you doing here, my boy?”

“I came to turn on the tap,” answered Memet. “A great number of caravan drivers are waiting for water up there.” The old man explained to him that in order to turn the tap on, he first had to answer a question. If the answer was correct, he would turn it on, but if not, he would not.

A bit perplexed, Memet responded, “Very well, what is your question?”

“It is a very simple question. Tell me which of my two wives I prefer.”

Disconcerted, Memet thought about it, then answered, “That depends on your taste. They are both beautiful. You could easily prefer one or the other.”