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Mountain and the Bear
by
Yaser Dirki
The room was so crowded, with all the windows and doors shut, we could hardly breathe. They were shut, of course, for security reasons. Kamal was too important a man to lose.
He gave a talk about what was happening in the mountain and answered a lot of questions – some good and meaningful, but many unrelated to what had just been said. What can you do with mountain people?
After two hours’talk we were left alone, and I started to ask him personal questions.
“Tell me your real name and what area you come from? Come on. Tell me. I know many people there.”
He smiled at me and said it is not really important to know his name or where he comes from. “What is important is how we live in the mountain and how the bears live,” he said.
“Bears!”, I said.
“We mountain people sometimes face really dangerous situations. I was responsible for the place where we put all our flour and food, and there was always a big bear around that used to come in the morning, perhaps to see if I was there or not. He then left.
“One day he came early and then left. After that, I went to find a friend who was going to take the responsibility of looking after the food, but I could not find him. When I came back to where the food was, what a surprise! The bear was sitting near the food. I thought of shooting him, but as he was not threatening my life, I decided not to. Mountain people do not shoot animals. I observed the bear for some time.
“In the mountains we have a kind of pudding called hallawa. The pudding is very good. The winters are very cold and there is always snow. The bear opened a hallawa and ate all of it, and do you know what he did?”
I said, “He opened another one?”
He said no. “When he finished eating the hallawa, he shit inside the box and closed the box and the bear put it back where he got it.”
Kamal asked me if I would like to live in the mountains. I said, No thanks!
26.02.02
The Eagles of the Zagros Mountains
...a Kurdish fable recollected
Remembered and told by Bijan Eliasi
I remember it like yesterday. I was five years old (early 70s) when the Iraqi government started killing and deporting Kurds to Iran. Roused from homes in the middle of night, families were forced to walk across the border into Iran. Every day I watched a mass of Kurdish people pass through my border town in Iran. They looked tired and exhausted. You could not see any hope in their eyes the saddest thing in the whole world.
One night, I asked my father "Why is Iraq killing and deporting Kurds? Are Kurds bad criminals? Are we bad too?"
Since I was unable to understand the cruel realities, he tried to explain by telling me a story written by Divan-e-Sadi, a 14th century poet from the region.
"...in the old days it was known that eagles lived only five years while crows, on the other hand, lived to be one hundred. One day an eagle who wanted to live longer went to a crow for advice. When the crow saw the eagle, he thought he was being hunted. The eagle assured that he meant no harm, but rather needed advice. Relieved, the crow agreed, and the eagle told him about wanting to live longer, asking about the secret of long life.
The crow answered, "it is very simple, there are two things that you must stop doing. You always fly high in the mountains where the thin air shortens your life. Instead you must learn to fly low just like I do." The eagle asked, "what is the second thing?" The crow replied, "you must not hunt your food and eat fresh meat. Hunting and eating fresh meat also shorten your life. You must scavenge your food and eat with ease like me. Food you find in garbage makes you live longer".
After hearing this, the eagle said, " I will never stop flying high since it is in my blood, nor can I stop hunting for my food."
"I would rather live five years as an eagle than live a life of a crow for hundred years."
My father concluded. "Now my son, you see, we Kurds are eagles of the Zagros. We live short but we live free. They try to make us live as crows but don¹t realize that they can never make an eagle live the life of a crow." "An eagle always flies high."
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