Just returned from a public hearing on off leash doggie parks in our city of 84,000 people, and learned some of the statistics -- there are over 10,000 dogs owned by the citizens of this fair city . . . although there's a leash law here, there's only one animal control officer. If you're going to have dogs in the city and there's a leash law, then you need some place for the dogs to run, right? (Unless, of course, the dog owners are fleeter of foot than the dogs)! Where to run free? and so the outcry for off leash doggie parks.
It was simpler in Marash, I learned upon uncovering an old audiotape that I had recorded with my father. Thanks to Koko Kassabian at the Armenian Library and Museum of America who transferred the audiotape onto a CD for me, I can now listen to my father tell the story himself.
"In Marash when I was a little boy, people had all they could do to feed themselves and their (extended) families. Dogs were considered 'mundar', unclean, and would never be allowed to enter a house. Where were the dogs? The dogs hung out, usually in two or three packs, in the marketplace in front of the butcher shops, watching the butchers cut meat, longing for the piece of rejected meat or the bone that the butchers would occasionally throw to them. You'd never see these dogs everywhere. You'd always see them in the marketplace, never anywhere else; and you'd hear them howling at night.
There was a saying in Turkish: If one could learn by watching, then the street dogs would be butchers. Bakmakla öğrenilseydi, itlar kasap olurdu. [Were you afraid of the dogs, I interrupted.] The dogs would never hurt human beings; they were afraid of human beings. The Turks never hurt dogs."
And there ended Daddy's comments about the dogs of Marash.
N.B. Interesting, however, that the Young Turks Triumvirate did in fact clean up Istanbul of its dogs early in the 20th century. The Armenian Dramatic Arts Alliance third film festival at the ICA in Boston featured BARKING ISLAND (Winner: Palme d'Or, Cannes, 2010) A film by Serge Avedikian (15 min. Animation, French with English Subtitles) http://www.icaboston.org/programs/film/armenian-ff/opening-night/
that may explain why we never had a pet dog. there may be another explanation. when all six of us were still too young for middle school, and it was summer and the back yard was muddy because we had been hosing it and each other, and making indentations in the mud with a tubeless tire, and our kitten was jumping around to avoid the spray, our summer morning was invaded. it was a dog not from our neighborhod, a foreign dog. the dog was taller than I. it could have been a horse dog, if it had not been a great dane. none of us had seen one before, and neither had our kitten. her ancestors had. in that moment she became one of them, and in the confusion, adopted us as her own. i had seen pictures of sabre tooth tigers, and had shown the pictures to the kitten while holding her and the book on my lap, just the day before. it must have awakened in her a memory that shape shifted her into one of them. the kitten leaped straight up into the air hissing a spray and exploding her fur in the face of the great canine. she hit the ground on all fours, and leaped again, this time landing on the back of the dog and sinking her unsheated claws into the shoulders, and her teeth into the back of the dog's neck. inspired by the kitten's attack, we all began screaming at the wolf who now shook his body violently, and whipped his head around to bite the tiger on his back. the dog's teeth sunk into the neck of the cat and with a jerk, he tossed the kitten away. we screamed, jumped up and down. adults came flying out of both the upstairs and downstairs of the house. the dog fled,but,the kitten was dead. we had many kittens, after that, who lived to become grown up cats, but never once did we consider a dog for a pet.
ReplyDeletePeter's son, you remember that exactly, but how? You were only 3 years old!
ReplyDeleteYou sure of that? I never encountered that in any of the literature. Although, it was very prominent in the literature written about the Paleolithic (native American prior to the arrival of the Spanish) in north America.
ReplyDeleteIn the latter, the dogs served two purposes. They were used as guard dogs as you describe below, in and around the encampment, not only to serve protection from other people, and from beasts, but also as food during a period of extreme hunger due to the disappearance of game, or an especially harsh winter. The dog was the first domesticated ‘meat’ for the native American; talk about the ‘dogs of war’! As far as the protection needed from the beasts, the native American was not the only one who felt the need in the West. the European did not have a large enough caliber weapon to bring down the grizzly bear, the north American brown bear, the king of the wilderness, until the 1830’s, when the Henry, I think that was the name, rifle appeared sporting a ’50 caliber cartridge. It was only then did the ‘mountain man’ feel he could take on a griz, mano a mano, or, mano a griz, if you will. It was also only until the 1830’s that the European technology could match the native American in firepower, and that was by the arrival of the ‘six gun’. It was this six chambered semi-automatic weapon that could fire as many times in a minute that a native American could fire off as many arrows in a minute in close quarter combat. That was a bit of a diversion, admittedly. But, to conclude the post about dogs, perhaps my last observation about them accounts for the origin of the phrase, ‘it’s all going to the dogs’?
J
From: Bethel Charkoudian [mailto:bethelcharkoudian@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2011 6:31 AM
To: James Bilezikian
Subject: Re: dogs of marash
Only in the villages where they guarded the dogs and the homes from marauders. I think that Marash probably had night watchmen wandering about for that purpose.
On Jan 28, 2011, at 11:02 PM, James Bilezikian wrote:
I can still see the wound. Even at three years old, I knew it to be a mortal wound. That is why in my memory , the kitten died right there, right then.
That was our introduction to ‘the dogs of war’.
What is also interesting about your post, although I did not include it in my comment, is that dogs do not appear integral to Mediterranean life either in antiquity or in modern history, as they do in central and northern European history, and in the Paleolithic cultures of north America.
marashgirl asked peterson to copy and paste the following dialogue that occurred via e-mail and should be read bottom to top.
ReplyDeleteYou sure of that? I never encountered that in any of the literature. Although, it was very prominent in the literature written about the Paleolithic (native American prior to the arrival of the Spanish) in north America.
In the latter, the dogs served two purposes. They were used as guard dogs as you describe below, in and around the encampment, not only to serve protection from other people, and from beasts, but also as food during a period of extreme hunger due to the disappearance of game, or an especially harsh winter. The dog was the first domesticated ‘meat’ for the native American; talk about the ‘dogs of war’! As far as the protection needed from the beasts, the native American was not the only one who felt the need in the West. the European did not have a large enough caliber weapon to bring down the grizzly bear, the north American brown bear, the king of the wilderness, until the 1830’s, when the Henry, I think that was the name, rifle appeared sporting a ’50 caliber cartridge. It was only then did the ‘mountain man’ feel he could take on a griz, mano a mano, or, mano a griz, if you will. It was also only until the 1830’s that the European technology could match the native American in firepower, and that was by the arrival of the ‘six gun’. It was this six chambered semi-automatic weapon that could fire as many times in a minute that a native American could fire off as many arrows in a minute in close quarter combat. That was a bit of a diversion, admittedly. But, to conclude the post about dogs, perhaps my last observation about them accounts for the origin of the phrase, ‘it’s all going to the dogs’?
J
Subject: Re: dogs of marash
Only in the villages where they guarded the dogs and the homes from marauders. I think that Marash probably had night watchmen wandering about for that purpose.
I can still see the wound. Even at three years old, I knew it to be a mortal wound. That is why in my memory , the kitten died right there, right then.
That was our introduction to ‘the dogs of war’.
What is also interesting about your post, although I did not include it in my comment, is that dogs do not appear integral to Mediterranean life either in antiquity or in modern history, as they do in central and northern European history, and in the Paleolithic cultures of north America.