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The Twelve Days of Christmas: Karagöz puppet-style

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Image of the Karagöz puppets from this website http://www.superiorconcept.org/SCMpages/Istanbul/Karagoz.htm

Traditionally, the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” referrs to the days leading away from Christmas, starting on Boxing Day, December 26th.

In an unusual nod to tradition in this, my non-traditional household, I have decided to take a different spin on the twelve days.

For each of the twelve days leading up to the day before Christmas, starting tomorrow, I will introduce one of the members of the troupe of Karagöz shadow puppets who play a major role in my head (and, therefore, who play a major role in this blog). You have already met Karagöz Bey (Mr. Karagöz, for the English speakers out there) in this post, but I am re-posting it below this description of the puppets in the real world.

Over the next twelve days, you will meet the following puppets – all of whom inhabit my mind (and the back seat of the proverbial car) on this roadtrip called cross-cultural marriage…you may meet more along the way – but these are the major players.

1. Esma the organic hippie puppet who loves fuschia & tangerine roses

2. Bebe Ruhi the puppet with Dwarfism & questioner extraordenaire

3. Khadijah the worker from Egypt who drank from the fountain of youth

4. Celebi the modern lover and thinker

5. Kenne the traditional lady in search of maintained honor

6. Tiryaki the opium addict with narcolepsy

7. Zenne the nervous Nellie like a bowl of jelly

8. Mercan the spice trader from Arabia

9. Safiye the vainglorious dancing girl

10. Yehuda Rebbe the Jewish wise man

11. Perihan the fairy godmother

12. Hacivad Bey, the inimitable and learned leader of the puppet troupe

I love this description of the puppets and who they are in the real world of puppetry (from 2010 European Off-Network Festival. Sponsored by Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture):

“The Karagöz shadow theater tradition dates back at least 500 years and is still actively performed in Turkey. The plays originally portrayed the layered cross-cultural hierarchy of Ottoman Imperial life, creating a comic ethos filled with shape-shifting, class conflict, cross-dressing, deconstruction of language, and the clash of cultures. Although its stock characters reflect the costumes, language, and historic context of a bygone era, the characters themselves – Karagoz the trickster, Hacivat the intellectual, Celebi the romantic, Tiryaki the addict, etc. – remain timeless and relevant.”

While the role of women in the Karagöz plays is often limited to a shrill wife or sexy dancing girl (a la Ruby in the Berlusconi scandal) – geez no better than girls in a modern day rap video – I have chosen to re-create and/or create female characters in the world of my puppet mind. Traditionally, women are portrayed as follows in this puppetry tradition, again to Ermin Senyer:

“Women in Karagoz plays are young, middle-aged and old, flighty, quarrelsome, only just faithful and always prone to gossip. The main type is always flighty and given to intrigue. In nearly every play, this type causes a scandal in the neighbourhood. Karagoz,s wife often abuses him for not feeding her and not clothing her. As the women in Karagoz are always dubbed by male puppeteers, they speak in cracked voices. They wear a loose, sleeved, cloak-like garment called ferace, two pieces of fine muslin or tarlatan called yasmak, folded and pinned in such a way that one edge covers the mouth and lower part of nose and the other passes across the brow above the eyes, while the rest hangs behind. As the veil is very thin, the features can be quite-clearly seen. They wear a blue bonnet called hotoz, patent leather or velvet slippers on their feet and each carries an umbrella. Some wear a red ferace, a black alpaca thrown over the head and held by a pin under the chin, entirely concealing the face. Courtesans always have their breasts half or fully exposed. Some wear slipper boots of yellow Morocco leather called cedik and carry a stick in their hand. If the woman character represents a Negro slave, she wears black gloves, a red ferace, red pabuc (a strong soled shoe) and a white head band.”

—

Original post on himself:

Karagöz is a word that refers both to an individual puppet character from the Ottoman Empire era AND to the entire troupe of Karagöz shadow puppets that surround him. I have described this band of puppets in brief, here. And I have also introduced them as they introduced themselves to me, in their hometown of Bursa.

Kara, meaning black is linked with göz, meaning eye. Presumably, this name refers to the puppet with the big, black eye – not from a punch in the face – just a big black eye. While you have heard lots and lots about Karagöz’s favorite approaches to life – namely – twisting, turning, jumping, cartwheeling, flipping and being generally flippant in the most rhyming manner possible, I haven’t told you much more about him than the ways that he tends to act as the shadow puppet personification of the outlier voice in my head, the proverbial agent provocateur. He is the puppet that nags at me, questions me in the most cruel ways, makes me question myself (and sometimes my sanity) and always gets a fight going. He is the nay-sayer that drives me nuts in my head. The problem is, there is always a grain of truth in his antics, it is always in there somewhere.

One of the best English-language websites I have found on the Karagöz puppet tradition in Turkey, http://www.karagoz.net/english/shadowplay.htm , talks a bit about this fellow, saying “I have touched in passing on Karagöz and Hacivat, the two cronies who are the leading characters of the Turkish shadow theatre Karagöz, but the main character is Karagöz . Karagöz is uneducated but honest.” As M. tells it, the Karagöz of his childhood is more than honest – he is brutally honest, calling a spade a spade, as well say, regardless of the context, the company or the consequences. The author of this super website continues on to describe Karagöz in contrast to the ever-present Hacivad (or Hacivat) , saying:

Karagöz the drummer – drumming home his crazy message of the day

“It is always doubtful whether Karagöz and Hacivat ever really existed and, as we have already seen, there are many legends about this. Karagöz was supposed by some to be a gypsy and there are many allusions and much evidence in the plays to support this theory. Karagöz has a round face, his eye is boldly designed with a large black pupil, hence his name -Black Eye-. He has a pug nose and around thick curly black beard. His head, completely bald, sports an enormous turban which, when knocked off, suddenly expose his bald head which always provokes laughter. In all dialogue between Karagöz and Hacivat, we find Hacivat always uses flowing language full of prose rime while Karagöz uses the language of the common people. His promptness with repartee procured for him his fame and reputation. This contrasts artificiality with simplicity and is the first satire to attain these differences. This contrasting language is also noticeable in Hacivat’s erudition. He can recite famous poems, has a vast knowledge of music, is conversant with the names of various rare spices, the terminology of gardening, many varied encyclopedic extracts, and with the etiquette of the aristocracy. This however is superficial and gives him only a scholastic type of making a living for himself and his family. Because he has no trade, he is usually unemployed and fails to provide for his family, and has enough sense to realize that to rectify this, he does not need Hacivat’s superficial knowledge. Though he is stupid and easily taken in, he is constantly able to deceive Hacivat and others.”

The Karagoz Museum in Bursa – From the Bursa Daily Photo blog (click photo for link)

For a more academic exploration of the character, see the Turkish Cultural Foundation‘s description, here.

While I have taken some liberties in my interpretations of the puppets based on my own artisitic license, this is where they started. Even though I cannot understand the majority of Karagöz dialogue in live or video performances of this shadow puppetry, these puppets have fascinated me since I first saw them in 2004. I have loved hearing M.’s stories about them – and about the stock character types they represent – straight out of the Ottoman Empire. One more reason to improve upon my Turkish is next year’s planned visit to the Karagöz museum in Bursa.

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After the storm: Karagöz puppets gone wild

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Aegean Sea Pan

Panoramic image of the Aegean Sea (Ege Deniz) at sunset from Clara S. via Flickr

It was an otherwise glorious scene, blue skies heading to sunset, hot sun fading towards evening, smooth teal Aegean sea with the beginning pink twinges towards twilight, a litter of white adobe houses taking on the pastel hues of nature as they lay splayed across the arid landscape covered in sweet-smelling herbs – and the blessed evening breeze.  What could be wrong when the world around me looked just like this?

When I last left you, I was sitting on the terrace of M.’s brother X.’s summer home near Bodrum.  X had just delivered what I am referring to as a “Sicilian message” about what would ideally happen to women who cheat his brother – and by his definition – the family.  It was a jarring statement that took me completely off guard.  The statement did not seem to fit right in this otherwise “modern” and from what I could see “western-oriented” home full of English and French speakers, all with master’s degrees from European universities.

As the bead-laced door into the kitchen swirled with the exit of X., I sat, a bit dumbfounded.  Silent.  Part of me in shock and part of me so imbued in trying hard to accept the culture around me in this family that I almost did not register that X. had talked of “taking a (cheating) woman to the mountain to rape her a thousand times.” This was not some tribal village.  This was not Eastern Turkey where stories of honor killings filtered out from in the media.  This was not the 1800s, what the heck was going on?

The shoes Karagöz left in the purse once he commenced sliding across the tile floor

I soon learned that my shadow-puppet friend Karagöz was more than happy to fill me in on what was going on as I sat, log-like, confused, torpid even.  Karagöz had at first emerged from the purse where all of the puppets had been hiding during my conversation with X.  Instead of launching into a crazed, alliterative diatribe as was his usual wont, he commenced sliding across the tiled floor, row by row, at breakneck speed, screaming bloody murder at the top of his waxy-papered lungs.  He was sliding in his socks, having left his fancy shoes back in the purse, I presume.   Then, stopping at a dead halt, he turned to face me from the middle of the terrace floor, and he said this “Watch out for this guy.  Yes, he’s acting crack-cocaine high.  But he says this not on the fly.  My oh my.  You may be asking why.  You’re only answer comes from drinking rye.  Just let the conversation die.”

At this point, Hacivad crawled out of the purse.  I watched him with almost blank eyes as he made his way across the floor, up the white canvas couch and on up my dress and onto my right shoulder.  I turned to my left, leaning my head on my shoulder, remembering finding some comfort in my Granny’s house by the herb garden there, the scent of sage intermingling with mid-summer tanned-skin smell.  “M’lady,” Hacivad prodded gently, “you just need to take space and time to understand this.  You need to talk to M. about this.  He will help you to understand.  This is nonsense talk, unacceptable talk from X., but you need to understand it and where it comes from. Do not expect to understand today.  Also, do not expect to be X.’s equal, which I think you did.  You think of him as one of your age cohort, as one of your generation, but it is clearly different for him.”

Karagöz and Hacivad resembled a tumbleweed as they fought, their wax-papery selves getting shreded and intertwined in the process

Karagöz let out a screech.  Back to his old mnemonic tricks, he exclaimed with more of a fevered pitch than usual “you need to kick his ass, tell him who’s the lass, no raising of the peace glass, tell him he must not be so crass!”  Annoyed, Hacivad began to display a set of uncharacteristic behaviors and verbalizations.  “You fool, do not encourage this!  Serious business we have here and you must cease and desist!  She does not know what she is up against here!” Before I could even imagine it, Hacivad had, in his uncharacteristic ire, leaped off of my shoulder and jumped full-force onto the jokerish Karagöz.  The two were fighting, whirling in the process, flailing all over the cool tiles like a raggedy-edged tumbleweed gone wild.

The chorus of shadow puppet dancing ladies began to emerge from the purse by the beaded door in huddles of two and three.  “Oh!” they cried to a one, “oh, horrors, this is a terrible, terrible thing.  Such things that men do.  Such words that men say.  So misguided they all are. Shame on them all.” The melee and audience continued as Kalinka arrived through the beads with a glass of strong black tea.  She sat next to me for a moment after looking around furtively to make sure her boss was not about to come back and see her sitting with me, or at least that is what I imagined the look to be about.  She began to talk to me in her own Moldovian (limba moldovenească or лимба молдовеняскэ) language which, of course, I understood nary a word of.  She smoothed her hand up and down my back, clearly seeing some upset on my face.

While my conversation with X. had been in English, and I know she could not have understood it, she had seen a bit of the affect involved in the interaction, and so she had a sense that something bad had gone down.  Her soothing led to my tears letting down like breast milk responding to a baby’s cry. Kalinka wiped my tears away with a cold washcloth and got me back into a presentable state by starting to do whatever she could to get me to laugh.  First, she amped about like X., imitating his movements to a t.  Second, she just began dancing around in the goofiest manner possible.  She had no idea that at one point, she stepped clearly and firmly on top of the tumbling testosterone duo comprised of Hacivad and Karagöz, who crumbled to dust under her foot whilst the little ladies sighed and fainted.  I felt as though she must be employing the tactics used on a two year-old child to distract them from whatever the upset of the moment was.  It worked.

All of a sudden, she stopped at the sound of a door shutting downstairs  Turning to listen, we heard X. and M. walking up the stairs into the terrace-kitchen area.  Kalinka winked at me and scuttled back into the kitchen.  The laughter and joking felt clear and easy between them as futbol-related words emanated from their conversation into the part of my brain that understood some Turkish.  As X. went to get his tea, M. jumped onto the sofa next to me, planting a big kiss on my cheek before saying  “X. said you had a good conversation, really got to know each other, while I was asleep.  That’s great!”  I could tell beyond a reasonable doubt that he had no idea about the rape comment.  I leaned towards him and stared out at the dimming light over the sea, wondering how such ugly words and mixed-up feelings could possibly be present in such a lovely place.

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