Roumeli (33 page)

Larissa is a bray, Tinos a chime of bells, Avgo a seal's bark. Icaria a moan in a nightmare, Skyros an anchor's drop, Paros the sound of quarrying, Cnidus the chip of a chisel, Amorgos a stream under leaves, Thasos a nightingale, Seriphos the hiss of Medusa's head and the wind, Pholegandros a seagull's and and Anaphe a swallow's cry, Siphnos a lyric, Samothrace a snore, Ios a soliloquy, Gavdopoula a sigh, and the Strophades, silence.

Methone is a fugue of cormorants through broken demilunes, Corone an amphora that holds the waves' fall captive.

Cape Taenarus is the squeak of bats in a cave that leads to Hades, Cape Malea a wrangle of tempest-haunting birds, the cries of drowning men. The Mani ascends in a shout for vengeance and dies in a dirge turned to stone.

The seas of Greece are the Odyssey whose music we can never know: the limitless sweep and throb of prosody, the flux and reflux of hexameters scanned by winds and currents and accompanied, for its escort of accents,

islands and harbours and causeways and soundings and crescents of shingle, whirlpools and bays and lagoons and narrows and chasms and roadsteads, seismic upheavals of crags in the haze of meridian panic, sockets and smouldering circles of stone and dying volcanoes; islets lying in pale archipelagos, gulfs, reefs and headlands, warrened with cavities, that end in a litter of rocks and spikes where the limestone goes dark at sunset; thunderbolt sea-marks scattered on the water, light in the reign of the Pleiades, slowly spinning the sea-sounds that sigh in the caves of solitary islands.

TEΛOΣ

Derivations of Sarakatsán
 

O
N THE FACE
of it—and, alas, as deep as one can dive—the word Sarakatsán means nothing at all. Nevertheless, there are several possibilities that beckon enticingly (one in particular shines with a seductive glitter) and this has proved a stimulating challenge to ethnographers, philologists and publicists, both Greek and foreign, for many decades. Conflicting derivations are always fascinating and the Sarakatsáns (who are also less correctly known in the Balkan countries outside Greece, as Karakatchans) have given rise to a rich and varied crop. Greeks are invariably fertile in this field. Aravantinos declares that they originated in an Akarnanian village called Saraketsi and later took to a wandering life. Another opinion maintains that they once lived near the Katsáno villages in Epirus, and are thus
para
Katsánoi,
para
meaning, in this instance, “near”—near-Katsánians in fact, the P mysteriously and un-Grimmishly turning into S. I. Lampides thinks they were actually
from
the Katsáno villages but takes the alternative affix
kara
, which means “black” in Turkish, and metaphorically, “wretched,” and makes them “woebegone Katsánians.” As a second string to his bow, he derives them in vague and doubting terms (as Uncle Petro did himself) from the Vlach village of Syrako on the Acheloös river; in yet a third alternative he mates the Arabic words
kara
, “on land” or
sara
, “swift,” to the Turkish verb
katchan
, “to depart” or “to flee”—in two hybrid matches, giving birth to “landwanderers,” and “swift wanderers.” Yet others link
katchan
with the Turkish
kir
, “desert,” to arrive at “desert departers.” Another links
kara
with the Albanian adjective
katsianon
, which is applied to dark or purplish-faced sheep, of which, indeed, Sarakatsán flocks contain large numbers; this gives us “black dark faced ones.” The great Danish authority on these Nomads, Axel Hoeg, thinks the Vlacho-Rumanian word
sarac
, or “poor,” may have something to do with it. So does J. Ancel. A. Dimitriades couples the Turkish
saran
, “a load,” with
katchan
, to make “burdened wanderers.” I. Sayiaxis brings
sarika
, a Slav word for the
fustanella
, the kilt which they once all wore, into play: “the kilted ones.” B. Skaphiadis, on the other hand, would like to connect them with a hellenized Vlach word, also
sarika
, but meaning here, “raw wool”: “the shaggy men.” D. Georgakas manages to bring in the Turkish word for “yellow”—that is,
sari
—which strikes a new note: “yellow wanderers.” G. Kotsioulas, sinisterly, links our old friend
katchan
with the Turkish
siari
, “a thief,” transforming them into fugitives from justice. With disarming simplicity and enviable boldness, I. Vlachoyannis declares them to be Saracens....A current derivation is the combination of the two Turkish words which crop up most frequently in this catalogue into “The black ones who depart.” It has no better claim than any of the others—except the ones which are patently absurd or linguistically impossible—and I have called this chapter “The Black Departers” merely because the term
does
happen to conjure them up, but the initial K instead of the much more widespread S, casts doubt at once. To close this list, a writer whose name escapes me for the moment vies with Vlachoyannis' Saracens by coolly turning them all into Syracusans from Sicily....There is something wrong with all of these solutions, and nothing to recommend one at the expense of its rivals. Nearly all the names I have cited are those of respectable writers. It is typical of the most serious student of them all, Dr. Axel Hoeg, that his suggestion is the most diffident and tentative
of the lot. His only peer in the field, Mrs. Angelica Hadjimichalis, offers none at all. The name is as useless a guide to their origins as are historical records.

Glossary of Boliaric Vocabulary
 

P
ERHAPS
it's better to leave out the ordinary Greek words, with the proviso that they are never the same as the boliaric ones. A few bear the same link to the object described as fennel does to a beard—
velazoura
, for instance, means “sheep” and “goats,” “a flock”—
velazo
is the Greek for “bleat”; similarly,
bokla
—“hair”—is probably the Greek
boukla
, “a curl,” a recent acquisition from French. A town is
kio
—surely the Turkish
kioi
, just as
sielo
is Russian—and boliaric—for a village, and
kaïn
—“dog”—the Vlach or Rumanian descendant of
canis. Gaïna
we have already met; with
neró
, the Greek for “water,” affixed, it becomes
nerogáïna
, “waterfowl,” viz. “ducks and geese.” But what have
koubouria
(the same, incidentally, as the
manga
slang for “pistols”), or
tchillingária
, to do with “a woman's breasts”?
Kouti
, in Greek, is “a box”; but why is the boliaric for “house” always its genitive—
koutiou
? Perhaps it has nothing to do with Greek at all....
Tchmeki
is “sleep” (also “hotel”);
tchemkiazo
is “I sleep,”
tchmékiza
, “I slept” and
tha tchimikiázo
, “I will sleep.” Here is a boliaric zoo of domestic animals: cow,
marini
; pig,
birdzin
; hen,
gaïna
; waterfowl,
nerogáïna
; hare,
daousénos
; mule,
mangatchko
; dog,
kaïn
; sheep,
bikiaïn
; flocks,
velazoúra
; horse,
pharí
(akin to the Greek for mare,
phorada
?); donkey,
mánganos
or
yipsíni
; lice,
maritzes
; and cat,
markantós
.

Markantós
....I wonder what “a cat” has to do with “the saints,” for these, in Kravarese, are
Oi Markantonaioi
, the Markantonies
(and what have they to do with Cleopatra's lover?). Some objects that play a great part in mendicant life had several synonyms, each slightly different. “Money” is
alepoúmata
—something to do with
alepou
, a fox?—and
matzónia
;
kítrino
, meaning “a sovereign,” is literally “a yellow one”; perhaps
kolyva
, or
koulouva
, also meaning “a gold coin,” is related to the big round funeral cake to which it sounds similar in ordinary Greek.
Platanóphylla
, literally “plane tree leaves,” is “paper money”;
photerí
—perhaps “a shining one”—is “a drachma,” a
diphóteri
, “two drachmas.” (Confusingly,
photerá
is also “letters,” “writing”) and “a thousand drachmas” is a
hína
, or “goose.”...The sticks that are so important in a beggar's life (“wood”—
x′ylo
in Greek—has the second meaning of “the stick,” “a thrashing,” e.g. “I ate wood” = “I was beaten up”) has many synonyms:
grigóro, láoussa, matsoúka, straví, kaníki
and
dervo
—all “sticks.”
Lachanidi
, for “a knife,” suggests “cabbage-cutting”; but whence comes
beldevéni
—also a knife?
Tcharmalídi
is “a gun,”
tchóki
, “a stone,”
karvoúni
(coal), “a train”;
armabíl
, which sounds just like the Greek-American word for a motor, is exactly that and usually a bus;
mákina
, “a camera,” suggests an Italian machine: it takes
mouta
, or “snapshots,” related, perhaps, to the everyday
moutra
(“face,” “mug,” “phiz”).
Sardinia
are “shoes,”
daïri
, “a road,”
klitzino
, “a ring,”
batzoutou
or
koutzourou
(lame or stumbling? rickety?), “a table”;
kranídi
and
traganída
are “time,” while
traganídi
is “a watch,” whose dial records the march of the
phlambouri
. This word means, “the sun” or “day”
[1]
and the plural,
phlambouria
, is days. When the
phlambouri
sets,
hálpou
, “the night,” follows.
Hálpou
...an eerie word.

Bánikos
, which, in Greek slang, means “nubile” or “ripe for coition,” denotes, in boliaric, “big,” “good,” or “important.” The only other adjective on my scribbled list (but there must
be lots more) is
stíliota
, “furtive” or “wary,” akin to the key-word
stíliane!
“Look out!” “Beware!” The recorded verbs are few.
Anisévo
, “I grow angry”;
tchmekiázo
, “I sleep”;
glavízo
, “I run”;
photáo
(related to “light”?), “I know,” “I see,” or “look out”;
panteládo
, “I talk nonsense”;
karkévo
, “I hit”;
manízo
, “I steal”;
mandarono
, “I make a fool of”;
banízo
and
sarafizo
, “I understand”;
siorévo
, “I get drunk”;
stíliano
, “I beware”;
spartáo
, “I run away”;
tzoumízo
, “I kill”;
gáskino
, “I laugh” and
kranízei
, “it rains.”

Several words suggest that this vocabulary is more up-to-date than it might at first appear:
grobaíoi
, for instance, meaning “guerrillas,” and
groúmpos
, a communist, irresistibly suggest E.L.A.S. But
matzoúkia
(literally “stick bearers”) for “beggars” and
shoreftis
for “a thief,” sound older. “A doctor” is
mantzóunas, patéllos
is “a policeman,”
malátos
and
lépho
are “a priest”; and
maletchko
—plainly from the Slav—is “a child”; hence
maletchkás
for “a teacher”; but what about
khakhás
, meaning the same thing?
Verdílis
and
verdílo
, are “father” and “mother,”
ingótina
and
gotiméno
mean “married,”
got
and
gotina
(Slav again), are “lady” and “gentleman”—a bourgeois couple, parents to a
gotopoulo
, or young gent. But
litzko
and
liókia
also mean a bourgeois figure, “a mug” perhaps, married to a
matzio
, or a
shveri
, “a woman,” who soon becomes a
houmoúrou
, “a mother” to a
houmouráki
, or “girl.”

Here also are a few of the mildly improper words in the vocabulary.
Perdikis
, the Greek for a young partridge, is “the rump” or “behind,”
havalóu
, the female pudendum,
lióka
its convex masculine complement;
manganízo
is “I fornicate”;
souravlízo
, which normally means “playing a reed pipe,” here means “I urinate”;
kouphróno
and
tzarmízo
, identical in sense, are its solider companion verbs and
koúphrisma
and
tzármisma
their end products;
tramalízo
and
lazinízo
both mean to break wind and
tramálisma
is the same wind once broken. One or two nouns, proper in every way, seemed even more enigmatic than their
fellows:
Gramki
, for instance, means “an Albanian”; could it be some little-known tribe? surely the Ghegs, the Tosks, the Mirdites, the Liaps and the Tchams are enough...? And
Eskebez
for the Peloponnese:
eski
, Turkish for old, but
bez
...?
Kina
—“China”—meant “safety.” Why? What Cathayan refuge?...Queerest of all is the word for Athens:
Ghiona
. This is the demotic name for Mt. Oeta, a hundred miles from Athens or more, where Hercules, in the shirt of Nessus, died in torment. But the
ghioni
is the demotic word for the
Athene noctua
, the little owl of Pallas, the ancient emblem of the goddess and of her city and the theme of many popular legends. It sits askew on branches and roof trees with its round-eyed head twisted full face under its frown just as it appears on old Athenian silver coins. The note of its sad, intermittent and oddly moving little pipe still sounds in the lanes.
[2]
Could this cryptic name have some subconscious, underground link with the city's small companion and symbol? Going too far, perhaps.