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Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #15 on: September 26, 2011, 12:42:55 AM »
ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
1909 (Part II no. X); Marri 1970 (Qôl Haywatâne, p. 7 f. 52 lines [Elfenbein 1990, no. 62]; Baluch 1977, p. 321 f., 23 lines). The actors are variously named, but the oldest versions name Čâkur, Haybat, Ĵâŕô, and Nôdbandag. Haybat and Ĵâŕô are common to all versions known to the present writer. Haybat swears not to return any camels that stray into his herds from elsewhere. Some camels from Čâkur’s herd stray into Haybat’s. Čâkur prepares to fight, but a conciliation is effected, and Čâkur allows Haybat to keep the camels. (The clearest published version is in Dames 1907, no. XII).
iii. Jâŕô, a Rind. One of the “oath-takers” (see above). His part in this episode is given in Dames 1907, no. XIII; Elfenbein 1990 no. 60; ŠMM (Qôl Ĵâŕôê, p. 15 f., 36 lines); Baluch 1977 (pp. 314– 18, 11 couplets). Ĵâŕô, known as “the one of the sour answer” (ĵawr ĵawâb), swears that he will kill anyone who touches his beard, or who kills his friend Haddê. Čâkur induces Ĵâŕô’s child’s nurse to get the child to touch his father’s beard; the child is duly killed by his father. Čâkur later organizes a horse race, when Haddê touches Ĵâŕô’s beard; Haddê is killed by Šâhô, Ĵâŕô’s nephew. Finally, Ĵâŕô kills Šâhô and buries him together with Haddê in one grave. There are several unpublished ballads relating all or parts of this story.
iv. Nôdbandag, a Lâšârî , one of the “oath-takers.” Known as “the generous” (saxî) or the “gold scatterer” (zar zuwal ), he was a greatly admired personality, and there is a large ballad literature about him, a good part unpublished. Since his father was a Lâšârî and his mother a Rind, he was to some extent plagued by divided loyalties in the Rind-Lâšârî Wars. He rescues the Rind chief Čâkur at the end of the first battle (see above) and has to suffer taunts for his deed (one unpublished ballad of 50 lines gives more details of this incident than others do). Dames 1907, nos. XIII and XIV describe his oath to give all he possessed to anyone who asked for it, and never to touch money with his hands. (Cf. also Elfenbein 1990, nos. 60 and 61). There are also versions in ŠMM (Lôlî p. 92 f., 110 lines) and Baluch 1977 (p. 224 f., 31 couplets). Čâkur makes a hole in Nôdbandag’s moneybag, and the coin in it falls out, but is not collected by iii. iv. 182

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 182.




Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #16 on: September 26, 2011, 12:43:41 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
Nôdbandag. (An unpublished ballad describes how the coins were collected by a troop of poor women who were gathering tamarisk branches for kindling; there is an interesting debate on “stealing by finding”). In another ballad Čâkur gets a minstrel (omb) to demand Nôdbandag’s property, and Nôdbandag gives him everything, even the shirt off his back. Several other unpublished ballads describe in detail how a musk-camel (a camel whose mouth has been sweetened with musk) arrives at Nôdbandag’s house in the middle of the night, laden with rich clothes and other goods.
v. Rêhân Rind, “the Bard” (lângaw). Besides the ballad mentioned above for the Čâkur Cycle (1.3, above) there are ballads given in ŠMM (Kûnĵe mahδaw, p. 20 f., 49 lines), and in Baluch 1977 (pp. 305– 13, 31 couplets), which tell the story of his love for Sangî, and the accident in which he wounds his own horse, and the animal later dies. There are also several unpublished ballads (supposedly composed by him) in which he (a) swears revenge for the slaughter of Gôhar’s little camels; (b) laments the death of Sâlô, a mistress; (c) describes in a battle poem a skirmish with the Arghuns.
vi. Râmên Lâšârî , said to be the author of several unpublished ballads, in which (a) he swears that he was the winner of the horse race with Rêhân Rind; (b) he encourages Gwaharâm to continue fighting the Rinds after his severe defeat near Nushkî (see above 1.3, iii); (c) his death in battle is also sung, by an unnamed bard, in an unpublished ballad.
vii. Bîbarî, the wife of umar, chief of the Hôt tribe. In a famous incident of the Thirty years’ War, the “Episode of the Lizard,” a lizard runs into her house, pursued by two boys from the Kalmatî tribe. Bîbarî bars the way to them, saying that the lizard is her refugee and under her protection. The boys do not listen and kill the lizard. Bîbarî complains to her husband upon his return home, and, furious, he organizes a bloody attack on the whole Kalmatî tribe. An inter-tribal feud develops out of this fighting, lasting several generations until both sides are exhausted. There is reason to date the poem to the eighteenth century. 183

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 183.



Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #17 on: September 26, 2011, 12:44:07 AM »
ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
There are several ballads describing Čâkur’s fighting as a freebooter for the Mughal Emperor Homâyûn when he marched on Delhi in 1555 to recover his throne from Šêr Šâh. There is a tradition that Homâyûn was a refugee amongst the Baloch after 1540, when Šêr Šâh drove him out. In Dames 1907, no. XVI, there is a ballad on this subject, ascribed to Šâhzâd, a son of Čâkur. Other campaigns by Čâkur in Panjab and Multan are described in a ballad printed in Dames (1909, pp. 10– 11), under the heading “Legendary History of the Baloches.” However, this episode, as well as Čâkur’s fighting for Homâyûn, has genuine historical credentials. I have attempted a reconstruction of Dames’ ballad XI (Elfenbein 1985).
The Dôdâ Bâlâč Cycle
The next most important cycle is certainly the Dôdâ Bâlâch Cycle, which is probably to be dated in the eighteenth century, perhaps 1750 or later. The cycle is important for several reasons. Whilst none of it can be assigned a definite historical niche, it is impressive for its realism, and its often personal styles of narration make it come very much alive. Some of the ballads are probably contemporary with the events described in them. The same transmission problems obtain as in the Čâkur Cycle.
The lady Sammî and her husband, members of the Bulêdî tribe, come as refugees to Dôdâ, overall chief of the Gôrgêĵ tribe, in the Rind confederation. Sammî’s husband dies and, as often happens, there is a disputed inheritance. Sammî withholds from her dead husband’s heirs the part of the herds which are her own property, which by riwâĵ she is entitled to do. Most versions then describe a raid on her cattle by Mîr Bîbarg, a Bulêdî chief, which he dares to do in broad daylight. While this takes place, Dôdâ lies asleep in the sun and does nothing.
Dôdâ is rudely awakened by two women relatives, who tell him what has happened. Dôdâ is very reluctant to undertake countermeasures, but after taunts and jibes by a whole group of women, who accuse him of cowardice and law-breaking, Dôdâ reluctantly gathers together a small band of men and sallies forth to meet Bîbarg 184

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 184.

Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #18 on: September 26, 2011, 12:44:34 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
at the Garmâp Pass near Sangsilâ in Bugî country (south-east of Sibî), and after a short and bloody encounter he is killed. T h e r e is a rather extensive ballad literature about Dôdâ, mostly unpublished. Many accounts describe subsequent long-continued fighting between the Gôrgêĵ and the Bulêdî, in which explicit comparison is made with the Rind-Lâšârî Wars of long before, and Dôdâ is often compared in them with Čâkur. But the Gôrgêĵ are always on the defensive against the Bulêdî, who are superior both in numbers and in strength. At last the Gôrgêĵ are virtually exterminated; only Dôdâ’s family is left, together with his brother Bâlâč and his halfbrother Nakîb.
Nakîb, whose mother was a black slave-girl, is the more mettlesome of the two, whilst Bâlâč hesitates to take action, like Dôdâ. years pass (in some versions three) in which Nakîb continually exhorts his brother to action, but without success. At last, after a dream (impressively described in one unpublished ballad), Bâlâč decides to act; and together with Nakîb the two alone proceed to harry the Bulêdî over their whole territory, said to extend from Sibî as far as the Indus, the two of them slaying three-score-andone warriors in one oft-described encounter. In a later battle, when Bâlâč and Nakîb gain reinforcements, Bîbarg himself is slain, and the remaining Bulêdî migrate to southern Sind.
Many of the ballads (published and unpublished) narrate in great detail the initial incident, where women taunt Dôdâ, and later Bâlâč, for indecision and evasion of duty. There are also several ballads in which the shame and doubt of Bâlâč feature prominently; all versions have rousing urgings to action by Nakîb.
Nearly all of the dialects of Balochi spoken in Pakistan are used in the written transcriptions of the oral recitals of this cycle. Especially notable is an Afghan Raxšânî version of the Bâlâč-Nakîb exchanges collected by zarubin (1930, pp. 664– 68), which gives 155 lines of a version of the Balâč-Nakîb story (with a Russian translation). None of the sources I have seen or heard carries the whole story. Besides that of zarubin, the following publications contain parts of it:
i. Baluch 1977, pp. 401– 10, in EHB 29 couplets; Bâlâch is said to be the author. 185

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 185.




Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #19 on: September 26, 2011, 12:44:56 AM »
ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
ii. ŠMM in EHB (pp. 149, Bâhô, 45 lines; p. 151 f., Huδâ čôn a-kant, 103 lines; p. 157 f., Gôn baδân, 66 lines; p. 163, Bašârat, 107 lines; p. 172 f., Kôlanî balâ, 74 lines; p. 176f., Abêd ža, 29 lines).
iii.  Dames 1907, no. XVIII, in which Bâlâč himself appears to be the poet (“Bâlâč sings”), three ballads are given, all in EHB (no. 1, 45 lines; no. 2, 56 lines; no. 3, 48 lines).
iv.  Elfenbein 1990, (no. 57, 27 lines; no. 58, 47 lines; no. 59, 67 lines, mainly in Ra; but no. 59 in Ke).
V. Barker and Mengal 1969, II, (pp. 288– 92, 65 lines, in Ke from a Ra reciter. For the content, see Elfenbein 1990, no. 59). iv. v.
Hammal Ĵîhand
The many ballads about the struggles of Hammal Ĵîhand with the Portuguese in the sixteenth century also form a cycle. Hammal Ĵîhand, “Sultan of Kalmat” on the Makrân coast, was chief of the Hôt tribe. Most of the ballads about him concern a final naval battle with the Portuguese, which most likely took place some time after 1550. Nowhere is the Portuguese commander named, but if there is a connection with the torching of the Makrân seaports Gwâdar and Pasnî in 1581, 7 Hammal might also have been concerned. Portuguese archives have not been consulted, so that at present nothing more definite can be said. The ballads describe land skirmishes and naval engagements between the Portuguese and Baloch forces under Hammal, during many years. In a final battle (the central event of most ballads) Hammal was defeated and taken prisoner, and then deported captive either to Goa or to Portugal (ballads differ). Efforts to ransom him failed, and the Portuguese tried to persuade him to settle and take a European wife. Hammal refused, finally dying in prison. There is said to be a local custom in Kalmat of women mourning for Hammal by not washing their hair on Saturdays.
Some ballads describe in colorful detail the reasons for Hammal’s refusal to take a European wife: it was mainly the “unclean” customs of non-Muslim Europeans which revolted him. There is a short extract about this cycle in Elfenbein 1990 (p. 272), but it
7 In some versions Tîz is given for Pasnî. 186

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 186.


Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #20 on: September 26, 2011, 12:45:21 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
probably dates from the nineteenth century. Other texts are to be found in:
i. Baluch 1977 (pp. 353– 60, in EHB, 27 couplets); other ballads of the cycle are to be found ibid., pp. 360– 83; some are said to have been written by Hammal himself and sent as letters to Kalmat (this seems very unlikely, since such letters must have been written in Persian, always the written language of the Baloch).
ii. ŠMM, p. 75 f., Hammal o Šêr, about an encounter with a lion (one example of several ballads on this theme, 99 couplets). iii. Elfenbein 1990 (no. 561, of 60 lines), in the form of a dialogue with Čâkur, a challenge to combat. Quoted in Sarawânî dialect, it is the only example of the sort I know, but this may not be significant.
iv. Barker and Mengal 1969 (II, pp. 306– 13, 28 lines), in a Raxšânî greatly mixed with Coastal dialect. It is certain that Hammal’s dialect was the Coastal dialect of Kalmat, and the Coastal dialect forms of this ballad were probably injected by a Raxšânî reciter to increase its credibility.
Only passing note can be taken of other classical balladry by other bards/actors of the years before the eighteenth century. The events described, mainly martial, seem likely to be authentic, but it is difficult to vouch for the authorship or the contemporaneity of the ballads. In Baluch 1977 (Ch. 4), a (weak) case is made for such warriorballadeers as Šâhdâd, Hârîn, Mîrhân Rind, Šêh Isâ Kahêrî, to name only the best known, and Baluch gives some specimens of poetry perhaps written by some of them, all in Eastern Hill Balochi.
Some mention should be made of the fairly large amount of extant verse, some published, most not, concerning the “War of the Rinds and the Dôdâîs.” Dames 1907 has no less than eight ballads about this war, in no. XVIII, with a grand total of 236 lines. Gul Khan had a high opinion of these pieces. Baluch (1977) has also printed three ballads of this group, with a total of 48 couplets. The main content is as follows: When Mîr Čâkur and many Rinds advanced on Delhi c. 1555 as part of the army of Humâyûn, other Rinds deserted him and returned under Biĵĵar westwards back towards the Indus, where they met the Baloch Dôdâîs, who had long 187

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 187.


Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #21 on: September 26, 2011, 12:46:29 AM »
 

ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
been settled in the Indus Valley. The latter were allied with Čâkur, and an armed struggle ensued. The (unpublished) ballads narrate a long and pitiless struggle, which only ended with a division of the country, with Biĵĵar’s Rinds settling in the Derâjât, and the Dôdâîs the area around Dera Ghazi Khan, where they were Nawabs until the end of the eighteenth century.
2. Literature of the post‑classical period: the eighteenth century
Ballads
There exists a number of long ballads which could date from the eighteenth century, mostly based on well-known Persian or Arabic tales, such as Leylâ and Majnun, or Širin and Farhâd: these two have been especially widely imitated in Balochi.
Leylâ and Majnun
There is a selection from the Leylâ story in Balochi in Baluch 1977 (pp. 496– 508, 44 couplets, author unknown). But in Dames 1907, no. XXXVII, there is a much longer selection of 101 lines (given also in Dames 1909 II, pp. 3– 4). The version in Baluch 1977 is more pedestrian, being mainly a bare outline of the tale, whereas that given in Dames has been transformed into a local Balochi tale of tragic love set in Eastern Hill territory and largely re-written. A prose version of this tale as well as a local variant is to be found in Elfenbein 1983.
Širin and Farhâd
Extracts of a Balochi version of the tale Širin and Farhâd have been published in Baluch 1977 (pp. 508– 15; 23 couplets), and assigned by him to an anonymous poet of the seventeenth century, on unstated 188

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 188.




Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #22 on: September 26, 2011, 12:46:57 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
grounds. Dames 1907 (no. XL) gives a slightly longer version of 52 lines. No doubt Dames is right in supposing that the Pârât of the Balochi poem is Farhâd, and in assigning the poem to the eighteenth century or later.
Dôstên and Šîrên
Of greater interest is the purely Balochi verse tale of Dôstên o Šîrên, of which a shortened version of 44 couplets has been given in Baluch 1977, pp. 484– 90. The author assigns the story to the seventeenth century, mainly on grounds of its content, naively not considering that any poet might compose a poem about the days of yore. All others, including Gul Khân, assign the original ballad to the eighteenth century. It seems that the style of the ballad fits better with the uncomplicated eighteenth century style, and that references to earlier events are anachronisms. The version in Dames 1907 (no. XLI) is composite and in essence cannot be old (e.g. the “Arghun” capital Herat is given as “Arand”, a small village in EHB territory, certainly a corruption of Balochi Harêw, even if genuine). ŠMM (p. 135 f.) gives a version of 112 lines, which he calls Šîrên. The leading poet of the modern period, Gul Khan Nasîr, has used the story as the basis for an impressive modern epic in seven parts, which he published as a book in Quetta in 1964. There are long extracts from it in Elfenbein 1990, pp. 203– 55. The story in outline runs as follows:
The Rind Dôstên is betrothed to the lady Šîrên. One day the “Arghun Turks” make an attack on their village, killing a few of its inhabitants, and carry off Dôstên as a prisoner to the town of “Arand” (Gul Khân writes resp. Mughals, and Herat). Dôstên is held captive for years, and in the early part of his captivity he and Šîrên are allowed to pass written messages, which later gradually cease. Šîrên is betrothed by her parents to another, also called Dôstên. Meanwhile the captive Dôstên is made a groom of the governor’s horses, which function he fulfills so successfully that in a few years he is made head groom.
But he never forgets Šîrên, and later by means of a ruse he makes his escape and rides home to his village, just in time to hear that
189

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 189.


Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #23 on: September 26, 2011, 12:47:23 AM »
ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
Šîrên is about to be married to the other Dôstên. Disguising himself and his companions as minstrels, Dôstên sings a wedding song, one which had been written and sent to him long before by Šîrên (so Šîrên is a poet, and both are literate: in which language?) Šîrên recognizes both the singer and the song, and requests to be released by the other Dôstên, who gallantly consents; the first Dôstên and Šîrên are wedded amid general rejoicing.
Šêh Murîd and Hânî
This also appears to be a purely Balochi tale (šêh < Arabic shaykh). This is a very popular story, dating from the eighteenth century, about which many ballads have been composed. (There are also many modern versions.) Many of the older ballads have been published, e.g. in Dames 1907, no. XXII; in ŠMM (pp. 59– 63, 103 lines, Durrdânaγên Hânî; pp. 64– 66, 60 lines, Ašiqê ganôx). Baluch 1977 gives an especially good selection of five specimens (pp. 244– 56, 26 couplets; pp. 257– 65, 30 couplets; pp. 266– 67, 9 couplets; pp. 269– 70, 6 couplets; pp. 271– 99, 113 couplets). Many shorter specimens have been published in Mâhtâk Balôčî and Nôkên Dawr, and there are countless unpublished examples, mostly shorter episodes from the tale.
Šêh Murîd is said in several ballads to be a “follower of Čâkur,” and is confused in at least one ballad version of the “Four Vows” story (see above) with Nôdbandag (see also Elfenbein 1990, pp. 360– 61). Great generosity is admired as the highest of virtues amongst the Baloch. The story goes as follows:
Murîd is affianced to Hânî, but Čâkur demands her for himself. Murîd generously gives her up and then, overwhelmed with regret, goes away on Hajj to Mecca. He becomes a wandering faqîr and in his wanderings returns several times to his home in disguise, to steal glances at Hânî— his love gives him no peace. On one such visit he is recognized and a Great Jirga is convened. Čâkur agrees to give Hânî up to him, but Murîd refuses, saying that his many years as a wandering beggar have made him unfit for her. He departs, riding his camel and singing love songs in the desert.
190

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 190.



Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #24 on: September 26, 2011, 12:48:21 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
The tale/ballad of ʿIsâ and Barî This is probably of Sindhi origin. The 35-line version in Dames 1907(no. LIII) is fairly typical, although it is in Eastern Hill Balochi. Several other versions in Kêčî, Raxšânî, and Coastal dialect— the Coastal versions are the only ones without admixtures— have been published in Mâhtâk Balôčî. The story is well known. ʿIsâ is a wanderer, but Barî sits alone in the desert. ʿIsâ inquires of Barî how he lives, and Barî answers and shows him the power of God, who then makes a tree sprout from the ground in the forenoon, put forth buds at noon, bear fruit in the early afternoon, and ripe fruit by the afternoon prayers.
Known poets
Here we come to identified poets, about whom there is some information, albeit little. There is space here for only the most important.
Ĵâm Durrak
The most notable, and also the earliest of these is Ĵâm Durrak, chief poet at the court of Nasîr Khân I of Kalat. His exact dates are not known. It seems quite likely that his oeuvre was written down in his lifetime, but no written remains have been preserved. He was a very popular poet, composing mostly short lyrical pieces in Co dialect. His best work is very individual, characterized by very short lines of e.g. five syllables with an irregular rhyme. A sample of his poetry is given in Elfenbein 1990 (pp. 257– 71), in which an attempt is made to give a critical text. The same cannot be said of Dames’ examples (1907, nos. XLII– XLVI), transposed into Eastern Hill Balochi as if Durrak’s work were that of an anonymous folk poet. There are also many ballads attributed to him because of his fame, on most doubtful authority. The first attempt to collect his poetry in booklet form, Durr-čîn by Ahmad Bashir Balôch (1963),
191

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 191.

 

Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2011, 12:48:47 AM »

ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
is not a critical edition and many of the poems are of doubtful attribution. A poor specimen of four couplets attributed to him is given in Baluch 1977 (p. 75), and several issues of Mâhtâk Balôčî contain examples.
A notion of the verse of Durrak can be obtained from the following short love lyric, hitherto unpublished. It is untitled. 8
1. tau-ê girdagên bagg Thou art a wandering string of camels man godaw-ân; I am (thy) troop of horse 2. tau-ê rôč nêmrôč Thou art the day at midday man arnaw-ân; I am (thy) evening
3. tau hâkân lêflê Thou liest on the ground man čittir-ân; I am (thy) mat
4. tau pâdân šapâd-ê Thou art barefoot man littir-ân; I am (thy) shoe
5. tau-ê syâhên syâhmâr Thou art a black snake man ĵôgsar-ân; I am a snake-charmer
6. mândrân ĵanânâ In chanting charms dast-it girân I seize thy hand
Mullâ Fazl
Mullâ Fazl of Mand, a village just to the east of the Iranian border in the Kêč valley (but whose dialect is Coastal), is reputed to be the author of many fine ballads, of which one is given in Elfenbein 1990, p. 272. Several of his longer works have been printed in Mâhtâk Balôčî, and much unpublished work has been collected.
ʿIzzat Lallâ
ʿIzzat Lallâ of Panjgûr in east Makran probably lived into the early nineteenth century. He composed his work in Raxšânî, his native dialect, perhaps the first to do so. A short specimen of his poetry
8 Taken from a badly copied Ms. in Qômî’s possession, the text given here is a reconstruction in Durrak’s original Coastal dialect. The rhyme is suddenly broken in the last couplet. The rhythm is syllabic, with 5-syllable lines alternating with 4-syllable ones. 192

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 192.

Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2011, 12:49:20 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
is given in Elfenbein 1990, p. 274, and a longer poem on pp. 302– 5. Not much of his work has been preserved; what has survived has been published mainly in Mâhtâk Balôčî.
Known poets
3. the nineteenth century
Many poets of the nineteenth century are known, and a fair amount of their work has been preserved. The following, in particular, are worthy of note.
Mullâ Ibrâhîm
Mullâ Ibrâhîm of Sarâwân in Persian Baluchistan. An example of his poetry is given in Elfenbein 1990, pp. 274– 81. Some other specimens of his verse have been collected and printed in Mâhtâk Balôčî, often with errors. His dialect was Sarawânî.
Mullâ Bampuštî
Mullâ Bampuštî, who lived near Bahô Kalât, also in Persian Baluchistan, was a prolific poet. ʿIsâ Qômî had collected much of his work, which was published in Mâhtâk Balôčî. An example is given in Elfenbein 1990, pp. 282– 86. The dialect is Coastal.
Mullâ Bahâdur
Mullâ Bahâdur from Mand, was a more important poet than the above. He is noted mainly for the technical accomplishment of his verse, which employs an exceptionally long line, sometimes of fifteen syllables, in strict rhythm. An example of his work is given in Elfenbein 1990, pp. 286– 88. Much of his work was collected by Gul Khan, but it unfortunately remains unpublished. His dialect is Coastal. 193

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 193.

 

Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #27 on: September 26, 2011, 12:49:56 AM »
ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
Fakîr Šêr-jân
Fakîr Šêr-jân of Nushkî (Balochi Nôškê) composed his verse in Raxšânî, like ʿIzzat Lallâ. His style is difficult, characterized as it is by the over-use of elliptical expressions, as well as other obscurities. Two examples of his work are given in Elfenbein 1990, pp. 286– 97. Much of his poetry has been collected by Abdullâ-jân Jamâldînî and published in Mâhtâk Balôčî. The mixture of dialects, Raxšânî with occasional Coastal forms (not always correct) is characteristic of his poetry.
Mast Tôkalî
Mast Tôkalî, also known as Tôkalî Mast (Tawq ʿAlî Mast) was a very well-known poet of the nineteenth century who composed in Eastern Hill Balochi. The specimen given in Elfenbein 1990, pp. 298– 300 was collected by the late Mithâ Khan Marî, the leading authority on Eastern Hill Balochi poets. Tokali’s style was more “learned” than most, with many Persianisms.
Rahm ʿAlî Marî
Rahm ʿAlî Marî was a Marî poet (in Eastern Hill Balochi) of the late nineteenth century, who composed mainly occasional poetry. Mithâ Khan Marî collected most of his work from local Marî ômbs. His “Song of the Battle of Gumbad” is one of his best works, a long ballad of 810 lines, about half of which is printed in Elfenbein 1990, as no. 53 (the remaining lines are in Elfenbein 1994).
The nineteenth century did not see any production of prose that can be called literature. There was of course much narrative prose in the form of stories and tales, and a representative collection of some of it is to be found in Dames 1909, and in Lewis (1855). Geiger (1889, 1893) also published some short specimens. All of these texts are in Eastern Hill Balochi.
194

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 194.

Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #28 on: September 26, 2011, 12:50:20 AM »
BALOCHI Literature
4. the Modern period
Writers in Balochi began to proliferate in the 1930s, magazines and other journals were started in India, and in British Baluchistan some of them found occasional space for snippets of Balochi literature, both classical and contemporary. Most of these publications had a rather short life, with a very small readership and exiguous finances. Academies were also founded after 1947 in Pakistan to promote Balochi culture. Outside Pakistan very little was done.
Prose composition also began to play a part, especially as essays and short stories. Some drama was also produced, and even a novel or two written. Folktales were retold more self-consciously, and attention was paid to develop a more sophisticated narrative style, often influenced by English and American writing. In the space available, no more than a sketchy outline of this modern writing can be given here.
The two volumes of “Balochi Tales” published by zarubin in 1932 and 1949, collected in Marv (Turkmenistan) in the Afghan Raxšânî dialect, hardly merit the name of literature, baldly narrated as the tales are, without either style or talent. They thus contrast notably with the tales in Dames 1909.
There is no doubt that the political environment in the 1930s had a marked effect on establishing the written word as a force in Baloch life for the first time. This led to the founding of one of the first newspapers of the 1930s: Mohammed Hoseyn Unqa (Anqâ) published a weekly newspaper from Mach, Bôlân, mainly in urdu, but now and again there was something in Balochi too. unqa was one of the first to interest himself in written Balochi, and did much to establish its written form, using the script conventions of urdu.
(ʿAbd-al-Wahid) Âzât Ĵamâldînî (1912– 81) and his younger brother Abdullâ-jân (b. 1922) devoted their lives to the service of Balochi literature, the former being the founding editor of the “monthly” Mâhtâk Balôčî from 1956 (published irregularly for more than twenty years). The latter was the first Professor of Balochi in Pakistan (at the university of Baluchistan, Quetta), and both brothers were ardent collectors of classical Balochi ballads as well.
195

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 195.

Offline AhmedHout

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Re: Balochi Oral Literature
« Reply #29 on: September 26, 2011, 12:50:44 AM »
ORAL Literature OF IRANIAN Languages
The Balôčî Zubânê Dîwân (Balochi Language Group) was founded in Quetta in 1951, the first institution of its kind, by a small group of enthusiasts as a publishing house. It lasted until 1953, and can be regarded as a forerunner of the later Balochi Academies. The Balôčî Zubânê Dîwân’s most important publication was probably Gul Khan Nasir’s Gulbâng. Gul Khan (1914– 83) was perhaps the most important Balochi poet of his time. He published some five volumes of verse. He was, for most of his life, ardently engaged in politics, and both in British times and especially after the creation of Pakistan he saw the inside of jails, sometimes for prolonged periods. He felt it as his principal task to further Balochi national sentiments, and to that end he wrote a great deal of verse including the powerful ballad Byâ, ô Balôč! (Come, ye Baloch!), in the 1940s, which became a sort of national anthem. He was appointed Minister of Education in the provincial government of Baluchistan after the elections of 1971, but that government lasted only nine months before being dismissed, and Gul Khan, together with other leading members of the government, was sent to jail for many years.
The first Balochi Academy was founded in Karachi in 1958, and lasted until 1964. Of major importance, amongst much other publishing activity, was their publication in 1959 of Mistâg, an anthology of the poetry of twenty-one modern poets, each poet being represented by several of his shorter works. But permanence had to await the foundation of the Balochi Academy of Quetta in 1961: this institution has survived up to the time of writing (1998) and has published more than seventy-five books, mostly in Balochi.
In Elfenbein 1990 there is to be found a necessarily limited but useful choice of the works of some well-known writers: there are seventeen short stories and twenty-one poems of authors who were living at the time of writing, including Unqa, Âzât Ĵamâldînî, ʿIsâQômî, and several others, with ten poems by Gul Khan, including a long extract from his Dôstên o Šîrên. Also included are four essays and a radio drama. It is, of course, invidious to single authors out for mention or omission in any short list of living writers, but as a guide to some
196

Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (Editor); Marzolph, Ulrich (Editor); Yarshater, Ehsan (Editor). History of Persian Literature, Volume XVIII : Oral Literature of Iranian Languages, Volume 2 : Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik.
London, GBR: I.B.Tauris, 2010. p 196.