Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
Paul Stirling
CHAPTER TWO
THE SETTING
previous page
Page 21
earlier inhabitants of the village probably lived in caves or houses with their animals at one end and themselves at the other but only one or two households still had this arrangement. Most houses have caves behind or below the house, where animals are kept, and straw for winter feed is stored. These often have clear signs of previous habitation.
Every village home has a main living-room, called in this area ev, the normal Turkish word for house. In this room is the fireplace, a beehive-shaped oven called tandir, let into the mud floor, supplied with draught by a bullt-in pipe. The opening at the top is at floor level, and normally covered with a large flat stone - a deadly trap for babies if this stone is inadvertently left off. The ovens provide for warmth and cooking, burning dried cakes of cattle dung mixed with straw, which will smoulder for hours. When the tandir is first lit in the morning the room is filled with dense acrid smoke and everyone crawls, or walks around bent double, until it has cleared through the hole provided in the roof.
The ev is the scene of all household activities. Here are shelves of earthenware vessels and tinned copper pots and pans. Great wooden chests store the family supply of grain and flour. An upright loom serves for the women to weave woollen rugs, saddle bags and grain sacks. Round the oven, when guests call or the women have time to sit, are spread mats and rugs and cushions. Rolls of bedding - mattresses, quilts and pillows stand in a neat pile, or sometimes in a special recess.
This room is the province of the wife of the household head, where she sleeps with her husband and at least her younger children. Her own chest, which came with her when she married, holds her own and usually her husband's personal possessions, safely under lock and key. No man enters the ev of a household other than his own unless he is very close kin-even a first cousin of one of the couple might hesitate - unless he has very special business, when he will knock and call out to give warning.
Almost all homes have more than this one room. Most are entered through a high-walled courtyard, and off this or behind the ev are a stable, a cave or building that acts as a barn, and possibly other storage rooms. A second tandir is normally placed somewhere out of doors, but sheltered from direct rain. Junior married couples should and normally do have their own room
next page
Contents Page
