The Reign of Khosrow Parviz (Shahnameh Readalong 39)

Join Tessa Gratton and me as we read the Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. We’re using the Dick Davis translation (Penguin Classics).

This week: The Reign of Khosrow Parviz

Synopsis: “Bahram Chubineh continue to harry Khosrow, they both ally with outside rulers, until Bahram is killed ignominiously and his sister Gordyeh is amazing.”

TG:  Continuing the tradition of the immediately previous sections, every king and warrior in all of this is terrible and difficult to invest in. THAT SAID, I still enjoyed reading this section because of all the scheming and murderousness. My eyes were bugging out of my head when Khorad-Borzin was plotting with the old servant Qalun to murder Bahram… I was sure it wouldn’t work. AND THEN! IT DID.

This really furthers his image as a dark mirror to Rostam–that would never have worked on Rostam, obviously, but there are so many references to the old hero (and his horse) as well as Seyavash (my heart!) that it reads very purposefully like “look how far we’ve fallen since the Good Old Days Of Persian Kings and Heroes.” I feel ya, Shahnameh, I miss those good old days, too.

But one thing the golden age heroes and kings never had: GORDYEH.

I’m thrilled to have been wrong to worry about her. Not only does she not meet some untimely end or be forced into any marriage, she makes her own choices, owns her own cities, riches, servants, and GOES TO WAR LIKE A MAN. Here we do have a hero of old, but of course the men can’t recognize that. She rides to war in armor and uses weapons, she murders her enemies, AND she has girlfriends — that aside about her five loyal companions and how they all work together to kill her husband was my favorite part. Then she becomes the favored queen, and gets everything she wants. *heart-eyes*

There needs to be a novel or movie about her, stat.

gordyeh-kills-tovorg

Gordyeh kills Tovorg. An armored woman on horseback spears a helmetless man in the back after he has fallen from his horse.

KE:  There is a weird thing here in which a king like Hormozd is announced as having an evil nature while never seeming to do that many horrible things, but the righteous dudes like Khosrow Parviz and Kesra actually do worse things on the page and are championed for it. It’s related to that “if God loves and approves of me then nothing I do can be wrong” mentality much loved by the self-proclaimed most righteous. For example, his treatment of the city of Rey is awful, and I did like how “even the priests were astonished to hear Khosrow talk in this way” when he concocts his grotesque plan.

Which brings me to Gordyeh. I also loved her, especially because the Sasanian period has been pretty raw for the womenfolk, and she feels like a return to the good old days of heroic, smart, well spoken women who are taken seriously as advisors. The kitten story is a classic example of the advisor who uses an odd spectacle to make their point. But more importantly, I cheered when she got her BFFs to aid her in killing her husband (and so well described) and then parlayed that action into marriage to the king. In all she acted pragmatically throughout, given the political situation and her position as a woman in a patriarchal world. If only her brother had listened to her in the first place.

Having said that I quite like Bahram Chubineh as a character because his faults and reckless reactions feel genuine to me, so in an odd way I felt I was getting more of a “realist” (rather than a mythic) portrait of a man. He definitely is no Rostam, who would have succumbed to none of that and would have fallen for none of it–well, except the ignoble death–but I’m guessing that is the point. Bahram Chubineh is the exemplar of how far mankind has fallen since the days of old (although his sister is allowed to be just as noble, courageous, and wise as the women of ancient times). In fact I might go so far as to say that SHE is the real heir of Rostam’s legacy, not her brother.

I continue to be intrigued by the treatment of envoys from one kingdom to another, even between enemy courts. An entire treatise has likely been written on this subject. Emperors being enchanted by the diplomats and envoys sent to

their court is a common theme. Those guys were just really good at their jobs.

I would probably have more complex things to say but after 39 weeks I find I am finally lagging. It’s been an amazing read, with a mere two sections left, and also a long haul.

#

Next week: Khosrow GOES BAD (finally) and I guess it is all the fault of a woman. The Story of Khosrow and Shirin

Previously: Introduction, The First Kings, The Demon King Zahhak, Feraydun and His Three Sons, The Story of Iraj, The Vengeance of Manuchehr, Sam & The Simorgh, The Tale of Zal and Rudabeh, Rostam, the Son of Zal-Dastan, The Beginning of the War Between Iran and Turan, Rostam and His Horse Rakhsh, Rostam and Kay Qobad, Kay Kavus’s War Against the Demons of Manzanderan, The Seven Trials of Rostam, The King of Hamaveran and His Daughter Sudabeh, The Tale of Sohrab, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 1, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 2, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 3, Forud the Son of Seyavash, The Akvan Div, Bizhan and Manizheh, The Occultation of Kay Khosrow, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 1, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 2, The Story of Darab and the Fuller, Sekander’s Conquest of Persia, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 1, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 2, The Death of Rostam, The Ashkanians, The Reign of Ardeshir & ShapurThe Reign of Shapur Zu’l Aktaf, The Reign of Yazdegerd the Unjust, The Reign of Bahram Gur, The Story of Mazdak, The Reign of Kesra Nushin-Ravan, The Reign of Hormozd

The Reign of Hormozd (Shahnameh Readalong 38)

Join Tessa Gratton and me as we read the Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. We’re using the Dick Davis translation (Penguin Classics).

This week: The Reign of Hormozd

Synopsis: “Hormozd begins by killing all his advisors, and spends his reign fighting against enemies and then his own ambitious champion Bahram Chubineh.”

TG:  I didn’t hate this section! It started off poorly, with Hormozd making clear what kind of king he was going to be by killing off all his advisors (in pretty imaginative ways)– a bad one. There were no women mentioned at all in the first 45 pages of the section either. Women are just absent entirely (but for the prophecy that Hormozd would have his eyes put out by his wife. Hormozd himself is just one more uninteresting, terrible king, and not very wise on top of that.

HOWEVER, I am very interested in Bahram Chubineh. He’s introduced as a Rostam character, but without the details that made me actively dislike Rostam–there are no magical horses to be mean to.

I almost liked Bahram, even, since he seemed like a pretty cool guy, within the context of this story, who was raised up by the king and lived up to it. I loved the fact that he had his dream about being defeated, but went to war anyway, for the right reasons. He faced terrible odds, and even his own doubt, and bravely led himself to success. (It was disappointing to find out the dream was sent by a magician, instead of being a dream from God

Once he began to fall from grace (at least in the eyes of the narrative and the king), I was even more interested because of the very blatant classism. All the conflict between Bahram and Hormozd can be traced to the fact that Bahram is not nobility, and no matter what great deeds he accomplishes, he still is not good enough to be on level with the king or even his defeated enemy Parmoudeh, and certainly unworthy of Seyavash’s earrings. I’d have been pissed at Parmoudeh, too, if he ignored me like he ignored Bahram. (I wonder what Seyavash would’ve said about Bahram, though.)

We did finally get some women affecting the story, who weren’t (yet) killed in terrible ways, though I have a bad feeling about Bahram’s sister. The others are the old woman astronomer and the Evil Sorceress, who sounds pretty great. Of course, once she put ambition in Bahram’s head, she just sort of vanished….

And speaking of women: DAMN sending Bahram the spindle and women’s clothes was cold. But also speaks to the really dangerous sexism that’s become so apparent in the last hundred or so pages of the Shahnameh. I don’t think that would have worked or even occurred to anyone during Rostam’s time.

I’m glad they’re still hanging on to Seyavash’s belt.

gordiyeh-advises-her-brother-bahram-not-to-aspire-to-the-persian-throne

Gordiyeh advises her brother Bahram not to aspire to the Persian throne. Bahram sits in the center with four people around him, one his sister as she speaks.

KE:  I also quite enjoyed this section although I have to admit that I was thrilled that Hormozd was immediately identified as a king of “evil nature” since I knew it meant I was allowed to cheer for all his bad decisions rather than being meant to admire him as with the awful Kesra. Once Bahram Chubineh was introduced I perceived a likely conflict, and because by now I have grown tired of the repetitive nature of the man problems (and the constant championing of a hierarchical, patriarchal, authoritarian inequality as the most just and right system) I was hoping that it would all kind of fall apart. Of course it doesn’t — it never quite does — but at least there were set backs and entertaining conflict. And we are left with a rare cliffhanger of an ending, with Hormozd blinded (although not by a woman as we were promised, so I’m sad about that).

Like you I was amused by the blatantly sexist gift of the spindle and women’s clothing as an insult. It follows the path of the recent chapters with respect to women (I can’t see this as being done in an earlier section; it would just have seemed childish).

This section also has a sense of realism in the ways wars are fought or avoided. At first many people are marching on Persia but Hormozd’s advisors figure out how to deal with each one except Savad Shah. The long standing enmity toward the Turks remains. I guess the Chinese Turks aren’t really the Chinese? I wonder if they are the eastern steppe tribes? I’m not sure. It would be interesting to find an article that tries to identify who these various groups might have represented, especially since the place names are consistent.

But my favorite episode in this section was with Parmoudeh (not even his dad’s favorite son; a classic case of the younger son being the favorite and thus crown prince, while the less favored son manages to survive the catastrophe). Because I am petty, I enjoyed his petty treatment of Bahram Chubineh trying to get back into his good graces by ignoring him and refusing all his efforts to make nice. Parmoudeh’s final comment “Go back, you have tired yourself out enough” is classic.

Next week: The Reign of Khosrow Parviz

Previously: Introduction, The First Kings, The Demon King Zahhak, Feraydun and His Three Sons, The Story of Iraj, The Vengeance of Manuchehr, Sam & The Simorgh, The Tale of Zal and Rudabeh, Rostam, the Son of Zal-Dastan, The Beginning of the War Between Iran and Turan, Rostam and His Horse Rakhsh, Rostam and Kay Qobad, Kay Kavus’s War Against the Demons of Manzanderan, The Seven Trials of Rostam, The King of Hamaveran and His Daughter Sudabeh, The Tale of Sohrab, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 1, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 2, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 3, Forud the Son of Seyavash, The Akvan Div, Bizhan and Manizheh, The Occultation of Kay Khosrow, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 1, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 2, The Story of Darab and the Fuller, Sekander’s Conquest of Persia, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 1, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 2, The Death of Rostam, The Ashkanians, The Reign of Ardeshir & ShapurThe Reign of Shapur Zu’l Aktaf, The Reign of Yazdegerd the Unjust, The Reign of Bahram Gur, The Story of Mazdak, The Reign of Kesra Nushin-Ravan

The Reign of Kesra Nushin-Ravan (Shahnameh Readalong 37)

Join Tessa Gratton and me as we read the Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. We’re using the Dick Davis translation (Penguin Classics).

This week: The Reign of Kesra Nushin-Ravan

Synopsis: “Kesra’s rule is highlighted with one bad Christian son and his on-again, off-again relationship with his vizier.”

TG:  I hardly know what to say.

No named women, again, and despite the section opening with ideas on what kind of woman a king should marry, it was only about her religion and her womb.

The first three sections, in fact, all have anti-women morals. The betraying son is bad because of his religion, which he got from his mother. The dream interpretation by Bozorjmehr takes a dream about a magnificent tree and a pig that wants to drink from the king’s cup and makes it about how women are untrustworthy, culminating in the death of a harem woman, and even the section about Kesra marrying the daughter of the emperor of China he’s only interested in her body being as good looking as her mother’s lineage.

(It almost suggested that a woman’s royalty can be seen through any disguise, mirroring earlier stories of lost heirs being raised by farmers and the like, but no, this was about her beauty, not any farr or royal bearing.)

It was disheartening, though I supposed this week I’d have had to read about the resurrection of Zal to be truly invested.

It does interest me that there is so much religious strife in these latter tales. A clear reflection of the book veering closer and closer to history. In the beginning, the strife was between Godly men and demons, or ambitious men against ambitious men, or all about epic love and giant magical birds, but now we have multiple religious, and different religions tied to different states with more frequency. I can’t help but see the connection between that and the lessening roles of women. Though obviously that kind of analysis would be very complicated.

I almost liked Bozorjmehr, but I can honestly say I don’t understand his last section. He just felt like the king was going to be mean to him, so emoji shrugged his way through torture and near-death, all because of some vague sense of fate. If the black bird stealing the king’s jewels had been a dream, that would have made more sense, but as it really happened, I just don’t get why Bo didn’t merely tell the king what happened, or wake him up, or…chase off the bird.

*sigh*

piruz_advises_nushzad_not_to_rebel_against_anushirvan_lacma_m-2009-44-2_4_of_5

Nobleman Piruz, seated on a horse to the right, faces King Kesra’s son Nushzad (seated on a horse to the right). Around them many soldiers await orders for battle. This scene represents Piruz advising Nushzad not to rebel against his father the king.

KE:  Like you I quite dislike Kesra the self righteous, continually described as the best and most just and so on and on, and meanwhile he again kills someone by hanging them upside down and who knows what else. Not a pleasant man in pursuit of making absolutely sure he has absolute power absolutely. But this is the system. I get it. Prosperity equals order and strength. Women live in purdah and no longer have names or agency which they don’t need because beauty, fertility, and obedience are their only important features. Bring on the revolution.

Anyway, I found the story of his hapless first son (the lovely Byzantine wife is mentioned and then vanishes) interesting and sad because it struck me as a real conflict. Born to a Christian mother he is then punished for adhering to her religion rather than that of his father. Obviously the king must maintain the supremacy of the state religion (and I believe that Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the Sasanian kings), but it’s lovely touch of tragic realism, the kind of plot-line that could work so easily in an historical or sff novel.

This chapter also has a sequence of non violent conflicts in which kings test each other with who has the most knowledgable wise men and/or viziers. It’s interesting to read a story in which besting others with your intelligence substitutes for a physical battle of arms.

But overall I’m just getting tired of the struggles of authoritarian men with little self doubt who have the power of life and death over their hapless subjects.

Next week: The Reign of Hormozd

Previously: Introduction, The First Kings, The Demon King Zahhak, Feraydun and His Three Sons, The Story of Iraj, The Vengeance of Manuchehr, Sam & The Simorgh, The Tale of Zal and Rudabeh, Rostam, the Son of Zal-Dastan, The Beginning of the War Between Iran and Turan, Rostam and His Horse Rakhsh, Rostam and Kay Qobad, Kay Kavus’s War Against the Demons of Manzanderan, The Seven Trials of Rostam, The King of Hamaveran and His Daughter Sudabeh, The Tale of Sohrab, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 1, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 2, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 3, Forud the Son of Seyavash, The Akvan Div, Bizhan and Manizheh, The Occultation of Kay Khosrow, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 1, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 2, The Story of Darab and the Fuller, Sekander’s Conquest of Persia, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 1, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 2, The Death of Rostam, The Ashkanians, The Reign of Ardeshir & ShapurThe Reign of Shapur Zu’l Aktaf, The Reign of Yazdegerd the Unjust, The Reign of Bahram Gur, The Story of Mazdak

The Savage Other as a Stereotype in Fiction

(An early draft of this essay was written in 2011. This is a revised version.)

According to my American Heritage dictionary the word savage comes from the Latin for “of the woods, wild.” Savage is variously defined as “Untouched by man and civilization; not domesticated or cultivated; Ferocious; vicious or merciless; brutal.” Basically, savages are but one step up from wild animals. They are, as it were, undomesticated man.

The issue of how savages are the same as or different from barbarians is a related but entangled issue, one I will not get into now because instead I want to discuss the use of “savages” in fictional narrative both written and visual. This is an incomplete and partial examination of a complicated question. I use the generic “we” as a writing device, not to suggest I am speaking for others. Be aware I am specifically speaking from the point of view of an American (USA) writing in English.

A typical appearance of the stereotypical Savage Other in narrative may include some or all of the following characteristics:

1) Savage Others live in a crude and primitive manner, with primitive technology, primitive homes, primitive weapons, and primitive manners. They may be generally partially or mostly naked, and often they are painted or scarred; if clothed, then the clothing is usually unsophisticated while the decoration is often exotic and beautiful. Bare breasts might be prominent. They lack modesty and are sometimes perfectly happy to have sex in public because, like dogs and other animals, they lack self consciousness.

2) Fights, often to the death, and brute strength (i.e. violence) are often used to solve social problems within the group. Savages often are boisterous, unable to grasp or stomach the subtleties of politics or social relations.

3) They often are not articulate or talkative. There may be grunting. This is not always just because everything is being translated. Or, if they talk good, they have a limited palette of conversational topics.

4) Simplistic notions of the universe often combine with a primitive notion of religion. Also, sometimes they can’t count past 3. They may be cunning but are rarely or never inventors or sophisticated problem solvers.  Usually they are gullible and superstitious, although often their naïve view of the world may prove to be profound in some mystical way.

5) Sucks to be a woman. They get all the worst chores and are also at constant risk of rape, especially captive women without a guardian or some man who has claimed her (see #9 below, the primal edge).

5a) Exception: Free savage women may have lusty sexual appetites to go with their bare breasts. Also, savage women can sometimes best civilized men in arm wrestling.

6) Blind loyalty to strong masculine male leader. Blind loyalty turns quickly to feeding frenzy if leader shows the slightest sign of weakness.

7) Dirty or matted, tangled hair a bonus. Decoration a plus, especially bones woven into the hair. Peter Jackson’s King Kong film, I’m looking at you.

8) Savages are usually “those people over there” and never “our people.” I have not done a statistical study on how many in works written by Euro-American authors map savages to non-white non-European groups. But that wouldn’t mean anything anyway because blond people can be depicted as savage, too! You know, like the Scots! No, wait, the Picts! Aren’t they blond?

9) Savages lack discipline. That is, they live close to the “primal edge” and just one little bit of alcohol or tip of excitement will set them over the top and into the kind of impulsive behavior that suggests they have no awareness of themselves in a social milieu. Another way of looking at it might be to say that adult savages lack impulse control in something of the same way some teenagers are said to lack impulse control; in other words, they have never quite grown up; they are perpetual children lacking adult restraint and insight and the virtues of consideration, decorum, and moderation, unless, of course, they are a Wise Savage, in which case they are connected to the mystical spirit of the universe, or a Noble Savage, in which case, bad luck, because they are soon to be wiped out so “we” who have recorded their Last Days can mourn their passing.

10) Occasionally they need an Outsider to help them out, become ruler, save them, or civilize them.

Here are four problems I have with depictions of the Savage Other, although this is by no means a complete discussion of how deeply problematic this stereotype is.

One:

The idea that the default state of human beings is “savagery” lies beneath many of these depictions: an unexamined assumption that this is “what we-as-humans are really like.” The problem with the “what we are really like” theory is that just as human beings have violent tendencies, they also have altruistic and cooperative tendencies; just as they can be cruel, they can also be kind and affectionate. Altruism, cooperation, kindness, tenderness, and affection are not the purview of civilization, just as cruelty and violence are not the purview of savagery. All exist within human behavior regardless.

Two:

A “simple” level of social organization, or a low level of technology, does not mean there are equally simple levels of innovation, social interaction, cosmological understanding, or customary (unwritten) law within the group.

What we think of as “primitive tech” was once leading edge tech. Throughout history people have figured out how to use the technology they have in sophisticated ways to deal with their environment and improve their lives. We got where we are today because of uncounted numbers of innovations and inventions that came before in a steady chain of discovery, many forgotten or unrecognized.

In college I took a class on “South American Indians” in which we studied, among other things, cosmologies of various groups. The cosmologies of many of these groups were exceedingly complex and layered and sophisticated. Additionally, the layers of social interaction are usually extremely complex in all societies, and social relationships may be necessarily multilayered in so-called “simpler” societies. If you have ever studied kinship terms you can see how simplified, or one might say atrophied, American English kinship terms are compared to kinship terms in many other languages.

Three:

Human groups have all been developing for the same amount of time. They are continually adapting to their environmental and geopolitical circumstances, which are constantly changing in ways we can’t always see from the present moment. My spouse has worked in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, and he will tell you that some of the most supple and sophisticated thinkers he has met have been highland villagers in PNG who may seem, by external technological Western measurements, to be more “primitive” (or “less advanced”) than “us” but who are far less locked into rigid ways of thinking.

When we say “less advanced,” what do we really mean? How are we defining “advanced?” Usually we are defining it in terms of cities and urban civilization. Politically and bureaucratically state level societies are usually described as “more advanced” than chieftain level societies because they are more populous and have more moving parts and more specialization. (Lest you wonder, I like my technological conveniences and my Constitution just fine, thank you.)

Yet, for instance, the culture of the nomadic Mongols made famous by the 13th century conquests of Genghis Khan was not “less advanced” in cultural terms compared to other cultures of that time. It was suited to its environment, and was as sophisticated and complex in terms of interpersonal dynamics, cosmological understanding, and the nature of lineage and tribal obligations that bound sub-groups together. It had been developing throughout prehistory through stages in a parallel process (with a different outcome) to the development of the complex urban civilizations of the time, those in China, Persia, and the Middle East. Although not based in an urban context, the fluid and dynamic nature of the steppe lineages and groups proved superior militarily to the urban societies they conquered. The Mongols knew how and where to get the outside knowledge they needed to do what they wanted, including bringing in Chinese siege warfare experts just as one example. The descendants of that conquest held on for a reasonably long time in historical terms as the initial empire grew and then slowly collapsed in the way typical of large empires.

Four:

“Savages” do not behave that way. Functional societies are orderly in an internally consistent way.  Functional societies rely on social mores, legal (written or unwritten) expectations or codes, and societal ways (which may be repressive, customary, tolerant, familial, or law-bound) of enforcing social cohesion.

Let me repeat:  All functional societies contain social mechanisms to regulate behavior within the group.

Groups that lack social and customary (legal) cohesion do not survive, or they are already disrupted by other forces which are causing them to change or dissolve. Things like environmental stresses, economic collapse, imperial or colonial pressure or exploitation, and war (internal civil or invasion by an outside group) disrupt social cohesion.

In other words, “savage” defines behavior, not culture. Savage behavior is a dynamic that most often comes into play because of disorder or high stress. For instance, when Wellington’s army sacked the city of Badajoz in 1812, they engaged in savage behavior.

No society or culture can function internally, with internal cohesion, with “savage behavior” as its sole social web. We only think it can be true because the contrast flatters us and reinforces our expectations and assumptions about who is a savage.

Do people behave horribly sometimes? Absolutely.

So here’s my problem: An incident of “savage” or “wild” behavior among a people who are classified as “savages” defines “them,” and the entire culture, as savage, whereas an incident of “savage” or “wild” behavior among “us” (ours, people like us) is defined as an aberration, the exception that proves the rule of our disciplined, advanced, cohesive, orderly, and thus superior society.

But human society is by definition social; we have evolved within social bonds, and with human emotions that influence the ways we interact, enforce social bonds and behavior, and create our way of understanding the world around us.

Humans are as a group emotionally sophisticated, although individuals vary. One of the worst problems with the depictions of the Savage Other is that entire “peoples” or “groups” are treated as if, like variant individuals, they fall outside the curve. But people live in social groupings for a reason: not only are we band animals, we are so because we survive in bands (and larger groups) whereas alone we would die.

As soon as any grouping of people settles into a band or larger society, they now have a social order and will interact to improve the social order (even if only in their favor).

In other words, the Savage Other does not exist. It is a construct, held up so we can feel better about ourselves.

When one people or civilization referred in the past (or refers today) to another as “savage” it is important to examine where and why that word was (or is) being used. Usually it is specifically used to create a value judgement that allows “our” culture to be elevated as more civilized and superior and “theirs” as savage and thus inferior. People in the past, just as in the present, had prejudices and agendas and we should therefore not repeat their judgements as if they were objective.

I’m reminded of the argument that the civilization of the Aztecs (also known as the Mexica) was “savage” because they did not use forks: So said anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, writing in the 19th century. Meanwhile, conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, writing as an old man in the 1560s, reflects that the Spaniards with Hernán Cortés on that first fateful expedition had never seen a city in Europe as large, spacious, orderly, and beautiful as the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Some people typically argue that the Aztecs were savages because they practiced heart sacrifice. A nasty business, I agree. But Mexica heart sacrifice was a tool for political (and religious) power just as the various inquisitions and pogroms have been in Europe, with torture, burning at the stake, and wholesale slaughter part of the historical record. And let’s review a few horrific details of the conquest of the Americas as detailed in Bartolomé de las Casas’s A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (published in 1561):

“The Spaniards forced their way into Native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were so many sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual’s head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mother’s breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks.”

Are these acts and the religious-political justification for killing any less savage?

Depictions of the Savage Other in fiction and film don’t function as realistic societies because they don’t contain the complex underpinnings and social interaction that functional working societies have. Savage Others in such cases are poorly thought-through as a piece of world-building. They’re bad craft, and they are also extremely harmful stereotypes. Any belief that they represent a real “type” of human social order has more to do with our willingness and desire to accept a simplistic weave of cliches than with the reality of their existence.

The Story of Mazdak (Shahnameh Readalong 36)

Join Tessa Gratton and me as we read the Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. We’re using the Dick Davis translation (Penguin Classics).

This week: The Story of Mazdak

Synopsis: “Mazdak comes to Qobad’s court, preaching equality for all men, but his new religion is rejected and he’s killed.”

TG:  WELL we have our absolute evidence that women have lost all status. Here they of course cannot hold their own wealth or make their own choices because they ARE wealth. They are equal only to wealth, in that they bring corruption to all mankind equally with wealth.

I’m very glad this is all happening in the end of the book, because if it had been in the first 1/4 I’m not sure I’d have been able to stick to this project!

It’s interesting to me that this brief sojourn into a sort of communist agenda where men are supposed to be economically equal and wealth is the enemy so easily catches hold of King Qobad, though the snake poison anecdote is a pretty convincing one. Especially since so recently we had the episode where the priest made all the people in a village equal and a few weeks later the village was razed to the earth and everything had gone badly.

And even though Mazdak’s religion is rejected it certainly isn’t because of anybody thinking women are worth anything. The number one argument against sharing women in common had nothing to do with women, but in good patriarchal fashion, it was “how will a son know his father, or a father his son?”

Always centering the menfolk. ALAS.

Apparently, Mazdak is a historical figure and I found quite a bit about him, and most of it de-emphasised the sexism, which doesn’t make me think Shahnahmeh is inaccurate, it makes me think history doesn’t care much.

The next section is about how kings needs a good woman for a partner, and I’m a little nervous to read it.

upsidedown-followers

I’m not positive this is an illustration of the crown prince having the followers of Mazdak planted upside down in the palace garden but here are six men, with varying skin tones, hanging by their feet from garden trees.

KE: “He said that those who have nothing were equal with the powerful, and that one man should not own more than another.” <== These radical social movements aren’t modern inventions; they go all the way back.

This story is a classic example of how the rich and powerful squash social movements that threaten their privilege, status, wealth, and lines of inheritance (i.e. control of women’s pregnancies). At the same time it reminds us that men like Mazdak could also be (and were often) demagogues, filled with love for the sound of their own voices, insistent on punishing anyone who refused to follow their exact way. And of course so often these men are also just as sexist as the society at large (or more so), seeing women as possessions like gold and horses rather than women having their own right to themselves, much less the same right to status and rank as men. And how stark a comparison to the old legendary days when so many women are described as possessing their own wealth (and sexuality). Like you, Tessa, I think if this had been the attitude toward women in the opening third I might not have gotten farther either. How far we HAVE fallen, indeed.

So basically Prince Kesra, meant to be an exemplar of virtue, devises horrific deaths for his political enemies as he maintains the unequal status quo. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Now I need to read more about Mazdak and his legacy. Note Ferdowsi’s warning made in the present tense to the reader: “If you have any sense, you will not follow Mazdak’s way.” This suggests to me that in Ferdowsi’s time Mazdakism still existed somewhere, somehow. Because after all, these ideas and social movements always will exist as long as our political systems entrench and support inequality and pretend that it is justice and God’s will.

Next week: The Reign of Kesra Nushin-Ravan (who I am already disposed to dislike)(and yes, I too am not sure if the comment about “a good woman” will turn out to be some horrible form of “I told you so” irony)

Previously: Introduction, The First Kings, The Demon King Zahhak, Feraydun and His Three Sons, The Story of Iraj, The Vengeance of Manuchehr, Sam & The Simorgh, The Tale of Zal and Rudabeh, Rostam, the Son of Zal-Dastan, The Beginning of the War Between Iran and Turan, Rostam and His Horse Rakhsh, Rostam and Kay Qobad, Kay Kavus’s War Against the Demons of Manzanderan, The Seven Trials of Rostam, The King of Hamaveran and His Daughter Sudabeh, The Tale of Sohrab, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 1, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 2, The Legend of Seyavash Pt. 3, Forud the Son of Seyavash, The Akvan Div, Bizhan and Manizheh, The Occultation of Kay Khosrow, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 1, Rostam and Esfandyar Pt. 2, The Story of Darab and the Fuller, Sekander’s Conquest of Persia, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 1, The Reign of Sekander Pt. 2, The Death of Rostam, The Ashkanians, The Reign of Ardeshir & ShapurThe Reign of Shapur Zu’l Aktaf, The Reign of Yazdegerd the Unjust, The Reign of Bahram Gur