Karajuk, The Defiant Shepherd
A timeless story of a worker who, despite going above and beyond their duty, falls victim to the pride of their ‘boss’.
This week in the Library of Found Things, papers rustling across the vast expanses of Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Transcaucasian Cultural Crossroads, tumbles the story of Karajuk the Mighty Shepherd.
“Where now are the valiant princes of whom I have told,
Those who said ‘The world is mine’?
They came and moved on, like a caravan.
Doom has taken them, the earth has hidden them.
Who inherits this transient world,
The world to which men come, from which they go,
The world whose latter end is death?”
Trans.
Geoffrey Lewis
Where the gargantuan, snow-capped Caucasus mountains wet their skirts at the Caspian sea are the finest grazing grounds in the world. Waves of mounted men and women have led their cattle through here since before the mountains were young and Karajuk continued that tradition in the employ of his master, Khan Salur Kazan.
Karajuk was an unassuming shepherd with little more than the clothes on his back and a sling to protect the 10,000 sheep his master kept at the Gated Black Pass. He kept an eye on the fertile mountainsides for packs of wolves and he put his back to the blistering winds that disturbed his sleep. Little did he know, on a day when the winds blew caution, his master had decided to go on a hunt.
You see, the nobles who paid homage to Khan Salur Kazan had grown weary of drinking wine handed to them by henna-painted hands; their sides were strained from leaning on their couches and their bones creaked with lethargy. Salur Kazan felt this ennui too, so he left his couch and called the nobles to string their bows, to take up their reins and join him on a hunt.
“But what of our camp with its ninety capped pavilions pitched on the black earth? There are enemies in this land,” said one of the Khan’s nobles.
“My son and three hundred of his men will protect the camp, we 6,000 nobles shall take our fill of the hunt,” replied Salur Kazan.
The Khan and his 6,000 noblemen travelled north to hunt, unaware they had left an enemy spy in their camp. Seeing the camp was practically defenseless, the spy reported back to the enemy. Before the sun set on the Khan’s treasure-laden camp, 7,000 enemy soldiers had overrun the tents, pillaged its wares and kidnapped the Khan’s family.
The greedy enemy nobles were not satisfied with the powerful victory they had secured - not to mention the spoils they carried off with them - they wanted to inflict further loss on Salur Kazan. So, the enemy spy told them that Salur Kazan grazed no fewer than 10,000 sheep on the green pastures of the Gated Black Pass. The enemy nobles, salivating at the prospect of such a blow to the Khan’s pride, sent 600 of their number to steal his sheep.
That night, Karajuk the shepherd dreamt of horrors and blood. The nightmare shook him out of his slumber and, being a cautious man, he woke his two brothers and they set about strengthening the gates of the pasture and, in three places, they set up mounds of mountain stones. Karajuk sat on an upturned log, took out his sling and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Within the hour he heard the sound of the enemy. In mocking tones they called out to him:
“Shepherd, anxious when the gloomy shades of evening fall,
Shepherd, busy with your flint when the snow and rain-drops fall,
Shepherd, full of milk and cheese and good cream overall”*
They told Karajuk that they had pillaged the Khan’s camp, kidnapped his family and his falcon-swift horses. They told him to bow his head, put his hand on his heart and salute them as his new masters. They said that, if he did so, they would spare his life and even heap riches upon him. Karajuk replied:
“Don’t talk rubbish, there’s a good dog.
Rabid animal, who shares with my dog a dish of my slops.
Why boast from the dappled horse you ride? I wouldn’t swap my goat for its head.
Come over here and see the beating your men will get.”
Outraged, the 600 enemy nobles let out a cry and charged Karajuk. They showered the pasture with arrows but Karajuk was not afraid. He loaded his sling with arrows. Karauk’s sling was made of three year-old calves; its thongs were of the skins of three goats and an entire goatskin was used to make its tassel. It threw a hundredweight of stone and, when that stone fell to earth, the force of the shot made it explode like a furnace, leaving marks in the ground where no grass would grow for a whole year.
The humble shepherd decimated land and enemy before him until he ran out of stones. Then, seeing the enemy were fewer but not yet routed, he took up sheep, goats, whatever his sling could bear and hurled those too at the enemy. Panic-stricken at this dragon-like shepherd, the enemy fled the battlefield.
Seeing the enemy fleeing, Karajuk turned to see his brothers had succumbed to their arrows. Though injured and bleeding, he committed his brothers’ bodies to the earth and set about making mounds of the enemy corpses. He struck a flint, lit a fire and used the ashes to seal his wounds. Then he sat down and wondered what had come of his Khan, if he had even known of the woes that had befallen him.
That night, Khan Salur Kazan also had a nightmare and he woke with the desire to check on his camp. He assured the rest of the nobles that it wasn’t worth their leaving their recreation and he set off on his own for his camp. When he arrived, it was empty. He asked the stream what had happened but streams cannot answer. He travelled further afield and asked a wolf and a dog, with the same success. Eventually he came to the Gated Black Pass and was relieved to see his 10,000 sheep still grazing there. He called out to Karajuk:
“Shepherd, anxious when the gloomy shades of evening fall,
Shepherd, busy with your flint when the snow and rain-drops fall,
Shepherd, full of milk and cheese and good cream overall”*
Karajuk said “Where were you, Lord Kazan?!” and proceeded to tell him what had happened. When the Khan heard this he cursed the shepherd’s mouth to dry up, his tongue to rot in his head and for God to write his doom on his forehead!
“Why are you angry with me, Lord Kazan? 600 of the enemy attacked me and killed my brothers. I fought well, I didn’t let the enemy take your fat sheep. I was wounded and I was all alone. Is this what you’re blaming me for? Give me your horse, your lance, your shield and your sword made of black steel and I will go to the enemy. I shall wipe their blood off my forehead, avenge my brothers and deliver your family.”
When the Khan heard these words he was stunned and offended. He turned around and began to walk away but Karajuk followed him. “What are you doing, Shepherd?” the Khan asked and Karajuk told him his plans again. Salur Kazan was stunned a second time. He asked if the Shepherd had something to eat, to which Karajuk replied that he had a lamb he had been cooking slowly beneath the earth since yesterday. Salur Kazan told him to prepare the lamb and they stopped for a while to eat.
While he ate, the scolding from the shepherd played on Salur Kazan’s mind and he became jealous for his honour. “If I go with this shepherd to the enemy lands,” he thought, “then all of the nobles of the teeming Oghuz will say that I was unable to overcome the enemy without his help.”
So Salur Kazan snuck up on Karajuk and, with the swiftness of a mountain lion, he bound the shepherd to a tree. When the shepherd asked what he was doing the Khan simply replied that he was going to avenge his family and would be back to pick him up later. Karajuk watched the Khan ride away on his horse but he knew that, if he waited for Salur Kazan to return, he would not only fail to avenge his brothers but he would also be good pickings for the wolves and the birds. So, mustering all of his strength, he pushed with his legs and uprooted the tree.
Karajuk caught up to the Khan’s horse with the huge tree still tied to his back. Not wanting to seem shocked, Salur Kazan asked what the tree was for. Karajuk hesitated … he told him that he was bringing it along for firewood, in case Salur Kazan and the other nobles got peckish during their fight. This seemed pleasing to the Khan and the pair continued on their travels.
When they came within sight of the enemy, Karajuk shuffled off his bindings and loaded the many-coloured sling the mountain wolves feared with a horde of stones and let them loose in the enemy’s direction. They darkened the sky and shook the enemy to their core but Salur Kazan stopped him before he could take another shot and urged patience. The Khan demanded his family and treasures from the enemy but they refused. Thankfully, as if by providence, the 6,000 Oghuz nobles arrived and hurled themselves into the fray that Khan Salur Kazan led.
Falcon-swift horses galloped, pure black steel swords slashed until they lost their edges and three-feathered beech-wood arrows blocked out the sun. The enemy’s eyes drowned in blood and their world grew black. Khan Salur Kazan liberated his family and the Oghuz nobles had their fill of pillage in the enemy’s stronghold.
The stories of this great battle have survived centuries. There is no record of Karajuk’s sling in the Khan’s battle but the earth, incapable of words, wrote the glory of his stones in its curves from that day forth.
This writer did something a little naughty there. You may have noticed that the “hero” of the story seemed less princely, less noble in terms of title rather than deed. The man pushed to the forefront of this story, Karajuk, was the servant of the great Noble Salur Kazan but this writer assures you that the choices made for the story are pivotal to the meaning he reckons we should take from it.
The story comes from the great literary work called The Book Of Dede Korkut and the story’s name in that source is How Salur Kazan’s House Was Pillaged. Not, as you might presume, How Karajuk The Shepherd Proved Himself The Nobler Man.
The stories in the Book of Dede Korkut have been passed down to us from over a thousand years of oral tradition and writings. It is the most famous of the ancient epic writings of the Oghuz people, who originated in Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan. Its current version was written down in the 14th / 15th century, long after the Oghuz people had ceased their nomadic herding existence and given up their old religion in favour of Islam. The book gives a sense of the morals and cultural heritage of these proud people and it even contains a story remarkably similar to the ancient Greek story of Odysseus and Polyphemus the Cyclops, here called Tepegöz.
The opening exhortation is also usually found at the end of each story, as if spoken by Dede Korkut himself, and its placement here is intentional. Just as these magnificent stories talk more of the ‘Noble’ families and Khans, the order has been overturned in honour of a character who resolutely defied his ‘superior’ in favour of his morals. This isn’t the only time it happens in these stories either. Very often, the women of the Oghuz people would put on armour, mount their horses and even partake in battle after their husbands or Khans expressly forbade it. There’s something about the Oghuz people that inspires this level of not-giving-a-fuck-about-title-ness.
Seriously, go and read them. There are many moments that might shock your presumptions of the sense of order and propriety at this time. According to the translator, much of this is due to the antiquity of the original stories. They hark back to a time when the Oghuz people roamed thousands of kilometers of land, protecting their livestock and telling stories of fierce men and women. There are even moments in the stories where the men describe their ideal woman as “having been a comrade, a fellow warrior …before I reach my enemies’ lands she must already have been there and brought me back some heads.”
But I digress … is it hot in here?
So, what’s the meaning of our story today? Well, I think it’s safe to assume there’s at least one meaning in it. Certainly one that’s simple to guess if you’ve ever had a job. For instance, have you ever gone above and beyond your job description? Probably, if you had any interest in getting a promotion because that’s how it works. Has your boss / supervisor, who showered praise on you for such diligence, then gone above your head and taken credit for it? How did that feel? Did you want to lay waste to a group of people with a hundredweight of slung stone?
Yeah, you probably get it, then.
So there it is. A little defiance to start the year. Not reckless, or rebel for the sake of rebelling defiance, it’s justified defiance. The kind of defiance that, translated into modern ‘parlance’, could be summed up by a short, simple gesture combining a raised middle finger and a grin.
*All translations by Geoffrey Lewis in the Penguin Classics Book of Dede Korkut