The book under review is a good example of how to present a collection of proverbs. Here the proverbs and their explanations are grouped under 13 topical headings, such as one on local ethnic identity “Lurs, Lurs,” and also “The Old, Death, and the Dead,” “Generosity, and Obligations,” and “Full House.” Each proverb is first given in a Roman script transcription, e.g. Sag ve piri gellei niābu, followed by a translation into English, “An old dog won’t become a herding dog” (p. 80). Refreshingly, unlike the practice of some editor of proverb collections, Erika Friedl has not simply quoted a parallel English-language proverb as a translation or explanation, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Her explanation does, however, allude to it: “In old age one doesn’t learn new tricks.” The author then cites two examples where people had quoted the proverb—an older person struggling with tuning a new radio and another cursing new bathroom fixtures at his son's home.
Proverb collections from smaller ethno-linguistic communities are always welcomed by both proverb scholars and those who study a region. This wonderful collection of Lur proverbs from the southwest sector of Iran stands above the great majority of collections since Friedl has not only collected many proverbs, but has also provided explanations of each with many examples of their use and application.
The author spent a total of seven years living and working in Iran between 1965 and 2006, much of it in the Lur area. During this time, she not only saw great cultural changes, she also learned a great deal about the Lur people and their culture, including how these changes have interacted with and are reflected by their proverbs. She has previously written about proverb use by Iranian women and about Iranian storytellers.
Proverb scholars have utilized, described, and written about many ways to collect proverbs. All agree that collecting proverbs with their contexts is the ideal, but that it takes too long and is dependent on conversational alertness. Friedl has overcome some of the obstacles by living in an area long enough to learn the local language and elicit proverbs, but also by winning the active support of the community. “As soon as people realized my casual interest they insisted that I write down proverbs and that I get them ‘right’” (p. 7).
The great benefit of this voluntary community involvement was that she was not only told many proverbs, but also told many examples of how specific proverbs are used—e.g. “A woman used this proverb to tell her husband that his ambitious expectations of a career in the local government were unrealistic” (p. 147). Three of the explanations include examples of how particular proverbs were said sotto voce, such as when a pilgrim was leaving on pilgrimage to Karbala, a man quoted a cynical proverb about religious pilgrims “sotto voce, behind the pilgrim’s back” (p. 72). Knowing such details about the actual use of proverbs gives much deeper insights than merely a sterile list of proverbs.
Friedl is not merely a proverb scribe, she is primarily a cultural anthropologist. She has written at least four previous books about this area, analyzing aspects of the culture. Her explanations of the uses of the proverbs reflect her insights from cultural anthropology. For example, she refers to different “schema” in explanations of over fifty of the proverbs. She uses the concept of schema to explain different applications of a proverb: “Work one does for others brings happiness but has no benefit” (p. 104). In the schema of “good work,” this proverb was used to refer to a young niece who helped her old aunt, but the job was done poorly so the aunt had to do it again. The aunt was happy the young girl had tried, but a relative criticized the young niece's work with this proverb. In the schema of “embarrassment,” a man used the same proverb to complain that having received a significant favor, he would someday be called on to repay it.
There is no universally agreed-upon definition of “proverb,” and Friedl did not feel bound to any strict definition. She admits she uses a flexible definition, her goal being to give insights into Lur culture, rather than satisfying some proverb scholar's standards. Some of the sayings listed may simply be clichés, but the purpose of the book is to explain life among the Lur, not merely to satisfy proverb scholars.
Friedl shows readers that the Lur do not live in isolation politically, culturally, or linguistically. She specifically identifies some proverbs as being more widespread than merely among the Lur, such as “S/he pulls my life-soul out of my nose,” known and used “also in Farsi throughout Iran” (pp. 133, 134).
Many proverb scholars interested in the origins of specific proverbs will find much to ponder here. Not surprisingly, three of the proverbs are derived from Mollā Nasr al-Din stories. Some are taken from song lyrics (Friedl mentions love songs and wedding songs as sources, but no mourning songs). Fourteen such proverbs are given with an ascribed local source, such as “Because the mason laid the first sun-dried brick crookedly, the wall will be crooked forever” (p. 45). This is ascribed to “a highly regarded former local builder” of the past who used a metaphor from his trade to complain about tribal chiefs who ruled the area. The proverb is still very much in use today, one person using it to complain about the Islamic government, while another used it to defend the Islamic government. (Proverbs are notorious for being applicable in contradictory ways.) The ascribed creations of proverbs may be doubted as historical legends, but the author gives one new proverb whose origin is documented: a quotation by Reinhold Loeffler, Friedl's spouse. He mocked religious hypocrites who claim sickness to avoid fasting (p. 136), and this has become a proverb that is still in use today.
The explanations of the proverbs and examples of their use provide a variety of brief though often penetrating insights into Lur culture. For example, Friedl cited the proverb “In this boy-year my belly is not full. In this girl-year I have a big belly.” In explaining the use of this proverb, she inserts, “The sex of children born was thought to be linked to a recurrent pattern like other natural cycles,” therefore a woman was disappointed not being pregnant during a time when a large number of boy babies were born (p. 145).
A language community’s corpus of proverbs always contains sayings that have been used for many generations. As a result, some of the proverbs will mention or be built around objects and customs that have disappeared. Friedl specifically identifies that some of these proverbs are still in use, such as the one about the way women formerly made butter with a bag of milk hanging from a tripod (p. 94). Though adults may still value and use such proverbs, she also documents an example where a teacher used this type of proverb, but had to explain an agricultural term of the past to his students so that they would understand it (p. 47).
But the body of proverbs used in a culture also changes through time. New times call for new proverbs. As the culture changes, new proverbs appear reflecting changing values and customs. Fortunately for Friedl, her involvement with Iran has spanned times of significant social and economic changes so that she has been able to observe and document not only a phase of traditional life but also the adoption of new values and customs.
Friedl mentions some proverbs as being new, such as the one she heard only after 2002 about “an increasingly popular custom in Iran of preparing and distributing food in honor of and for the commemoration of saints or dead relatives” (p. 74), “Votive stew (makes) paradise cheap” (Āsh nazri, behesht arzune). The proverb is used to make fun of this new practice being promoted by clerics “in televised sermons.”
As another example, the traditional roles and expectations of women among the Lur limited their options in some ways, but women are now allowed more freedom, such as in choosing marriage partners and in handling money. Hence there are new proverbs that reflect these new values (or possibly even older proverbs are now being repeated more openly). Regarding women handling money, the proverb “The hand is in her own pocket” means that the woman controls her own money (p. 168). Regarding relations between wives and husbands, “A wife must not let her husband have two pairs of socks” means that “a wife should keep her husband on a tight leash.” Accordingly, “this opinion and the proverb made the rounds after 2000. By 2006 there were anecdotes and rumors about ‘many’ women in Iran being de facto heads of their families” (p. 167).
A community's repertoire of proverbs is a rich resource, a resource that allows people to reshape and modify them as the need demands. Therefore, it is not surprising to find proverbs that have been shaped into two contradictory forms, such as “[the] Work [that] one does for others brings happiness but has no benefits” or “[the] Work [that] one does for others has benefit but brings no happiness” (p. 104). In another case, a woman used a proverb that mentioned a “camel,” but substituted “sheep”; she did this to pointedly refer to a person who was believed to be a sheep rustler (p. 225).
Those knowledgeable about medical traditions in Iran are familiar with the system of “humoralism” (Ṭebb-e jālinusi/Ṭebb-e yunāni), the belief in a balance of forces in the body. In Iran, certain categorizations of foods as hot or cold and the physical conditions that are related to eating different types of food is widespread. A number of proverbs in the book directly address this; for example, “A ‘cold’ health condition [gets cured] by a spice/herb merchant, a ‘hot’ one with a pomegranate” (p. 199). Additionally, a number of the explanations and applications of proverbs also involve this humoralism.
Some traits, customs, outlooks, and proverbs are widespread in Iran. Therefore, people looking at proverbs from the center of Iran may claim this to be the source of proverbs that are found in both the center and the peripheries. However, proverb scholars find it is frequently impossible to prove the origin or direction of borrowing for proverbs. For example, Lur has a proverb “An understanding person [will get the point] from a hint, one who lacks understanding won’t get it with hundred lashes” (p. 211). We can also encounter similar proverbs in Persian, Tajik, and Nepali, among others.
The proverbs of the common folk around the world are often used to mock hypocritical religious leaders—Muslim, Hindu, Christian, etc.—and the Lur are no exception. Some proverbs tend to explicitly mock the clerics, for example: “The Mullah’s turban is so big, it needs four quarts of fabric” (p. 70). But Friedl gives many examples of how ordinary proverbs were used to complain about hypocritical clerics. The explanations for fifteen of the proverbs include illustrations of those used to mock clerics, such as a proverb about being two-faced, which was explained as illustrated by “mullahs today” and “the government” (p. 181).
The book has a useful eight-page index. Even the index entries provide insights about how important some topics are among the Lur, such as del (seat of emotion), inheritance, merit (religious), and curses. The index and the topical arrangement will help readers who are familiar with Lur to find a proverb that they may be aware of (though alphabetizing the proverbs within the sections would have made this easier). All of these features make this book a joy for a proverb scholar.
Sadly, in real life a large number of uses described for the proverbs involve land disputes stemming from arguments about usufruct that the person tending the land can claim ownership of it. “The usufruct right is a time-honored custom, both popular and disparaged, that over the generations has caused much discontent, although its mechanism and pitfalls were well known” (p. 228).
This book will also be useful to proverb scholars in multiple ways. It builds on a transcribed collection of 555 proverbs that are translated into English and explain their use. Beyond that, it gives several quotation proverbs (wellerisms) and dialogue proverbs, a proverb form that is found only in limited parts of the world, including western Asia, such as “The vulture says, ‘I’ll shriek and the shepherd will forget,’ [and] the wolf says, ‘I’ll eat the kid’s tail’” (p. 218). There are also many examples of poetically formed proverbs, such as Zir tir sorkh berra, zir zoun sorkh nerra [Walk under a hot bullet but not under a hot tongue] (p. 243) and even tongue-twisters Engār hāvuyal, nekshun men nek yeke [like co-wives, pecking each other's beak] (p. 169).
Friedl's book will be a useful resource for many scholars of Iran and of proverbs, but it will also be vital for understanding the Lur area as it describes many facets of Lur culture, including many changes in the last few decades.
