Folk Tales from a Persian Tribe: Forty-Five Tales from Sisakht in
Luri and English. Edited by Erika Friedl. 2007. Dortmund: Verlag für
Orientunde. 327 pages. ISBN: 978-3-936687-37-8 (soft cover).

Reviewed by Shahyar Daneshgar, Indiana University
[Word count: 908 words]

This book is the product of a great deal of labor and shows the
expertise of the author, who provides the reader with valuable
information about an oral society. The bibliography is extensive and
includes major works by both natives and non-natives regarding
folktale studies in Iran. The collection also includes a
classification system of tale types and motifs. Extending over seven
intermittent years (1965-2006), Friedl's study informs us about the
cultural history of a tribal community in Iran, a country which has
transformed itself from a pre-industrial traditional society into a
modern state. The manuscript contains forty-five short to semi-long
folktales narrated by six male and female informants from the village
of Sisakht. The author, an anthropologist, informs us that her
research had several goals. The first goal was to study cultural
change in a tribal village. Friedl's work begins with the recording
of folktales for learning the Luri language. In the process of
collecting the tales, Friedl studies the socio-cultural settings
where these tales circulated (17).

The Lurs, a tribal community, do not have a writing system. In the
absence of a writing system, the study and recording of various
folklore materials proved to be valuable for understanding the
Weltanschauung of the Lurs. The author considers the collection to be
not only a historical document for folktale studies, but also a
document for studying language change (21). Due to the impracticality
of the Perso-Arabic writing system for an unwritten language such as
Luri, the Latin script was used to represent the original Luri
folktales (17-18).

The second goal of her research was to collect folktales from a
tribal locality about which little information existed (20). With the
help of these folktales and their storytellers, we obtain information
about the Lurs' way of life. Based on these folktales and the
narrators' comments, Friedl is able to study and analyze the social
and cultural lives of the Lurs. Friedl refers to the views of other
researchers who see the storytellers and their personalities echo the
values and beliefs of their group and similarly argues that the
commentaries of the storytellers reflect cultural aspects and values
and the world view of their societies (21).

In translating these tales, Friedl avoids a smooth translation and
lets the narrators' voices come through. By doing so, she gives
non-native readers the opportunity to experience colorful idiomatic
expressions in the original language. The texts are abundant with
expressions: "The girl's heart burned for her in pity," meaning, "she
really felt sorry for the girl" (74); and "Don't put your hand into
the wound of my heart," meaning, "don't add salt to my wound" (157).

The plots and characters in the stories are engaging and interesting.
The real personae of these tales consist of humans, various animals,
mythological figures (ghouls, dragons, phoenixes), and elements found
in nature (trees, springs, mountains). We see close interactions
between the world of humans and non-humans in these folktales. Magic
and sorcery are often practiced to assist the protagonists in
performing certain tasks. These tales cover subjects like greed,
generosity, religiosity, kindness, evilness, laziness, hard work,
deception, honesty, disloyalty, animosity, friendship, and courage.
The interesting issue here is the reoccurrence of similar motifs and
plots in many of these tales. Those familiar with folktale studies in
Iran can recognize motifs and characters used in many stories in
Iran. For instance, I encountered similar motifs and characters in a
collection of Azerbaijani folktales from Iran. Motifs such as fairies
disguised as birds and assisting the protagonists to dispel a certain
magic, or a falcon perching on a person's head to become a new ruler,
are found in other collections (186). Furthermore, the collection
provides us with a few motifs found in European folktales. For
instance, tale 13 shows certain Middle Eastern Cinderella motifs. The
collection also includes historical, religious, and cultural
personalities such as the Prophet Mohammad, Noah, and the funny
character, Molla Nasreddin.

Three contributions of this collection are preservation and
comparison, linguistic study, and annotations. The act of recording
these tales helped to preserve these cultural items from being lost
in light of the lack of a writing system, and most importantly what
Friedl mentions as the "rapidly declining story telling tradition"
(17). Therefore, this collection invites comparison using existing
tale-type and motif indices and enables researchers to study the
dissemination of folktales in the world. A second contribution lies
in its value for linguistic study. Indeed, the availability of this
collection in its original form is important for comparative
linguistic studies, particularly for Indo-Iranian and the
Indo-European family of languages. The third contribution of Friedl's
study lies in her annotations and remarks regarding every story.
Through these comments, the reader is informed about village rituals,
customs, life, and the hierarchy of tribal society as well as the
role of each member within that community.

Finally, Friedl's treatment of the narrators as commentators, not
just informants, proves to be crucial and vital for gaining an
insider's view. Friedl uses folktales as tools to get to the source
of information, but it is the narrators who, through interpretations
of these folktales, assist Friedl in sharing the cultural importance
of these tales. The inclusion of the narrators' views and comments as
interpreters of their own culture allows Friedl to argue that
"stories function as projections of the narrators, as comments of
storytellers on various cultural features and on their own
situations, and as clues to their world views" (21).

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