Other Nanas performers sat that in theirdreava.these
saints fill their mouths withwheat,orspit into their mouths or other such
wheat, or spit into their mouths or other such things. But in the dreams
of Zhusufu Mamayi, they have never given him anything.
I am the first Kirgiz to emcee an all-mandarin show
on China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region radio station. My name is Pahtigul.
My grandfather has been named the contemporary "living Homer".
He is the great Manas performer Zhusufu Mamayi.
In 1918, my grandfather was born in a place called
Kalabulake village in Haheqi county, on the border of China's Xinjiang province.
In the last 1,000 years, this place has seen innumerable battles of blood
and fire. Many hot-blooded stories have been carried down through the sons
and daughters of these people. Echoes of history have reverberated throughout
the mountains and valleys of this place for many years. Living within the
purest white of these icy mountains, below the clear waters of melting snows,
my grandfather carried the simple, sincere, pure, bold and passionate character
of the Kirgiz mountain people. He was his whole life engaged totally in
the transmission of this 1,000 year-old hero epic, "Manas." With
the eagerness of one starving and thirsty, he sought aught the very core
of Kirgiz culture. My grandfather absorbed any and all mythology, legends,
songs, epics and even folk stories and proverbs. He picked up all of it
and could recite them all. Like the Kirgiz proverb says, "a chicken
only dreams of rice," and my grandfather's spiritual world was filled
each moment with nothing but Manas. He took the prose of the epic and turned
it to poetry. In 1961, my grandfather completed a nine-month performance.
He sang the Kirgiz people's most valued cultural legacy, the heroic epic
Manas. He is the only person in the world who has done this: to sing the
entire 240,000 verse Kirgiz heroic epic, which is 14 times longer than Homer's
"Iliad". And so because of this, my grandfather, Zhusufu Mamayi,
is in the eyes of the Kirgiz people a sage, a giant.
In 2003, the government of the Kezilesu Kirgiz Autonomous
Prefecture held a celebration for my grandfather's 85th birthday at his
hometown in Haheqi County. Early
that morning, the Kirgiz people gathered in the Haheqi county square, and
with great Kirgiz ceremony, celebrated my grandfather's birthday. They presented
him with a white horse and the sacred Kirgiz white felt hat. This was the
creation of Manas's wife, presented to him by her and now given to my grandfather
in an expression of their love and admiration, reverence and best wishes.
Poets read poems to glorify my grandfather's achievements. Singers sang
songs to express the reverence they held in their hearts for him.
At the very end of the celebration, my grandfather
and many other Manas performance masters took the stage together to sing
the heroic epic:
Asikuolei Manas the great courageous warrior
Rides high upon the back of the Akekula horse
The spirit sword in his hand he waves and slashes
The Akekailei sacred spear shines from over his shoulder
Seeing the invincible might of Asikuolei
Frightened in their hearts, all the people tremble
His eyes are bright and shining
Moon shaped ears like a warrior's shield
A pure gold belt wraps around his waist
His face like the moon radiating light
Those who see can't but be surprised
His jeweled belt hanging around his waste
His face like the sun sparkling light
All the people look to him with yearning admiration
As he too charges into battle...
