Afghanistan’s folklore and folk traditions were passed along orally; but since the twentieth century, these folk traditions have been well documented by scholars and folklorists. Afghan Americans, despite being away from their homeland, regularly perform and maintain various folk traditions. Pieces of Afghan folk literature are available as audio CDs, which are regularly played in Afghan American homes. During their leisure time, Afghan Americans indulge in reading, listening, and storytelling of various folk narratives. References to these folktales appear in day-to-day conversations, thereby assuring the continuous life of folk narratives in foreign lands.
Fictional folktales (märchen, wisdom tales, fairy tales, animal tales, and magic and supernatural tales) are frequently told to young children for entertainment and moral instruction. “The Silver on the Hearth” is one such popular Afghani tale. According to the story, there once lived a poor farmer who worked very hard in his field. He wanted to save some money for his old age, but he could never do so because whatever he earned was not even enough to provide food for him and his wife. He dreamed of becoming rich and wished to open his eyes one morning to a heap of wealth on his hearth. He thought of this and went to the field every morning. One day while he was working in the field, his clothes got stuck to a few brambles and were torn. To prevent this from happening again, he decided to dig a little and pull the brambles out.
While digging, he discovered the mouth of an earthen pot covered with a lid. He dug further so that he could remove the lid from the top and see what was inside. When he removed the lid, he saw the pot was full of silver coins. He was extremely delighted and thought of taking the pot home. But then he told himself that since he had found the money in an open field it could have been meant for anybody. He further thought that if God wanted him to have that wealth, he would have found it on his hearth and not in an open field. With this in mind, he once again placed the lid on the pot and covered it with soil. When he told his wife about his findings, she became furious and accused him of being foolish. The wife shared her sadness with her neighbor and urged the neighbor to bring the pot of wealth and share it with her. That very night, the neighbor went out in search of the wealth; but when he began digging in the spot, he found no silver coins in the pot: instead it was full of poisonous snakes. The neighbor, believing this to be a cruel trick, sought revenge by pouring the pot of snakes through the chimney of the farmer’s hearth. The next morning when the farmer woke up from his sleep, he saw his hearth full of silver coins instead of snakes. The farmer’s dream had come true, and he finally accepted the wealth, living happily ever after.
Another story commonly told to young children to teach moral values is the story of “The Smell and the Jingle.” This story is about a beggar and a wealthy merchant. One day a wealthy merchant was having a party at his home, and his backyard was full of people and delicious food. Outside his home, there lived a beggar. The merchant never offered any food to the beggar. During the party, the smell of the food attracted the beggar, and he lingered outside the merchant’s backyard. This enraged the merchant and he accused the beggar of ruining his party, going so far as to bring the beggar to court. The judge (the Amir) was in favor of the rich merchant and fined the beggar ten dinar for spoiling the merchant’s party. The beggar had no money to pay his fine, so he went to Abu Khan (a local philosopher) to seek help. Abu Khan shook his head after hearing the whole story from the beggar. He agreed to accompany the beggar to court the next day. The next morning when the judge asked the beggar if he was ready to pay, Abu Khan gave ten dinar to the beggar and instructed him to throw them on the ground. The beggar, a little surprised, did as instructed, and the coins fell on the ground with a jingle. Nobody could understand what was going on. Abu Khan asked the merchant, “Did you hear the jingle?” The merchant nodded his head. Abu Khan continued, “This is the part of the dinar that belongs to you. If you claim that a man can spoil a party by simply smelling the food, then you should be satisfied with your payment by just the noise of the coins” (“Afghanis” 2015). To this neither the rich merchant nor the Amir could utter a word. The final judgment went in favor of the beggar.
Afghan American children also love to listen to the stories about ghul. A ghul is a supernatural being in Afghan folktales who lives a solitary life in uninhabited places, including deserts and ruins, and ambushes passersby. Ghul also eat bones from cemeteries when they run out of fresh food. The female counterpart of the ghul has the ability to change her shape into the form of a beautiful woman and lure men. Male ghul are generally foolish and readily defeated by the story’s hero.
While supernatural tales or stories with a moral are intended for the enjoyment of the younger generation of Afghan Americans, first-generation Afghan Americans listen to or watch prose romances or multiepisodic adventure tales on television and in films. These prose romances are primarily romantic quest stories that have a basic recurring plot: a boy learns about a girl and falls in love with her even before seeing her. He finally meets the girl but then loses her to a villain who is generally the girl’s father or another suitor selected by the girl’s family. The boy, determined to marry the girl, defeats the villain and finally marries her. Pashtun sung-verse romances, which are equally popular among Afghan Americans, have a different plot highlighting the honor-death separating the lovers. In one such story, a happily married couple has to sacrifice their love because a strange man glimpses the wife’s hand against her will while she was providing him with a few items from her husband’s store in his absence. To preserve family honor, prevent community gossip, and prove her true love for her husband, she urges her husband to kill her.
Apart from folktales, proverbs are regularly told by Afghan Americans. They use certain stock proverbs to provide commentary on society or characters without being direct or rude. For example, “No rose is without thorns” means that no one is perfect. “Don’t stop a donkey if that isn’t yours” means that one should not interfere in others’ business. “A wolf’s pup will grow into a wolf even though it is raised among men” means that blood ancestry is more important than a person’s upbringing. “It’s the same donkey, but with a new saddle” refers to a person who has gained a high position he or she is unworthy of. Balochi and Brahui are two narrative-based proverb traditions used by Afghan Americans. These proverbs are compressed versions of fable narratives that can be understood and enjoyed only by those who are familiar with the fable. Thus, this kind of proverb is more popular among first-generation Afghan Americans.
The Div
Divs, supernatural beings in Afghan folklore, are common in Near Eastern mythology: Div comes from a Persian word meaning “demon,” ultimately deriving from a term for “false god.” Divs often appear in Afghan folklore as magical giants. They have been reinterpreted by the best-known Afghan writer in English, Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner. Hosseini’s third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, begins with a fable that provides a haunting metaphor for the contemporary subject of the book while exposing the ambiguity of the Div in traditional Afghan folklore: A father seeks to rescue his son from a Div. Showing him the boy happy and safe, the Div gives the father a choice: lose his son—but know him to be safe—or return him to a hard and uncertain future. The Div reveals that cruelty and kindness can be opposite sides of the same coin.
C. Fee
Semontee Mitra
See also South Asian American Folklore and Folktales; Storytelling
Further Reading
“Afghanis.” 2015. Countries and Their Cultures. http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Afghanistan-to-Bosnia-Herzegovina/Afghanis.html. Accessed October 22, 2015.
Ali, Sharifah Enayat. 1995. Cultures of the World: Afghanistan. New York: Marshall Cavendish.
Clifford, Mary Louise. 1989. The Land and People of Afghanistan. New York: Lippincott.
Mills, Margaret A., Peter J. Claus, and Sarah Diamond, eds. 2003. South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge.