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ROOTSKomboloi—Tracking Down its RootsThe favorite habit of most Greeks, to “kill time” or even “drown their sorrows” by playing withthe beads of a Komboloi, has deep roots in human history, though its origins are controversial.The word itself is a compositeone. Kombos means knot, butaccording to the ancient Greekmeaning of the word, it also means thenoise that two objects make when theyclash against each other. The ending, oiindicates a series of similar things.Therefore, Komboloi is the noise madeby beads, or anything similar, whenpassed through a thread. Some haveeven compared Komboloi to Moiroloi(Greek lamentation song).Just as the lamentation song repeatswords rhythmically, so does the beadcycle encompass sorrows that comeand go, come and go. In a simpler interpretation,the word derives fromkombos (knot) and leo (say, speak),meaning “in each knot, I say a prayer.”In any case, the komboloi started as aprayer tool and its roots lie deep inEastern civilization.According to tradition,Mohammed had holes madein 99 beans—as many asthe prayers ordered in theKoran—and then had athread pass through them.Each bean corresponded toa prayer.Muslim Komboloi: the TespihMohammed taught his people the importanceof communicating with Allah.According to the Koran, Allahasked, through Mohammed, that hisfollowers make 99 prayers, as many ashis attributes. But how could a simpleMuslim keep track of the prayers?Mohammed ordered that 99 beans bepassed through a thread, each beancorresponding to a prayer. This firstKomboloi was called Mashaba, meaning“I recite.” Soon the beads on thepraying strings were made out of pitsand wood, always 99 in number andalways passed through a thin thread.Throughout the years, the Muslimkomboli acquired its very distinctcharacteristics: the iname, the tepelik,and the durak. The Iname is the upperlong part. The rest, including the tuft,is the tepelik. Often two differentbeads are placed on the thread to separateevery 33 beads from the rest.These two beads are called Durak (hewho stops something) and are notcounted in the total bead number.Buddhist Komboli: the MalaThe Komboloi appears in China withthe birth of Buddhism and is calledJepian, from the Sanskrit word Jepa,which means prayer. Today it is commonlyknown as mala.The purpose of a mala is to recite amantra or prayer. Most malas consistof 108 beads, with a bigger one on topcalled a guru bead. Some are dividedin 4 parts with 27 beads each or inthree parts, one with 54 beads and twowith 27. The 108 beads symbolize thenames or events of Hindu supplicationsand, according to another version, thegods around which Buddhism was developed.Similar to the accounts ofhow the Muslim beads were created,tradition has it that around 500 BC astudent in Northern India who did notknow how to count had trouble recitingthe mantra 108 times. The student’sspiritual guide came up with theidea of piercing 108 pits, passing themthrough a thread, and tying the endstogether. This is how the komboloi issaid to have been born.28 AEGEAN NEWS SUMMER 2005
ATHLETICSSoccerCrosses the AtlanticJohn Wheelright, the man who presumably brought soccer to America, was theonly man Oliver Cromwell ever feared on the soccer field during his yearsat Cambridge University.Mr. Wheelright’s portrait hangstoday in the State House inBoston, where the first soccergame in the New World was played.In the beginning, soccer in theUnited States was primarily an upper-classgame played by schoolboysand college teams. The Oneida SoccerClub, formed in Boston in 1862,is considered the first soccer club witha regular roaster of players, as opposedto the pick up games commonly playedat the time. Oneida’s members were studentsof elite Bostonian public schoolswho played matches against pickup teamsfrom the local collegiate community.The team went undefeated during itsentire four-year existence. Oneida wasthe first soccer club anywhere outsideEngland, predating even the formationof Scottish teams.Soon, soccer spread to other collegiatecommunities but rules varied widelyamong different schools and communities.Princeton and Rutgers played thefirst intercollegiate game in NewBrunswick in 1869 using the LondonFootball Association’s 1863 rules. Soccerwas by now spreading to the studentcommunities of big universities such asYale, Columbia, Cornell, and Harvard.In 1876, however, Harvard, Princeton,and Columbia formed the IntercollegiateFootball Association using Rugby rules.Other big institutions followed suit, as theupper-class community increasinglyThe critical turning pointfor soccer in the UnitedStates came in 1975, whenPele joined the New YorkCosmos of the NorthAmerican Soccer League.looked to Rugby, and by the end of thesame year collegiate soccer in the U.S.came to its end.After the downfall of collegiate soccer,the game lay in the hands of theworking-class communities, who wereadopting it rapidly. Immigrants, arrivingin ever increasing numbers, broughtwith them new soccer traditions and thegame became very popular in the Northeasternindustrial cities. Pick up gamesand informal teams soon grew into establishedclubs, and by the 1890s thegame had spread to Chicago, Cleveland,and St. Louis.Sociological forces, however, wereseriously hampering the game’s development.Baseball was gainingground as a favorite American pastimeand many immigrants, in an attemptto merge into the culture of theirnew home, began switching to baseball.Soon, soccer came to be seen as a sportplayed by foreigners.In 1894, the first attempt was madein the United States to establish a professionalsoccer league. Plagued by lowattendance rates, the league collapsedduring its first season with heavy financiallosses. The 1920s marked a turnaroundfor soccer’s popularity in theUnited States, and the decade is now consideredfirst Golden Era of AmericanSoccer. In 1921 the American SoccerLeague was founded. The league managedto gain prestige, compete effectivelyfor European players, and even performin par with the National Football Team.The critical turning point for soccerin the United States came in 1975, whenPele joined the New York Cosmos ofNASL (North American Soccer League).Pele, arguably the greatest player in thehistory of soccer, attracted a recordnumber of fans to NASL contests andinspired many young boys to play thegame.SUMMER 2005 AEGEAN NEWS 29
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