LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

The Social Being of the Aromâni... 239
like an express train through the branches of the huge pines, which shade
the sheep from the sun during their mid-day repose. their aromatic resins
melt and run in the heat. During the fierce thunderstorms of winter which
lash the spine of Greece these ice-covered giants are frequently blasted by
lightning 8 . When they crash to the ground they still provide shelter from
the wind and warmth. Costas would light his camp fire in the centre of a
great horizontal charred trunk. Far from flaring up out of control as might
be expected, this little nucleus of glowing charcoal provides warmth for
several days without dying out.
tahikas carried a steel strike-a-light and tinder, and he knew how to
find and prepare bracket fungi for tinder to light the fire. he taught how
the fungus from beech trees is better than that from eg., pine trees. It is
best collected young, and boiled up together with wood ash, which is
alkaline. this produces the soft tinder. he formed his iron strike-a-light
by re-shaping the high tensile steel of an old file, on a mediaeval model.
the striker might be a flint blade taken from palaeolithic sites such as
those discovered by the author on the pindus in 1977 9 . he could locate
plants with specific properties; such as the ‘hand-washing plant’, which
functions like an impregnated tissue. he knew which trees his animals
prefer for leaf fodder, and which were good and bad for firewood, or tens
of other uses 10 . he could show you the lairs where the bears of the pindus
hibernate, and the ledges on the cliffs where the eagle has her nest. Costas
had encountered bears when travelling with his mule train, but very rarely.
the thick beech woods of Gioni shelter bears, of which there were perhaps
25 on the mountain in the 1970’s, while wolves were more abundant at
Goudhes [perhaps 40 animals] and towards the head of Valea Cîrna at
Muceli, where they preyed regularly on the sheep of the stani [Greek
for stîna]. Golden eagles are found on Smolikas, as in the rhodope, and
wild goats are especially numerous at Dhesi northwest of placea, and on
the second peak of Smolikas, Moashia [= “the old woman”; mosh = old
man, Cf. Gr. “papous”]. the pastures are pockmarked with divots, as if by
demented golfers, thrown up by wild pig rooting with their snouts.
until his death tahikas wore the restrained but distinctive costume
with black upon black decoration, if any, along with the hooded woollen
kappa, the cloak woven for him by the wife whom he outlived. In his youth
he had taken part in the annual spring transhumance on foot from thessaly
8 Cf. AlIGhIerI, Dante [1265–1321], Purgatorio: Canto xxx: Si come neve tra
le vive travi per lo dosso d’italia si congela, soffiata e stretta da li venti schiavi…
9 eFStrAtIou n., BIAGI, p., 2006.
10 hardly an exaggeration: See ref., fn. 4, supra.