A girl grew up with the custom of giving the neighbours a portion of each of the family’s meal as a sign of generosity and good neighbourliness. The girl marries into a family in which stinginess prevails. The mother-in-law forbids the young bride to keep up this custom. However, the girl cannot stop doing what she had grown so accustomed to do. Knowing at the same time that it is her duty to obey her mother-in-law, every night she secretly fills an earthenware pot with small samples of every dish and dedicates it to her neighbours with the expression of a wish that should symbolize a gift.

When both bride and mother-in-law die, the stingy mother-in-law observes from her place in hell that her daughter-in-law in heaven receives food and drink daily, while she herself remains hungry. She complains and demands that her daughter-in-law share the food with her. God explains to her that she will not receive anything since when she was alive, she had not provided for her food in the world beyond. But He gives her back her soul and life for a period of 40 days. Back on earth she cooks a meal every day and fills her grave with provisions. On the last day her bread is burnt. She throws it away, a dog finds it and eats it.

On returning to the world beyond she now expects to receive a wholesome meal daily, but all she gets is charred bread. God explains to her that she will be rewarded only for those gifts from which other people, not she herself, benefitted during her lifetime. Her only gift to another being was, however, that charred piece of bread she had thrown away and which a dog had eaten by chance.

Depending on the preference of the individual narrator, storytelling may serve to hand down to the next generation either personal values or those of the group. In this way, a behavioural code or a role model can be conveyed to children and young people in the form of instructive adventure stories, fables or parables.

Such was the case in the community of the storyteller Fatma Heinschink until a few decades ago. The effect of the stories varied depending on the personality of the listener. Fatma Heinschink enthusiastically absorbed stories, songs and fairy tales from her surroundings and interiorised their messages, which she remembered all her life. In this way, she preserved in her memory the oral tradition of her community of Romani basket-makers (Sepečides) in Izmir and its environs. This group of families, who were all related to one another, consisted of several hundred people living and working together. Until the 1980s, they made their living from selling the baskets they wove.

Fatma Heinschink said that her father had a special preference for telling instructive stories as a form of education. The basket makers carried out their work in the courtyards of the houses, which required little concentration if they were used to the routine, and it produced little noise, so stories could be told during work.

The story ‘O phabardo mandro’ [The Charred Bread] resembles a parable and, for this reason, as the storyteller expounds at the beginning, was considered “true” in the sense of an accepted doctrine. The values to be conveyed are those of generosity and sharing with neighbours as morally superior behaviour and thus relevant for the world beyond. The choice of subject refers to the Turkish custom, also adopted by the Sepečides, of presenting one’s neighbours with a few dishes of food whenever a meal was cooked. This custom has been repeatedly described by the storyteller on different occasions.

In a figurative sense, the sharing of food as a tradition of one’s own extended family stands for the principle of brotherly love in general: altruistic deeds performed for one’s nearest and dearest during one’s lifetime constitute a person’s spiritual wealth.

Reference

Cech, Petra / Heinschink, Mozes F. 1997. Sepečides-Romani. Lincom Europa, LW/M 106.