Peeps at Many Lands: Turkey

by Julius R. Van Millingen

Cards are played to some extent, but as gambling and games of chance are forbidden by the Koran, cards are looked upon with suspicion, and their use discouraged. So also is betting, which ensnares young and old in our own country.

Among games for boys I may mention top-spinning. Turkish tops are made from hard wood, turned in a lathe, and painted with bands of various colours. They are spun with the thumb and the finger, or with a string, and then kept in motion with a whip and cord. A point in the game is to direct the top so that it should bump against the opponent's, and topple it over.

Kite-flying is popular, and in early spring hundreds of kites may be seen flying from the terraces over the house-tops. They are shaped like our own, and are made with bright-coloured paper, with long tails of paper strips. Little splints of wood or cane are attached to the tail for the purpose of entangling and capturing other kites. This is done by manœuvring them about, letting them drop momentarily or rise suddenly, so as to swoop over their adversary and capture it. When these air-ships have boarded, both the fliers pull in the string as rapidly as possible, and it sometimes happens that the vanquished kite is after all the victor.

Hop-scotch is as ancient as the hills, and is played in Turkey in much the same way as with us. So also are marbles and tip-cat, with the same risks, in the case of tip-cat, to the eyes of beholders as in this country.

Walnuts enter largely into the composition of boys' games. One of these consists in rolling them down a sloping board, each boy playing in turn. The person who hits any of the nuts on the floor appropriates all he can gather. The game goes on, each player retiring when his stock of walnuts is exhausted. Another game is that of placing the walnuts in a ring, and throwing (not rolling) other nuts at them from a distance. All displaced walnuts belong to the displacer.

Knifey, or bitchak, as it is called in Turkey, is popular among girls as well as boys. They sit in a circle on the village green, and, placing an open pocket-knife on the back of their hand, throw it up in the air so that it shall on descending stick in the ground. Knuckle-bones is allied to the above, and is played with five bones, as with us, and with much the same variations.

Pendavola, or five pebbles, is the Greek name of knuckle-bones, when played with stones instead of bones. Both the above games date back to remote antiquity, and exist in some form with every nation.

A practice indulged in by boys and young men is that of bird-catching by means of nets, snares, or bird-lime twigs.

In autumn, when Nature shows the first hectic flushes of decay, and birds know that winter will soon be upon them, innumerable flocks traverse the regions around Constantinople on their way south. Quails arrive by scores of thousands, and, exhausted with their flight over the Black Sea, they alight near the mouth of the Bosphorus, and are easily caught in nets, and served on the tables of even the poorest inhabitants.

Smaller birds also, such as bullfinches, goldfinches, and other finches, linnets and the like, are on the wing, and to secure them bird-lime twigs are placed on an isolated tree, or one improvised for the occasion, and a booth is constructed near it, in which boys hide and watch unobserved. Some half-dozen birds of various kinds are tied by the leg to a long string, one end of which is held by the occupants of the booth, and when a flock of birds is seen in the air these decoys are made to rise. Their chirping attracts the attention of the birds overhead, and, alighting on the tree, the great majority are glued to the twigs. The best are put in cages and sold as song-birds; the remainder are killed, and strung with twine through their bills, they are sold for food. Roasted and mixed with pillaf, the national rice dish, they are most savoury.