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Aug 2019
YADA TASHY ( "Originator Stone" )

Outside the first snow falls.

Her wounds are photographed.

Spoken of.

Described in detail.

Technical.

The overhead microphone
takes it all in.

Being dead she is
more naked

than she ever was.

Stripped of her
humanity.

She had ceased to be
who she used to be.

She is now
merely a cadaver.

The autopsy can not tell
her name.

She is Kuzuku.

Her mother called her
KuKu.

She had been born
with a caul.

KuKu was pregnant.

She was going to call
the child if it was a girl

. . .Yuki.

She couldn't conceive what
she would call it if a boy?

It was always going to be
a girl.

She liked candyfloss
and her hair up.

Now her hair is down.
It touches her shoulders.

As if her hair were
still alive.

The autopsy
wound by wound

tells of the hell
of her dying.

The voice is
deadpan.

Mechanical.

The coroner
breaks for coffee.

Bitter.  Black.

"Ya da!"
as the Turks say.

"...with nothing..."
***

Kuzuku was named after the flowering plant/rampant ****. Her mother always drank a tea made from it. Only her mother called her her pet name; "Kuku!" Her blacker than black hair always seemed like a living entity in itself as it danced upon her shoulders or splashed over her clavicles. She always wore off the shoulder dresses or tops even in winter cold. I once told her she had the cutest clavicles( "rekishi no naka de kawaī sakotsu" )in history which....always made her laugh. I told her she had well tempered clavicles and she laughed even more when the pun was explained to her. She had been born with a caul...a red caul. She it was who told me the Turkish tale or the Yada Daşı and of the Yadachy.

She had just met the man who would eventually stab her to death and she was greatly in love with him and his culture.

All these little scraps of humanity could not be disclosed by the autopsy which could never tell of how beautiful she was and what a joy she was to be around.

Her death was a horror tale told by a friend of a friend of a friend and hard to comprehend or believe.

***

Yada Tashy (Turkish: Yada Taşı; Bashkort: Йәй Ташы, Azerbaijanese: Yada Daşı, means "Originator Stone" or "Rain Stone") is a legendary folkloric substance said to be capable of summoning rain. For many centuries, it was the single most sought-after item in Turkic folk legends. Yada Tashy was a central symbol to the mystical terminology in Turkic mythology, symbolising interference to and control over natural phenomena.

Yadachy (Turkish: Yadacı/Yadaçı) in Turkic tradition, were men believed to have an inborn supernatural ability to protect their estate, village, or region against destructive weather conditions, such as storms, hail, or torrential rains. It was believed that the souls of these men could leave their bodies in sleep, to intercept and fight with demonic beings imagined as bringers of bad weather. Having defeated the demons and taken away the stormy clouds they brought, the protectors would return into their bodies and wake up tired.

Yadachy of an area usually fought together against the attacking Yadachy of another area who were bringing a storm and hail clouds above their fields. The victorious Yadachy would loot the yield of all agricultural produce from the territory of their defeated foes, and take it to their own region. Although Yadachy could be women and children, most were adult men. Their supernatural power was thought to be inborn. In many regions it was regarded that the Yadachy were born with a caul—white or red, depending on the regional belief. The mother would dry the caul and sew into a piece of garment always worn by the child, such as a pouch attached under the child's armpit. Adverse weather such as a storm or hail could devastate crop fields and orchards, and thus jeopardise the livelihood of farmers in the affected area. A role of Yadachy, according to folk tradition, was to lead storms and hail clouds away from their family estates, villages, or regions, to save their crops. A Yadachy could take the storms and hail clouds over the territory of another Yadachy to destroy its crops. The other Yadachy would fly up to confront the bringer of bad weather, and there would be a fight between the Yadachy.
Donall Dempsey
Written by
Donall Dempsey  Guildford
(Guildford)   
124
 
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