Abdykerim uulu Kydyrmysh, 74 years old, Jeti-Oguz region, Ak-Kochkor village.
22 February 2010
In the old days we got to the severest moment of the war. Those times we used to eat grass. There were such plants like dandelions, sow thistle, dodder. We gathered rhubarb and wile onion in the mountains. We used to play games such as kachma top[1], urma top, akcholmok[2], chigit[3].
The game chigit was played in the following way. One dug a small nest in the ground, took one short and one long sticks and with the long stick one had to put a small stick into that nest. If a person could not put it in, she was a looser.
In the past Kyrgyz people cultivated many types of grains. I started working since I was six years old. We used a thrashing stone to clean grains from their shells, so I worked on that. The harvest that people gathered was called kemin. We used to live during famine. We met first snow with bare feet. Once I caught a cold, my legs were swollen and I had to stay in bed. There was one old lady, who knew a lot. She saw my legs and asked my mother to prepare a soup from a dried snake that the old lady had. My mother slaughtered a chicken, added that snake and made a soup. It smelled terrible. I drank it with difficulty. I was sweating the whole night and I slept very well. Before that I could not sleep at all. The following day I asked myself for that soup. So a snake has medicinal properties against swelling and cold. A soup prepared from dried snake is good for joint illnesses and it dissolves swelling.
In ancient time we had great people. They could treat people with spells and some rituals. We had such a person called Jumadyl. He could prepare medicine for incurable illnesses. If one had a toothache, it would immediately go away after his spells. I was also seen by him when I was little. But that time I even did not think how his spells were very important.
I had hypertension very frequently. I was taken to the hospital in 1981 and I could not recover from that illness. Fortunately, I heard about one old lady in Tiup from one girl, who was also in the hospital. That lady turned out to cure such illnesses. When I went to see her for the first time she took 700 gram of blood from my nape. She asked me to come in 15 days. When I went after 15 days she took blood again. Since then my blood pressure has not been high and I have not had hypertension. I was ill for one month after my visit to her. I thought she might have taken much blood from me, but since then this illness is gone.
From medicinal plants I know only kozu kulak. It is good for internal organs. That’s it, my daughter.
As for dreams, we should always interpret it positively. Some dreams might turn to reality. What frightens me is that if somebody says something bad to me, that person will suffer. I am afraid of that. It happened to four-five people. I do not curse them. I just reply the same way as they do. Whatever curse I say it comes true. When people come to visit me I drink some vodka on purpose in order to get rid of my quality, but it does not go away. It does not go because it is in our genes. My grand father was a mullah. I think this was inherited from him. The history of the name of our village Ak-Kochkor (White Ram) is the following: people dug a canal in order to get water, but it did not work. Only after people slaughtered a white ram, performed a sacrifice and some rituals there appeared water and it started running in a full power. Since then this place is called Ak-Kochkor.
The reason for Jeti-Oguz (Seven-Oxen) being called like that – before that forest was so dense that seven calves of ox were lost in that dense forest and were not found. They were found only when they turned to huge oxen, that is why that place is called Jeti-Oguz. As for the neighboring village Jele-Dobo (“jele” is a place where cattle is tied, “dobo” is a hill), that used to be a village of the Kalmyks. They used to keep mares and milk them there, that is why it is called Jele-Dobo.