Let’s Make a Kurdish Rosary
Kaswan-Ablaque is a Kurdish traditional rosary which is the most popular type of rosary among Kurdish seniors. Each rosary has 101 beads. You may have seen the long rosary with the President of Iraq Jalal Talabani. “Jalal Talabani has been doing a great job advertising for rosary sellers.” “qtd. in the weekly newspaper of Kurdish Globe” .This type of rosary is used for hanging on the wall, wearing around the neck, or playing with it in your hands, but the main purpose of using the rosary is for religious reason. Kaswan is very expensive in the markets of Kurdistan; the best one costs about $ 200. Kaswan is a fruit from the tree of Daraben which is grown in the mountains of Kurdistan. Do not think that the process of making Kaswan rosary is easy if you see it. It takes a long time to make only a single rosary, and it involves some difficult steps. Let’s learn the steps:
First of all, at the end of summer, you have to prepare yourself to go to the mountain and find a good and big Daraben tree. Sometimes you may find a tree that has 400, 000 beads, but not all the beads are proper for making a rosary. The big beads are not good and valuable except the tiniest ones which are very valuable and expensive. You’d better be vigorous while you are searching to find a tree because there are many people in the mountains simultaneously competing against each other to find the biggest and best tree. After finding your tree, start picking the best bunches which have the tiniest beads of fruit.
After arriving home, find a big piece of cloth and put the bunches of Kaswan on it. Then carry bunches of the fruit and put them under the sunlight to be dry. You have to let them dry for two days. After two days, start collecting the fruit and cleaning it by separating the thin stems of the fruit from the beads.
The third step is drilling the hard beads and it is the most boring and difficult step of the process. Drilling the beads requires a lot of effort. First, you bring the beads and put them in a bowl. Then you have to rub both sides of the beads and make the sides a little flat to place the needles in them. Find a very sharp instrument like a strong needle. I advise you to use steel nails to drill the hard beads because you should not sharpen them again and again. During drilling, you have to be very careful not to break the beads. The internal parts of the beads are empty. Drilling beads for only one rosary takes 6-7 hours.
Now you finished the difficult step, and then move to the next step which is peeling the beads. The peel of the beads is hard to move, so you should put the beads into boiled water for 2 or 3 hours to make the peel soft and easily peeled. Not every rosary maker knows that plan. Take the beads out of the water. You’ll be surprised when you touch the beads and see you can peel them very easily.
You are at the last step of your work. Bring a 160cm twine, and then take the twine and catch one of its sides with your left hand and start stringing the beads with the other hand. The 101st bead is the last one to string and, without any hesitation, knot both sides of the twine and congratulate yourself. Keep the rosary in a safe place because if seniors see your rosary, they definitely will take it without caring about your effort for creating the rosary. If you want to sell your rosary, take it to the bazaar secretly and receive the money without headache.
In the end, I want to tell you again that Kaswan, the Kurdish traditional rosary is the most common traditional thing in our Kurdish culture. Most Kurds love Kaswan rosary, but seniors like it immeasurably. I think Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President, would not be able to speak among his audience if he had not the long Kaswan rosary in his hands all of the time! Remember that if you want to make a Kurdish rosary with your own hands, you may offer some little sacrifice in that way. The ways include going mountains to find the tree of Daraben, drying, drilling, peeling the beads, and then stringing them.