Her Koyun Kendi Bacağından Asılır Every Sheep is Hung by its Own LegIn Turkish there is a phrase: her koyun kendi bacağından asılır or “every sheep is hung by its own leg.” Now sometimes, as modern 21st century individuals living in the big city, pastoral metaphors have a tendency to loose their profundity. The farm-yard aromas, coarse textures, and the sights and sounds of baa-ing and braying creatures don’t feel as real and as close as they might have when the expression was first formed. That is, until kurban bayram, or the sacrifice holiday (called Eid in most of the Muslim world). There is a great effort on the part of city officials to contain the expression of this ancient tradition by directing people to designated slaughtering grounds, but at some point on kurban bayram weekend you are going to see a sheep or a cow or its subsequent product, i.e. raw meat. And on that weekend you can imagine a little more vividly a sheep being hung by the legs. It is a little easier to perceive how her koyun kendi bacağından asılır could mean that everybody is responsible for their own actions. In fact, this phrase is really driven home on sacrifice day because the whole reason why our friends and neighbors here have an animal slaughtered is to gain sevap (merit or good credit) to compensate for their günah (sin, faults, or shame). There is a very firm belief that no individual can pay for the sins of another…Her koyun kendi bacağından asılır, everybody is responsible for their own actions.
Kurban bayram is about a month behind us now, but the Mefford family is just ramping up for our significant holiday, Noel or Christmas. Especially during these holy weeks, living in Turkey, we have found fertile ground for reflecting on our holidays, sorting through our beliefs on merit and shame, and remembering a few other familiar metaphors about sheep.
