In Search of Five Weapons - Ajt-Man

Who hasn’t been tormented by dreams?
Listen, Steppe, listen, Woods.
I’ve lost my whip made of the skin
of a camel’s neck.
It was artfully made, with a lead core
and a copper-trimmed handle.
It was a true dyrau, you won’t find another one around here.

It had a brass finish,
one of the mighty kertartars, a real weapon.
Tigers, hissing like cats,
ran from its blows.
I will reward anyone who can tell me any news
by giving people sùjinši,
if the slaves who run our country
have left anything in our coffers.

Listen, grave,
and the sand ķorġan over you.
I survived good and bad times,
but I have also lost my sword.
It had a hilt covered with gold,
a steel blade decorated with ivory.
Wealth collected by the kings for a hundred years
is nothing compared with my sword.

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Svetqali Nurjan (pen-name Ajt-Man) (born 1962) Kazakhstan
Translated by Jason Harding
Source: Contemporary Kazakh Literature: Poetry Anthology, edited by Jason Harding, Public Foundation National Bureau of Translations and Cambridge University Press, 2019
©Ұлттық Аударма Бюросы (National Bureau of Translations) 2019

It is believed that a true žigit had to have five weapons. (There is a Kazakh proverb: Er ķaruy – bes ķaru, which means ‘A warrior has five types of weapons’.) Each type of weapon has special fighting properties, divided into: missile, bladed, cutting, thrusting and striking, with each classification comprising several varieties of weapon.

• Dyrau – large whip with the core made of lead, considered one of the five major weapons of a Kazakh warrior.
• Kertartar – also a large whip, used as a military weapon.
• Sùjinši – Kazakh tradition whereby the person who brings good news is given a gift.
• Ķorġan – a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber.