CURIOSITY INDEX NO.8 WHAT ABOUT ROOTS?
Lately, my move back to France has led me to think about roots. We have been here for 2 years now and I can’t say that I have completely adjusted to this country that once felt like home. A part of me is in Istanbul, a part in Minneapolis, some in France and many small parts in every place I have traveled, because I never want to leave places I visit.
Where are my roots? Surely not just in one place. How deep are they? Sometimes I envy people who move “back home” to where their family has lived for generations. I think ..lucky them. As far back as I remember, my family has not been in one place for more than one generation. Is that good, bad, or even significant? I feel like I am making roots everywhere, maybe not deep ones but already roots. I must be an easy plant. Is this related to my connection to the people? People and everything that they carry (language, customs, food, garments, music,…) Did my parents who moved from Istanbul to France 40 years ago truly establish new roots in this country? Do we ever regrow roots in a new soil or is it up to our children and grandchildren to fulfill this process across generations?
This curiosity index is a very small exploration of the importance of roots for plant and human survival and the role of roots in human migration in multiple senses of the word.
When we see a human being, we don’t see their roots, their story. It would be interesting to visualize people we know with their roots: deep or shallow, thin or thick, spread or gathered in one place..the parts we don’t see are fascinating, they say so much about the person. Just like historical botanical drawings, where typically every part is shown except for the roots, though they are essential to the survival of plants.
Lore Kutschera (Austrian Botanist and phythosociologist) is known for her research on the root systems in collaboration with Prof. Erwin Lichteneggere.
40 years of root excavations in Europe resulted in 1180 drawings you can see here.
As a tree’s roots serve as absorbers of water, storers of food, and stabilizers, they do the same for humans. A human’s roots are its culture, language, tradition- what makes us who we are. I will never forget the Judge who spoke at my naturalization ceremony at the Minneapolis Convention Center in 2012 (largest naturalization ceremony in Minnesota history with 1500 immigrants) welcoming us as US citizens but reminding us that we should never forget our cultural and culinary heritage.
But do roots also make us prisoners of our heritage? The Egyptian writer Amin Maalouf dislikes the word roots and thinks that it is trees that need their roots, not people:
"Someone other than I might have used the word 'roots'. It is not part of my vocabulary. I don’t like the word, and I like even less the image it conveys. Roots burrow into the ground, twist in the mud, and thrive in darkness; they hold trees in captivity from their inception and nourish them at the price of blackmail: 'Free yourself and you’ll die!'
Trees are forced into resignation; they need their roots. Men do not. We breathe light and covet the heavens. When we sink into the ground, we decompose. The sap from our native soil does not flow upward from our feet to our heads; we use our feet only to walk. What matters to us are roads. Roads convey us from poverty to wealth or back to poverty, from bondage to freedom or to a violent death. Roads hold out promises, bear our weight, urge us on, and then abandon us. And we die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing."
Going back to the Istanbul of my childhood, take a look at this video (available on Criterion with a short excerpt on Youtube) of James Baldwin strolling in the streets of Istanbul in 1974 (this research led me to discover the Turkish documentary maker Sedat Pakay who also made one on the Albers couple), mentioning the impossibility of his living in the USA. Baldwin says “one sees better from a distance, and can make comparisons”. He didn’t become a prisoner of his roots, though he could have. As a side note, another sentence that resonated in this documentary was what my mother always said without knowing Baldwin : “It’s nobody’s business whatever is going on in anybody's bedroom”.
Being a textile lover and talking about roots, I cannot forget to mention a plant like madder that changed our world. The use of the madder root dates back to Ancient Egypt, where the root was used as a pigment and for coloring textiles.
During the 17th century, a fascination with exoticism was enhanced by adventurers, botanists, traders, missionaries who travelled to the Orient, India, China or the New World, bringing back colorful printed Indian textiles ("indiennes"), china, spices, plants or precious stones.
Marseille became the center of the textile trade, receiving printed textiles from the Ottoman Empire, Persia, India and the Levant. The quality and colorfastness of the Indian prints fascinated nobility who covered their interiors and wardrobes with them. However, in 1648, the plague and revolts in the Spanish Kingdom as well as tense relations with the Ottoman Empire interrupted important trade routes that connected Europe to Asia. These routes were mainly in the hands of Armenian merchants from Persia. Out of necessity, a substitute industry started to develop in Marseille, with Colbert (the finance minister of Louis XIV) encouraging the arrival of Armenian printers from Persia (Savafid Empire), the Ottoman Empire and Italy, where they were known for their knowledge in mordents, pigments and printing. One of the colors most difficult to obtain was red, symbol of wealth and opulence. Jean Althen, an Armenian agronomist from Persia, arrived in southern France and started to grow cotton but failed. He then started to cultivate madder, which soon became the main crop of the Avignon region.
This is as far as I’ll go. Dig a little further and I’m sure you’ll find more roots.
Thank you once again for taking the time to read, please don’t hesitate to comment, share and open up your world to us.
Lots of Love,
Talin
PS: Here is a video on the Q’ero people of the Peruvian Andes, regarded as the last direct descendants of the Incas, who have a deep connection to the land on which they live and whose agricultural and spiritual way of life has been largely unchanged since ancient times. Unfortunately the spread of Western ideals and globalization is destroying them too.
PPS: Take a listen to Firm Roots, composed by Cedar Walton and played here by Roy Hargrove.