"Creation of an ethnographic documentary on the significance of the shepherds' oath as a ritual of arbitration and mediation. A work by the Androidus Project Tank, implemented under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture & Sports and the Directorate of Modern Cultural Heritage.
The word 'NIZA' constitutes the first invocation in a variation from the earliest testimony-recording of the shepherds' oath, which was one of the fundamental 'chants' of the shepherds and was as follows:
'Nee Zaa, I speak to you and hold it
that I do not know a thing
about the theft of your animals.'
The above archaic invocation comes from mountainous Crete in the mid-20th century, taking us to a Historical Monastery in the heart of Psiloritis and to a scene of a peculiar trial with St. George as the supreme judge, the charge usually being an animal theft, with victims, perpetrators, defense lines, and the shepherds of Psiloritis as witnesses.
In this emblematic and repeated scene in the evolution of time, a scene of unwritten law and self-organization, the oath symbolized by the prolonged palm (palming) in the image of St. George and accompanied by words composing a powerful ritual among the shepherds, perhaps constituted the last stage of definitive resolution of a conflict.
The well-known scene, familiar to mountain shepherds, takes place at the Monastery of Agios Georgios Diskouri with the toponymy Diskouri itself intriguing historians and ethnographers, holding a deep-rooted enigma of worship in the mountainous Mylopotamos and the pastoral triangle of the major pastoral communities of Psiloritis, Anogeia, Zonianon, and Livadia.
The invocation and beginning of the oath 'NIZA', which has reached us today through few written sources but many oral narratives of earlier shepherds, may be a forgotten relay from the older world to the newer, where the mythical Zeus passed unconsciously as a remnant and fragment of another era assimilated into today's religious context.
Perhaps it is again a charming invention of our national collective imagination, as it was constructed in the early 20th century, to create its own connections with an idealized past.
However, the fact remains that in the mountainous hinterland of Psiloritis, there is still the preservation of material and immaterial elements that outline a cultural mosaic, which remains active and largely focused on the pastoral communities of Psiloritis and the rituals of the shepherds.
The purpose of the Androidus Project's work is to record stories of the shepherds of Psiloritis and specifically of the places Anogeia, Zonianon, and Livadia, among whom the social mechanism of the oath played a decisive role in resolving significant pastoral cases.
In addition to the shepherds of Psiloritis, who form the core of the theme, the perspectives of Anthropology, Law, Sociology, and Criminology, as well as the religious-theological approach, which does not accept the oath as a means of moral commitment, justice, and truth, will compose the thematic cycle through which a dialogue of narratives on the oath and its significance will evolve, resulting in the ethnographic documentary 'NIZA'."
Copyright © 2019 - 2024. Androidus Project Tank. Created & Hosted by WEBMAN