Tale of the Waqwaq tree which bears fruit with human faces in Fairy Tales and Folklore Discussions Forum

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Tale of the Waqwaq tree which bears fruit with human faces

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lauracollins	Tale of the Waqwaq tree which bears fruit with human faces	Lead	[-]
Posts: 3 Sep 1 08 12:28 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : waqwaq, tree During a recent visit to the Islamic room at the British Museum, I saw a story illustrated in a picture called A Scene in a Fantastical Garden, India, Mughal style, late 18th c. The picture shows a tree with fallen fruit on the ground. The fallen fruit is in the shape of human faces. The label says "the picture may relate to the Middle Eastern tale 'The Waqwaq Tree' which bears fruit with human faces or a medieval Persian story where the ripened fruit of a magical tree fell to the ground and matured into men's heads." I am very interested in finding the sources for these two references. I tried searching the internet without success. I also emailed the British Museum but the curator could only suggest one text in German, which I don't speak: Forkl, Hermann, et.al., Die Garten des Islam / herausgeber: Hermann Forkl, ... [et al.] Edition Hansjorg Mayer, with Linden-Museum Stuttgart (Stuttgart: 1993)., pg.53 pl.40, N6260 .G35 1993 I would appreciate any help in tracking this down. Thank you. Laura
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lidija		#1	[-]
Posts: 6 Oct 4 08 12:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	oh goodness, now you have me interested as well...! i have never heard of that before! (though you did jerk a memory of young men who became trapped in trees..?) what i can see of the german reference just says hermann forkl and co, the garden of the islams.
lauracollins	More Waqwaq	#2	[-]
Posts: 3 Oct 9 08 12:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I have found out a bit more. An Iraqi friend of mine tells me that in Arabic people say, 'He's from Waqwaq land' in the same way we might say, 'He lives on another planet', ie 'He's rather odd'. I went back to the museum with her and looked at the picture again. I got a surprise. Because it was called 'the Waqwaq tree', I vividly remembered a tree, done in that Turkish miniature style. There is no tree in the picture! How does your brain do that sort of thing? Anyway, my friend tells me that in Arabic there is a general word for 'tree' that can be translated into English as 'tree' or 'bush'. In the painting there is a field, a bit like a cabbage patch, not a garden. There are various bushes, and at the core of each bush there is a man's head. All the heads have lively expressions and are individualistic - different features, different hair. There are two men standing in the middle of the scene, both naked and holding identical round bags fig leaf style. They are looking at each other and are not interacting with the heads at all. The man on the right has a beard. The man on the left is clean shaven with slightly bent knees, as if he were just about to genuflect. My friend say the beard indicates an older man, and the bent knees indicate a gesture of respect. The atmosphere is peaceful and cheery. At the top of the picture is a blue strip with personifications of the sun and moon. The sun and moon people are smiling. Might it have something to do with reincarnation? What do the heads symbolise? I have just discovered that the British Museum has an Asian study room, where you can drop in between certain hours and ask the experts a question. So I'm planning to do that. If I find anything out, I'll let you know.
mothball		#3	[-]
Posts: 1 Nov 22 08 8:24 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	By a funny coincidence, I'm reading Musharraf Ali Farooqi's translation of the Persian epic, "The Adventures of Amir Hamza," and Hamza actually encounters the Waqwaq tree near the end of Book Three (pgs. 674-75). Amir and his companions proceeded on their way and passed by the mountain range, plucking and sharing the fruit from the trees around it. As he stood under a mountain, looking for some place to spend the night, Amir heard a voice call out to him, "Peace be with you!" Amir heard these words without seeing who uttered them, and looking around he could not find anyone and saw no trace of the one who addressed him. Suddenly, his eyes caught sight of a tree that stood before him. He saw that the fruits of that tree were shaped liked human heads and that it was from that tree that the greeting had come, for God's will had arranged it thus. Amir marvelled to the limits of marveling at the work of God and returned the greeting, answering in the manner of the followers of the True Faith. Then the voice called out, "O Sahibqiran, my name is Waq and once upon a time Sikander himself rested in my shade for the night. Just as I hosted him once, I will host you for this day and it will be a pleasure for me to arrange a feast for you. Pray stay here for the length of the night and enjoy the sights and sounds of this place." After this conversation, a fruit fell into Amir's lap, which Amir carved and shared with Zehra Misri and the boys. He found the fruit tastier than any other fruit he had eaten in the past and it fully sated him. Amir then lay down under the tree. The whole night the tree and Amir conversed together and the tree regaled Amir with his sweet speech. [...] [...] Amir asked the tree, "O tree, tell me when I will die." The tree answered, "When Ashqar's hooves lose all their shoes, you should recognize that it is time for you to leave the world. Know then that your cup of life has become full up and that twilight is nigh. But a long time lies between now and that day!" In that manner Waq the tree and Amir Hamza conversed together the whole night. Lakhnavi, Chalib and Abdullah Bilgrami. The Adventures of Amir Hamza. Trans. Musharraf Ali Farooqi. New York: Modern Library, 2007. Sahibqiran - A title of Hamza's meaning "Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction." Ashqar - Hamza's enchanted horse.
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lauracollins	More on Waqwaq	#4	[-]
Posts: 3 Nov 23 08 3:29 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I went to see the curator of the Middle Eastern department at the British Museum who pointed me at some reference material. Waqwaq Island There is 6-page entry on Waqwaq in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, mainly a debate amongst oriental scholars as to whether Waqwaq referred to a real island, say, Madagascar or Japan, or whether it was purely imaginary: 'Waqwaq referred to a country just beyond one's reach in the general direction of the east' or 'some island a little off the usual path of Arab traders'. In Arabian Nights, Hasan al-Basri is told by his guide, 'You could not gain access to the Islands of Waqwaq even if the Flying Jinn and the wandering stars assisted you, since between you and those islands are seven valleys, seven seas and seven mountains of vast magnitude'. Waqwaq Tree There are many groups of stories relating to the Waqwaq tree, for example it appears in a Chinese text, the T'ung-tien of Tu Huan, written between AD 766 and 801 and based on an earlier Arabic text in the K.al-Bad' wa 'l-ta'rikh of al-Mutahhar al-Makdisi. In the story given by Tu Huan the tree bears a crown of small children instead of fruit with human faces. In some versions the fruit of the Waqwaq tree ripens into shapely human females hanging by their hair; eventually these fruit fall to the ground, crying 'Waqwaq'; this gives the tree its name. The women can never leave the shadow of the tree. The talking Waqwaq tree with human heads also appears in the Alexander Romance as 'the transformed oracular Tree of the Sun and Moon which is reputed to have told Alexander of his approaching death'. Images of the Waqwaq tree in various pieces of art such as tapestries, vases and carved wooden boxes can be seen in a publication from the Louvre museum called 'L'Etrange et le Merveilleux en terres d'Islam'.
chitra	Waq Waq tree	#5	[-]
Posts: 1 Jan 15 10 5:36 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Images of the waq waq tree have been represented in medieval art -- I've seen it in two brass pieces w/ silver inlay from the 13th century from present-day Syria, or possibly northern Iran. The waq waq tree is believed to have been an oracular tree. Instead of leaves, the tree had faces (not always recognizably human) and these faces apparently spoke words of advice for travellers, warriors, etc. In the last year or so, there was a contemporary artist who exhibited an installation at one of the Biennial art festivals involving the waq waq tree. If anyone's interested in that image I can dig it up. Last Edited By: chitra Jan 15 10 5:40 AM. Edited 1 times.
eve naive	explanation by anonymous 12th Century Andalusian geographer	#6	[-]
Posts: 1 Mar 14 10 3:05 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"In addition to the Biblical Gog and Magog who dwelt in the far northeast, geographers loved to describle strange and monstrous races of people who lived on the edges of the inhabitable world. These curious creatures are never illustrated on any Islamic maps preserved today, in contrast to their frequent appearance on Western ones. Many of the strange peoples are similar to those described in western writings (men with heads in the middle of their chest, for example), but one group, the Waq-Waq, are unique to Islamic accounts. The explanation for their name was given by an anonymous twelfth-century Andalusian geographer as follows: The island of Waq-Waq is so called because of its great,tall trees there, with the many leaves like those of the fig-tree, except larger...In march, this tree sprouts fruit like those of the palm-tree but with the feet of young girls projecting from the base. On the second day of the month, two shins appear, and on the third day, two legs and two thighs. This continues, revealing a little more each day, until by the last day of April the whole torso has emerged. During May, the head appears, and the whole figure is complete, suspended by the hair. Their form and shape are most beautiful and desirable. At the beginning of June, they begin to drop from the trees and by the middle of the month not one remains. At the moment of falling, they utter two cries 'Waq!-Waq!'...But once on the ground, they are found to be all flesh and no bones. Although they are more beautiful than words can describe, they have no life or soul. They are buried in the earth, for, were they to be left lying, no one would be able to approach them on account of the stench." ( Medieval Views of the Cosmos, P.66 - E. Edson & E. Savage-Smith) Here's the Image given in the book http://bodley30.bodley.ox... (It's great you can zoom in and out and drag it all about!) It's amazing that these strange and amazing tales of weird lands and peoples were given such credence that they were signified on maps of the time! I'm thinking the Waq-Waq tale is touching on the issue of beauty being skin deep...something of the like. eve-naive
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