Reading the ritual role of Haji Firooz: Colonial or post-colonial discourse?

In the first days of spring 1400, Tehran municipality, despite all the important questions and challenges that need to be addressed, such as air pollution, traffic, etc., raised another question that surprised many Iranian researchers: Is Haji Firooz a symbol of racism and humiliation of the black color?

Although from an anthropological point of view and especially symbolic anthropological point of view, in none of the three interpretive levels (perception of organizers, observers and position of tradition) such a

perception is not seen as a dominant narrative, but the first question is whether this question belongs to the colonial or post-colonial and oriental or anthropological at home discourse?

People like Wilhelm Flor, who had previously described the Iranian people as “lacking sexual ethics” in the book of gender history in Iran, a book text of which is ambiguous, and inspired by books such as Shahedbazi in Persian literature, in which the lack of normative patterns of sexual behavior as a hot and Stigma has been attributed to the Iranian people throughout history. In sources such as the entries in the Iranica encyclopedia, some points has been mentioned regarding slavery and servitude in Iran and its signs, such as Haji Firooz. Meanwhile, in some sources, the deculturalization of Iranian culture has been accompanied by other traits such as cannibalism in the Safavid era. These traits all refer to the colonial and orientalists discourse and paradigm (looking at the East and Iran from the outside as an object and not an internal and textual understanding of Iranian history and culture). But is that really the case, and have Africans had such a place in Iranian culture? Field research and anthropological studies do not support such a claim. In the south of Iran, Africans in their traditions act as spiritual and ritual centers and all people from all groups come to them to heal their body and soul and after treatment, they become the spiritual child of Mother-Zar or Father-Zar of African descent. ‌Such a prominent symbolic position refutes the racist idea mentioned above, and on the other hand, the realities that Farhad Verharam, a prominent anthropological director, discusses in his documentary film, also contradict this statement. On the other hand, in the mystical context of Iranian culture, such as Suhrawardi’s works, blackness carries light in its heart, and Haji Firooz, with his red dress, which is a symbol of spring, light and life, shows the coexistence of life and death that leads to rebirth.

On the other hand, the name of Haji Firooz shows his function and character without any relation with racism. In Iranian cultures (regardless of its humorous literature in the works of writers such as Sadegh Hedayat) this ancient name is a symbol of social status and dominance. Swallows in northern Iran and storks in West Azerbaijan are also known as Haji spring symbols, which show the folkloric aesthetics in Iranian culture as the messengers of spring and are considered sacred (eating their meat is taboo). Haji Firooz comes from his winter journey which is a symbol of death and sleep and talks about spring and awakening. All spring symbols are symbols of (victory), such as the similar symbols in Nowruz celebrations (flower bride, etc.) in which good, immortality and life and rebirth prevail over evil, death and nothingness.

On the other hand, Haji Firooz and even Siah in Siahbazi show us reversal. They mock the symbols of social hierarchy such as the lord. Regardless of this typology and influenced by the Mesopotamian view of scholars in the field of religion and tradition studies in the 19th and 20th centuries, Mehrdad Bahar considers Haji Firooz as a symbol of Siavash, who is a martyred hero- and not a reversal hero- who is related to Dumuzi,. Although Haji Firooz is a symbol of rebirth, he is a grotesque symbol of rebirth. That is, it turns death and winter, which are symbol of fear, into jokes and laughter. So he creates a grotesque image of death and fear of it (see my book in English, ritual status and normative status, published by the University of Amsterdam in November 2013, as well as my paper on Haji Firooz and a grotesque image of death in the magazine of Nowruz ritual). Haji Firooz’s ritual role and even the colors and patterns of his red shirt are a symbol of life, like other symbols of Nowruz. Here the fear of death is taken as a joke while death is associated with life and they are not seperatable.

Far from the racist meanings, here black is symbol of death and winter, and according to Bakhtin, death is a part of life and is not separated from it, that is, in Haji Firooz’s character, light and black are not separated (as death and life in the body of Man), this fact is evident in the ritual character of Haji Firooz; he shows us both life and death, but he takes the fear of death and nothingness as jokes and laughter, and with a body that is from winter or the world of sleep and death, he talks about the eternal essence of rebirth in birth and spring regeneration and asks us to laugh at death and winter.

On the other hand, the poem or semantic aspect of Haji Firooz shows the non-racist dimension of this tradition again: Haji Firooz’s lord is “Sugar Goat”. Is sugar goat a racist symbol?! Ironically, the goat is a symbol of spring in Iranian culture, in rituals such as Takam Gardani and the story of “Sugar Goat”; it is a spring folk tale: in this story, birth and rebirth (rebirth from the heart of death (the belly of a wolf) is praised and wolf, which is symbol of infertility and predation, is condemned: (See Children and the World of Myths).

But the role of some interpretations and misrepresentations in evoking such perceptions cannot be ignored. Bahram Beyzai, by producing works such as “Bashu, the Little Stranger” and Tarabnameh, brought the issue of color and discrimination into our attention. It is interesting that he describes the culture of Gilan, which is according to the prominent anthropologist Christian Bromberger , a symbol of extraversion and according to Louis Rabino, the Dar al-Marz, in Basho the little stranger a symbol of fear of skin color ?! These misrepresentations strengthened the image and perception of race in the reading and interpretation of Iranian ethnic cultures. In Iranian culture, there is no demonology based on racial color, and demonization of race cannot be seen as a dominant narrative. Just as there was black demon in Iran, there was also white demon (see Shahnameh).

On this basis, as the Iranian people have known Haji Firooz for centuries, this figure is not a symbol of racism, but is a symbol of mocking false superiority and power-based hierarchy. Haji Firooz has an ontological dimension with his ritual role. Iranian ritual heroes and figures have always protested against the hierarchy of power (such as the role of Black in Siahbazi and mocking the master) and racism has not been an issue in Iranian history. In fact, considering Haji Firooz as a symbol of racism is another sign of reversing the status of Iranian culture and perhaps Iranophobia, a process in which the first charter of human rights and the existence of great and free poets such as Rumi and Hafez – who extends human understanding to a wider range beyond color and race- are ignored. In relation to personalities such as Haji Firooz, far from their ontological function, if we examine the social function of the heroes of reversal, we can see that these personalities were not formed as symbols of racism, in fact, they were formed to protest against the tyranny of sultans during the long history of Iran.

Researcher and author: Alireza Hassanzadeh

Member of Nowruz Club

And, Faculty member of the Anthropology Research Institute of the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Research Institute