History

18 Jun 1928

The Swedish archaeologist Alfred Westholm, sitting at Vouni, was reminiscing and thinking aloud

 

The Swedish archaeologist Alfred Westholm, sitting at Vouni, was reminiscing and thinking aloud: 

How strange it is to sit here alone, listening to their stories, often very peculiar and to understand how they perceive whatever I tell them. When I am alone with my people the usual shyness towards foreigners completely disappears and each speaks straight from the heart. In this way my eyes have been opened to it all, to the strange Oriental way of thinking and to the eastern customs. I wonder if any of my companions has come to grips with this as I have. The one who, more than anyone else, has introduced me to these mysteries, always closed to Europeans is Christos. He is an unusually well-read and well informed Cypriot, who is always up to date with the daily press. This doesn’t prevent him from being close to the simplest people, and in any case, he has one open eye for whatever could be of interest to me concerning these people. For the moment he is interested in learning about the strange dialects of this area, which he carefully jots down in a notebook which he constantly carries with him. A bright indeed idea for an ordinary stone-cutter. For the moment it has become a regular pastime for us all to “catch onto” and speak “tillirika” I.e. the Tillitia dialect.