THIS IS NOT MY RESEARCH but I’ve put it here to help find out more information on my girlfriend’s family history!

UPDATE: Great news!  The researcher who compiled this list has been found and now can get full credit for it!  That person is Souheil Khoury who lives in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia; b. 17 Jun 1971.  Thank you very much to Souheil for compiling this research and contacting me.  I’m looking forward to extending this research with as much help as possible (when time permits).  Also, thanks to Ron Zerka (Flint, MI, USA), Jaime’s uncle, who did forward me the info from Souheil.

Extraordinary birth of my village

At about twenty kilometres from the town of Tyr, the old Phoenician city, on small hill with an approximate height of 350 meters, is a village called Derdghaya. Similar to the neighbouring villages, it does not bear an Arabic name, but rather Aramaic or Syriac, the language of the country before the Arab conquerors imposed theirs.

If I am telling you of the origins of this village, it is because it seems to me outside the norms. Barely a hundred years ago, this place was barren from any houses; only some type of huts or rather caves sheltered shepherds. However this is how my grandfather and some old-timers told me about the creation , by my paternal great-great-grandfather, of a village which currently counts 450 inhabitants, not counting the emigrants, many in the United States and in French West African coast.

There was once a young man and his old mother. – It is necessary for me well to start thus, since all the Arab stories which are told around the fireplace during the evenings of winter start with this stereotyped formula: there were a woman and a man… – The young man was called Boulos, i.e. Paul. He lived, with his mother, in a corner of the garden of a rich Druze farmer, in the village of Fourzol, on the slopes of Sannine Mountain. From this vantage point the panoramic view is spread out over the beautiful plain of Bekaa, fertilized by the water of the Litani River. Boulos was charged with the harvest on behalf of his Master, and also the gathering of figs in its time. As it often the case, the Master was demanding and not very generous; and Boulos tried to be compensated for the injustices of the Druze. All of this caused ceaseless criticism, especially because of a beautiful fig tree of which he should have left all the fruits to his “lord and Master”.
This life started to weigh on him. Boulos, who was an intelligent boy, in love with independence and, at the same time, equipped with an extraordinary physical force, decided to finish once and for all with his Master and his constraints. And thus early one morning, he awakes his old mother, puts all that he had in a pouch, the pouch on his donkey, and his mother on top of the beast; then ahead! … He went down in the plain and moved towards the south. After one hour of walk, he lets his mother carry on all alone her way, saying that he had still some unfinished business…

Boulos traced back his steps going back to the garden, climbs on the fig tree and starts to gather and throw to the ground ripe as well as green figs… As he had envisaged and wished for, his Druze Master runs out and, full with fury, launches a stream of abuse (of which the Arab language has a particular rich repertory ), traitor of a dog, of a pig… and I mention only the softest terms! The Master ordered Boulos to get down from the tree to receive a beating, a right punishment of a robber caught in red-handed.

Much to his Master’s surprise , Boulos threw himself at him like a leopard,  from the top of fig tree, and disarmed him from his stick and proceeded to throw as many blows at his Master’s coiled body as the already scattered figs… Boulos was satisfied when he saw the farmer collapsing unconsciously at his feet. Then, prudently – as there were other servants in the house – he left the garden and the village and joined his mother in the south of Bekaa and launches out in the unknown…

After several days of walking, he arrived to Akka (Saint-John of Acres). Not finding in Acres any work, he left it heading for a nearby village, Safad el Aly. He does not remain there for a long time, as the following occurred to him.

One day whilst he was working in the foundations of a house, with around five or six other “metwalis” workmen (Muslim Shiites), a blow from his pickaxe unearthed a small earthenware jar with some unimportant aspect. He does not pay attention to it; neither did any of his companions. But as it obstructed him in his work, he gave it another blow with his pickaxe; it broke and revealed its content spread in the dirt: lots of money and gold coins, which would have made him a fortune had he been able to control his nerves and carry the jar secretly to his house. He bent down to collect his treasure, when the other workmen, holding up their pickaxes, threaten to kill him at once if he dared touch any piece…

Full of rage, he gives up his work at once, returns to the house, put all his possessions on his donkey and leaves the village: “Destiny is hounding me, he said, I do not have a luck in this country. ”

Two days of walk towards the north, he arrived to the village of Tibnine, at the bottom of an ancient strong castle built by the Crusaders. How long he remained there, no one knows. One can however guess that he remained in Tibnine long enough to marry there, to build a small house there (still standing and currently inhabited by a metwali of the country), and to also learn how to read and to write suitably, and to even initiate himself with the magic art which is practiced still at present time in many villages of the area of Tyr.

Always it is a day, and for some unknown reasons, he leaves Tibnine carrying with him his black books, and comes to be settled on a deserted hill named Derdghaya, close to two other hills: Boudaï in the east, and Broukhaï in the west.

He built his house there, a vast and single storey dwelling, in the middle of which two arcades support the roof made of tree trunks covered with a line of reeds, a carpet of papyrus and a layer of clay. On the left of the arcades, an area corresponding to a “studio” of the modern houses, with, in the north-western corner, a chimney in the shape of a nose; with also, in the North-South partition under one of the arcades, an alcove out of clay and straw to arrange mattress and covers, and, for the provisions, several containers, out of ground also, having the form of parallelepipeds and provided with a broad rectangular opening at the top and with a small round opening at the bottom closed with a rag which one removes to receive the corn, the lenses, the chick-peas, broad beans… On the right of arcades and on the level of the threshold of the door, the cattle shed, where the animals spend the night; and a little to the front, the reserve of barley, hay and straw; above the cattle shed, a type of an attic, but without special walls nor partitions, which one reaches through a wooden staircase and where one can spend the night when there is no more room in the “studio”. The sun enters through three windows:  a small one in the wall closest to the attic, an average one in the west, and a large double window finally in the south. The door, in the southern wall, opens to a small court surrounded by walls raised enough and which one reaches from the outside by a large gate that can let pass a camel with his burden. Thus one is safer from armed robbery. A detail also to be noted in the interior architecture of the house: the “studio” is with approximately one meter above level of the cattle shed, and one reaches it by three or four steps after the door. There are several reasons for that: first is that one should not sleep on the same level as the animals; second is of prudence, because if, by chance, you open the door with an unknown night visitor to you, you have on him an advantageous position in the event of attack! …

It is thus there that Boulos settles with his family, in the first house of what will become the village of Deïrdghaïa. He had only one boy, Khalil, and several girls. That will not prevent it from creating his village. Here is how the things occurred. Initially people of the neighbouring villages were astonished by the audacity of this peasant who did not have fears to live in a solitary house, near his fields – become his fields due to the fact that they did not belong to anybody and that he had been cultivating them -. Because it should be said that during that era people did not own much land because of taxes. So much so that, when later the Turkish officer came, in the name of the Wali (ruler), to collect the taxes, village people did not find better than to register one the third of the land in the name of a shepherd, a lone Metwalî (Shiaa) among them! …

The astonishment generated curiosity. Curiosity generated the desire to go to the site to see what it is happening. Thus people from time to time came to see the place of daring Boulos, who was gracious and hospital. Gradually, familiarity helping, the visits became more frequent. And it was the long winter nights that people often came to spend some time with the magician; because he was already well known as a wizard. Boulos did not fail to use his talents to delight the company. He showed them some of his tricks, such as that of the jugs that he made to waltz in the air in the middle of the room.

Sometimes also he played to them of good turns. For example would say to them – in February or in March – that he was going at once to offer them each a bunch of grapes.

 

• - Not possible. It has been a while that the summer passed!
• - Well! Hold. Approach all to the chimney and see.

He then took dry vine shoots which were set to the side to maintain fire. Then he spread out ash in front of the chimney, pricking the vine shoots and muttering some unintelligible words, and all of a sudden – o wonder! – Vine shoots started to grow, covered with leaves, and then of beautiful appetizing bunches …

And Boulos: – You see the beautiful bunches. Well! Now draw each one your knife and apply the blade to the stem of a bunch; but do not cut before I tell you so.

All carried out the instructions, holding a bunch with the left hand, and lining their knives, ready to cross. Boulos again mutters some magical words and says to them: “Go ahead!” But – holly..! – Each one was holding the beard of his neighbour, ready to cut it! …

Or he told them his adventures with the devil, and the time he had learned the power of the sign of the cross before even becoming a magician. One evening he said to them, I returned from a distant travel. I had walked all the day; I was hungry and I pressed my steps to arrive at my house which was getting closer as the night was already quite black. I thus walked on when I saw a brilliant light on my left, not far from the path. I approached. It was a cave which I knew well as I have seen it so many times before. Laughter, songs and a smell of good food emanated from the cave. I got closer to the cave, remaining in the darkness to observe more quietly without being seen. Suddenly I see two men leaving the cave, looking in my direction, advancing a little and shouting at me: “Hey! Abou Khalil (Father of the first-born male)! What don’t you come in to feast with us? Come in, you will eat good mechwî (pieces of meat threaded with onions in an iron skewer and cooked on a coal fire), and you will drink good arak (alcohol having in more the taste of anise). Then you will sing us something…

Before I had time to answer, they were already beside me pushing me towards the cave. I entered there but not without some apprehension. Robbers, I said to myself; but why these uncommon songs and this laughter among robbers especially on the edge of the pathway? … I snuck my head to try to identify those unknown men and to figure out why they were having this night festival in this particular cave… lost cause. However, something in their appearances, their too brilliant glances, in their too nervous laughter, caused me to assume that in fact demons tightened me there in a trap. However they were dealing with me, serving me “Mechlin” in a plate much as macaw and inviting me to eat. To save time, I feigned tiredness, saying that I wanted initially to have some fresh air. Then I pretended to search on the ground something which would have fallen from my pocket. I took two small pieces of straw; then, benefitting from one moment of carelessness on the part of my hosts, I slipped them in the shape of cross under my plate.

Then they insisted that I sing them something. Then, not finding more pretext to refuse, also wanting to check my assumption, I took a risk and started singing in a strong voice, at the same time as I traced a sign of cross on the tambourine that they had put to me in the hands: “Brims sahib wassulbâneh, touttrod ichchîtân wachchîtâneh!” (In the name of the cross that the demons escape). As soon as I sung my verse the cave went into total darkness and the sound of a terrifying crash came from the tables which are reversed, as the dishes were broken. There was a sudden panic… Then lugubrious silence…
I stroked my lighter (flint which one strikes a piece of iron, the spark ignites a small black of rag locked up in a tinplate box). And I see myself holding in the hand, instead of the beautiful tambourine, a much rusted pan. In front of me, the plate filled of mechwi had become… an old shoe filled with droppings! …
Abou Khalil was popular and influential; he became rich, making great harvests. Good reputable men came to ask him for his daughters in marriage. He put only one condition for his consent: that his future son-in-laws came to be established all beside him in a house beside his, that he would help them to build. Thus gradually the village of Deïrdghaïa was created.

When the inhabitants had become numerous, they wanted to have their priest. They found the bishop of Tyr and asked him to confer the sacramental ordination on Boulos, who, though always keeping his black books, stopped practicing his magic. The bishop did not oppose it, provided that Boulos burned his books. And thus before the ceremony, one lit the “tannour” (big furnace), a kind of a hole dug out of ground at the bottom of which one lights a fire out of straw and on its walls bread is cooked. Boulos took his books and threw them in fire. Thrice the books survived unscathed from the fire. Finally he traced the sign of the cross on the books and threw them in the “tannour” where the fire devoured them.

Thus Boulos, who had founded the village, became its first priest.

Richard Khoury (alias Paul Khoury) / Strasbourg 1954