Author(s): Parviz Kalantari

Myths & Legends

Tahmineh lives with her family in one of Iran's Qashqai tribes. While minding the sheep, Tahmineh takes out her flute and plays a tune so beautiful that a bird sings along with it. Tahmineh longs to keep the bird with her, but her parents remind her that you can't capture wildness, only the memory of it. So she weaves a chanteh, a carpet-like shoulder bag, incorporating a picture of the bird into it ... and then something magical happens!

This beautiful story introduces the lifestyle of a Qashqai girl: where she goes to school, how her mother bakes flat breads and milks the goats and what they wear. The story and illustrations are from a renowned ethnography artist, in a modern simplified cubist style.