RE: [Cz-L] The Katzepulka

The Katapulta you used to fight the other gangs is of course not connected to cats (Katze) but to the old Greak kata (here meaning through) and peltu (shield) the original peircing device the founders of European culture developed to be used some 2300 years later by the Czernowitzer youths. The Romans did a good job by mechanizing it and giving it the proper dimensions needed to break down walls.
Berti

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> Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 19:10:18 +0200
> From: HARDY3_at_BEZEQINT.NET
> Subject: [Cz-L] The Katzepulka
> To: Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu
>
> The Katzepulka.
>
>
>
> You don’t know what is a Katzepulka ?
>
> So you haven't grown up in Czernowitz otherwise you would know.
>
> It is what we called a slingshot in old Czernowitz.
>
> Where did the word come from ?
>
> We never knew or asked .
>
> Probably a Turkish word or maybe Cossack, who knows .
>
> Anyway any respectable "chloptchyk"( that is boy ) in Czernowitz owned one.
>
> All you needed was a bifurcated tree branch of the right size and a
>
> band of rubber of good quality . Bound together with a leather cradle for
>
> the projectile and here you were.
>
> Ammunition was small stones found everywhere.
>
> The best stones though were pebbles from the Prut riverbed.
>
> We used to go to the KleinerPrut (Little Prut ) past the cemetery in
> Horecea ,
>
> This was a wild reach of the river we preferred to the bridge beaches.
>
> We collected pebbles , put them into our pockets , making the
>
> trousers so heavy they would almost fall down.
>
> Thus , full of ammunition we returned home .
>
> At what did we shoot ? At everything that moved : Cats , dogs, birds,
> girls,
>
> mice, neighbors , lizards but mostly at boys of other gangs .
>
> A gang was a Bande
>
> You could also call a Katzepulka –Rugatka.
>
> This was in Ukrainean.
>
> In German – Schleuder - a term we never used.
>
> Once we were ambushed by the Ukrainean Byelohuz Bande with the
>
> sharpshooter Igor who had only one eye.
>
> The battle took place on the Turkengasse stairs.
>
> The outcome of this battle ?
>
> This is a different story…
>
> Hardy

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Received on 2009-12-07 06:27:47