Four Guys from Sfax

Every time I go back to Leigh Fermor’s list of ‘Greek’ communities, I plunge into another journey of discovery. Yesterday’s was provoked by “the Shqip-speaking Atticans of Sfax“: Shqip=Albanian and Sfax=port city in Tunisia, facts I had tucked away in the back rooms of the mind. I filled in some other bits, including the Ottoman practise of using some ethnicities (Albanians being a frequent example) to control others, and then went a-Googling. One of the things I found was a list of immigrants from SS La Bretagne (Le Havre, France to New York, 28 May 1907), including this set of four doughty voyagers who stated Sfax as their last residence:

Naoum, Yoannou; 35y; Male; Married; Occupation: Miner;
Able to read/write: Yes/Yes;
Last Permanent Residence: Turkish E;
Race: Greek;
Last Residence: Sfax;
Final Destination: N. York;
Having a ticket to final destination: Yes; Paid by: himself;
Money in Possession: $ 12;
Whether ever in U.S.: No;
Joining: Friend Agamemnon Panagakis;
Address: 3 Morris St;
Whether ever in prison, etc: No; Polygamist: No;
Anarchist: No; Offer to labor in US: No;
Health: Good; Deformed or Crippled: No;
Height: 5’7″; Complexion: Brown; Hair: auburn; Eyes: brown;
Place of Birth: Georgia

Dimitrios, Maniatis; 28y; Male; Single; Occupation: Sailor;
Able to read/write: Yes/Yes;
Last Permanent Residence: Greece;
Race: Greek;
Last Residence: Sfax;
Final Destination: N. York;
Having a ticket to final destination: Yes; Paid by: himself;
Money in Possession: $ 20;
Whether ever in U.S.: No;
Joining: Friend Agamemnon Panagakis;
Address: 3 Morris St;
Anarchist: No; Offer to labor in US: No;
Health: Good; Deformed or Crippled: No;
Height: 5’6″; Complexion: Brown; Hair: auburn; Eyes: brown;
Place of Birth: Kranidi

Dimitrios, Selavounos; 27y; Male; Single; Occupation: Sailor;
Able to read/write: no/no;
Last Permanent Residence: Greece;
Race: Greek;
Last Residence: Sfax;
Final Destination: N. York;
Having a ticket to final destination: Yes; Paid by: himself;
Money in Possession: $ 12;
Whether ever in U.S.: No;
Joining: Friend Agamemnon Panagakis;
Address: 3 Morris St;
Whether ever in prison, etc: No; Polygamist: No;
Anarchist: No; Offer to labor in US: No;
Health: Good; Deformed or Crippled: No;
Height: 5’3″; Complexion: Brown; Hair: auburn; Eyes: brown;
Place of Birth: Kranidi

Lefterios, Retoulas; 29y; Male; Single; Occupation: Sailor;
Able to read/write: Yes/Yes;
Last Permanent Residence: Greece;
Race: Greek;
Last Residence: Sfax;
Final Destination: N. York;
Having a ticket to final destination: Yes; Paid by: himself;
Money in Possession: $ 52;
Whether ever in U.S.: No;
Joining: Friend Agamemnon Panagakis;
Address: 3 Morris St;
Whether ever in prison, etc: No; Polygamist: No;
Anarchist: No; Offer to labor in US: No;
Health: Good; Deformed or Crippled: No;
Height: 5’6″; Complexion: Brown; Hair: auburn; Eyes: brown;
Place of Birth: Hydra

The hidden Tales here are not unlike those that attach to any of the Nova Scotia Faces photographs: fragments provoke conjectures, good stories trump inconvenient (or missing) facts, and one ends up far from the starting point. In this Sfax case, my curiosity centers on Agamemnon Panagakis, the Friend, of 3 Morris St., NYC. It’s a good guess that Maniatis and Selavounos are brothers or maybe cousins, and I’ll bet that the four met in Sfax… but how did they get there? Doubtful that they’re Shqip speakers. Hydra is a long way from Albania, but it’s pretty close to Kranidi, so Retoulas is a plausible third. Yoannou remains a puzzle, Georgia being a loooong way from Kranidi or Sfax. Georgia… that’s Colchis of old, Golden Fleece territory
History and Structure of the Hellenic Language tells us this:

PONTIC (PONTIC GREEK) [PNT] 200,000 in Greece (1993 Johnstone); 120,000 in western Georgia; 320,000 or more in all countries. Suburbs between Athens and Peiraeus Katerini. There may still be speakers on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. Also in Boston, Philadelphia, Canton, Akron, USA; Toronto, Canada; and small communities in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Indo-European, Greek, Attic. Brought to Greece in the 1920’s and 1930’s by immigrants from the Black Sea coast, which had been inhabited by Greeks since antiquity. Speakers of Standard Greek cannot understand Pontic, and Pontic speakers are reported to not understand or speak Standard Greek. Pontic clubs and centers exist in the Athens-Peiraeus suburbs. Young people may speak Standard Greek as their first language. Speakers in North America are reported to hold onto their language more zealously than those in Greece. Ethnic Greeks in Georgia called ‘Rumka’ speak Pontic Greek.

…and of course Wikipedia adds more