Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1–2/2015
EA
ISSN 0034–8198
prof. dr. ION GHINOIU, prof. dr. SILVIU ANGELESCU, pr of. dr. NICOLAE
CONSTANTINESCU, prof. dr. ION CUCEU, prof. dr. ION H. CIUBOTARIU, prof. dr. OTILIA
HEDEªAN, dr. IORDAN DATCU, dr. IONEL OPRIªAN, prof. dr. ILIE MOISE,
prof. dr. NICOLAE PANEA, dr. MARIAN LUPAªCU
www.academiaromana.ro/ief_pubREF.htm
CONTENTS
FOLKLORE (RE)SOURCES
KEIKO WELLS
Variations and Interpretations of the Japanese Religious Folk Ballad, Sanshō-Dayu, or
“Princess Anjyu and Prince Zushiō” (1): The Narrative Tradition Kept by
Visually Impaired Minstrels ................................................................................................... 5
MANOLIS G. SERGIS
“The Rural Guards’ Logbooks of Incidents” as a Folklore Source:
A Greek Island Case Study ..................................................................................................... 29
HELGA STEIN
Von siebenbürgisch-sächsischen und rumänischen Totenklagen am Zeckesch
(Valea Secașului), Kreis Mühlbach (jud. Sebeș) ................................................................... 57
INSPIRING ETHNO-ANTHROPOLOGIES
JÉRÔME THOMAS
Les origines du corps sauvage dans l’imaginaire occidental ............................................... 91
IOAN POP-CURŞEU
Social Representations of Religiosity in the Two Săpânţa Cemeteries ............................... 131
MIRCEA PĂDURARU
The Conceptualization of the Devil and the Dynamics of the Religious Field ................... 151
MARIN CONSTANTIN
Ethnographic Authenticity in Romania: Visual and Narrative Highlights of
Paternity in Crafts .................................................................................................................. 159
MATERIAL ETHNO(GEO)GRAPHIES
LUCIAN DAVID
Pastoral Landscape in the Rucăr-Bran Corridor: Sheepfold Dynamics ............................. 193
BOOK REVIEWS
MARIN MARIAN-BĂLAŞA
Isaac Weiner, Religion Out Loud: Religious Sound, Public Space, and American Pluralism.
New York and London: New York University Press, 2014 ...................................................... 217
MARIN MARIAN-BĂLAŞA
Nicolae Panea, Orașul subtil [The Subtle City]. București: Editura Etnologică, 2013 ............. 221
MIRCEA PĂDURARU
Mirel Bănică, Nevoia de miracol. Fenomenul pelerinajelor în România contemporană
[The Need for Miracle: the Pilgrimage Phenomenon in Contemporary Romania]. Iași:
Editura Polirom, 2014 ................................................................................................................ 225
FLORENȚA POPESCU-SIMION
Silvia Marin-Barutcieff: Hristofor: chipurile unui sfânt fără chip [Christophe: les visages
d’un saint sans visage]. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega, 2014 ...................................................... 230
NICOLAE CONSTANTINESCU
Claude Karnoouh, cu ajutorul lui Mihai Pop / aidé de Mihai Pop: Odiseea bravului soldat
Alexa. O cronică rimată a Primului Război Mondial / L’Odyssée du brave soldat Alexa.
Une chronique rimée de la Première Guerre Mondiale. București: Editura MNLR, s. a. [2013] ... 234
ABSTRACT
It is possible to identify the viewpoints of a society using various aspects that are
illustrated in its proverbs. Based on the proverbs commonly used in Turkey, this study
is aimed at identifying, analyzing and somehow systematizing ideas on death in Turkish
culture, and determining how they reflect customs, traditions, and rituals from past to
present. With this in sight, information is presented about various perceptions of death
in the Turkish culture and several expressions about death in the Turkish language.
Some elements pertaining to the ancient, pre-Islamic religion of Kok Tengri, as well as
to Islamic Sufism, Islamic doctrine as well as (perhaps) non-religious, folkish good
sense, are identified. Turkish proverbs are listed and examined under thematic issues
such as: what death is; what are the causes of death; who dies; who doesn’t die; killing;
ways to die; better and worse things than death; the deceased; the funeral culture.
Keywords: Turkish proverbs, concept of death, customs, Turkish sufism, Turkish culture.
1. INTRODUCTION
selection of the proverbs about death, the chosen proverbs were investigated and
classified according to semantic features. It should be noted that the English
translations given after the Turkish proverbs are literal. At times, when the proverb
meaning was difficult to understand, some explanation or interpretation was also
added to the literal translation.
4
Kafesoğlu 1980.
5
Gömeç 1998: 195.
6
Tanyu 1980: 33.
7
Ögel 2001: 707-714.
8
Yakıt 1993: 101.
44 Şahru Pilten Ufuk 6
for a certain time. Lodging, in other words life, begins with birth and ends with
death. However, death is not an end; it is the start of a new journey.
traitors or bad: kurdun adı yaman çıkmış, tilki vardır baş keser (wolf got a bad
name, there is fox which chops off heads). The third category is about the friends
and relatives. These proverbs warn people that they should not trust anyone, not
even their kith and kin; and in any case of conflict of interest, the other party may
do evil: güvenme dostuna, saman doldurur postuna (don’t trust your friend, he
would kill you); birebiri, adamı yer diri diri (relative eats a person alive).
(ii) Separation: taş altında olmasın da dağ ardında olsun (it’s better to be
behind the mountain than to be under the stones);
(iii) Financial losses: cana gelecek mala gelsin (if something bad will come,
it’s preferred to come to the goods, not to the life).
10
Tapucu and Aksoy 2004: 56.
11
İnan 1976: 153-154.
12
Pehlivan 2005.
11 Turks and the Concept of Death 49
yursan sıcağan olur (If you wash the corpse too much, he will deform); kefenin
cebi yok (The shroud has no pocket); dün öleni dün gömerler (they bury the person
who died the day before on the same day); ölüyü örtekorlar, deliğe dürtekorlar
(they cover the funeral, put him to the hall and left); ölü aşı neylesin, türbe taşı
neylesin (what can a dead person do with food, what can a tomb do with a stone?).
Another ritual about death in Turkish culture is ağıt yakmak, which consists
in performing an elegy for the dead, inside the house of the deceased. According to
Islam, it is not appropriate to mourn the deceased by crying or harming oneself; it
is preferable to meet the deceased dispassionately. Nevertheless, the tradition of the
elegy remains from pre-Islamic Turkish culture13. It is known that the mourning
ceremonies and the tradition of elegies were continued during the empires of Hun,
Kokturk, Uyghur, Karakhanid, Seljukian and Ottoman, and in the present day in
the areas of Siberia-Altai, Eastern and Western Turkestan, the Caucasus-Persia and
from the Urals to the Balkans where Turkish communities are still living. This
ritualistic tradition continues its existence in some parts of Central Anatolia, South-
eastern Anatolia, the Aegean, Marmara and Black seas and Eastern Anatolian
regions of the Republic of Turkey14.
An elegy can be defined as a “verbal or melodic expression that narrates a
dead person’s youth, beauty, talents, values, and the suffering of the people that he
or she has left behind”15. It is recited with a specific prosody and rhyme,
accompanied by a series of traditional motions. Elegies are generally recited by
women who are hired to elegize upon the deceased, called ağıtçı or ağlayıcı
(lamenter). In the elegies, character traits of the deceased, works that they have
done in their lifetime, and the events that ended their life are mentioned with
appreciative expressions. Praise takes an important place in elegies. In the elegy,
the lamenter mentions the dead person’s characteristics in an exaggerated way. In
some proverbs, the reflection of this tradition is seen as: ölmüş de ağlayanı yok
(he is death but hasn’t got any lamenter); ölü evinde ağlamasını, düğünevinde
gülmesini bilmeli (it should be known to cry in the house of funeral, to laugh in the
house of wedding reception); hayıf ölene olur (the sorrow is to the dead person);
ağlarsa anam ağlar, gayrısı yalan ağlar (only my mother cries for real, the others’
cries are fake); herkes kendi ölüsü için ağlar (everybody cries for their deceased);
kel ölür, sırma saçlı olur; kör ölür, badem gözlü olur (after death a bald person is
mentioned as golden haired, a blind person is mentioned with beautiful eyes).
Some of the proverbs recommend not mourning the deceased to the extent of
ruining oneself, but instead leaving the dead behind and forgetting them: ölenle
ölünmez (it’s not possible to die with the deceased); dün öleni dün gömerler (they
bury the person who died yesterday [at the same day]).
13
Bali 1997: 14.
14
Görkem 1993: 490.
15
TS: 23.
50 Şahru Pilten Ufuk 12
3. CONCLUSION
The effects of the classical Islam and Turkish Sufism can be seen in Turkish
proverbs related to death. Especially the effect of Islam is pretty obvious in the
proverbs related to the cause of death. The belief in the fate about the time of death
is dominant in these proverbs, which emphasize that death is God’s commandment.
Sufi effect in proverbs is more indirect.
As stated above, in Turkish Islamic Sufism death is considered as reaching
the Beloved. It is dealt in a way far from sorrow or anxiety. In this context, the
primary objective of Sufism is destroying the fear of death among people. For this
purpose, it defines death by materializing it through various metaphors and tries to
convince people that death is as natural as birth and it is a fact of life22. This
attitude can be observed in proverbs, which compares death with daily life
elements, such as uyku ölümün küçük kardeşidir (sleep is the younger sibling of
death), gelin girmedik ev olur, ölüm girmedik ev olmaz (there can be a house
without a bride but there can’t bea house without death), and the ones which
simplify death by comparing it to everyday natural phenomena, such as with dünya
ölümlü, gün akşamlı (the world is mortal, the day has evening).
21
Ünal 2011: 123.
22
Çelik 2009: 136.
52 Şahru Pilten Ufuk 14
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