سنت هاي شفاهي تركمن ها

Turkmen Oral Traditions

The oral traditions of Turkmens are rooted in its long history, on the one hand, and in the intellectual taste of these hard-working people of this region, on the other hand. These traditions haven been produced through the efforts of innumerable generations. They were not created only by poets or writers, but mainly by innumerable unknown people dudring a long perioed of time. Of course, most of them were filtered and refined, and those which were accepted by the society were preserved, and rest of them were thrown away and forgotten. The traditions that were handed down to us are very rich and deep, and are very firm and stable in texture. They need to be recorded at the right time and be studied scientifically. This article is the report of a field research in Turkmen Sahra of Iran. The areas studied are limited to Agh Ghala City, and to Aghalteen and Gorgan Boy rural districts, in Golestan Province. This study, after pointing to and stressing the importance and necessary of studying Turkmen oral traditions, tries to work out some effective and scientific methods for recording and registering, collection, classification, documentation, and academic study of these traditions. In fact, oral traditions are considered as live cultural elements which still have particular function in the life if common people. One of the main goals of this article is to gather documents on oral traditions and preserve the traditions which are going into decline. In the succeeding sections of the article, a full explanation regarding the definition and scope of the study, the necessity of documenting oral traditions, and the different kinds of them will be introduced. In general, oral tradtions have a special place in Turkmen culture. Different narrative traditions (i.e. folk tales, stories, epics, fables, myths, superstitions, and narratives) and non-narrative tradtions (e,g. songs, proverbs, enigmas, folk poems, hymns, long-standing practice, mournful songs, metaphors and similes) show a meaningful and conspicuous presence in each and every part of the peopleʹs life. These inssues are fully explained in the other parts of the article. In the this is research comparative method, fieldwork (anthropological intensive method), and participant observation have been employed. Above all, interview with well-informed people, the aged and elders regarding different ceremonies, festivals, weddings, night gatherings and parties have been wasily conducted because of the researcherʹs belonging to the same culture and language and through his familiarity with them. In addtion, different written library sources were also usesd.