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A Tribe is Burnt to the Ground: Reading The Legend of the Thousand Bulls as an Advocacy of Cultural Integrity

Year 2021, Issue: 1, 87 - 100, 31.12.2021
https://doi.org/10.26650/IAR2021-1602

Abstract

The nomads (yörüks) of Anatolia were forced to sedentarisation both during the Ottoman and the Turkish Republican eras. In today’s Anatolia, only approximately one hundred families are left who maintain their nomadic way of life: the Sarıkeçili Yörüks whose inclusion in UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding is pending. In The Legend of the Thousand Bulls [Binboğalar Efsanesi] (1971), Yaşar Kemal tells, with genuine pathos, the story of the Karaçullu, a sixty-tent pastoralist clan living in the Middle Taurus area of Southern Anatolia. Kemal depicts the Karaçullu as one of the last surviving nomadic groups of the Turkish Republic in the early 1950s and follows their quest, from one spring to the next, to find a permanent pasture upon losing their hopes of the possibility of continuing a nomadic way of life. He demonstrates the correlation between sedentarisation and the tribe’s disintegration over two axes. The first is the process from one stage of capitalism to the other as regards the ending of the nomadic way of life. The second axis is cultural integrity. Yaşar Kemal constructs the story of the tribe over the very intertwinement of the fight for existence and the fight for cultural integrity laying emphasis on the inextricable link between them. Analysing Yaşar Kemal’s emphasis on this link through the representations of nomadism in his novel as well as the connections he makes with historical events that led to the disappearance of the nomadic culture in Anatolia, I hope to contribute to cultural studies related with anthropological research on nomadism and create awareness about the situation of the last nomads of Anatolia.

References

  • Aksu, Y. (Director) (2010). Anadolu’nun Son Göçerleri: Sarıkeçililer [Documentary film]. Istanbul, Turkey: Galata Film. google scholar
  • Bibliography. Yaşar Kemal Official Website. Retrieved from http://www.yasarkemal.net/eng/bibli/index. html google scholar
  • Bryan, B. (2000). Property as Ontology: On Aboriginal and English Understandings of Ownership. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 13(1), 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0841820900002290 google scholar
  • Campbell, J. M. (2015). Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon. Seattle, USA & London, UK: University of Washington Press. google scholar
  • Dirlik, A. (1991). ‘Like a Song Gone Silent’: The Political Ecology of Barbarism and Civilization in Waiting for the Barbarians and The Legend of the Thousand Bulls. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1 (3), 321-352. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.1.3.321 google scholar
  • Erdal, İ. (2016). Atatürk Dönemi Nüfus Politikasına Göre, İç İskân Uygulamaları. google scholar
  • Çanakkale Araştırmaları Türk Yıllığı 14(21), 109-121. Retrieved from http://acikerisim.lib.comu.edu. tr:8080/xmlui/handle/COMU/1634 google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2007). Nomadic Territories: A Human Rights Approach to Nomadic Peoples’ Land Rights. Human Rights Law Review 7 (4), 681-716. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngm030 google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2010). Custodians of the Land. In M. Langfield, W. Logan & M. N. Craith (Eds.), Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights (pp. 31-44). Oxon, UK and New York, USA: Routledge. google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2013). Land Rights as Human Rights: The Case for a Specific Right to Land. SUR google scholar
  • International Journal on Human Rights 10 (18), 115-135. Retrieved from https://sur.conectas.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/sur18-eng-jeremie-gilbert.pdf google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2014). Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights. London, UK: Routledge. google scholar
  • İnalcık, H. (2014). The Yörüks: Their Origins, Expansion and Economic Role. Cedrus: google scholar
  • The Journal of MCRI 2 (2014): pp. 467-495. https://doi.org/10.13113/CEDRUS.201406472 google scholar
  • Jackson, J. E. (2007). Rights to Indigenous Culture in Colombia. In M. Goodale & S. E. Merry (Eds.), The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local (pp. 204-241). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. [1971] (1994). Binboğalar Efsanesi. Istanbul, Turkey: Görsel Yayınları. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. (1971, Feb. 14). Yepyeni, Belki de En Gerçekçi Romanım. Interview by Orhan Erinç. Cumhuriyet, 5. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. (1976). The Legend of the Thousand Bulls. Trans. Thilda Kemal, London, UK: Collins and Harvill Press. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. (2011). Yaşar Kemal Kendini Anlatıyor: Alain Bosquet ile Görüşmeler. Istanbul, Turkey: Yapı Kredi Yayınları. google scholar
  • Kuşci, A. (2018). Orta Toros Tahtacıları: Tarih, Kültür ve Medeniyet (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/handle/20.500.12812/669429 google scholar
  • Mendeş, S. (2021). Managing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Turkey: Four Cases Originating in Antiquity (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://repository.bilkent.edu.tr/handle/11693/76370 google scholar
  • Nadasdy, P. (2002). “Property” and Aboriginal Land Claims in the Canadian Subarctic: Some Theoretical Considerations. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 247-261. google scholar
  • Sakin, O. (2006). 16. Yüzyılda Anadolu’da Türkmenler ve Yörükler. Istanbul, Turkey: Toplumsal Dönüşüm Yayınları. google scholar
  • Sakin, O. (2010). 16. yy. Osmanlı Arşiv Kayıtlarına Göre Anadolu’da Türkmenler ve Yörükler: Boylar-Kabileler-Cemaatler. Istanbul, Turkey: Ekim Yayınları. google scholar
  • Semah, Alevi-Bektaşi ritual. Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO, https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/semah-alevi-bektasi-ritual-00384. google scholar
  • Tuztaş Horzumlu, A. H. (2014). Konup-göçmek, Yerleşmek ve Yaşamak: Sarıkeçili’lerde Mekan ve Anlatı (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezDetay.jsp?id=z0m SKIIUrb1PZtiDuKty7A&no=1ivV-Rq00IvtD_RBDuzONA google scholar
  • Yavuz, Y. (2021). Konya’da Belediye Başkanından Sarıkeçililer’e “Burayı Terk Edin” Baskısı. Evrensel. Retrieved from https://www.evrensel.net/haber/435723/konyada-belediye- baskanindan-sarikecililere-burayi-terk-edin-baskisi google scholar

A Tribe is Burnt to the Ground: Reading The Legend of the Thousand Bulls as an Advocacy of Cultural Integrity

Year 2021, Issue: 1, 87 - 100, 31.12.2021
https://doi.org/10.26650/IAR2021-1602

Abstract

The nomads (yörüks) of Anatolia were forced to sedentarisation both during the Ottoman and the Turkish Republican eras. In today’s Anatolia, only approximately one hundred families are left who maintain their nomadic way of life: the Sarıkeçili Yörüks whose inclusion in UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding is pending. In The Legend of the Thousand Bulls [Binboğalar Efsanesi] (1971), Yaşar Kemal tells, with genuine pathos, the story of the Karaçullu, a sixty-tent pastoralist clan living in the Middle Taurus area of Southern Anatolia. Kemal depicts the Karaçullu as one of the last surviving nomadic groups of the Turkish Republic in the early 1950s and follows their quest, from one spring to the next, to find a permanent pasture upon losing their hopes of the possibility of continuing a nomadic way of life. He demonstrates the correlation between sedentarisation and the tribe’s disintegration over two axes. The first is the process from one stage of capitalism to the other as regards the ending of the nomadic way of life. The second axis is cultural integrity. Yaşar Kemal constructs the story of the tribe over the very intertwinement of the fight for existence and the fight for cultural integrity laying emphasis on the inextricable link between them. Analysing Yaşar Kemal’s emphasis on this link through the representations of nomadism in his novel as well as the connections he makes with historical events that led to the disappearance of the nomadic culture in Anatolia, I hope to contribute to cultural studies related with anthropological research on nomadism and create awareness about the situation of the last nomads of Anatolia.

References

  • Aksu, Y. (Director) (2010). Anadolu’nun Son Göçerleri: Sarıkeçililer [Documentary film]. Istanbul, Turkey: Galata Film. google scholar
  • Bibliography. Yaşar Kemal Official Website. Retrieved from http://www.yasarkemal.net/eng/bibli/index. html google scholar
  • Bryan, B. (2000). Property as Ontology: On Aboriginal and English Understandings of Ownership. Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 13(1), 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0841820900002290 google scholar
  • Campbell, J. M. (2015). Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon. Seattle, USA & London, UK: University of Washington Press. google scholar
  • Dirlik, A. (1991). ‘Like a Song Gone Silent’: The Political Ecology of Barbarism and Civilization in Waiting for the Barbarians and The Legend of the Thousand Bulls. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1 (3), 321-352. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.1.3.321 google scholar
  • Erdal, İ. (2016). Atatürk Dönemi Nüfus Politikasına Göre, İç İskân Uygulamaları. google scholar
  • Çanakkale Araştırmaları Türk Yıllığı 14(21), 109-121. Retrieved from http://acikerisim.lib.comu.edu. tr:8080/xmlui/handle/COMU/1634 google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2007). Nomadic Territories: A Human Rights Approach to Nomadic Peoples’ Land Rights. Human Rights Law Review 7 (4), 681-716. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngm030 google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2010). Custodians of the Land. In M. Langfield, W. Logan & M. N. Craith (Eds.), Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights (pp. 31-44). Oxon, UK and New York, USA: Routledge. google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2013). Land Rights as Human Rights: The Case for a Specific Right to Land. SUR google scholar
  • International Journal on Human Rights 10 (18), 115-135. Retrieved from https://sur.conectas.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/sur18-eng-jeremie-gilbert.pdf google scholar
  • Gilbert, J. (2014). Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights. London, UK: Routledge. google scholar
  • İnalcık, H. (2014). The Yörüks: Their Origins, Expansion and Economic Role. Cedrus: google scholar
  • The Journal of MCRI 2 (2014): pp. 467-495. https://doi.org/10.13113/CEDRUS.201406472 google scholar
  • Jackson, J. E. (2007). Rights to Indigenous Culture in Colombia. In M. Goodale & S. E. Merry (Eds.), The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local (pp. 204-241). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. [1971] (1994). Binboğalar Efsanesi. Istanbul, Turkey: Görsel Yayınları. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. (1971, Feb. 14). Yepyeni, Belki de En Gerçekçi Romanım. Interview by Orhan Erinç. Cumhuriyet, 5. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. (1976). The Legend of the Thousand Bulls. Trans. Thilda Kemal, London, UK: Collins and Harvill Press. google scholar
  • Kemal, Y. (2011). Yaşar Kemal Kendini Anlatıyor: Alain Bosquet ile Görüşmeler. Istanbul, Turkey: Yapı Kredi Yayınları. google scholar
  • Kuşci, A. (2018). Orta Toros Tahtacıları: Tarih, Kültür ve Medeniyet (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/handle/20.500.12812/669429 google scholar
  • Mendeş, S. (2021). Managing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Turkey: Four Cases Originating in Antiquity (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://repository.bilkent.edu.tr/handle/11693/76370 google scholar
  • Nadasdy, P. (2002). “Property” and Aboriginal Land Claims in the Canadian Subarctic: Some Theoretical Considerations. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 247-261. google scholar
  • Sakin, O. (2006). 16. Yüzyılda Anadolu’da Türkmenler ve Yörükler. Istanbul, Turkey: Toplumsal Dönüşüm Yayınları. google scholar
  • Sakin, O. (2010). 16. yy. Osmanlı Arşiv Kayıtlarına Göre Anadolu’da Türkmenler ve Yörükler: Boylar-Kabileler-Cemaatler. Istanbul, Turkey: Ekim Yayınları. google scholar
  • Semah, Alevi-Bektaşi ritual. Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO, https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/semah-alevi-bektasi-ritual-00384. google scholar
  • Tuztaş Horzumlu, A. H. (2014). Konup-göçmek, Yerleşmek ve Yaşamak: Sarıkeçili’lerde Mekan ve Anlatı (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/tezDetay.jsp?id=z0m SKIIUrb1PZtiDuKty7A&no=1ivV-Rq00IvtD_RBDuzONA google scholar
  • Yavuz, Y. (2021). Konya’da Belediye Başkanından Sarıkeçililer’e “Burayı Terk Edin” Baskısı. Evrensel. Retrieved from https://www.evrensel.net/haber/435723/konyada-belediye- baskanindan-sarikecililere-burayi-terk-edin-baskisi google scholar
There are 27 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Anthropology
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

N. Buket Cengiz This is me 0000-0001-6843-6511

Publication Date December 31, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Cengiz, N. B. (2021). A Tribe is Burnt to the Ground: Reading The Legend of the Thousand Bulls as an Advocacy of Cultural Integrity. Istanbul Anthropological Review(1), 87-100. https://doi.org/10.26650/IAR2021-1602