Abstract
ANIMAL MOTIFS IN ORAL LITERATURE WORKS OF KYRGYZ TURKS
Kyrgyz people are a Turkic tribe with a deep-rooted history and a strong oral tradition. The roots of the Kyrgyz oral tradition, a branch of the Turkic oral tradition, date back to the practices of the shamanism belief shaped in Central Asia. The narratives formed in this tradition contain the belief values, traditions, and customs of the society, in short, the cultural codes. The survival of these narratives ensures the preservation of the vitality of cultural values and their transmission to future generations.
The belief codes included in oral literature works date back to mythical periods, and the mythical belief world that ancient people put forward has the power to direct present modern people. Mythological beliefs are the keys to the cultural codes of societies. To comprehend the depth of abstract and concrete cultural values of a society, it is necessary to grasp the mythological world belief. This world of belief is transmitted from ancestors to the future through oral literature works, which act as a bridge in cultural transmission.
This study aims to emphasize the animal motif in the oral literature of Kyrgyz Turks, who have a rich and deep-rooted tradition. How this motif with symbolic meanings in the context of mythological belief values is employed in epics, tales, riddles, and proverbs will be evaluated. Thus, the mythological beliefs related to animals, which make up a significant part of the mythical belief world of Kyrgyz Turks, will be determined.
Keywords
Kyrgyz Turks, tradition, animal motifs, mythology.