For Ardıçpınar, fifteen kilometres from Göynücek and sixty from Amasya, local tradition remembers an older name: the village is said to have once been known as Kilise ("Church") village. This information appears in the collection Biricik Taştan made in the villages of Göynücek in 2019, with the qualification "it is said"; Ardıçpınar does not, however, appear in the official lists of name changes. According to the same collection, the village lives from farming and livestock. In 2025, 49 people live in the village.

On the Name Kilise

Bekir Başalan, who studied name changes, counts nine villages from Göynücek, and Ardıçpınar is not among them. Nor has any document been found showing that the name Kilise was used in an official record. In the index of the accounts register drawn up in 1530, villages named Kilise appear in other sub-districts; in the sub-district of Geldiklan-âbâd, where a large part of today's Göynücek villages are recorded, no such name appears. When and why the old name was abandoned is therefore unknown. The tradition brings to mind the idea that a church, or its ruins, once stood near the village; but there is no archaeological or written record to confirm this.

Death and Funeral Practices

In Taştan's collection, Ardıçpınar appears frequently in the chapters describing death and funeral practices. The village is counted among those where the dead are washed in sections of the cemevi (the Alevi house of worship) set aside for this purpose, where the dede (Alevi spiritual leader) carries out the religious rites at the funeral, and where the Zulfiqar motif is found on some gravestones. If, while a grave is being dug, a bone belonging to another dead person comes up, money is thrown into the grave so that the place is "bought" from its former owner; this too is among the practices recorded in Ardıçpınar. The village's name also appears among those where the custom of sacrificing a ram or a cockerel for a newly circumcised boy now survives only when a vow has been made.

The thesis also reports a rumour circulating in the surrounding villages about Davutevi and Ardıçpınar: it is said that in these two villages the dead are buried in their clothes, as among the ancient Turks. Taştan writes that the neighbouring villagers who repeat the rumour have not seen the funerals in these villages from beginning to end, while the inhabitants of the two villages deny it. The truth of the rumour, in the thesis's own words, has not been proven.

Population

Ardıçpınar reached its highest recorded population, 105 people, in 2011. From 96 in 2007, the population declined after this peak to 51 in 2017, then, with ups and downs, rose to 95 in 2018 and to 90 in 2023, falling back each time. In 2025, 49 people are registered, 25 men and 24 women; this is about half the population of 2007.

Bibliography

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Academic studies

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