The bond between the Turks and the horse reaches back to before written history. In the steppe, a nomadic culture that did its daily work on horseback put the herder and the cavalryman on the same animal and made riding skills the subject of entertainment and competition as well. In Anatolia the branch of this inheritance that has survived best is cirit, the mounted javelin game. For Amasya, cirit is more than a game played on open grounds: it carried the city's name into the registers of the Ottoman palace and into the partisan rivalries of Istanbul. This article treats the cirit and riding tradition mainly as it lived among ordinary people, as the game of the village, the small town and the market square.

From the Steppe to Anatolia

The nomadic Turkish culture born on the broad grasslands of northern Eurasia regarded the horse as an indispensable element of social, economic, political, military and religious life. It also produced a rich repertoire of sport with the horse at its center: bayge, goat grabbing (gökbörü, or buzkashi), silver grabbing, mounted wrestling, girl chasing, cambı throwing, mounted cirit, and rahvan or yorga (ambling) horse races. Many of these are still played today in Turkey and in other parts of the Turkic world; those that survive in Turkey are mounted cirit and rahvan racing. The stick game called çöğen is regarded as the ancestor of polo, which the British learned in India in the middle of the nineteenth century and took home in 1871.

The word cirit comes from the Arabic jarid and means a palm branch stripped of its leaves. The same name was used for a short, pointed war lance, mostly of iron and about 75 to 80 centimeters long, carried by cavalry units. The game is thought to have grown out of exercises for using this short lance effectively on horseback. Various theories have been advanced about its origin. The prevailing view identifies cirit with the Turks, because the game is found in the lands where the Turks were dominant or influential and disappears from places they withdrew from. Some writers take this further, treat cirit as peculiar to Anatolia, and claim it was unknown in the Turkic world outside the Ottoman lands; others write that it was also loved among the Mamluks and the Turks of India, and do not speak so categorically. While çevgan and gökbörü were widespread among the Turks of Central Asia, cirit came to the fore under the Anatolian Seljuks and the Ottomans as the game of the lowlands and the mountains.

The records of the Anatolian Seljuk age also carry traces of cirit. Houtsma, who wrote the history of the Anatolian Seljuk state, notes that Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad was very fond of the game, and Ibn Bibi likewise relates that it was known in Seljuk times. The structure of the game, built on attack and retreat, matches the hit-and-run tactics of Seljuk and Ottoman cavalry, and this resemblance helps explain why cirit was regarded as a means of military training as well as a sport.

Rules and Skills of the Game

In its present form, cirit is played by two teams of seven riders each, every rider carrying a cirit of his own. The playing implement is an oval stick of wood about one meter long. In the account given by Yıldıran the field measures 40 by 130 meters and the game runs in two halves of forty minutes, whereas Baydar writes that in rules-based cirit the halves last 35 minutes. This difference suggests that the rules have changed over time and between federation regulations. During play, music with themes of war and heroism is performed to excite both horses and riders. In the traditional setting, drum and zurna supply it.

The basic order has stayed the same for centuries. The essence of the game is to hit a rival with a blunted cirit from a horse at full gallop and to protect oneself from the cirit thrown at you. There are three ways of protecting oneself: catching the cirit in the air, deflecting it with a çöğen stick, or emptying the saddle and lying alongside the horse so that the cirit passes over. The sudden accelerations and stops of the horses, the sharp turns, the rider's leaning down to pick up a cirit from the ground without dismounting, and his catching of a thrown cirit in the air make up the most active and most applauded moments of the game. All of these skills demand that horse and rider know each other completely.

In rules-based cirit, that is, the form played under federation regulations, the opponents wait at their own stations, called alay, and receive the riders coming from the other side. A cirit that hits the opponent's body counts six points. Skills such as catching an attacking rival before he returns to his station, or catching a thrown cirit in the air, bring three points. Falling from the horse, deliberately driving the horse into a rival rider, and striking a rival with a cirit at forgiveness distance incur penalty points. One of the customs of the game is exactly this: instead of striking a rider who has been caught, to show the cirit on his back and spare him, a gesture becoming to a skilled rider.

In the Village, the Town and the Market Square

Cirit was as widespread among ordinary people as it was loved in the palaces. The most widespread sport played as a contest in the Ottoman state was cirit. In villages and small towns, sometimes between two villages and sometimes among the young men of a single village, people played cirit in opposing groups at weddings, in the spring months, or on the market square after selling their produce. In the game played among the people there was no professional team formation; whoever had a horse and knew how to hold a cirit could join. Fridays and the third day of the religious festivals were the times most often chosen for cirit.

The roots of this love of cirit should be sought in the Ottoman land system. The main body of the army was made up of timariot sipahis, the soldiers of the land. The timar holder drew his living from taxes collected from the peasants and, when called up, went on campaign with mounted soldiers in proportion to the size of his timar. Those who showed distinction in war were given new timars. Because the Janissary Corps and the Enderun were closed to Anatolia except for the children of non-Muslims, the way for Muslim subjects to take part in the administration of the state was either to enter the class of the ulema or to show courage and riding skill on the timars. While the stables of sultans, viziers and beylerbeys kept thoroughbred horses, Anatolia also had privileged nomad communities, called at çeken, whose only duty was to raise horses.

Cirit was also played at the assembly points when the army set out on campaign. State officials checked whether the timar holders who were obliged to join the campaign had arrived, and, as a last rehearsal before battle, cirit bouts were held.

Some modern writers compare the place of this game in Ottoman society to today's passion for football. Researchers including Baydar write that until fifty or sixty years ago cirit was played in every city and small town of Turkey, and that at weddings and festivals the mounted guests formed two teams among themselves and hurled cirit. With the spread of road and rail networks, the arrival of motor vehicles and the loss of the horse's role in transport, the game declined. The force of an old proverb, "a horse's breath is a cure for seven neighbors", faded in the same process. Closed geographies with poorly developed road networks preserved both the horse and the cirit for longer.

Spectators, Referees and Kara Cirit

Today mounted cirit is divided into kara cirit (the "black" or traditional form) and rules-based cirit. Kara cirit is the form that has come down from the past and retained its authentic features. Rules-based cirit emerged from the regulation of kara cirit, from the founding of clubs, from the rise of licensed players, and from the General Directorate of Physical Education's federating of mounted cirit like other sports; it brought uniforms, flags, leagues, referees, points and championships.

The masters of kara cirit were at the same time prominent figures of community life. Landowners, tradesmen, notables and officials did not stay away from the game. Every district had cirit grounds at village scale, and cities had cirit fields reminiscent of today's stadiums. People of every age and class came out to watch. In kara cirit, refereeing and scoring were both left to the people: the audience's approval or reaction decided the winner. A person known for his virtue and standing took on the role of the spokesman of the spectators, sat in a raised place, and announced aloud the moves that the crowd collectively admired or disapproved of. Such a game was governed less by rigid rules than by the custom of mounted valor.

Winter Cirit and Matches Between Villages

The least altered forms of the mounted cirit tradition have been kept alive in villages at high altitude. In eastern Anatolia, on the Erzurum and Kars plateau, villagers can play cirit on horseback for hours even in frost of thirty or forty degrees below zero. Fridays are generally chosen for winter cirit between villages; while the guest village's riders set out, the hosts review their preparations and begin to await their guests. After the Friday prayer the crowd moves to the cirit ground, games are played to the sound of drum and zurna, wrestling matches are held, and then the horses enter the field. The village that is host today is the guest of the next cirit. This resembles an away-and-home league lasting a whole winter and is completed by the feasts offered after the cirit. These practices have not been documented specifically for Amasya, but they show the broad frame of the villagers' understanding of cirit in the region.

The seriousness of cirit is also emphasized in accounts of how close the game came to war. In 1666, at the Samizade garden in Edirne, a cirit game was shown to the envoy of the Holy Roman Empire, and the astonished envoy asked, "Is this a game or a fight?" Palace cündi riders also died of cirit; Yusuf Ağa from the time of Selim I, Ahmed Ağa from the time of Ahmed I, and Kara Hasan Ağa from the time of Selim III are some of the cündis who died from a cirit that struck them.

Amasya and Merzifon: The Bamyacılar and the Lahanacılar

It was these two teams that gave Amasya its name in the history of cirit. The two groups of cündi riders, entered in Ottoman records under the name alay and winning followers in and around the palace like today's sports clubs, were called the Lahanacılar (the Cabbage Men) and the Bamyacılar (the Okra Men). The origin of the names rests on a story in the sources. After the Battle of Ankara, Çelebi Mehmed withdrew to Amasya to strengthen his army and took two hundred cavalrymen into training; part of them trained in his own name and part in the name of his son Murad. Because Amasya's okra and Merzifon's cabbage were famous, Çelebi Mehmed's team was called the Bamyacı and Murad's the Lahanacı. In some accounts the rivalry begins at Suluova, on today's Yedikır meadow, with a cirit contest in which the cavalry was raised to four hundred riders, and the riders are said to have been chosen from Amasya, famous for its okra, and from Merzifon, famous for its cabbage.

The dating of this story is problematic. Some sources place the event in the Interregnum years after the Battle of Ankara, while others give the years 1413 to 1421. Yet Çelebi Mehmed took the throne in 1413 and died in 1421; this span does not fit the period when he was in Amasya as a prince. In the account the years of Prince Mehmed and of his son Murad in Amasya may have been blended; there is no document that would allow a firm statement. Another approach presents the two teams as a cavalry force that Bayezid Pasha, later grand vizier to Çelebi Mehmed, founded in Amasya and used against rival brothers such as Prince Isa and Musa Çelebi. What all versions share is the idea that the first organization arose around Amasya, out of the military needs of the Interregnum. No documented founding date exists.

There is also no single explanation of where the names came from. One account ties the vegetable names to the famous products of Amasya and Merzifon. Another says they arose from spectators at the Suluova contests encouraging the players with cries of "go on, Lahanacılar" and "strike, Bamyacılar". At a meeting held at Amasya University it was stated that these were names given to the cirit teams of the Ottoman palace, inspired by the famous vegetables of Amasya and Merzifon. Some, noting that the local dialect says kelem in place of lahana, suggest that the team's original name may have been Kelemciler; no document has been shown to support this supposition.

The identity of the teams was clearly defined. The Lahanacılar wore red velvet trousers and a green shirt and carried a green flag. The Bamyacılar wore a blue shirt over red velvet trousers and carried a red flag. This distinction played a part in the birth of team spirit in the palace. In time the two teams ceased to be mere game teams and acquired bodies of supporters. In the fireplace of the princes' apartment in Topkapı Palace the cabbage and okra symbols stood side by side, these vegetable motifs were worked on swords and daggers, and columns bearing the symbols were raised in the public squares. Two columns still draw the eye today when one passes from the Imperial Gate into the first court; the one on the left is called the cabbage monument and the one on the right the okra monument. Mahmud II is known to have favored the Bamyacılar and Selim III the Lahanacılar; it is also reported that Selim III wrote a poem praising the cabbage.

The Teams in the Palace and in Istanbul

Cirit was important not only among the people but in palace education. In the Enderun the pages played cirit as part of their military training, and those who played well were taken into a team. Those who took part in cirit were called cündi; this word, meaning soldier in Arabic, was also used for those skilled in riding. A novice cündi chose one of the Lahanacı or Bamyacı teams and received his training from a master cündi appointed by the cündibaşı. At the end of the training he had learned to mount and dismount quickly and nimbly, and to use sword, bow and musket on horseback, and with the approval of the cündi aghas he entered the class of keskins, that is, master cündis. Keeping two companies of cündi in the retinue of the grand viziers had also become established practice. Being a cündi was not a profession in itself, but it was a criterion taken into account in appointments; Cündi İnal Bey under Selim I, Matrakçı Nasuh under Süleyman the Magnificent, Cündi Derviş Pasha under Selim II, Cündi Mustafa Ağa under Murad III and Cündi Halil Pasha under Murad IV were among the cündis appointed to important posts.

Cirit was invariably played on the third day of religious festivals and at birth celebrations; apart from those, it was generally arranged at the sultan's wish. Order was kept by the Silahtar Ağa. Usually twenty or twenty-one cündis from each team came onto the field, with some waiting in reserve. According to ledgers of Selim III's time dated 30 and 31 December 1799, eleven of fifty-five players were held ready to replace the wounded, every cündi who played or waited in reserve was paid six guruş, and a separate payment was made because two cündis had fallen from their horses. In Istanbul the games were mostly played inside the palace in the Ağa Bahçesi, and on meadows where the public too could watch, such as Atmeydanı, Okmeydanı, Haydarpaşa, Büyükdere and Kâğıthane.

The rivalry between the teams sometimes went beyond bounds. In 1812 a game played at Büyükdere in the presence of Mahmud II was very rough; the supporters chanted "flavor to the okra, strength to the cabbage", and at the end of the game the Büyükdere meadow had turned into a battlefield. At the festivities held for the princes of Ahmed III, the foot cirit played between the Lahanacı and Bamyacı teams became so rough that the sides were separated and no winner could be determined. In a game played at Çırağan Palace on 2 November 1816, Çopur Hasan Ağa, bearing a grudge against Şuayıp Ağa, set an ambush outside the playing field and unhorsed him; Şuayıp Ağa lay in bed for six months and died in 1817. This incident put Mahmud II off having cirit played, and the game was abolished in 1826. Menzil cirit and the lobut game were continued. A speech at Amasya University stated that the teams were used as a motivating element in the Enderun until the late nineteenth century; this statement does not quite match the date 1826 and should be noted as a difference among the sources.

Horse Culture and the Riding Heritage

Cirit should be understood not by itself but as part of a broad horse culture. The saying "a man's horse, with a bird's wing" in Kashgarlı Mahmud's dictionary and the proverb "a horse needs a saddle, a saddle needs a man" show that in Turkish thought the horse and the brave rider were considered inseparable. Plano Carpini, who traveled through Central Asia in 1246 as the Pope's envoy, wrote that he was astonished at the number of horses the Turks owned. In this culture a good cirit horse was raised for years with great care, and looking after it was an act of love. Rahvan and yorga races were likewise side branches of the same culture.

Riding as a modern sport came to the Ottomans from Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century; the first riding school in Turkey was opened in 1911 on the initiative of Mahmud Şevket Pasha. The Balkan Wars, the First World War and the War of Independence led to the school's closure and to a decline in horse breeding. Attention returned to horse breeding in the Republican period and the Karacabey Stud was founded in 1924. Folk cirit and rahvan races, however, continued in villages and towns independently of this institutional development.

Amasya Today

The names Bamyacılar and Lahanacılar are still invoked today as a symbol of the rivalry between Amasya and Merzifon. In the spring of 2022 the regional amateur league match between Amasyaspor and Merzifonspor was reported under these names, and it ended in a 3-3 draw. In June 2024, within the Amasya International Atatürk, Culture and Art Festival, a Lahanacılar and Bamyacılar History Panel was organized by the Amasya Governorship's Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism together with Amasya University. Emine Dingeç and Mehmet Gül spoke at the panel; Gül made proposals such as adding a traditional Turkish sports course so that mounted cirit could be passed on to future generations, reflecting the historic Lahanacı and Bamyacı motifs in contests, and local administrations providing facility support. The university rector also announced that sporting events in team form could be held in the coming year.

Another initiative to revive horse sports is in Suluova. The Amasya Equestrian Sports Club, which began activity in 2024 at the entrance of Yolpınar village, aims to revive traditional rahvan races alongside riding instruction and nature tours. Across Turkey, cirit is today mostly played under club and federation arrangements; in Baydar's words its audience has dwindled and its subtleties have begun to be lost. The panel and club initiatives in Amasya show that this heritage is seen as part of local identity and that people want to bring it back to life.

Chronology

1246: Plano Carpini, the Pope's envoy, travels through Central Asia and notes the Turks' wealth in horses.

1402: After the Battle of Ankara the Interregnum begins; according to the account, Çelebi Mehmed divides his cavalry into two teams in Amasya.

1413: Çelebi Mehmed takes the throne; some accounts give 1413 to 1421 as the start of the rivalry.

1666: A cirit game is shown to the Holy Roman Empire's envoy in the Samizade garden at Edirne.

1799: Ledgers of Selim III's time record the names and payments of Bamyacı and Lahanacı players.

1812: A game played at Büyükdere before Mahmud II turns into a clash.

1816: Şuayıp Ağa is wounded in the game at Çırağan Palace; he dies in 1817.

1826: The game of cirit is formally abolished.

1911: The first riding school in Turkey is opened.

1924: The Karacabey Stud is founded.

2024: The Lahanacılar and Bamyacılar History Panel in Amasya and the Amasya Equestrian Sports Club in Suluova.

Sources

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources