The catalogue's list of performers introduces Sadık Ayan, the source of this deyiş, in a single word: "Âşıktır", he is a minstrel. While working in the village of Zigala (today Aydınca), attached to central Amasya, on 5 July 1943, the conservatory team took its first recordings from him; the second of the four pieces Ayan sang was this deyiş, which begins with the line "Biz dinî batıl olanlardan değülük". The rest of the words and the notation of the melody have not been published.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Place of collection: Zigala (Aydınca) village, central Amasya
  • Source person: Sadık Ayan (in the list of performers, born 1310 in the Rumi calendar, "minstrel")
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Date of collection: 5 July 1943
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1107/A-2; no. 3585 in Kaya's catalogue
  • Genre: deyiş (devotional song)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: recorded as anonymous (the catalogue added no poet's name to the title)
  • Source link: there is no TRT page; the details are in Kaya's catalogue

Lyrics

The first line that passed from the card into the catalogue, in the collectors' spelling that preserves features of the local dialect, is this:

Biz dinî batıl olanlardan değülük

"Değülük" means "we are not"; the line reads "We are not of those whose faith is false, that is, of wrong belief". There is a voice here defending its own faith, perhaps turning back an accusation made against it, but since this reading rests on a single line it is not certain. Recording Ayan's words was not Kaya's aim; his lists deliberately leave out the texts on the cards. The deyiş as a whole has therefore very probably survived only on the photocopy of the collection card at TRT, and his voice on the disc in the Folklore Archive of the former Ankara State Conservatory.

Story

Whom the deyiş belongs to, and in what setting it was sung in Zigala, for example at a cem ceremony, is unknown; no published source gives information on this. The other pieces taken from Sadık Ayan's repertoire offer a clue: a "Hoş Geldiniz" beginning "Gene mihman geldi göynüm şad oldu", a "Bülbül" with the line "Ne ötersin dertli dertli", and "Kitabîden Bir Parça", which opens "Bu cihan halkından umma ihsanı". The title of the last can be understood in two ways: a piece by a poet with the pen name Kitabî, or a piece taken from a book, a written text.

Musical Features

Its mode, metre and range are unknown. The recording shares side A of disc 1107 with Ayan's "Hoş Geldiniz". Side B of the same disc holds "Bülbül" and "Kitabîden Bir Parça"; Ayan's four recordings thus filled a single disc from beginning to end.

Performers and Recordings

No performance of the deyiş other than Sadık Ayan's 1943 disc is known. One of the recordings the team took from Hüseyin Kılıç in Zigala on the same day passed into the TRT repertoire: İnce Çayır Biçilmez. An overview of Amasya's deyiş, folk songs and long songs is given in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources