In Anatolia the birth of a child has never been regarded as a matter for the parents alone. Folklorists treat birth, together with marriage and death, as one of the three great passages of human life; around each passage gathers a set of customs that prepare the person for the new condition and protect them from the dangers believed to concentrate at that moment. On the banks of the Yeşilırmak, in the neighbourhoods of Amasya and its mountain villages, a child's arrival has likewise been met with a chain of such customs. Part of this chain consists of practices known in almost every region of Anatolia: confinement after childbirth, the forty days, the forty-day bathing, naming, the tooth-feast. Part of it carries a distinctly Amasya colouring, above all the shrines visited by women who wish for a child, the tombs to which children who do not walk are taken, and the rite of "selling" performed beneath certain trees, which is the region's own tradition.

One point should be made at the outset. No inventory of birth customs devoted to Amasya alone and compiled district by district is known. The information on the shared customs rests on surveys made across Anatolia, and it may be assumed that Amasya households lived them within the same framework, but how far each detail was actually practised in Amasya has not been separately documented. The details that can be attached to Amasya appear, with village and neighbourhood names, in folklore research and in the regional records of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The two layers are kept apart below.

While Awaiting a Child

The customs of pregnancy begin with the effort to guess the child's sex and temperament in advance. As in many parts of Anatolia, an expectant mother who craves sour and spicy foods is thought to be carrying a girl, and one who craves sweet things a boy. A food she craves is treated as a command, since an unmet wish is believed to leave a mark on the baby's body. Beliefs that the person or animal a pregnant woman looks at will pass their qualities on to the child belong to the same family; eating quince, looking at the moon, and avoiding frightening sights are examples of what is done to have a beautiful child.

The preparation for the birth is a task shared within the family. As the surveys commonly record it, the paternal grandmother's side takes charge of the baby's clothes for the birth and the gifts to be taken to the hospital or the birthing room, while the maternal grandmother's side takes charge of the mother's needs afterwards and the arrangement of the baby's room. The cradle, too, is usually the maternal grandmother's gift. In the old order the birth took place at home under the supervision of the midwife of the neighbourhood or village, and the experienced women of the household helped her.

The meaning given to the umbilical cord in Anatolia is also remarkable. Where the fallen cord is buried is believed to determine the child's future. Buried in a school garden, the child will be educated; in a mosque courtyard, devout; in a corner of the house, a homebody. In some regions the cord is kept in a cupboard or chest. The same belief is also told in the form that the place where the cord is thrown shows the profession the child will choose.

Shrines for Women Who Wish for a Child

The most distinctive side of Amasya's tradition is the set of shrines visited by women and couples who have no children. The study by the folklorist Necdet Kurt, who surveyed shrine and tomb practices around Amasya and Tokat, notes that the Turkmen communities living in this region can be traced even in village names. Dozens of villages bear the names of Oghuz tribes such as Avşar, Dodurga, Kayı, Bayat, Kızık, Kınık and Salur, and according to the researcher many pre-Islamic beliefs among these communities continue under an Islamic identity with little change in form or purpose. The visits made to ask for a child are assessed within this framework. That interpretation is Kurt's; the origin of the practices remains open to debate, but the practices themselves have many witnesses in the region.

In the city centre, one place named for this purpose is the Tomb of Ehli Hatun in the Kurşunlu neighbourhood. The tomb is visited by women every day of the week and most intensely on Fridays. Unmarried girls come so that their fortune may open, and childless couples to ask for a child. The visitor performs two rak'ahs of prayer, prays, and makes a vow. Then she puts her head into the well at the tomb, and if she sees a light in it she believes her wish will be granted; for one who sees nothing, it is said the wish will not come true. At this tomb only those asking for a child vow a sacrificial animal; for other wishes, religious vows such as prayer and fasting suffice. The Tezveren Saint in the centre is another place frequented by women and young girls. Childless people, unmarried girls and those wishing for success in examinations come three evenings running, from Tuesday evening to Friday evening, make their wish between the evening call to prayer and the night prayer, and circle the sarcophagus three times.

In the districts and villages the practice takes a more theatrical form. On a plateau near the village of Uygur stands a tree on a rock with no other tree around it, called Ebe Kayası, the Midwife's Rock. The villagers believe that a woman who wept herself to death because she had no child lies beneath it. A rite called "selling" is performed at the place, handled by a woman who serves there and looks after the lodge affairs. The woman who wants a child comes to the site at the earliest hour of the morning, with the woman in charge and one more woman. One of the women sits at the foot of the tree. The woman in charge takes the visitor by the waist and turns her around the tree, calling "Ebe Kayası Huu" at each turn. The woman at the foot of the tree answers, "Huu, where are you going?" The woman in charge then names the visitor and says that so-and-so's womb is not bearing and that she will sell her. At the end of the three turns they all say together, "May it be so, God willing, may it take hold, God willing." Then those who wish perform two rak'ahs of prayer and make a vow. Childless women tie to the tree a strip of cloth torn from their own clothing. Pregnant women also come to the same place so that they will not miscarry, and so do the owners of cows that have lost their calves, for the animals' cure.

The practice of "selling" is found in other parts of Amasya as well. At the tomb in the village of Geydoğan in Taşova, a rope is tied around the neck of a childless woman and she is led seven times around the mastic tree in the tomb garden. Prayer is recited at the tomb, two rak'ahs are performed, and a vow is made. When the child is born the family returns, sacrifices the animal and distributes the meat to the poor. The family then goes down to the village, stops a villager at random, and gives the child that villager's name. The rite of selling a child is also performed at the Dedelik shrine in Değirmendere and at the shrines in the village of Kayrak. A child born after these visits is named Satılmış ("sold") if a boy and Satı if a girl; at Kayrak the name Kaya is also used for boys. At Göynücek, those who want a boy come to the Cender Saint in the village of Kışlabeyi, and if their wish is granted they give the child the name Satılmış. At the Perdeli shrine in the village of Bulduklu, those without children make their wish and those who have a son give him the name Eren. The Tomb of Hamza Dede in the village of Gökçebağ in Merzifon is a place visited both by the childless and by newlyweds. In the village, after the bride is taken from her home, the wedding procession circles the tomb three times and a prayer is recited. In the village of Beşiktepe in Göynücek, women who want a child perform two rak'ahs for Gülben, a saintly girl believed to lie beneath a juniper tree, then circle the tree three times and sleep in its shade.

The names Satılmış and Satı come from the name of the practice itself: the child was sold to the shrine before birth and was called by that name after it. The wish for a child shows itself on the first day of marriage as well. According to the wedding customs recorded in Amasya, when the bride enters her new home and is seated on her dowry chest, a baby boy is placed in her lap.

Birth and Confinement

After the birth the mother is called "loğusa", and a special order of care is built around her for forty days. To give the loğusa strength, hot dishes made with flour, butter and molasses and nourishing foods such as chicken broth are prepared. Close relatives come to the house with meal sets; rice soup with chicken, milk pudding, leavened pastry, clotted cream and fruit are the usual parts of such sets. Visitors are expected to bring gifts. In visits made after the first week of a newborn's life, people bring towels, socks, children's underclothes or flowers.

The loğusa sherbet offered to visitors is the best-known emblem of this period. Prepared with sugar and spices, the sherbet is thought to help the mother regain strength and increase her milk. Its red colour is not accidental. In the popular understanding the greatest danger to the mother and baby comes from an evil being called al basması or alkarısı, and the colour red is held to protect against it. For this reason red sherbet is drunk, red loğusa sugar is eaten, and the mother wears a red ribbon or crown. As far as the surveys show, the loğusa's wearing of red is a shared practice in a large number of Anatolian regions.

The forty days after birth are regarded as the period most exposed to illness and the evil eye, called in folk speech "kırk basması". During this time the mother and baby are not left alone, and if necessary a broom is placed beside the baby. They are not taken outside, and visitors are received in a separate room. They are not allowed to meet another woman or child whose forty days are not yet over, because two such "forty-day" persons are believed to press upon each other. Rules have also been recorded such as that a woman within her forty days must not leave the house after the evening call to prayer, and that the child's laundry must not be left out overnight. During this period the woman's grave is thought to stay open for forty days and she may fall ill and die at any moment. In various parts of Anatolia a lamp is lit in the room of the loğusa and baby, and the mother does not lie with her back to the baby.

These beliefs are today also examined by physicians and nursing researchers. In their assessment, the fear, delirium and visions described in accounts of al basması can be related in medicine to postpartum fever, breast infection, dehydration and postpartum depression. Keeping the mother and baby indoors for forty days, limiting visitors, and not leaving the mother alone are considered useful for protection from infection and for social support. The same researchers stress that traditional practices should not replace a physician.

Among the objects used to protect the baby, the blue bead, amulets and blessed charms come first. In various parts of Anatolia a Qur'an is placed on the cradle, a knife or a piece of iron is put under the pillow, and an onion stuck with a needle is left in the cradle. The protective force attributed to iron and the knife rests on a very old idea. In Amasya the belief attached to the knife is not limited to the cradle: in places such as Ezinepazar, a person in trouble puts three knives in a bowl of water in the evening, each intended for a saint, and in the morning goes to the saint whose knife has rusted. Kurt notes that this practice is peculiar to the region and rarely met elsewhere in the country.

The Forty-Day Bathing

At the end of the forty days a ceremony called "kırklama" or "kırk çıkarma" is held for the mother and baby. It is the announcement that the dangerous period lies behind and that the mother may now rejoin society. In its commonest form in Anatolia, the mother and baby are washed with water in a basin; forty stones are thrown in, or forty spoonfuls of water are poured over them. In some regions forty kinds of objects, forty needles or a comb with forty teeth are put into the water. Gold, a blue bead or a ring is also sometimes dropped into the water in which the mother is washed. The baby's forty days are said to be taken off by someone who is not herself in her forty days. In some regions the ceremony takes place in a bath and is called the "forty bath". After the forty days are taken off, in some places the household has a mevlit recited, and the mother and baby spend some time at the maternal grandmother's house.

How the forty-day bathing was carried out in Amasya households has not been separately recorded; the examples above belong to Anatolia as a whole.

Naming

Giving the baby its name has a religious refinement. One of the elders of the family or a respected hodja takes the baby in his arms, recites the call to prayer into the right ear and the second call into the left, and speaks the name. In part of Anatolia the name is repeated three times, and the ceremony closes with the words "I have named you; may God give you your years." A naming meal is given in the second week after the birth; in most places the paternal grandmother prepares it, and at the table there are soup, meat or kebab, stuffed vegetables, börek, beans, okra, fruit and, formerly, a fruit drink. The child's name is often chosen to keep alive the memory of a dead grandfather or grandmother. It is also an established rule that no name unsuitable to the Qur'an be given.

The names peculiar to this tradition in Amasya are those listed above: Satılmış, Satı, Kaya and Eren. They reflect, for a lifetime, the vow of which shrine the child was born.

The First Tooth and the Tooth-Feast

When the baby's first tooth appears the household gathers in joy. In Anatolia this celebration is called diş hediği, diş buğdayı or diş göllesi. Hedik is a dish made by boiling wheat together with chickpeas. The boiled wheat is strained and put hot onto a large tray or dish, salt and plenty of walnut kernels are added, and it is eaten together. In some households beans, hazelnuts, raisins or pomegranate seeds are added, and in some places sugar is sprinkled over it. Neighbours and relatives are invited and the hedik is shared out on plates. In an account recorded in Bitlis, the person who first sees the tooth tears the child's garment, turns to the host and says, "Congratulations, the child has cut a tooth; make the hedik so that we may eat," and a gift is bought for the child. A similar practice, in which the person who first sees the tooth buys the child a present, is known in other parts of Anatolia too.

The best-loved part of the ceremony is the test of the child's future. The child is seated on a tray or on the floor, a handful of hedik is poured over its head, and objects such as scissors, a pencil, a mirror, money, a comb, a knife and the Qur'an are laid before it. From the object the child reaches for, a guess is made about the profession it will choose: the one who takes the pencil will be a teacher, the comb a barber, the knife a butcher. It has also been claimed that this custom goes back to an old belief reaching into Central Asia; the Bitlis entry in the Culture Portal ties it to Shamanic belief. Such explanations of origin do not rest on firm documents and belong rather to interpretations within folk culture.

Children Who Do Not Walk, Do Not Speak, or Are Fretful

When a child's development is delayed, the means resorted to are likewise tied to shrines in Amasya. In the centre, the Tomb of Halkalı Dede in the Şehirüstü neighbourhood is where children who have not walked when the time has come are brought. People come especially on Saturdays, prayers are recited, and the child's feet are passed three times through the ring at the tomb. It is said that most of these children walk within a week. When the child walks, an animal is sacrificed at the tomb and the meat is cooked and eaten there; sometimes there is dancing to drum and zurna.

On the slope of a hill north of Ezinepazar there is a rock bearing marks like footprints, which are believed to be those of Hızır. The rainwater gathering in the hollows of the rock is held sacred. Those who come for the treatment of children who do not walk take water from the small hollows with a spoon and leave without looking back, since it is believed that treatment becomes impossible for one who looks behind. If the treatment works, halva is made and distributed to the neighbours. At the Tomb of Sığırcık Molla in the Gümüş township of Gümüşhacıköy, for children who cannot walk and cannot speak, the stones of the tomb are rubbed on the children's knees and tongues. Women who bring sick children to Kabalak Baba in the Uygur township turn the children seven times around a rock and sacrifice a cock; its blood is smeared on the rock. At the Pelit Dede shrine, formed by the oak trees in the cemetery of the village of Yavru, sick children are led three times between the trees.

Practices for more everyday troubles are also recorded. In central Amasya, a child slow to say that it needs the toilet is taken on three Fridays at the time of the call to prayer to the "toilet saint". The undershirt of a naughty child is taken and spread on Thursday over a saint's grave, then collected on Friday morning and put on the child. It is also among Amasya folk beliefs that a child who cries a great deal is lightly struck on the mouth with its father's shoe at the time of the call to prayer.

The Child's Place in the Community

The child also appears in Amasya's shared ceremonies. The prayer for rain is one of the best-known collective practices of the region in spring. In the village of Şeyhli in Taşova, when there is drought the children gather, catch a frog and put it in a sieve, and carry the covered sieve on their heads from house to house. At every door they say, "May the one who gives oil have a son, may the one who gives flour have a daughter"; the householder gives something and pours a bucket of water over the children. The collected food is cooked and eaten together. In the village of Akören in Merzifon, when the first crocuses appear the children gather and go from house to house repeating "may the one who gives have a golden-headed son, may the one who does not have a bald-headed daughter"; bulgur and butter are collected and pilaf is cooked. That the wishes end in the hope of having children shows the value placed on the child in the community.

An important threshold of childhood is circumcision. In Amasya the circumcision feast was formerly centred on the bath: the boy to be circumcised and his friends toured the city in carriages and came back to the bath. The boy was washed and dressed in a circumcision shirt. A band of saz players played inside and in front of the bath. Those attending, mostly children, were offered simit, pastry, eli böğründe and sweets. Today circumcision feasts are generally held at weekends; the boy is taken to the bath and dressed in a circumcision outfit, taken on a tour of the area in a convoy of cars with the guests, then brought home and circumcised. Guests give the boy their gifts and a meal is served; some families have a mevlit recited for the circumcision.

Most birth and child customs have thinned out today because of hospital births and modern child care. The traditional practices at the moment of birth disappeared as medicine took hold, while the practices after birth have continued in altered form. The loğusa sherbet, the precautions around the forty days, the naming meal and the tooth-feast are still part of family life in Anatolia. Amasya's own shrines have not closed either; Kurt's survey notes that these practices remain alive in the villages and neighbourhoods of the region.

Sources

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

  • Taylan Köken, Amasya Ziyaretgâhları: Türbeler, Yatırlar, Ziyaret Yerleri (the work cited in Kurt's article).
  • "Amasya'da Yöresel Kültür ve Adetler" (the bride's lap and the circumcision feast records). https://turkeyoutdoor.org/amasyada-kultur-sanat/

Online sources