The first line written on the card names Gabriel and the Prophet Muhammad together: "Geldi Cebrail buyurdu Haḫ Muhammet Mustafa." Bektaş Yıldız sang the semah in Gümüşhacıköy on 9 July 1943, and the recording covers the whole of side A of disc 1134. Another singer sang a Kırklar semah in the same place that day, and on the cards the name of one was written "Gırklar Zamahı", the other "Kırklar Zamahı"; the spelling "Gırklar" belongs to Yıldız's recording. The rest of the semah and its melody have not been published, and it has no counterpart in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none
  • Source person: Bektaş Yıldız; farmer, from the village of Akpınar, then in the Hamamözü sub-district of Gümüşhacıköy, year of birth on the card 1312 in the Rumi calendar (1896-1897)
  • Place and date of collection: Gümüşhacıköy, 9 July 1943
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Genre: semah, the ritual dance of the cem ("zamah" is the pronunciation on the card)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: recorded as anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1134/A
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3706; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

Geldi Cebrail buyurdu Haḫ Muhammet Mustafa

The ḫ in the spelling "Haḫ" is the modern equivalent of one of the phonetic signs Muzaffer Sarısözen had used since 1937, and it shows that the final sound of the word Hak was sung from the throat, with a rasp. The line begins "Gabriel came and spoke"; whether the words spoken are "Hak Muhammed Mustafa", or whether "Hak" refers to God who sent Gabriel, cannot be judged from a single line. The appearance of the name Kırklar, the Forty, together with Gabriel suggests that the semah is tied to the Alevi-Bektashi tradition's account of the assembly of the Forty; the card does not say so explicitly. With neither the full text nor the notation in print, the semah as a whole is to be found in Yıldız's voice, on the disc that passed to Hacettepe University together with the archive of the former Ankara State Conservatory.

Story

The list of performers preserves an unusual detail about Bektaş Yıldız: the singer learned to play the saz from Hacı Ali of Akpınar, and according to the card Hacı Ali was no longer alive at the date of the recording. Whether the semah came from the same master is unknown, and no printed record has been found of whom it was learned from in Gümüşhacıköy or at which cem gatherings it was danced.

Musical Features

The recording fills side A of the disc without a break; given that on the 1943 journey three or four pieces were usually taken on one side, the semah must have been sung at length. The "Kırklar Zamahı" recorded from Musa Aslan in Merzifon on the same journey is divided on the card into three sections, "ağırlama, yeldirme, garipler"; Yıldız's recording carries no such note of sections. Its mode and rhythm are unknown.

Performers and Recordings

Yıldız's singing remains the only known performance of this semah; other Kırklar semahs, however, went onto disc during the journey: on 5 July in Zigala Davut Aslan's "Kırklar Semahı (Ağırlama ve Yeldirme)", in Merzifon Musa Aslan's three-part "Kırklar Zamahı" opening "Vardığımız evler dolalsın nurdan", and on the same day in Gümüşhacıköy Kazım Aygül's "Kırklar Zamahı" beginning "Bir güzel gördüm kare". A Kırklar semah collected from Musa Aslan entered the TRT repertoire as Geldiğiniz Evler Dolu Olsun Nurdan. Of the eight pieces Bektaş Yıldız sang that day, "Toḫadıñ Mezerliği" appears in the repertoire as Tokat'ın Mezerliği; there is one more song for which the singer is the source person: Bana Cevreyleyip Geyip Dokunma. An overview of the semahs, deyiş and folk songs of Amasya is in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources