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RESEARCH METHODS
IN HISTORY
HIST 210
SPRING 2016
ARZU OZTURKMEN &
ASLI OZYAR
HIST 210.ot
RESEARCH METHODS IN HISTORY
Arzu Oztiirkmeu & Ash Ozyar

(T 8 & Th 5-6, Cultural Heritage Museum)
HIST 210
RESEARCH METHODS IN HISTORY
WEEKl
ETHNOGRAPHY FOR HISTORIANS
The concept of ethnography, fieldwork, reflexivity, ethnographical writing, histol"ical ethnography,

moving ofpopulations, language and histmy. Disciplinmy botmdmies: new perspectives on folklore,
archeology, anthropology and sociology.
Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson. 2007. "Introduction", Ethnography: principles in practice.
London & New York: Routledge.
James Clifford & George E. Marcus (1986) "Introduction", Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of
Ethnography, eds. James Clifford & George E. Marcus. Berkeley: Unv. of California Press.
George E. Marcus (1998) Ethnography through Thick and Thin Princeton: Princeton University Press.
***
Jolm Camaroff and Jean Camaroff. Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. Oxford: Westview,
1992.
Susan Leigh Foster (ed) 1995. "Introduction", Choreographing hist01y. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
WEEK2
MEMORY OF MATERIAL CULTURE
The sense ofplace and time (Poetics ofplace and time), local knowledge, landscapes, naming places,
vernacular architecture (the concept offolk housing), roads, ports, vehicles, objects, lieux de memoirs,
public and domestic spheres. Cultural geography, histmy of technology, deocrative arts, museum
studies.
Victor Buchli (2002) "Introduction" The material culture reader, Oxford & New York: Berg..
James Deetz (1996) In small things forgotten: An archaeology of early American life. New York: Anchor
Books.
***
Alunet Hamdi Tanpmar ( 1946) "Erzurum", Bq ehir. Ankara:
Ulkii, 1946.
Henry Glassie (1993) "Erzurum", Turkish Traditional Art Today.Bloomington: Indiana University Press:
303-318.
Samiha Ayverdi, 1964. jbrdhim Efendi Konag1, Istanbul: istanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, pp.3-65, 84-89.
WEEK3
ORALITY AND LITERACY: CONSTRUCTION AND ANALYSIS OF

HISTORICAL SOURCES
Orality & literacy, oral communication, verbal Ul1 as peJformance, stmytelling, narrative and
narrated events, semiotics of oral peJfomrances.
Walter J. Ong. 2002. Orality and Literacy: The Teclmologizing of the Word (second edition). London &
New York: Routledge.
Richard Bauman (ed.) (1992) "Perfonnance," Folklore, Cultural Peiformances, and Popular
Entertainments: A Communications-centered Handbook. Oxford University Press.
***
Arzu Oztiirkmen (2009) "Orality and Perfonnance in Late Medieval Turkish Texts: Epic Tales,
Hagiographies and Chronicles," Text and Peiformance Quarterly, Vol.29 Issue 4, 2009, pp.327-345.
WEEK4
ORAL HISTORY APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY
In-depth interview, ethics, narrative analysis, validity & reliability in oral sources, thematic field
analysis, discourse analysis.
Arzu Oztiirkmen & Joanna Bomat (2009) "Oral History", Encyclopedia of Women's Folklore and Folklife
(Eds) L. Locke, P.Greenhill & T. A. Vaughan. Abingdon, OX: Greenwood Publishing Group, pp.433-435.
Alessandro Portelli. 1991. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral
History. Albany: SUNY Press, pp.1-26; 45-58; 291-296; reprinted in The Oral History Reader, Robert
Perks and Alistair Thomson eds. London: Routledge.
Mercedes Vilanova. 2005. Dordiincu Dunya: Baltimore Oykiileri 1990, (9ev. Giinhan Daru~man).
istanbul: Bogazi9i University Press.
*** MIDTJ<:RM ***

WEEKS&6
GROUPS
PRESENTATIONS
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Ethnography ,
Principles in practice
Third edition
Martyn Hammersley
and Paul Atkinson
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First edition published in 1983 by Tavistock Publications Ltd.

Reprinted in 1986 and 1987.
Reprinted by Routledge in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2003.
Second edition first published 1995
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York: NY 10016
Reprinted 2005
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an il!{orma business

2007 Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson
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Hammersley, Martyll.
Ethnography: principles in practice/Martyn Hammersley and
Paul Atkinson. - 3rd ed.
p. em.
I. Ethnology- Methodology. 2. Ethnology- Field work.
3. Social sciences- Field work. I. Atkinson, Paul, 1947II. Title.
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35
Z.ao-=t-
The more ancient of the Greeks (whose writings are lost) took up ... a pos!lwn ...
between the presumption of pronouncing on eve1ything, and the despair of comprehending
anything; and though frequently and bitterly complaining of the difficulty of inquiry
and the obscurity of things, and like impatient horses champing at the bit, they did not
the less follow up their object and engage with nature, thinking (it seems) that this very
question- viz., whether or not anything can be known- was to be settled not by arguing,
but by hying. And yet they too, trusting entirely to the force of their understanding,
applied no rule, but made evetything tum upon hard thinking and perpetual working
and exercise of the mind.
(Francis Bacon 1620)
BOGAZic;i
INiVERSiTESi
:0T0PHANESi
Prologue to the third. edition
The first edition of this book, which appeared in 1983, was the result of a collaboration
of several years' standing. In the late 1970s, when we stm1ed working together, there
was only a small literature for us to draw on. Our book filled a very obvious gap.
There were some influential texts, all deriving from the United States and reflecting
the interactionist tradition in sociology. Key authors such as Anselm Strauss and Jolm
Lofland set the scene for our collective understanding of ethnography. There were also
methodological appendices to well-known monographs, but there was little or nothing
that combined general methodological principles with their practical applications. We
consructed a shared approach to the appropriate research strategies and intellectual
stances associated with ethnographic work, and brought together a wide range of sources
and examples.
At the time of our first edition, there were influential strands of ethnographic research
in key areas like deviance, education, medicine and studies of work. But in most of
the social sciences (with the obvious exception of social anthropology) etlmography
was a distinctly minority interest. Moreover, while anthropologists took its value for
granted, or perhaps because of this, on the whole they paid singularly little attention
to the .documentation or discussion of research methods.
Much has changed since the early 1980s. The volume of methodological writing
has expanded greatly and continues to do so unabated; though, of course, the pattern
of this has varied in different countries, and rather different narratives conceming the
history of ethnography and qualitative research have been provided (Burawoy et al.
2000: intra; Weber 2001; Denzin and Lincoln 2005: intro; McCall2006). By the time
we wrote our second edition, which appeared in 1995, the methodological landscape
had already shifted. There were, by then, a great many methods texts and conunentaries
available. The social sciences seemed to have experienced a 'methodological turn'.
Graduate students throughout the world were receiving more training in the techniques
of social research. There was an increasing awareness of research methods as an area
of special interest, as well as being the core of practising social scientists' craft skills.
That trend has continued, fuelled by a virtuous circle of research funding, postgraduate
and postdoctoral oppm1unities, and the interests of conunercial publishers. The sheer
number of methodology texts and papers has become quite ove1whelming. The domain
of what is broadly labelled 'qualitative research' now spans a wide range of disciplines
and sub-fields, and incotporates a variety of research styles and strategies. Work of
this kind has become a central feature of sociology, cultural and media studies, cultural
geography, educational research, health and nursing research, business and organization
studies; involving the use of participant observation, individual and group inte1views,
Prologue to the third edition
focus groups, visual methods, conversation- and discourse-analytic techniques, and so

on. Qualitative researchers ha've developed specialist literatures devoted to quite specific
techniques - photographic and other visual methods (Pink 2006), nmTative-analytic
methods (Riessman 1993), inte1viewing of many sorts (Gubrium and Holstein 2002),
the qualitative analysis of documentmy sources (Prior 2003), and the exploration of
virtual social realities (Hine 2000).
There are now available numerous major works on the variety of qualitative research
methods and perspectives (e.g. Gubrium and Holstein 1997; Seale eta/. 2004; Silverman
2004). The fashionable status of qualitative research has been encouraged by its alleged
alignment with various tendencies within the social and cultural disciplines: such as
'critical' research, postmodernism, feminism and postfeminism, or postcolonialism.
Qualitative inquiry has been promoted as having intrinsic political and ethical value,
in giving voice to marginalized and otherwise muted groups and/or in challenging the
powerful. The development and dissemination of qualitative research has been
accompanied by recmTent announcements of innovation, renewal and paradigm-change
within qualitative research itself.
Confronted with this exponential growth in writing about qualitative research, its
increasing popularity, and the heady claims entered on its behalf, there is clearly a
need for us to tiy to locate this third edition of our book within the broader methodological tenain. First, we need to reaffhm that it focuses on ethnography, rather than
qualitative research in general; even though there are no hard and fast boundaries. This
means that it is primarily concerned with field research involving a range of methods,
with paiiicipant obsetvation being given particular emphasis. It is not necessary to
tl1ink naively in tem1s of naturally occurring communities or isolated populations, nor
do we need to entertain romantic visions of social exploration, in order to insist on
the continued importance ofpatiicipant observation in, and first-hand engagement with,
social worlds (Delamont 2004b).
As many reviews of ethnography reveal, this is a variegated approach that is amenable
to different emphases and nuances (see, for instance, Atkinson et al. 2001). We are
not in the business of hying to impose a single orthodoxy here. It is, after all, a patiicular
virtue of ethnographic research that it remains flexible and responsive to local
circumstances. We do, however, emphasize the impotiance of the tradition of ethnographic research, and what guidance can be drawn from it.
In restating the impoliance of the ethnographic uadition we remain sceptical about
many claims for innovation and novelty in research methods. Some readers might
assume that, in producing a third edition of a work that first appeared in 1983, we
would have removed all 'old' sources and references in the process of 'updating'.
We have not done so, even though we have included more recent examples and
developments. We are frequently disturbed by the widespread misapprehension that
qualitative research in general, and ethnographic research in particular, are somehow
novel approaches in the social sciences, or that research strategies that were current
for most of the twentieth centmy are now redundant. Research communities that
overlook their own past are always in danger of reinventing the wheel, and of assuming
novelty when all that is really revealed is collective ignorance or amnesia (Atkinson
et a!. 1999). The collective memmy of many research networks is far too shallow, in
our view. We have, therefore, retained material that spans the first and second editions
of our book.
Prologue to the third edition
XI
The most visible preachers of novelty and change have been Norman Denzin and
Yvonna Lincoln (Denzin an,d Lillcoln 2005). They have helped to shape the current
landscape of qualitative research more than most. The successive editions of their
monumental Handbook have been remarkable not just for their scale and scope, but
also for promoting a view of the history of qualitative research (and, by implication,
of ethnography) as marked by a series of revolutionary transfmmations. They construct
a developmental narrative of quiditative research that portrays shmp discontinuities
and an increasing rate of change, following a broad trajectory from 'modernist' to
'postmodemist' standpoints.
Now there is no doubt that change has occurred and will continue to take place.
And some of it has been of great value. The original influences of anthropology have
been challenged and supplemented, and there has been major change within that
discipline as well. The interactionist foundations of ethnographic work in sociology
have been enriched by ideas stemming from many other sources. But we believe that
current nanatives of radical transfonnation are overstated, and sometimes simply wrong.
Differences between past and cmTent principles and practices are often exaggerated,
and distmted views about the past are promoted. Equally impmtant, in the championing
of 'new' approaches, there has been a failure, often, to recognize the difficulty and
complexity of the methodological issues that face ethnographers, along with other
social scientists.
Recent trends, in some research fields, towards a re-emphasis on the importance of
experimental method, and quantitative techniques more generally, sometimes labelled
as a fmm of methodological fundamentalism, should not be met with an equivalent
fundamentalism, in which the vittues of qualitative research are blindly extolled.
Whatever the future has in store, in order to deal with it we must learn from the past
as well as taking account of current circumstances and new ideas. In producing this
third edition, we have tried to strike a balance between presetving the past and maturing
the new.
Acknowledgements
We thank the following colleagues for much help in clarifying our ideas over the long
period during which the first and second editions of this book were produced: Sara
Delamont, Anne Murcott, and other members of the School of Social and Administrative
Studies, Cardiff University; Andy Hargreaves, Phil Strong, Peter Woods, John Scarth,
Peter Foster, and Roger Gomm. We must also express our thanks to Metyl Baker,
Stella Riches, My1tle Robins, Lilian Walsh, Aileen Lodge, and June Evison for typing
various drafts of the manuscript.
What is ethnography?
Ethnography is one of many approaches that can be found within social research
today. Furthermore, the label is not used in an entirely standard fashion; its meaning
can vary. A consequence of this is that there is considerable overlap with other labels,
such as 'qualitative inquity' ,jie!d.ws>rk', 'interpretive method', and ~C<I~,e,l!ldY', these
also havir1g fuzzy semantic boundaries. In fact, there is no sharp distinction even
between ethnography and the study of individual life histories, as the example of 'auto/
ethnography' shows; this refening to an individual researcher's study of his or her own
life and its context (Reed-Danahay 1997, 2001; Holman Jones 2005). There is also the
challenging case of 'virtual ethnQgraphy', whose data may be restricted entirely to what
can be downloaded from the intemet (Markham 1998, 2005; Hine 2000; Mann and
Stewart 2000). While, for the purposes of this opening chapter, we will need to give
some indication of what we are taking the term 'etlmography' to mean, its variable and
sometimes contested character must be remembered; and the account we provide will
inevitably be shaped by our own views about what fmm ethnographic work ought
to take.
The origins of the term lie in nineteenth-centmy Western anthropology, where an
ethnography was a descriptive account of a community or culture, usually one located
outside the West. At that time 'etlmography' was contrasted with, and was usually
seen as complementary to, 'ethnology', which referred to the historical and comparative
analysis of non-Westem societies and cultures. Ethnology was treated as the core of
anthropological wOl'k, and drew on individual ethnographic accounts which were initially
produced by travellers and missionaries. Over time, the term 'ethnology' fell out of
favour because anthropologists began to do their own fieldwork, with 'ethnography'
coming to refer to an integration of both first-hand empirical investigation and the
theoretical and comparative interpretation of social organization and culture.
As a result of this change, since the early twentieth centmy, ethnographic fieldwork
has been central to anthropology. Indeed, carrying out such work, usually in a society
very different from one's own, became a rite of passage required for entty to the 'tribe'
of anthropologists. Fieldwork usually required living with a group of people for extended
periods, often over the course of a year or more, in order to document and interpret
their distinctive way of life, and the beliefs and values integral to it.
Moreover, during the twentieth century, anthropological ethnography came to be
one of the models for some strands of research within Western sociology. One of these
was the community study movement. This involved studies of villages and towns in
the United States and Western Europe, often concemed with the impact of urbanization
and industrialization. A landmark investigation here was the work of the Lynds in
documenting life in Muncie, Indiana, which they named 'Middletown' (Lynd and Lynd
1929, 1937).
In a parallel development, many sociologists working at the University of Chicago

from the 1920s to the 1950s developed an approach to studying human social I ife that
was similar to anthropological research in some key respects, though they often labelled
it 'case study'. The 'Chicago School' was concerned with documenting the range of
different pattems of life to be found in the city, and how these were shaped by the
developing urban ecology.
From the 1960s onwards, forms of sociological work influenced by these developments, especially by Chicago sociology, spread across many sub-fields of the discipline,
and into other disciplines and areas of inqui1y as well; and they also migrated from
the United States to Europe and to other parts of the world. Furthermore, for a variety
of reasons, an increasing number of anthropologists began to do research within Western
societies, at first in mral areas but later in urban locales too. 1 Another relevant development in the latter half of the twentieth centmy was the rise of cultural studies as an
area of investigation distinct from, but overlapping with, anthropology and sociology.
Work in this field moved from broadly historical and textual approaches to include
the use of ethnographic method, notably in studying audiences and the whole issue of
cultural consumption. Ftnthennore, in the later decades of the twentieth centwy, ethnography spread even further, for example into psychology and human geography. Indeed,
it tended to get swallowed up in a general, multidisciplinmy, movement promoting
qualitative approaches; though the tenn 'ethnography' still retains some distinctive
connotations. 2
This complex histmy is one of the reasons why 'ethnography' does not have a
standard, well-defined meaning. Over the course of time, and in each of the various
disciplinary contexts mentioned, its sense has been reinterpreted and recontextualized
in various ways, in order to deal with particular circumstances. Part of this remoulding
has arisen fiom the fact that ethnography has been associated with, and also put in
opposition to, various other methodological approaches. Furthennore, it has been
influenced by a range of theoretical ideas: anthropological and sociological functionalism,
philosophical pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, Marxism, phenomenology,
hermeneutics, structuralism, feminism, constructionism, post-stmcturalism and postmodemism. Increasingly, it has been compared and contrasted not just with expeJimental
and survey research but also with interview-based studies, macro-historical analysis,
political economy, conversation and discourse analysis, and psycho-social approaches.
In shmt, 'ethnography' plays a complex and shifting role in the dynamic tapestly
that the social sciences have become in the twenty-fust centmy. However, this tenn
is by no means unusual in lacking a single, standard meaning. Nor does the uncertainty
of sense undermine its value as a label. And we can outline a core definition, while
recognizing that this does not capture all of its meaning in all contexts. In doing this
we will focus, initially, at a fairly practical level: on what ethnographers actually do,
on the sotis of data that they usually collect, and what kind of analysis they deploy
to handle those data. Later we will broaden the discussion to cover some of the ideas
that have infonned, and continue to inform, ethnographic practice.
1 For an account of the development and reconfiguration ofetlmographic work within British anthropology,
see Macdonald (200 J ).
2 Diverse strands and trends of the qualitative research movement are exemplified in the various editions
of the Handbook of Qualitative Research: Denzin and Lincoln (1994, 2000, 2005).
What ethnographers do
In terms of data collection, ethnography usually involves the researcher participating,
overtly or covettly, in people's daily lives for an extended period of time, watching
what happens, listening to what is said, and/or asking questions through informal and
formal interviews, collecting documents and attefacts - in fact, gathering whatever
data are available to throw light on the issues that are the emerging focus of inquiry.
Generally speaking ethnographers draw on a range of sources of data, though they
may sometimes rely primarily on one. 3
In more detailed terms, ethnographic work usually has most of the following features:
People's actions and accounts are studied in evetyday contexts, rather than under
conditions created by the researcher- such as in experimental setups or in highly
structured interview situations. In other words, research takes place 'in the field'.
2 Data are gathered from a range of sources, including documentary evidence of
various kinds, but patticipant observation and/or relatively informal conversations
are usually the main ones.
3 Data collection is, for the most part, relatively 'unstructured', in two senses. First,
it does not involve following through a fixed and detailed research design specified
at the stmt. Second, the categories that are used for interpreting what people say
or do are not built into the data collection process through the use of observation
schedules or questiotmaires. Instead, they are generated out of the process of data
analysis.
4 The focus is usually on a few cases, generally fairly small-scale, perhaps a single
setting or group of people. This is to facilitate in-depth study.
5 The analysis of data involves intetpretation of the meanings, functions, and
consequences of human actions and instihJtional practices, and how these are
implicated in local, and perhaps also wider, contexts. What are produced, for the
mest patt, are verbal descriptions, explanations, and theories; quantification and
statistical analysis play a subordinate role at most.
As this list of features makes clear, as regards what is refen.-ed to in methodological
texts as 'research design', ethnographers typically employ a relatively open-ended
approach (see Maxwell 2004b). They begin with an interest in some patticular area of
social life. While they will usually have in mind what the anthropologist Malinowski
- often regarded as the inventor of modem anthropological fieldwork - called
'foreshadowed problems', their orientation is an exploratory one. The task is to
investigate some aspect of the lives of the people who are being studied, and this
includes finding out how these people view the situations they face, how they regard
one another, and also how they see themselves. It is expected that the initial interests
and questions that motivated the research will be refined, and perhaps even transfmmed,
over the course of the research; and that this may take a considerable amount of time.
Evenntally, through this process, the inquhy will become progressively more clearly
focused on a specific set of research questions, and this will then allow the strategic
3 These methods can include those that are 'unobtrusive': Lee (2000). There has been some dispute
about whether ethnographic studies can rely entirely on interview or documentary data, without
complementary participant observation. See Atkinson and Coffey (2002).
collection of data to pursue answers to those questions more effectively, and to test
these against evidence.
Collecting data in 'natural' settings, in other words in those that have not been
specifically set up for research purposes (such as experiments or fom1al inteJYiews)
also gives a distinctive character to ethnographic work. Where participant observation
is involved, the researcher must find some role in the field being studied, and this will
usually have to be done at least through implicit, and probably also through explicit,
negotiation with people in that field. Access may need to be secured through gatekeepers,
but it will also have to be negotiated and renegotiated with the people being stlldied;
and this is true even where ethnographers are studying settings in which they are
already participants. In the case of interviewing, too, access cannot be assumed to be
available automatically, relations will have to be established, and identities coconstructed.
The initially exploratmy character of ethnographic research means that it will often
not be clear where, within a setting, obsetYation should be begin, which actors need to
be shadowed, and so on. Sampling strategies will have to be worked out, and changed,
as the research progresses. Much the same is true of the use of inteJYiews. Here, decisions
about whom to intetYiew, when, and where, will have to be developed over time, and
the inteJYiewing willnonnally take a relatively unstmctured form, though more stmchtred
or strategic questioning may be used towards the end of the fieldwork. Fmihermore, as
already noted, the data will usually be collected in an unstmctured form, by means
of fieldnotes written in concretely descriptive terms and also through audio- or videorecordings, plus the collection of documents. Given the nahtre of these data, a considerable
amount of effort, and time, will need to go into processing and analysing them. In all
these respects, ethnography is a demanding activity, requiring diverse skills, including
the ability to make decisions in conditions of considerable unce1tilinty.
This is true despite the fact that, as a set of methods, ethnography is not far removed
fiom the means that we all use in everyday life to make sense of our sunoundings, of
other people's actions, and perhaps even of what we do ourselves. What is distinctive
is that it involves a more deliberate and systematic approach than is common for most
of us most of the time, one in which data are specifically sought to illuminate research
questions, and are carefhlly recorded; and where the process of analysis draws on previous
studies and involves intense reflection, including the critical assessment of competing
interpretations. What is involved here, then, is a significant development of the ordinary
modes of making sense of the social world that we all use in our mundane lives, in a
manner that is athmed to the specific purposes of producing research knowledge.
In the remainder of this chapter we will explore and assess a number of
methodological ideas that have shaped ethnography. We shall begin by looking at the
conflict between quantitative and qualitative method as competing models of social
research, which raged across many fields in the past and still continues in some even
today. This was often seen as a clash between competing philosophical positions.
Following some precedent we shall call these 'positivism' and 'naturalism': the former
privileging quantitative methods, the latter promoting etlmography as the central, if
not the only legitimate, social research method. 4 After this we will look at more recent
4 'Naturalism' is a te1m which is used in a variety of different, even contradictory, ways in the literature:
see Matza (1969). Here we have simply adopted the conventional meaning within the ethnographic
literature.
ideas that have shaped the thinking and practice of ethnographers, some inte1pretations
of which are at odds with the earlier commitment to naturalism.
Positivism versus naturalism

Positivism has a long history in philosophy, but it reached its high point in the 'logical
positivism' of the 1930s and 1940s (Kolakowski 1972; Halfpenny 1982; Friedman
1991; Hammersley 1995: ch. 1). This movement had a considerable influence upon
social scientists, notably in promoting the status of experimental and survey research
and the quantitative forms of analysis associated with them. Before this, in both
sociology and social psychology, qualitative and quantitative techniques had generally
been used side by side, often by the same researchers. Nineteenth-century investigators,
such as Mayhew (1861), LePiay (1879) and Booth (1902-3), treated quantitative and
qualitative data as complementmy. Even the sociologists of the Chicago School, often
portrayed as exponents of participant observation, employed both 'case-study' and
'statistical' methods. While there were recurrent debates among them regarding the
relative advantages and uses of the two approaches, there was general agreement on
the value of both (Bulmer, 1984; Harvey 1985; Hammersley 1989a; Deegan 2001). It
was only later, with the rapid development of statistical methods and the growing
influence of positivist philosophy, that survey research came to be regarded by some
of its practitioners as a self-sufficient methodological h"adition. 5
Today, the tenn 'positivism' has become little more than a term of abuse among
social scientists, and as a result its meaning has become obscured. For present purposes,
the major tenets of positivism can be outlined as follows:
The methodological model for social research is physical science, conceived in

terms oft he logic of the experiment. While positivists do not claim that the methods
of all the physical sciences are the same, they do argue that these share a common
logic. This is that of the experiment, where quantitatively measured variables are
manipulated in order to identifY the relationships among them. This logic is taken
to be the defining feature of science.
Universal or statistical laws as the goal for science. Positivists adopt a characteristic
conception of explanation, usually te1med the 'covering law' model. Here events
are explained in deductive fashion by appeal to universal laws that state regular
relationships between variables, holding across all relevant circumstances. However,
it is the statistical version of this model, whereby the relationships have only a
high probability of applying across relevant circumstances, that has generally been
adopted by social scientists; and this has encouraged great concem with sampling
procedures and statistical analysis, especially in survey research. Here, a premium
is placed on the generalizability of findings.
The foundation for science is observation. Finally, positivists give priority to
phenomena that are directly observable, or that can be logically inferred from what
is observable; any appeal to intangibles runs the risk of being dismissed as
metaphysical speculation. It is argtJed that scientific theories must be founded
upon, or tested by appeal to, descriptions that simply cmTespond to the state of
5 In social psychology this process started rather earlier, and it was the experiment which became the
dominant method.
the world, involving no theoretical assumptions and thus being beyond doubt. This
foundation could be sense data, as in traditional empiricism, or it may be the realm
of the 'publicly observable': for example, the movement of physical objects, such
as mercury in a thennometer, which can be easily agreed upon by all observers.
Great emphasis is therefore given to the standardization of procedures of data
collection, which is intended to facilitate the achievement of measurements that
are stable across observers. If measurement is reliable in this sense, it is argued,
it provides a sound, theoretically neutral base upon which to build. This is sometimes
referred to as procedural objectivity.
Central to positivism, then, is a certain conception of scientific method, modelled
on the natural sciences, and in particular on physics (Toulmin 1972). Method here is
concemed with the testing of theories or hypotheses. A sharp distinction is drawn
between the context of discovery and the context of justification (Reichenbach 1938,
1951). The question of how theoretical ideas are generated belongs to the former and
is outside the realm of scientific method. It is the procedures employed in the context
of justification that are held to mark science off from common sense, since they involve
the rigorous assessment of altemative theories from an objective point of view.
Thus, for positivists, the most impmiant feature of scientific theories is that they
are open to, and are actually subjected to, test: that they can be confumed, or at least
falsified, with ce1tainty. This requires the exercise of control over variables, which can
be achieved through physical control, as in experiments, or through statistical control,
as in survey research. Without any control over variables, it is argued, one can do no
more than speculate about causal relationships, since no basis for testing hypotheses
is available. So, the process of testing involves comparing what the the my says should
occur under celia in circumstances with what actually does occur- in short, comparing
it with 'the facts'.
These facts are collected by means of methods that, like the facts they collect, are
r('!garded as theory-neutral; otherwise, it is assumed, they could not provide a conclusive
test of the theory. In particular, every attempt is made to eliminate the effect of the
observer by developing an explicit, standardized set of data elicitation procedures. This
also allows replication by others so that an assessment of the reliability of the fuldings
can be made. In survey research, for example, the behaviour of interviewers is typically
specified down to the wording of questions and the order in which they are asked. In
experiments the conduct of the experimenter is closely defined. It is argued that if it
can be ensured that each smvey respondent or experimental subject in a study and its
replications is faced with the same set of stimuli, then their responses will be comparable.
Where such explicit and standardized procedures are not employed, as in participant
obse1vation, so the argument goes, it is impossible to know how to interpret the
resPQnses since one has no idea what they are responses to. In short, positivists argue
that it is only through the exercise of physical or statistical control of variables, and
their rigorous measurement, that science is able to produce a body of knowledge whose
validity is conclusive; and thus canjustifiablyreplace the myths and dogma of traditional
views or colllll1on sense.
Ethnography, and many kinds of qualitative research, do not match these positivist
canons. 6 As a result, especially in the middle part of the twentieth century, they came
6 At the same time it is worth noting that the anthropological work of Malinowski was influenced by
early positivist ideas: see Leach (1957) and Strenski (1982).
under criticism as lacking scientific rigour. Ethnography was sometimes dismissed

as quite inappropriate to social science, on the grounds that the data and findings it
produces are 'subjective', mere idiosyncratic impressions of one or two cases that
cannot provide a solid foundation for rigorous scientific analysis. In reaction, ethnographers developed an altemative view of the proper nature of social research, which
they often termed 'natmalism' (Lofland 1967; Blumer 1969; Matza 1969; Denzin
1971; Schatzman and Strauss 1973; Guba 1978). Like positivism, this appealed to
natural science as a model, but the latter's method was conceptualized differently, and
the exemplar was usually nineteenth-centmy biology rather than twentieth-centtuy
physics.
Naturalism proposes that, as far as possible, the social world should be studied in
its 'natural' state, undisturbed by the researcher. Hence, 'nahtral' not 'miificial' settings,
like experiments or fonnal interviews, should be the primmy source of data. Fmthermore,
the research must be carried out in ways that are sensitive to the nature of the setting
and that of the phenomena being investigated. The primmy aim should be to describe
what happens, how the people involved see and talk about their own actions and those
of others, the contexts in which the action takes place, and what follows fiom it.
A key element of naturalism is the demand that the social researcher should adopt
an attitude of 'respect' or 'appreciation' towards the social world. In Matza's (1969:
5) words, naturalism is 'the philosophical view that remains true to the nature of the
phenomenon under study' .. This is contrasted with the positivists' primmy and prior
commitment to a conception of scientific method reconstructed from the experience
of natural scientists:
Reality exists in the empirical world and not in the methods used to study that
world; it is to be discovered in the examination of that world .... Methods are
mere instruments designed to identify and analyze the obdurate character of the
empirical world, and as such their value exists only in their suitability in enabling
this task to be done. In this fundamental sense the procedu'res employed in each
pad of the act of scientific enquiry should and must be assessed in tenns of whether
they respect the nature of the empirical world under study - whether what they
signifY or imply to be the nahtre of the empirical world is actually the. case.
(Blumer 1969: 27-8)
>
A first requirement of social research according to naturalism, then, is fidelity to the

phenomena under study, not to any patiicular set of methodological principles, however
strongly supported by philosophical arguments or by the practice of natural scientists.
Moreover, naturalists regard social phenomena as quite distinct in character from
physical phenomena. In this respect, naturalism drew on a wide range of philosophical
and sociological ideas, but especially on symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, and
hermeneutics (thes~; sometimes being collectively labelled 'interpretivism'). From
different stmting points, these traditions all argue that the social world cannot be
understood in terms of simple causal relationships or by the subsumption of social
events under universal laws. This is because human actions are based upon, or infused
by, social or cultural meanings: that is, by intentions, motives, beliefs, mles, discourses,
and values.
For example, at the head of symbolic interactionism is a rejection of the stimulusresponse model of human behaviour, which is built into the methodological arguments
of positivism. In the view of interactionists, people interpret stimuli, and these

interpretations, contin'ually' under revision as events unfold, shape their actions. As a
result, the 'same' physical stimulus can mean differeut things to different people and, indeed, to the same persou at different times. 7 Many years ago, Mehan (1974)
provided a striking example that relates directly to the smt of data collection method
supported by positivism:
A question from [a] language development test instructs the child to choose 'the
animal that can fly' from a bird, an elephant, and a dog. The conect answer
(obviously) is the bird. Many first grade children, though, chose the elephant along
with the bird as a response to that question. When I later asked them why they
chose that answer they replied: 'That's Dumbo'. Dumbo (of course) is Walt Dist1ey's
flying elephant, well known to children who watch television and read children's
books as an animal that flies.
(Mehan 1974: 249)
Such indeterminacy of inte1pretation unde1mines attempts to develop standard measures
of human behaviour. Interpretations of the same set of experimental instructions or
interview questions will undoubtedly vary among people and across occasions; and,
it is argued, this undermines the value of standardized research methods. 8
Equally important, naturalists argue that because people's behaviour is not caused
in a mechanical way, it is not amenable to the smt of causal analysis and manipulation
of variables that are characteristic of the quantitative research inspired by positivism.
Any hope of discovering laws of human behaviour is misplaced, it is suggested, since
human behaviour is continually constructed, and reconstructed, on the basis of people's
interpretations of the situations they are in.
According to naturalism, in order to understand people's behaviour we must use an
approach that gives us access to the meanings that guide their behaviour. Fmtunately,
the capacities we have developed as social actors can give us such access. As pmticipant
observers we can learn the culture or subculture of the people we are studying. We
can come to interpret the world more or less in the same way that they do. In short,
we not only can but also must learn to understand people's behaviour in a different
way from that in which natural scientists set about understanding the behaviour of
physical phenomena. 9
The need to Jeam the culture of those we are studying is most obvious in the case
of societies other than our own. Here, not only may we not know why people do what
they do, but often we may not be able to recognize even what they are doing. We are
in much the same position as Schutz's (1964) stranger: Schutz notes how, in the weeks
and months following an immigrant's mrival in a host society, what he or she previously
took for granted as knowledge about that society turns out to be unreliable, if not
obviously false. In addition, areas of ignorance previ<;lllsly of no importance come to
7 For useful accounts ofinteractionism, see Maines (2001), Atkinson and Housley (2003) and Reynolds
and Herman-Kitmcy (2003).
8 Cooper and Dunne (2000) provide a similar and more developed analysis oft he processes of interpretation
involved in mathematical tests.
9 This fonn of understanding social phenomena is often referred lo as Verstehen. See Truzzi (1974) for
a discussion and illustrations of the history of this concept, and O'Hear (1996) for a more recent
discussion of its role across the social sciences and humanities.
take on great significance; and overcoming them is necessaty for the pursuit of important
goals, perhaps even for the stranger's very survival in the new environment. In the
process of teaming how to patticipate in the host society, the stranger gradually acquires
an inside knowledge of it, which supplants his or her previous 'external' knowledge.
But Schutz argues that by virtue of being forced to come to understand a culture in
this way, the stranger acquires a certain objectivity not no1mally available to culture
members. The latter live inside the culture, and tend to see it as simply a reflection of
'how the world is'. They are often not conscious of the fimdamental presuppositions
that shape their vision, many of which are distinctive to their own culture.
Schutz's (1964) account of the experience of the stranger matches most obviously
the work of anthropologists, who typically study societies very different from their
own. However, the experience of the stranger is not restricted to those moving to live
in another society. Movement among groups within a single society can produce the
same effects; generally, though not always, in a milder form. There are many different
layers or circles of cultural knowledge within any society. Indeed, this is pmticularly
tme of modem industrial societies with their complex divisions of labour, multifarious
lifestyles, ethnic diversity, and deviant communities; and the subcultures and perspectives
that maintain, and are generated by, these social divisions. This was, of course, one
of the major rationales for the research of the Chicago School sociologists. Drawing
on the analogy of plant and animal ecology, they set out to document the very different
pattems of life to be found in different pa1is of the city of Chicago, from the 'high
society' of the so-called 'gold coast' to slum ghettos such as Little Sicily. Later, the
same kind of approach came to be applied to the cultures of occupations, organizations,
and social groups of various kinds.
According to the naturalist account, the value of ethnography as a social research
method is founded upon the existence of such variations in culhual patterns across
and within societies, and their significance for understanding social processes.
Etlmography exploits the capacity that any social actor possesses for learning new
cultures, and the objectivity to which this process gives rise. Even where he or she is
researching a familiar group or setting, the participant observer is required to treat this
as 'anthropologically strange', in an effmi to make explicit the presuppositions he or
she takes for granted as a culture member. In this way, the culture can be turned into
an object available for shtdy. Naturalism proposes that through marginality, in social
position and in perspective, it is possible to constmct an account of the cnlh1re under
investigation that both understands it from within and captures it as extemal to, and
independent of, the researcher: in other words, as a natural phenomenon. Thus, the
description of cultures becomes the primary goal. The search for universal laws is
downplayed in favour of detailed accounts of the concrete experience of life within a
pmiicular culture and of the beliefs and social mles that are used as resources within
it. Indeed, attempts to go beyond this, for instance to explain patiicular cultural fonns,
are sometimes discouraged. Cetiainly, as Denzin (1971: 168) noted, 'the naturalist
resists schemes or models which over-simplify the complexity of evetyday life';
though some fmms of theory, especially those which are believed to be capable of
capturing social complexity, are often recommended, most notably the kind of grounded
themy proposed by Glaser and Strauss. 10
10 See Glaser and Strauss (1968); Strauss and Corbin (1998); Pidgeon and Henwood (2004); for critical
commentaries, see Williams (1976} and Dey (1999).
I0
What is ethnography'!
Over the last decades of the twentieth centllly, the influence of positivism waned
and with it, in many areas~ the dominance of quantitativ~ method; though there are
currently some signs of a revivai.tt At the same time, various aspects of naturalism
came under attack from within the ranks of qualitative researchers. In the next section
we shall explore the ideas that stimulated this.
Anti-realist and political critiques of naturalism

The field of social research methodology nowadays is a complex one. There has been
considerable diversification in qualitative research, including the rise of discourse
and narrative analysis, of various kinds of action research, of autoethnography and
performance studies, and so on. At the same time, there have been growing calls to
combine qualitative methods with quantitative techniques.t 2 These have often been met
with charges that this neglects the conflicting philosophical and political presuppositions
built into qualitative and quantitative approaches (Smith and Heshusius 1986; Smith
1989; Guba 1990; Hodkinson 2004). Along with this, there has been criticism of older
forms of ethnographic work on the grounds that these still betray the influence of
positivism and scientism. What is pointed to here is that, despite their differences,
positivism and naturalism share much in common. They each appeal to the model of
natural science, albeit interpreting it in different ways. As a result, both are committed
to trying to understand social phenomena as objects existing independently of the
researcher. And they therefore claim that research can provide knowledge of the social
world that is superior in validity to that of the people being studied. Equally imp01tant,
they both regard practical and political commitments on the pmt of the researcher as,
for the most pmt, extraneous to the research process - indeed, as a source of potential
disto1tion whose effects have to be guarded against to preserve objectivity.
Many ethnographers have begun to question the commitment to naturalism, challenging these assumptions. Doubts have been raised about the capacity of ethnography
to portray the social world in the way that naturalism claims it does. Equally, the
coll11llitment of the older kinds of ethnography to some smt of value neutrality has
been questioned, and politically interventionist forms of ethnography have been
recommended. We shall look at these two aspects of the critique of naturalism separately,
though they are sometimes closely related.
Questio11ing realism
Many critics of naturalism today reject it on the grounds that, like positivism, it
assumes that the task of social research is to represent social phenomena in some literal
fashion: to document their features and explain their occunence. What is being questioned here is sometimes referred to as realism. In part, criticism of realism stems from
a tension within ethnography between the naturalism characteristic of ethnographers'
methodological thinking and the consiructionism and cultural relativism that shape
their understanding of the perspectives and behaviour of the people-~they study
(Hammersley 1992: ch. 3). As we saw, etlmographers portray people as constructing
11 See Smith and Hodkinson (2006); De112in and Giardina (2006).
12 Some have argued that mixed methods research can be a new paradigm that transcends the distinction
between the other two: see, for example, Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003).
II
the social world, both through tlwir interpretations of it and through actions based on
those interpretations. Furthermore, those interpretations sometimes reflect different
cultures, so that there is a sense in which through their actions people create distinct
social worlds (Blumer 1969: 11 ). But this constructionism and relativism is compatible
with naturalism only so long as it is not applied to ethnographic research itself. Once
we come to see ethnographers as themselves constructing the social world through
their interpretations of it, thereby producing incommensurable accounts that reflect
differences in their b,ackground cultures, there is a conflict with the naturalistic realism
built into older ethnographic approaches.
This internal source of doubts about realism was reinforced by the impact of various
external developments. One was changes in the field of the philosophy of science.
Whereas until the early 1950s positivism had dominated this field, at that time its
dominance began to be undermined, eventually producing a range of alternative
positions, some of which rejected realism. A sign of this change was the enonnous
influence of Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientffic Revolutions (Kuhn 1996;
first published in 1962). Kuhn argued against views of the history of science that
pmtray it as a process of cumulative development towards the truth, achieved by rational
investigation logically founded on evidence. He, and others, showed that the work of
those involved in the major developments of scientific knowledge in the past was
shaped by theoretical presuppositions about the world that were not themselves based
on empirical research, and many of which are judged by scientists today as false. Kuhn
fi.nther claimed that the history of science, rather than displaying the gradual build-up
of knowledge, is punctuated by periods of revolution when the theoretical
presuppositions forming the 'paradigm' in terms of which scientists in a particular
field have previously operated are challenged and replaced. An example is the shift
from Newtonian physics to relativity theory and quantum mechanics in the early part
of the twentieth centu1y. The replacement of one paradigm by another, according to
Kuhn, does not, because it cannot, occur on the basis simply of the rational assessment
of evidence. Paradigms are incommensurable, they picture the world in incompatible
ways, so that the data themselves are interpreted differently by those working within
different paradigms. This implies that judgements of the validity of scientific claims
is always relative to the paradigm within which they operate are judged; they are never
simply a reflection of some independent domain of reality. 13
Kuhn's work embodied most of the arguments against positivism that had become
influential: that there is no theory-neutral observational foundation against which theories
can be tested, and that judgements about the validity of theories are never fully
detetmined by any evidence. He also proposed an alternative conception of science
that contrasted sharply with the positivist model. However, his critique counted as
much against naturalism, against the idea of the researcher getting into direct contact
with reality, as it did against positivism. On his account, all knowledge of the world
is mediated by paradigmatic presuppositions. Fmthermore, the altemative view he
offered made natural scientists look ve1y similar to the people that ethnographers had
long portrayed in their accounts as constmcting diverse social worlds. And sociologists
of science have subsequently produced ethnographies of the work of natural scientists
and technological innovators along these lines (see Hess 2001). In this way, natural
13 There is some ambiguity in Kuhn's work, and this has led to disputes about its interpretation. For a
detailed discussion see Sharrock and Read (2002).
12
science moved from being primarily a methodological model for social research to
being an object of sociological investigation; and in many ways this brought the
conflict between naturalism and constmctionism to a head.
As important as developments within the philosophy of science for the generation
of doubts about realism was the influence of various continental European philosophical
trends. Naturalism had been influenced by nineteenth-century ideas about hermeneutics,
about the interpretation of historical texts, notably the work of Dilthey (see Makkreel
1975). This was the source of the idea, mentioned earlier, that socio-cultural understanding takes a different fonn from how natural scientists go about understanding
physical phenomena. In the twentieth century, however, this earlier henneneutic tradition
came to be challenged by a new fmm of 'philosophical hermeneutics', developed by
Gadamer (see Howard 1982; Wamke 1987; Dostal 2002). Where, previously, understanding human texts had been presented as a rigorous task of recovering the meaning
intended by the author and locating it within relevant cultural settings, philosophical
hermeneutics viewed .the process of understanding as inevitably reflecting the 'prejudices', the pre-tmderstandings, of the interpreter. Interpretation of texts, and by extension
understanding of the social world too, could no longer be seen as a matter of capturing
social meanings in their own terms; the accounts produced were regarded as constructions
that inevitably reflected the socio-historical position and background assumptions of
the researcher.
Another powerful influence on etlmography has been post-structuralism and postmodernism. These labels refer to a diverse set of ideas and work, but we shall mention
just two of the most influential figures: Derrida's 'deconstruction' and the work of
Foucault. 14 Like philosophical hermeneutics, deconstmction has also led to a ques- .
tioning of the idea that ethnographers can capture the meanings on the basis of which
people act. It does this because it argues that meanings are not stable; nor are they
prope11ies of individuals. Rather, they reflect the shiftilig constitutive role of language.
Also impm1ant has been deconstmction's undermining of the distinctions between
. different genres of writing: its advocates have sought toerase the differentiation between
fiction and non-fiction, indeed between literary and technical writing generally. This
has led to recognition of the fact that the language used by ethnographers in their
writing is not a transparent. medium allowing us to see reality through it, but rather a
construction that draws on many of the rhetorical strategies used by journalists, travel
writers, novelists, and others. Some commentators have drawn the conclusion from
this that the phenomena described in ethnographic accounts are created in and through
the rhetorical strategies employed, rather than being external to the text; in short, this
concern with rhetoric has often been associated with fonns of anti-realism. 15
Foucault's work is also based on a rejection of realism: he is not concemed with
the tmth or falsity of the ideas that he studies - for example about madness or sex
- but rather with the 'regimes of truth' by which they are constituted and how they
have structmed institutional practices during the development of Western society. 16
14 For an excellent account of the rise of these ideas in the context of French philosophy, see Gutting
(2001).
15 See, for example, Tyler (1986), Ashmore (1989); Piper and Stronach (2004).
16 The statement that Foucault rejects realism, while nol fundamentally misleading, does obscure both
lhe, probably witting, ambiguities in his work in this respect, and its emergence out of the tradition
of ralionalist epistemology: see Gutting (1989). On Foucault more generally, see Gutling (1994).
13
He stresses the fact that the psychological and social sciences are socio-historical in
character, and claims that they fUnction as pmi of the process of surveillance and
control, which he sees as the central feature of modern society. Their products reflect
this social character, rather than representing some world that is independent of them.
Foucault argues that different regimes of tmth are established in different contexts,
reflecting the play of diverse sources of power and resistance. Thus, what is treated
as tme and false, in social science as elsewhere, is constituted through the exercise of
power. 17
The reception of post-stmcturalist and postmodemist ideas in the context of AngloAmerican qualitative research has involved diverse readings and responses to what
was, of course, by no means a coherent set of texts; these extending well beyond those
of Denida and Foucault. Typically, these readings and responses have reinforced
tendencies towards anti-realism of some kind, encouraged the adoption of non-Marxist
Leftist political orientations, and involved the idea that some discourses/voices are
suppressed and that the function of research should be to liberate them. Much less
commonly, this influence bas also led to the subversion of conventional ethnographic
textual strategies.
While realism has not been completely abandoned by most ethnographers, the idea
that ethnographic accounts can represent social reality in a relatively straightforward
way (for example, through the ethnographer getting close to it) has been widely rejected;
and doubt has been thrown on the claims to scientific authority associated with realism.
Moreover, in the work of Foucault especially, we have a direct link with the second
criticism of naturalism: its neglect of the politics of social research.
Tire politics of ethnography

Naturalists shared with positivists a commitment to producing accounts of factual
matters that reflect the nature of the phenomena studied rather than the values or
political commitments of the researcher. Of course, both recognized that, in practice,
research is affected by the researcher's values, but the aim was to limit the influence
of those values as far as possible, so as to produce findings that were hue independently
of any patiicular value stance. Since the mid-1980s, any such striving after value
neutrality and objectivity has been questioned, sometimes being replaced by advocacy
of'openly ideological' research (Lather 1986), 'militant anthropology' (Scheper-Hughes
1995), or research that is explicitly carried out from the standpoint of a particular
group, for example women, those suffering racism, indigenous peoples, or people with
disabilities (see Denzin and Lincoln 2005).
In pa1t this has resulted from the continuing influence of Marxism and 'critical'
theory, but equally important has been the impact of feminism and of post-structuralism.
From a traditional Marxist point of view the ve1y distinction between facts and values
is a historical product, and one that can be overcome through the future development
of society. Values refer to the human potential that is built into the unfolding of history.
In this sense values are facts, even though they may not yet have been realized in the
social world. Moreover, they provide the key to any understanding of the nature of
current social conditions, their past, and their future. From this point of view, a science
17 For discussions of the implications of Foucault's work for ethnography, see Gubrium and Silverman
(1989); Kendall and Wickham (2004).
14
of society should proyide pot only abstract knowledge but also the basis for action to
transform the world so as to bring about human self-realization. On this argument,
ethnography, like other fotms of social research, cmmot but be concemed simultaneously
with factual and value matters, and its role inevitably involves political intervention
(whether researchers.are aware of this or not).
A similar conclusion about the political character of social research has been reached
in other ways, for example by those who argue that because research is always affected
by values, and always has political consequences, researchers must take responsibility
for their value commitments and for the effects of their work. It has been suggested
that ethnography and other fonns of social research have had too little impact, that
their products simply lie on library shelves gathering dust, and that as a result they
are worthless. To be of value, it is suggested, ethnographic research should be concerned
not simply with understanding the world but with applying its findings to bring about
change (see, for example, Gewirtz and Cribb 2006).
There are differences in view about the nature of the change that should be aimed
at. Sometimes the concem is with rendering research more relevant to national policymaking or to one or another fonn of professional practice (see, for example, Hustler
et al. 1986; Hart and Bond 1995; Healy 2001; Taylor et al. 2006). Altematively, or
as part of this, it may be argued that research should be emancipato1y. This has been
proposed by feminists, where the goal is the emancipation of women (and men) from
patriarchy (Fonow and Cook 1991; Lather 1991; Olesen 2005); but it is also to be
found in the writings of critical ethnographers and advocates of emancipatmy action
research, where the goal of research is taken to be the transformation of Western
societies so as to realize the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice (Gitlin eta/. 1989;
Kemmis and McTaggart 2005). Similar developments have occulTed in the field of
disability sh1dies (Bames 2003) and in the context of queer theory (Plummer 2005).
Of course, to the extent that the vety possibility of producing knowledge is
undermined by the so1t of anti-realist arguments we outlined earlier, a concern with
the practical or political effects of research may come to seem an essential alternative
goal to the traditional concern with nuth. This too has led to the growth of more intet'ventionist conceptions of ethnography. In this way post-suucturalism and postmodemism have contributed to the politicization of social research, though in a far from
unambiguous way because they seem simultaneously to undermine all political ideals
(Dews 1987). For example, they threaten any appeal to the interests or rights of
Humanity; and in the context of feminist research they challenge the concept of
woman.
Reflexivity
The criticisms of naturalism we have outlined are sometimes seen as arising from what
has been called the reflexive character of social research. 18 It is argued that what both
positivism and naturalism fail to take into account is the fact that social researchers
are part of the social world they study. A sharp distinction between science and common
18 'Reflexivity' is a term that has come to be used in a variety of different ways, and the meaning we
are giving to it here is by no means uncontested, see Lynch (2000). For discussions of some of the
problems with reflexivity, see Troyna (1994); Paechter (1996); Adkins (2002); Finlay (2002); Haney
(2002).
15
sense, between the activities and la)owledge of the researcher and those of the researched,
lies at the heatt of both these positions. It is this that leads to their joint concem with
eliminating the effects of the researcher on the data. For positivism, the solution is the
standardization of research procedmes; for naturalism, it is getting into direct contact
with the social world, and in extrel11e fotm the requirement that ethnographers 'surrender'
themselves to the cultures they wish to study (Wolff 1964; Jules-Rosette 1978a,
1978b). Both positions assume that it is possible, in principle at least, to isolate a body
of data uncontaminated by the researcher, by turning him or her either, in one case,
into an automaton or, in the other, into a neutral vessel of cultural experience. However,
searches for empirical bedrock of this kind are futile; all data involve presuppositions
(Hanson 1958).
The concept of reflexivity acknowledges that the orientations of researchers will be
shaped by their socio-historical locations, including the values and interests that these
locations confer upon them. What this represents is a rejection of the idea that social
research is, or can be, carried out in some autonomous realm that is insulated from
the wider society and from the biography of the researcher, in such a way that its
findings can be unaffected by social processes .and personal characteristics. Also, it is
emphasized that the production of lawwledge by researchers has consequences. At the
very least, the publication of research findings can shape the climate in which political
at1d practical decisions are made, and it may even directly stimulate patticular sorts
of action. In fact, it may change the character of the situations that were studied.
Moreover, the consequences of research are not neutral in relation to what are widely
felt to be impmtant values, nor are they necessarily desirable. Indeed, some commentators
see social research as playing an undesirable role in supporting one or another aspect
of the political status quo in Western societies. As we saw, for Foucault, the social
sciences were patt of a modem apparatus of surveillance.
There is no doubt that reflexivity, in the sense just outlined, is a significant feature
of social research. Indeed, there is a sense in which all social research takes the fonn
of patticipant observation: it involves patticipating in the social world, in whatever
role, and reflecting on the products of that participation. However, it is not necessary
to draw conclusions from the reflexivity of social research of the kind that critics of
nahJralism have done. In our view, recognition of reflexivity implies that there are
elements of positivism and nahtralism which must be abandoned; but it does not
require rejection of all the ideas associated with those two lines of thinking. Thus, we
do not see reflexivity as undennining researchers' commitment to realism. In our view
it only undermines naive forms of realism which assume that knowledge must be based
on some absolutely secure foundation. 19 Similarly, we do not believe that reflexivity
implies that research is necessarily political, or that it should be political, in the sense
of serving particular political causes or practical ends. For us, the exclusive, immediate
goal of all research is, and must remain, the production of knowledge.
Reflexivity ami realism

It is true that we cannot avoid relying on 'common-sense' knowledge nor, often, can
we avoid having an effect on the social phenomena we study. In other words, there
19 For an influential epistemological analysis that recognizes the fallible character of any evidence but
retains a commibnenl to realism, see Haack (1993). See also Hammersley (2004).
16
is no way in which we can escape the social world in order to study it. Fortunately,
though, this is not necessluy from a realist point of view. There is as little justification
for rejecting all common-sense knowledge out of hand as there is for treating it as all
'valid in its own terms': we have no external, absolutely conclusive standard by which
to judge it. But we can work with what we currently take to be knowledge, while
recognizing that it may be erroneous; and engaging in systematic inqui1y where doubt
seems justified. And in doing this we can still make the reasonable assumption that
we are able to describe phenomena as they are, and not merely how we perceive them
or how we would like them to be (Hammersley 1992: ch. 3). All of us, in our eve1yday
activities, rely on presuppositions about the world, few of which we have subjected
to test ourselves, and none of which we could fblly and independently test. Most of
the time this does not and should not trouble us, and social research is no different
from other activities in this respect. We need to reflect only on what seems - or can
be shown to be -problematic, while leaving open the possibility that what currently
is not problematic may in the fi1ture become so.
It is also impmtant to recognize that research is an active process, in which accounts
of the world are produced through selective observation and theoretical interpretation
of what is seen, through asking particular questions and interpreting what is said in
reply, through writing fieldnotes and transcribing audio- and video-recordings, as well
as through writing research repmts. And it is true that some aspects of this process
have not been given the attention they deserve until recently. However, to say that our
findings, and even our data, are constructed does not automatically imply that they do
not or cannot represent social phenomena. To believe that this is implied is to assume
that the only true form of representation would involve the world imprinting its
characteristics on our senses without any activity on our part, a highly implausible
account even of the process of perception (Gregmy 1970).
Similarly, the fact that as researchers we are likely to have an effect on the people
we study does not mean that the validity of our findings is restricted to the data
elicitation situations on which we relied. We can minimize reactivity and/or monitor
it. But we can also exploit it: how people respond to the presence of the researcher
may be as informative as how they react to other situations. Indeed, rather than engaging
in fi1tile attempts to eliminate the effects of the researcher completely, we should set
about understanding them, a point that Schuman (1982) made in relation to social
surveys:
The basic position I will take is simple: artifacts are in the mind of the beholder.
Barring one or two exceptions, the problems that occur in smveys are oppmtunities
for understanding once we take them seriously as facts of life. Let us distinguish
here between the simple survey and the scientific survey .... The simple approach
to survey research takes responses literally, ignores interviewers as sources of
influence, and treats sampling as unproblematic. A person who proceeds in this
way is quite likely to trip and fall right on his artifact. The scientific survey, on
the other hand, treats survey research as a search for meaning, and ambiguities of
language and of interviewing, discrepancies between attitude and behaviour, even
problems of non-response, provide an important part of the data, rather than being
ignored or simply regarded as obstacles to efficient research.
(Schuman 1982: 23)
17
In short, 'what is an a1tifact ift,reated naively reflects a fact of life if taken seriously'
(Schuman 1982: 24). In order to understand the effects of the research and of research
procedures, we need to compare data in which the level and direction of reactivity
va1y. Once we abandon the idea that the social character of research can be standardized
out or avoided by becoming a 'fly on the wall' or a 'full pmticipant', the role of the
researcher as active pa1ticipant in the research process becomes clear. As has long
been recognized by ethnographers, he or she is the research instrument par excellence.
The fact that behaviour and attitudes are often not stable across contexts and that the
researcher may influence the context becomes central to the analysis. Indeed, it can
be exploited for all it is worth. Data should not be taken at face value, but treated as
a field of inferences in which hypothetical pattems can be identified and their validity
tested. Different research strategies can be explored and their effects compared with
a view to drawing theoretical conclusions. Interpretations need to be made explicit and
full advantage should be taken of any opportunities to test their limits and to assess
alternatives. Such a view contrasts sharply with the image of social research projected
by naturalism, though it is closer to some other models of ethnographic research such
as 'grounded theorizing', 'analytic induction', and the strategy model to be found
alongside naturalism in the work of Schatzman and Strauss ( 1973). And in this way
the image of the researcher is brought into parallel with that of the people studied, as
actively making sense of the world, yet without undermining the commitment of research
to realism.
Reflexivity mul the political chamcter of research

Positivism anclnahJralism, in the forms we have discussed them, tend to present research
as an activity that is clone for its own sake and in its own terms. By cOJitrast, as we
have seen, some critics insist that research has a social f\.mction, for instance serving
to legitimize and preserve the status quo. And on this basis they argue that researchers
must lly to make their research serve a different function, such as challenging the
stah1s quo, in some respect. Often, this point of view is organized around the question:
whose side is the researcher on? (Becker 1967b; Troyna and CalTington 1989; but see
Hammersley 2000: ch. 3).
As we saw earlier, others argue that what is wrong with ethnography is its lack of
impact on policy-making and practice, its limited payoff in the everyday worlds of
politics and work. Here it is dismissed as an idle pastime, a case of fiddling while the
world bums; one that is engaged in by intellectual dilettantes who live off the taxes
paid by hard-working citizens.
These criticisms of naturalist ethnography seem to us to involve an overestimation
of the actual and potential contribution of research to policy and practice, and an
associated failure to value the more modest contributions it offers (Rule 1978;
Hammersley 2002). It is also worth pointing out that one may believe that the only
justification for research is its contribution to policy and practice, and recognize that
it inevitably has effects on these, without concluding that it should be directed towards
the achievement ofpa1ticular political or practical goals. Indeed, there are good reasons
for research not being directed towards such goals. The most impottant one is that this
would increase the chances of the f\.ndings being distmted by ideas about how the
world ought to be, or by what it would be politic for others to believe. When we are
18
engaged in political or pr<)ctical action, the tiUth of what we say is not always our
principal concem, even though we may prefer to be honest. We are more interested
in the practical effects of our actimis, and sometimes this may lead us to be 'economical'
with the huth, at the very least; perhaps even in relation to ourselves (Benson and
Stangroom 2006: ch. 1). Moreover, even where the truth of our beliefs is the main
issue, in practical activities judgement of factual and value claims as more or less
reliable will be based on somewhat different considerations than in research directed
towards producing knowledge: we will probably be concemed above all with whether
the information is sufficiently reliable for our current purposes. Of course, if one
believes, as Marx and others did and do, that (ultimately at least) the tme and the good
are identical, one might deny the significance of this difference in orientation between
research and other practical activities. But this view relies on an elaborate and
unconvincing philosophical infrastructure (Hammersley 1992: ch. 6, 1993 ).
It is wmth emphasizing that to deny that research should be directed towards political
goals is not to suggest that researchers could, or should, abandon their political
convictions. It is to insist that as researchers their primary goal must always be to
produce knowledge, and that they should try to minimize any distortion of their
findings by their political convictions or practical interests. Nor are we suggesting that
researchers should be unconcemed about the effects of their work on the world. The
point-is-that-acknowlfldging the reflexivity of research does not imply that it must be
primarily directed towards changing (or for that matter preserving) the world in some
way or other. And, as we have indicated, there are good reasons why it should not be
so directed.
Conclusion
We began this chapter by examining two contrasting accounts of the 1ogic of social
research and their implications for ethnography. Neither positivism nor naturalism
provides an adequate framework. Both neglect its fundamental reflexivity: the fact that .
we are patt of the social world we study, and that there is no escape from reliance on
common-sense knowledge and methods of investigation. All social research is founded
on the human capacity for pmticipant obsetvation. We act in the social world and yet
are able to reflect upon ourselves and our actions as objects in that world. However,
rather than leading to doubts about whether social research can produce knowledge,
or to the desire to transform it into a political entetprise, for us this reflexivity provides
the basis for a reconstructed logic of inquity that shares much with positivism ana
naturalism but goes beyond them in impmtant respects. By including our own- iole
within the research focus, and perhaps even systematically exploiting our patiicipation
in the settings under study as researchers, we can produce accounts of the social world
and justifY them without placing reliance on futile appeals to empiricism, of either
positivist or naturalist varieties.
Reconstructing our understanding of social research in line with the implications of
its reflexivity also throws light on the relationship between quantitative and qualitative
approaches. Cettainly there is little justification for the view, associated with naturalism,
that ethnography represents a superior, alternative paradigm to quantitative research.
On the other hand, it has a much more powerful contribution to make to social science
than positivism allows. And, while combining different methods, for particular purposes,
19
may often be of value, this shouldpot be done at the expense of forgetting the impmtant
methodological ideas associated v.iith ethnography, and with qualitative research more
generally.
Reflexivity is an aspect of all social research. It is one that has been given increasing attention by ethnographers and others in recent years, notably in the production
of 'natural histories' of particular st:udies. 20 The remainder of this book is devoted
to spelling out what we take to be the implications of reflexivity for ethnographic
practice.
20 For a listing of examples of natural histories of social research, see Hammersley (2003b).
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about confronting already constituted disciplines (none of
which, in fact, is willing to let itself go). To do something interdisciplinary it's not enough ,to choose a "subject" (a theme)
and gather around it two or three sciences. Interdisciplinarity
consists in creating a new object that belongs to no one.
ROLAND BARTHES, "Jeunes Chercheurs"
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Our frontispiece shows Stephen Tyler, one of this volume's

contributors, at work in India in 1963. The eth:rlographer is absorbed
in writing-taking dictation? fleshing out an interpretation? recording an important observation? dash~ng off a poem? Hunched over in
the heat, he has draped a we.t cloth over his glasses. His expression is
obscured. An interlocutor looks over his shoulder-with boredom?
patience? amusement? In this image the ethnographer hovers at the
edge of the frame-faceless, almost extraterrestrial, a hand that
writes. It is not the usual portrait of anthropological fieldwork. We ate
more accust~med to pictures of Margaret Mead exuberantly playing
with children in Manus or questioning villagers in Bali. Participantobservation, the clasSic formula for ethnographic work, leaves little
room for texts. But still, somewhere lost in his account of fieldwork
among the Mbuti pygmies-running along jungle paths, sitting up at
night singing, sleeping in a crowded leaf hut-Colin Turnbull mentions that he lugged around a typewriter.
In Bronislaw Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific, where a
photograph of the ethnographer's tent among Kiriwinan dwellings is
prominently displayed~ there is no revelation of the tent's interior. But
in another photo, catefully posed, Malinowski recorded himself writ-
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Introduction
JAMES CUFFORD
ing at a table. (The tent flaps are pulled back; he sits in profile, and
some T robrianders stand outside, observing the curious rite.) This remarkable picture was only published two years ago-a sign of our
times, not his. 1 We begin, not with participant-observation or with cul.tural texts (suitable for interpretation), but with writing, the making
of texts. No longer a marginal, or occulted, dimension, writing has
emerged as central to what anthropologists do both in the field and
thereafter. The fact that it has not until recently been portrayed or
seriously discussed reflects the persistence of an ideology claiming
transparency of representation and immediacy of experience. Writing reduced tO method: keeping good field notes, making accurate
maps, "writing up" results.
The essays collected here assert that this idw~as crumbleP,.
They see culture as composed of seriously contested codes and T:"~pre
s~ntations; they assume that the poetic and the political are inseparable, that science is in, nm above, historical and linguistic processes.
They assume that academic and literary genres interpenetrate and
that the Wij_ting.of cultural descriptions is properly experimental and
ethical. Their focus on text making and rhetoric serves to highlight
the constructed, artificial nature of cultural accounts. It undermines
overly transparent modes of authority, and it draws attention to the
historical predicament of ethnography, the fact that it is always caught
up in the invention, not the representation, of cultures (Wagner
1975). As will soon be apparent, the range of issues raised is not literary in any traditional sense. Mos.l_of_the_essays, while-fb----cllsmg-on textual practices, reach beyoncLtexts-to~contexts--ofpower,-reSistarice, institutional constraint, and innovation.
Ethnographf's tr.ldition is that of Herodotus and of Montesquieu's
Persian. It looks obliquely at all collective arrangements, distant or
nearby. It makes the familiar strange, the exotic quotidian. Ethnography cultivates an engaged clarity like that urged by Virginia Woolf:
"Let us never cease from thinking-what is this 'civiliz~tion' in which
we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take
part in them? What are these professions and why should we make
money out of them? Where in short is it leading us, the proceSsion of
the sons of educated men?" (1936: 62-63). Ethnography is actively
situate4 between powerful systems of meaning. lt poses its questions at
ihe boundaries of civilizations, cultures, classes, races, and genders.
Ethnography decodes and recodes, telling the grounds of-~ollective
order and diversity, inclusion and exclusion. It describes processes of
"""
"Uterary: approaches have recently enjoyed some popularity
in the human sciences. In anthropology influential' writers such as
Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, Mary Douglas, Claude Levi-Strauss,
jean Duvignaud, and Edmund Leach, to mention only a few, have
shown an interest in literary theory and practice. In their quite different ways they have blurred the boundary separating art from science.
Nor is theirs a new attraction. Malinowski's authorial identifications
(Conrad, Frazer) are well known. Margaret Mead, Edward Sapir,
and Ruth Benedict saw themselves as both anthropologists and literary artists. In Paris surrealism and professional ethnography regulariy exchanged both ideas and personnel. But until recently literary
influences have been held at a distance from the "rigorous" core of
1. Malinowski 1961: 17. The photograph inside the tent was published in'1g83 by
George Stocking in History of Amhropology 1:101. This volume contains other telling
scenes of ethnographic writing.
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innovation and structuration, and is itself part of these processes.

Ethnography is an emergent interdisciplinary phenomenon. Its
authority and rhetoric have spread to many fields where "culture" is
a newly problematic object of description and critique. The present
book, though beginning with fieldwork and its texts, opens onto the
wider practice of writing about, against, and among cultures. This
blurred purview includes, to name only a few developing perspectives, historical ethnography (Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Natalie
Davis, Carlo Ginzburg), cultural poetics (Stephen Greenblatt), cultural
criticism (Hayden White, Edward Said, Fredric jameson), the analysis
of implicit knowledge and everyday practices (Pierre Bourdieu, Michel
de Certeau), the critique of hegemonic structures of feeling (Raymond
Williams), the study of scientific communities (following Thomas
Kuhn), the semiotics of exotic worlds and fantastic spaces (Tzvetan
Todorov, Louis Marin), and all those studies that focus on meanirlg
systems, disputed traditions, or cultural artifacts.
Thls complex interdisciplinary area, approached here from the
starting point of a crisis in anthropology, is changing and diverse.
Thus I do not want to impose a false unity on the exploratory essays
that follow. Though sharing a general sympathy for approaches combining poetics, politics, and history, they frequently disagree. Many
of the contributions fuse literary theory and ethnography. Some
probe the limits of such approaches, stressing the dangers of estheticism and the constraints of institutional power. Others enthusiastically
advocate experimental forms of writing. But in their 1Jifferent ways
they all analyze past and present practices out of a commitment tofuture possibilities. They see ethnographic writing as changing_; inven~
tive: "History," in William Carlos Williams's words, ~hat should be a
left hand to us, as of a violinist:'
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JAMES CUFFORD
the discipline. Sapir and Benedict had, after all, to hide their poetry
from the .scientific gaze of Franz Boas. And though ethnographers
have often been called novelists manque (especially those who write a
little too well), the notion that literary procedures pervade any work
of cultural representation is a recent idea in the discipline. To a growing number, however, the "literariness" of anthropology-and especially of ethnography-appears as much more than a matter of good
writing or distinctive style. 2 Literary processes-metaphor, figuration,
narrative-affect the ways cultural phenomena are registered, from
the first jotted "observations," to the completed book, to the ways
these configurations "make sense" in determined acts of reading. 3
It has long been asserted that scientific anthropology is also an
"an," that ethnographies have literary qualities. We often hear that -an
author writes with style, that certain descriptions are vivid or convincing (should not every accurate description be convincing?). A work is
deemed evocative or artfully composed in addition to being factual;
expressive, rhetorical functions are conceived as decorative or merely
as ways to present an objective analysis or description more effectively.
Thus the facts of the matter may be kept separate, at least in principle,
from their means of communication. But the literary or rhetorical dimensions of ethnography can no longer be so easily compartmentalized. They are active at every level of cultural science. Indeed, the very
notion of a "literary" approach to a discipline, ~'anthropology," is seriously misleading.
The prese-!).t _essays do not represent a tendency or perspective
within a coherent "anthropology" (pace Wolf 1g8o). The "four-field"
definition of the discipline, of which Boas was perhaps the last virtuoso, included physical (or biological) anthropology, archaeology, cultural (or social) anthropology, and linguistics. Few today can seriously
claim that these fields share a unified approach or object, though the
dream persists, thanks largely to institutional arrangements. The esSays in this volume occupy .a new space opened up by the disintegration of "Man" as telos for a whole discipline, and they draw on recent
developments in the fields of textual criti_cism, cultural history, semiotics, hermeneutic philosophy, and psychoanalysis. Some years ago, in
2. A partial list of wor~ ~ploring ~ expanded field of the "literary" in anthropology includes (not menuorung contnbutors to the present volume): Boon 1972,
1977, 1982; Gecrtz ~973 1983; Turner 1974, 1975; Fernandez 1974; Diamond 1974;
Duvignaud 1970, 1973; F~vret-Saada 1980; Favret.Saada and Contrer.as 1g81; Dumont
1978; Tedlock 1983;jaiD1P 1979, 1980, 1985; Webster 1982; Thornton 1983, 1984.
3 See the work of Hayden Whlte (1973, 1978) for a tropological theory of "prefigured" realities; also Latour and Woolgar (1979) for a view of scientific activity as
"inscription."
~t;
Introduction
a trenchant essay, Rodney Needham surveyed the theoretical incoherence, tangled roots, impossible bedfellows, and divergent specializations that seemed to be leading to academic anthropology's intellectual
~
disintegyation. He suggested with ironic equanimity that the field
might soon be redistributed among a variety of neighboring disci~t,,
plines. Anthropology in its present form would undergo an irides~
cent metamorphosis" (1970:46). The present essays are part of the
-'.~
metamorphosis.
f
But if they are post-anthropological, they are also post-literary.
g
Michel Foucault (1973), Michel de Certeau (1g8g), and Terry Eagleton
f',.;:
(1983) have recently argued that "literature" itself is a rransient cate1~
gory. Since the seventeenth century. they suggest, Western science has
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excluded certain expressive modes from its legitimate repertoire:
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rhetoric (in the name of "plain," transparent signification), fiction (in
the name of fact), and subjectivity (in the name of objectivity). The
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qualities eliminated from -science were l.ocalized in the category of "liti:
erature." Literary texts were deemed tO be metaphoric and allegorjcal, composed of inventions rather than observed facts; they allowed a
K
wide latitude to the emotions, spec~;~-lations, and subjective "genius" of
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their authors. De Certeau notes that the fictions of literary language
H
were scientifically condemned (and esthetically appreciated) for lack;~:
ing "univocity,'' the purportedly unambiguous accounting of natural
science and professionallllstory. In this schema, the discourse of liter)';
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ature and fiction is inherently unstable; it ''plays on the stratification
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effects of meaning that cannot be circumscribed or checked" (1983:
1
128). This discourse, repeatedly banished from science, but with un~
. . _ even success, is incurably figurative and -polysemous. (Whenever its
]
\effects begin to ~ felt too openly, a scientific text will appear "liter
3.ry"; it will seem to be using too many metaphors. to be relying on
style, evocation,- and so on.) 4
t
By the nineteenth century,literature had emerged as a bourgeois
,]
institution closely allied with "culture" and "an." Raymond Williams
. E --- (1g66) shows how this special, refined sensibility functioned as a kind
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of coun of appeals in response to the perceived dislocations and vulgarity of industrial, class society. Literature and art were, in effect, cir-
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4 "It might be objected that figurative style is not the only style, or even the only
poetic style, and that rhetoric also takes cognUance of what is called simp! style. But in
fact this is merely a less decorated style, or rather, a style decorated more simply, and it,
too, like the lyric and the ~pic, has its own special figures. A style in which figure is
stricdy absent does not exist," writes Gerard Gen~ne (1982 :47).
.!::'-
cumscribed zones in which nonutilitarian, Hhigher" values were maintained. At the same time they were domains for the playing out of
experimental, avant-garde transgressions. Seen in this light, the ideological formations of art and culture have no essential oi eternal status. They are changing and contestable, like the special rhetoric of
"literature." The essays that follow do not, in fact, appeal to a literary
practice marked off in an esthetic, creative, or humanizing domain.
They struggle, in their different ways, against the received definitions
of art, literature, science, and history. And if they sometimes suggest
that ethnography is an "art," they return the word to an older usagebefore it had become associated with a higher or rebellious sensibility-to the eighteenth-century meaning Williams recalls: art as the
skillful fashioning of useful artifacts. The making of ethnography is
artisanal, tied to the worldly work of writing.
Ethnographic writing is determined in at least six ways: (1) contextually (it draws from and creates meaningful social milieux); (2)
rhetorically (it uses and is used by expressive conventions); (g) institutionally (one writes within, and against, specific traditions, disciplines,
audiences); (4) generically (an ethnography is usually distinguishable
from a novel or a travel account); (5) politically (the authority to rep-'
resent cultural realities is unequally shared and at times contested);
(6) historically (all the above conventions and constraints are changing). These determinations govern the inscription of coherent ethnographic fictions.
To call ethnographies fictions may raise empiricist hackles. But
the word as commonly used in recent textual theory has lost its connotation of falsehood, of something merely opposed to truth. It suggests the partiality of cultural and historical truths, the ways they are
systematic and exclusive. Ethnographic writings can properly be
called fictions in the sense of "something made or fashioned," the
principal burden of the word's Latin root, fingere. But it is important
to preserve the meaning not merely of making. but also of making up;
of inventing things not actually real. (Fingere, in some of its uses, implied a degree of falsehood.) Interpretive social scientists have recently come to view good ethnographies as "true fictions," but uSually
at the cost of weakening the oxymoron, reducing it to the banal claim
that all truths are constructed. The essays collected here keep the oxymoron sharp. For example, Vincent Crapanzano portrays _ethnographers as tricksters, promising, like Hermes, not to lie, but never undertaking to tell the whole truth either. Their rhetoric empowers and
subverts their message. Other essays n!infOrce the poiD.t by stressing
that cultural fictions are based on systematic, and contestable, exclusions. These may involve silencing incongruen.t voices ("Two Crows
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Introduction
. denies it!") or deploying a consistent manner of quoting, "speaking

for," translating the reality of others. Purportedly irrelevant personal
or historical circumstapces will also be excluded (one cannot tell all).
Moreover, the maker (but why only one?) of ethnographic texts cannot avoid expressive tropes, figures, and allegories that select and impose meaning as they translate it. In this view, more Nietzschean than
realist or hermeneutic, all constructed truths are made possible by
powerful "lies" of exclusion and rhetoric. Even the best ethnographic
texts-serious, true fictions-are systems, or economies, of truth.
Power and history work through them, in ways their authors cannot
fully control.
Ethnographic truths are thus inherently partial-committed and
incomplete. This point is now widely asserted-and resiste4 at strategic points by those who fear the collapse of clear standards of verification. But once accepted and built into ethnographic art, a rigorous
sense of partiality can be a source of representational tact. A recent
work by Richard Price, First-Time: The Historical Vision of an AfroAmerican People (1983), offers a good example of self-<:anscious, serious partiality. Price recounts the specific conditions of his fieldwork
among the Sararnakas, a Maroon society of Suriname. We learn about
external and self-imposed limits to the research, about individual informants, and about the construction of the final written artifact.
(The book avoids a smoothed-over, monological form, presenting itself as literally pieced-together, full of holes.) First-Time is evidence of
the fact that acute political-~nd epistemological self-consciousness
need not lead to ethnographic self-absorption, or to the conclusion
that it is impossible to know anything certain about other- people.
Rather, it leads to a concrete sense of why a Saramaka folktale, featured by Price, teaches that "knowledge is power, and that one must
never reveal all of what one knows" (1983: 14).
A complex technique of revelation and secrecy governs the communication (reinvention) of "First-Time" knoWledge, lore about the
society's crucial struggles for survival in the eighteenth century. Using
techniques of deliberate frustration, digression, and incompleteness,
old men impart their historical knowledge to younge~ kinsmen, :Preferably at cock's crow, the hour before dawn. These strategies of ellipsis, concealment, and partial disclosure determine ethnographic
r~lations as much as they do the transmission of stories between generations. Price has to accept the paradoxical fact that "any Saramaka
narrative (including those told at cock's crow with the ostensible intent
of communicating knowledge) will leave out most of what the teller
knows about the incident in question. A person's knowledge is supposed to grow only in small increments. and in any aspect of life
F~-.:
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~----
JAMES CUFFORD
'
Introduction
people are deliberately told only a little bit more than the speaker
thinks they already know" (10).
It soon becomes apparent that there is no "complete" corpus of
FirSt-Time knowledge, that no one-least of all the visiting ethnographer-can know this lore except through an open-ended series of
contingent, power-laden encounters. "It is accepted that different
Saramaka historians will have different versions, and it is up to the
listener to piece together for himself the version of an event that he,
for the time being, accepts" (28). Though Price, the scrupulous fieldworker and historian, armed with writing, has gathered a u!xt that
surpasses in extent what individuals know or tell, it still ''represents
only the tip of the iceberg that Saram.akas collectively preserve about
First-Time" (25).
The ethical questions raised by forming a_ written archive of secret, oral lore are considerable, and Price wrestles with them openly.
Part of his solution has been to undermine the completeness of his
own account (but not its seriousness) by publishing a book that is
a series of fragments. The aim is not to indicate unfortunate gaps
remaining in our knowledge of eighteenth-century Saramaka life,
but rather to present an inherently imperfect.mode of knowledge,
which produces gaps as it fills them. Though Price himself is not free
of the desire to write a complete ethnography or history, to portray a
"whole way of life" (24), the message of partiality resonates throughout First-Time.
Ethnographers are more and more like the Cree hunter who (the
storjg0e5)Camero Montreil tO teStifY in court concerning the fate of
his hunting lands in the new James Bay hydroelectric scheme. He
would describe his way of life. But when administered the oath he
hesitated: "I'm not sure I can tell the tnlth .... I can only tell what
I know."
France, largely because of the Vietnamese and Algerian conflicts and

through the writings of an ethnographically aware group of black
intellectuals and poets, the negritude movement of Aime Cesaire,
Leopold Senghor, Rene Menil, and Leon Damas. The pages of Presence Africaine in the early fifties offered an unusual forum for collaboration between these writers and social scientists like Balandier, Leiris,
Marcel Griaule, Edmond Ortigues, and Paul Rivet. In other countries
the crise de conscience came somewhat later. One thinks of Jacques
Maquet's influential essay "Objectivity in Anthropology" (1964), Dell
Hymes's Remventing Anthropology (1973), the work of Stanley Diamond
(1974), Bob Scholte (1971, 1972, 1978), Gerard Leclerc (1972), and
particularly of Tala! Asad's collection Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (1973), which has stimulated much clarifying debate (Firth
eta!. 1977).
In popular imagery the ethnographer has shifted from a sympathetic, authoritative observer (best incamated, perhaps, by Margaret
Mead) to the unflattering figure portrayed by Vine Deloria in Custer
Died for Your Sins (1g6g).Indeed, the negative portrait has sometimes
hardened into caricature-the ambitious social scientist making off
with tribal lore and giving nothing in retum, imposing cru.de portraits
on subtle peoples, or (most recently) serving as dupe for sophisticated
infonnants. Such portraits are about as realistic as the earlier heroic
versions of participant-obset:Vation. Ethnographic work has indeed
been enmeshed in a world of enduring and changing power inequalities, and it continues to be implicated. It enacts power relations. But
its function within these relations is complex, often ambivalent, potentially counter-hegemonic.
Different ru.les of the game for ethnography are now emerging in
many parts of the world. An outsider studying Native American cultures may expect, perhaps as a requirement for continuing research,
to testify in support of land claim litigation. And a variety of fonnal
restrictions are now placed on fieldwork by indigenous govemments
at national and local levels. These condition in new ways what can, and
especially cannot, be said about particular peoples. A new figure has
entered the scene, the "indigenous ethnographer" (Fahim, ed. 1982;
Ohnuki-Tiemey 1984). Insiders studying their own cultures offer
new angles of vision and depths of understanding. Their accounts are
empowered and restricted in unique ways. The diverse post- and neocolonial rules for ethnographic practice do riot necessarily encourage
"better" cultural accounts. The criteria for judging a good account
have never been settled and are changing. B:ut whathas emerged
from all these ideological shifts, rule changes, and new compromises
is the fa;:t that a series of historical pressures have begun to reposition
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It is useful to recall that the witness Was speaking artfully, in a
determining context of power. Since Michel Leiris's early essay of
1950, "L'Ethnographe devant le colonialisme" (burwhy so late?), anthropology has had to reckon with historical determination and political conflict in its midst. A rapid decade, from 1950 to 196o, saw the
end of empire become a widely accepted project, if not an accomplished fact. Georges Balandier's "situation colaniole" was suddenly
visible (1955).Imperial relations, formal and informal, were no longer
the accepted rule of the game-to be reformed piecemeal, or ironically
distanced in various ways. Enduring pow:er inequalities had. clearly
constrained ethnographic practice. This "situation" was felt earliest in
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10
JAMES CLIFFORD
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anthropology with respect to its "objects" of study. Anthropology no

longer speaks with automatic authority for others defined as unable to
speak for themselves ("primitive," "pre-literate," "without history").
Other groups can less easily be distanced in special, almost always past
or passing. times-represented as if they were not involved in the
present world systems that implicate ethnographers along with the
peoples they study. "Cultures" do not hold still for their portraits. Attempts to make them do so always involve simplification and exclusion, selection of a temporal focus, the construction of a particular
self-other relationship, and the imposition or negotiation of a power
relationship.
The critique of colonialism in the postwar period-an undermining of "The West's" ability to represent other societies-has been
reinforced by an important process of theorizing about the limits of
representation itself. There is no way adequately to survey this multifarious critique of what Vico called the "serious poem of cultural history. Positions proliferate: "hermeneutics," "structuralism," "history
of mentalities," "neo-Marxism," "genealogy," "post-structuralism,"
"post-modernism," "pragmatism"; also a spate of"alternate epistemologies"-feminist, ethnic, and non-Western. What is at stake, but not
always recognized, is an ongoing critique of the West's most confident,
characteristic discourses. Diverse philosophies may implicitly have this
critical stance in common. For example, Jacques Derrida's unraveling
of logocentrism, from the Greeks to Freud, and Walter]. Ong's quite
different diagnosis of the consequences of literacy share an overarch-:
ing rejection of the institutionalized ways one large group of humanity has for millennia construed its world. New historical studies of hegemonic patterns of thought (Marxist, Annaliste, Foucaultian) have
in common with recent styles of textual criticism (semiotic, readerresponse, post-structural) the conviction that what appears as "real"
in history, the social sciences, the arts, even in coffimon sense, is
always analyzable as a restrictive and expressive set of social codes
and conventions. Hermeneutic philosophy in its varying styles, from
Wilhelm Dilthey and Paul Ricoeur to Heidegger, reminds us that the
simplest cultural accounts are intentional creations . that interpreters constantly construct themselves through the others they study.
The twentieth-century sciences of "language," from Ferdinand de
Saussure and Roman Jacobson to Benjamin Lee Whorl, Sapir, and
Wittgensteiri, have made inescapable the systematic and situational
verbal structures that determine all representations of reality. Finally,
the return of rhetoric to an important place in many fields of study (it
had for millennia been at the core of Western education) has made
possible a detailed anatomy of conventional expressive modes. Allied
lntroduc:tion
'..'....
with semiotics and discourse analysis, the new rhetoric is concemed

with what Kenneth Burke called "strategies for the encompassing of
Situations" (1g6g: 3). It is less about how to speak well than about how
to speak at all, and to act meaningfully, in the world of public cultural
symbols.
The impact of these critiques is beginning to be felt in ethnography's sense of its own development. Noncelebratory histories are becoming common. The new histories try ..to avoid charting the discovery of some current wisdom (origins of the culture concept, and so
forth); and they are suspicious of promoting and demoting intellectual precursors in order to- confirm a par~cular paradigm. (For the
latter approach, see Harris 1g68 and Evans-Pritchard 1981). Rather,
the new histories treat anthropological ideas as enmeshed in local
practices and institutional constraints, as contingent and often "political" solutions to cultural problems. They construe science as a social
process. They stress the historical discontinuities, as well as continuities, of past and present practices, as often as not making present
knowledge seem temporary, in motion. The authority of a scientific
discipline, in this kind of historical account, will always be mediated by
the claims of rhetoric and power;~
Another major impact of the accumulating political/theoretical
critique of anthropology may be briefly summarized as a rejection of
"visualism." Ong (1967, 1977), among others, has studied ways in
which the senses are hierarchically ordered in different cultures and
epochs. He argues that the truth of vision in Western, literate cultures
has predominated over the evidences of sound and interlocution, of
touch, smell, and taste. (Mary Pratt has observed that references to
odor, very proffiinent in travel writing, are virtually absent from ethnographies.)' Th~ predominant metaphors in anthropological research have been participant-observation, data collection, and_culcural
description, all of which presUppose a'standpoint _outside-looking
at, objectifying, or, somewhat closer, "readin~," a given reality. Ong's
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5 I exclude from this category the various histories of "anthropological" ideas,

which must always have a Whiggish cast, I include the strong historicism of George
Stocking, which often has the effect of questioning disciplinary genealogies (for example, 1968:6g-9o). The work of Terry Clark on ~he institutionalization of social science ( 1973) and of Foucault on the sociopolitical constitution of"discursive formations"
(1973) points in the direction I am indicating. See also: Hanog (198o), Duchet (1971),
many works by De Ceneau (e.g., 1980), Boon (1982), Rupp-Eisenreich (1984), and the
yearly volume Histary 0[ Anthropolcgy, edited by Stocking, whose approach goes well be-yond the history of ideas or theory. An allied approach can be fOund in recent social
studies of science research: e.g., Knorr-Cetina (1981), Latour (1984), Knorr-Cetina and
Mulkay (983).
6. An observation by Pratt at the Santa Fe Seminar. The relative inattention to
sound is beginning to be corrected in recent ethnographic writing (e.g., Feld 1982).
For examples of work unusually attentive to the sensorium, see Stoller (1984a, b).
j!L,,"
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12
''I;
Introduction
JAMES CLIFFORD,
work has been mobilized as a critique of ethn<;>graphy by Johannes

Fabian (1983), who explores the consequences of positing cultura~
facts as things observed, rather than, for example, heard, invented in
dialogue, or transcribed. Following Frances .Yates (1966), he argues
that the taxonomic imagination in the West is strongly visualist in
nature, constituting cultures as if they were theaters of memory, or
spatialized .arrays.
In a related polemic against "Orientalism" Edward Said (1978)
identifies persistent tropes by which Europeans and Americans have
visualized Eastern and Arab cultures. The Orient functions as a theater, a stage on which a performance is repeated, to be seen from a
privileged standpoint. (Barthes [1977] locates a similar "perspective"
in the emerging bourgeois esthetics of Diderot.) For Said, the Orient
is "textualized"; its multiple, divergent stories arid existential predicaments are coherently woven as a body of signs susceptible of virtuoso
reading. This Orient, occulted and fragile, is brought lovingly to light,
salvaged in the work of the outside scholar. The effect of domination
in such spatial/temporal deployments (not limited, of course, to Orientalism proper) is that they confer on the other a discrete identity,
while also providing the knowing observer with a sta-ndpoint from
which to see without being seen, to read without intenuption.
Once cultures are no longer prefigured visually-as objects, theaters, texts-it becomes possible to think of a cultural poetics that is
an interplay of voices, of positioned utterances. In a discursive rather
than a visual paradigm, the dominant metaphors for ethnography
shift away frorn the observing eye and toward expressive speech (and
gesture). The writer's "voice" pervades and situates the analysis, and
objective, distancing rhetoric is renounced. Renata Rosaldo has recently argued, and exemplified, these points (1984, 1985). Other
changes of textual enactment are urged by Stephen Tyler in this volume. (See also Tedlock 1983.) The evocative, performative elements
of ethnography are legitimated. And the crucial poetic problem for
a discursive ethnography becomes how "to achieve by written means
what speech creates, and to do it without simply imitating speech"
(Tyler 1984c: 25). From another angle we notice how much has been
said, in criticism and praise, of the ethnographic gaze. But what of the
ethnographic ear? This is what Nathaniel Tarn is getting at in an inter-:
view, speaking of his experience as a tricultural French/Englishman
endlessly becoming an American.
I'm getting new expressions almost every day, as if the language were growing
from every conceivable shoot. ( 197 5 : g)
"""
An interest in the discursive aspects of cultural representation
draws attention not to the interpretation of cultural "texts" but. to
their relations of pr.oduction. Divergent styles of writing are, with
varying degrees of success, grappling with these new orders of complexity-different rules and possibilities within the horizon of a historical moment. The main experimental trends have been reviewed in
detail elsewhere (Marcus and Cushman 1982; Clifford 1983a). It is
enough to mention here the general trend toward a specification of discourses in ethnography: who speaks? who writes? when and where?
with -or .to whom? under what institutional and historical constraints?
Since Malinowski's time,. the "method" of participant-observation
has enacted a delicate balance of subjectivity and objectivity." The ethnographer's personal experiences, especially those of participation
and empathy, are recognized as central to the research process, but
they are firmly restrained by the impersonal standards of observation
and "objective" distance. In classical ethnographies the voice of the
author was always manifest, but the conventions of textual presentation and reading forbade too close a connectlon between authorial
style and the reality represented. Though we discern immediately the
distinctive accent of Margaret Mead, Raymond Firth, or Paul Radin,
we still cannot refer to Samoansas "Meadian" or call Tiko.pia a "Finhiann culture as freely as we speak of Dickensian or Flaubertian worlds.
The subjectivity Of the author is separated from the objective referent
of the text. At best, the author's personal voice is seen as a style in the
wea~sense: atone, or embellishment of the facts. Moreover,. the actual field experience of the ethnographer is presented only in very
stylized ways (the "arrival stories" discussed below by Mary Pratt, for
example). States of serious confusion, violent feelings or acts, censorships, important failures, changes- of course, and excessive pleasures
are excluded from the published account.
In the sixties this set of expository conv.entions cracked. Ethnographers began to write about their field experience in ways that dis!Urbed the prevailing subjective/objective balance. There. had been
earlier di}turbances, but they were kept marginal: Leiris's aberrant
L'Afrique fant<Yme (1934); Triste.s Tropiques (whose strongest impact outsideFrance came only after 1g6o); and Elenore Smith Bowen's important Return to Laughter (1954). That Laura Bohannan -in the early
sixties had to disguise herself as Bowen, and her fieldwork narrative as a "novel," is symptomatic." But thi;ngs w:ere changing rapidly,
It may be the ethnographer or the anthropologist again having his ears wider
Open to what he considers the exotic as opposed to the familiar, but I still feel
I'm discovering something new in the use of language _here almost every day.
,..'
.,,,.
13
JAMES CLIFFORD
14
,1:1
'
7. I have explored the relation of personal subjectivity and authoritative cultural

accounts, seen as mutually reinforcing fictions, in an essay on Malinowski and Conrad
(Clifford 1985a).
1 '1'1 1 1'
..~1:,\\l,J.\1
Introduction
15
~-
and others-Georges Balandier (L'Afrique ambigue 1957), David

Maybury-Lewis (The Savage and the Innocent 1965), Jean Briggs (Never
in Anger 1970),Jean-Paul Dumont (The Headman and! 1978), and Paul
Rabinow (Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco 1977)-were soon writing
"factually" under their own names. The publication of Malinowski's
Mailu and Trobriand diaries (1967) publicly upset the applecart.
Henceforth an implicit mark of interrogation was placed beside any
overly confident and consistent ethnographic voice. What desires and
confusions was it smoothing over? How was its "objectivity" textually
constructed? 7
A subgenre of ethnographic writing emerged, the self-reflexive

"fieldwork account." Variously sophisticated and naive, confessional
and analytic, these accounts provide an important forum for the discussion of a wide range of issues, epistemological, existential, and political. The discourse of the cultural analyst can no longer be simply
that of the "experienced" observer, describing and interpreting custom. Ethnographic experience and the participant-observation ideal
are shown to be problematic. Different textual strategies are attempted. For example, the first person singular (never banned from
ethnographies, which were always personal in stylized ways) is deployed according to new conventions. With the "fieldwork account"
the rhetoric of experienced objectivity yields to that of the autobiography and the ironic self-portrait. (See Beaujour 1980, Lejeune 1975.)
The ethnographer, a character in a fiction, is at center stage. He or
she can speak of previously "irrelevant" topics: violence and desire,
confusions, struggles and economic transactions with informants.
These matters (long discussed informally within the discipline) have
moved away from the margins of ethnography, to be seen as constitutive, inescapable (Honigman 1976).
Some reflexive accounts have worked to specify the discourse of
informants, as well as that of the ethnogl-apher, by staging c:lialogues
or narrating interpersonal confrontations (Lacoste-Dujardin 1977.
Crapanzano 1980, Dwyer 1982, Shostak 1981, Mernissi 1984). These
fictions of dialogue have the effect of transforming the "cultural" text
(a ritual, an institution, a life history, or any unit of-typical behavior to
be described or interpreted) into a speaking subject, who sees as well
as is seen, who evades, argues, probes back. In rhis view of ethnography the proper referent of any account is not a represented "world";
now it is specific instances of discourse. But the principle of dialogical
textual production goes well beyond the ~ore or less artful presenta~
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tion of "actual" encounters. It locates cultural interpretations in many

sorts of reciprocal contexts, and it obliges writers to find diverse ways
of rendering negotiated realities as multisubjective, power-laden, and
incongruent. In this view, "culture" is always relational, an inscription
of communicative processes that exist, historically, between subjects in
relations of power (Dwyer 1977, Tedlock 1979).
Dialogical modes are not, in principle, autObiographical; they
need not lead to hyper self-consciousness or self-absorption. As
Bakhtin (1981) has shown, dialogical processes proliferate in any
complexly represented discursive space (that of an ethnography, or,
in his case, a realist novel). Many voices clamor for expression. Polyvocality was restrained and orchestrated in traditional ethnographies
by giving to one voice a pervasive authorial function and to others the
role of Sources, "informants," to be quoted or paraphrased. Once dialogism and polyphony are re.cognized as modes of textual production,
monophonic authority is questioned, revealed to be characteristic of
a science that has claimed to represent cultures. The tendency to specify discourses-historically and intersubjectively-recasts this authority, and in the process alters the questions we put to cultural descriptions. Two recent examples must-suffice. The first involves the
voices and readings of Native Americans, the second those of women.
James Walker is widely known for his classic monograph The
Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala DivisWn of the Teton Swux
(!917). It js a carefully obseiVed and documented work of interpretation. Bti. our reading of it must now be complemented-and altered'-by an extraordinary glimpse of its "makings." Three titles
have now appeared in a four-volume edition of documents he collected while a physician and ethnographer on the Pine Ridge Sioux
ReseiVation between 1896 and 1914. The first (Walker, Lakota Belief
and Fiitual1982a, edited by Raymond De Mallie and Elaine Jahner) is a
collage of notes, interviews, texts, and essay fragments written or
spoken by Walker and numerous Oglala collaborators. This volume
lists more than thirty "authorities," and wherever possible each contribution is marked with the name of its enunciator, writer, or transcriber. These individuals are not ethnographic "informants." Lakota
Belief is a collaborative work of documentation, edited in a manner
that gives equal rhetorical weight to diverse renditions of tradition.
Walker's own descriptions and glosses are fragments among fragments.
The ethnographer worked closely with interpreters Charles and
Richard Nines, and with Thomas Tyon and George Sword, both of
whom composed extended essays in Old Lakota. These have now
been translated and published for the first time. In a long section of
Lakota BeliefTyon presents explanations he obtained from a number
;{;,
I.
..'E
16
JAMES CLIFFORD
of Pine Ridge shamans; and it is revealing to see -questions of belief

(for example the crucial and elusive quality of "wakan") interpreted in
differing, idiosyncratic styles. The result is a version of culture in process that resists any final summation. In Lakota Belief the editors provide biographical details on Walker, with hints about the individual
sources of the writings in his collection, brought together from the
Colorado Historical Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and the American Philosophical Society.
The second volume to have appeared is Lakota Society (1982b),
which assembles documents roughly relating to aspects of social organization, as well as concepts of time and history. The inclusion of extensive Winter Counts (Lakota annals) and personal recollections of
historical events confirms recent tendencies to question overly clear
distinctions between peoples "with'! and "without" history (Rosaldo
1980; Price 1983). Volume three is Lakota Myth (1983). And the last
will contain the translated writings of George Sword. Sword was an
Oglala warrior, later a judge of the Court of Indian Offenses at Pine
Ridge. With-.Walker's encouragement, he .wrote a detailed vemacular
record of customary life, covering myth, ritual, warfare and games,
complemented by an autobiography.
Taken together, these works offer an unusual, multiply articulated record of Lakota life at a crucial moment in its history-a threevolume anthology of ad hoc interpretatiOns and transcriptions by
more than a score of individuals occupying a specuum of positions
with respect t<? "tradition," plus an elaborated view of the ensemble by
a. well-placed Oglala writer. It becomes possible to assess critically the
synthesis Walker made of these diverse materials. When complete, the
five volumes (including The Sun Dance) will constitute an expanded
(dispened; not total) text representing a particular -rrwment of ethnographic production (not ~Lakota culture"). J(;,; this expanded text,
rather than Walker's monogTaph, that we must now learn to read.
Such an ensemble opens up new. meanings and desires in an ongoing cultural poesis. The decision to publish these, texts was provoked
by req~ests to the Colorado Historical Society from community members. at P"me Ridge, where copies were needed in Oglala history
classes. For other readers the ''Walker. Collection" offers .different
lessons,. providing, among other things, a mock-up for an ethnopoetics with history (and individuals) in it: One has difficulty giving
these materials (many of which are very beautiful) the timeless, impersonal identity of,. say, "Sioux myth." Moreover, the- question of who
writes (performs? transcribes? translates? edits?) cultural statements is
inescapable in an expand:ed text of this sort. Here the ethnographer
no longer holds unquestioned rights of salvage: the authority long as-
,.,..,
(I
. ;1
Introduction
17
sociated with bringing elusive, "disapp.earing'' oral lore into legible

textual form. It is unclear whether James Walker {or anyone) can appear as author of these writings. Such lack of clarity is a sign of the
times.
Western texts conventionally come with authors attached. Thus it
is perhaps inevitable that Lakota Belief, Lakota Society, and Lakota Myth
should be published under Walker's name. But as eth1wgraphy's complex, plural poesis become'/ more apparent-and politically chargedconventions begin, in smill ways, to slip. Walker's work may be an un. usual case of textual collaboration. But it helps us see behind the
scenes. Once "informants" begin to be considered as co-authors, and
the ethnographer as scribe and archivist as well as interpreting observer, we can ask new, critical questions of all ethnographies. However monological, dialogical, or polyphonic their form, they are. hierarchical arrangements of discourses.
A second example of the specification of discourses concerns gender. I shall first touch on ways in which it can impinge on the reading
of ethnographic texts and then explore how the exclusion of feminist
perspectives from the present volume limits and focuses its discursive standpoint. My first example, of the many possible, is Godfrey
Lienhardt's Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinlw. (1961),
surely among the most finely argued ethnographies in recent anthropological literature. Its phenomenological rendition of Dinka senses
of the self, of time, space, and "the Powers" is unparalleled. Thus it
comes as a shock to recognize th.at Li~nhardt's portrayal concerns, almost exclusively, the experience of Dinka men. When speaking of
"the Dinka" he may or may not be extending the point to women. We
often cannot know from the published text. The examples he chooses
are, in any case, overwhelmingly centered on males. A rapid perusal
of the book's intiod_uctory chapter on Dinka and their cattle confirms
the point. Only once is a woman's view mentioned, and it is in affi.nnation of men's relation to cows, saying nothing of how women experience cattle. This observation introduces an equivocation in passages
such as "Dinka often interpret accidents or coincidences as acts of Divinity distinguishing truth from falsehood by signs which appear to
men" (p. 47). The intended sense of the word "men" is certainly generic, yet surrounded exclusively by examples from male experience
it slides toward a gendered meaning. (Do signs appear to women? in
significantly different ways?) Terms such as "the Dinka," or "Dinka,"
used throughout the book, become similarly equivocal.
The point is not to convict Lienhardt of duplicity; his book specifies
gender to an unusual extent. What emerges, instead, are the history
and politics that interven~ in our reading. British academics of a cer-
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18
JAMES CLIFFORD
tain caste and era say "men" when they mean "people" more often
than do other groups, a cultural and historical context that is now less
invisible than it once was. The partiality of gender in question here
was not at issue when the book was published in 1'961. If it were,
Lienhardt would have directly addressed the problem, as more recent
ethnographers now feel obliged to (for example, Meigs 1984: xix).
One did not read "The Religion of the Dinka" then as one now must,
as the religion of Dinka men and only perhaps Dinka women. Our
task is to think historically about Lienhardt's text and its possible readings, including our own, as we read.
Systematic doubts about gender in cultural representation have
become widespread only in the past decade or so, in certain milieux,
under pressure of feminism. A great many portrayals of "cultural"
truths now appear to reflect male domains of experience. (And there
are, of course, inverse, though much less common cases: for example,
Mead's work, which often focused on female domains and generalized
on this basis about the culture as a whole.) In recognizing such biases,
however, it is well to recall that our own "full" versions will themselves
inevitably appear partial; and if many cultural portrayals now seem
more limited than they once did, this is an index of the contingency
and historical movement of all readings. No one reads from a neutral
or final position. This rather obvious caution is often violated in new
accounts that purport to set the record straight or to fill a gap in "our"
knowledge.
When is a gap in knowledge perceived, and by whom? Where do
"problems" come from? 6 It is obviously more than a simple matter of
noticing an error, bias, or omission. I have chosen examples (Walker
and Lienhardt) that underline the role of political and historical factors in the discovery of discursive partiality. The epistemology this implies cannot be reconciled with a notion of cumulative scientific progress, and the partiality at stake is stronger than the normal scientific
dictates that we study problems piecemeal, that we must not overgeneralize, that the best picture is built up by an accretion of rigorous
evidence. Cultures are not scientific "objects" (assuming such things
exist, even in the natural sciences). Culture, and our views of ''it~" are
produced historiCally, and are activeiy contested. There is no whole
picture that can be "filled in," since the perception and filling of a gap
lead to the awareness of other gaps. If women's experience has been
significantly excluded from ethnographic accounts, the recogni~on of
this absence, and its correction in many recent studies, now ~ghlights
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the fact that men's experience (as genQ.ered subjects, not cultural
types-"Dinka" or "Trobrianders") is itself largely unstudied. As canonical topics like "kinship" come under critical scrutiny (Needham
1974; Schneider 1972, 1984), new problems concerning "sexuality"
are made visible. And so forth without end. It is evident that we know
more about the Trobriand Islanders than was known in 1900. But the
"we" requires historical identification. (Talal Asad argues in this volume that the fact that this knowledge is routinely inscribed in certain
"strong languages is not scientifically neutral.) If "culture" is not an
object to be described, neither is it a unified corpus of symbols and
meanings that can be definitively interpreted. CultUre is contested,
temporal, and em~rgent. Representation and explanation-both by
insiders and outsiders-is implicated in this emergence. The specification of discourses I have been tracing is thus more than a matter of
making carefully limited claims. It is thoroughly historicist and selfreflexive.
In this spirit, let me turn to the present volume. Everyone will be
able to think of individuals or perspectives that should have been included. The volume's focus limits it in ways its authors and editors can
only begin to make apparent. Readers may note that its anthropological bias neglects photography, film, performance theory, documentary art, the nonfiction novel. "the new journalism," oral history, and
various forms of sociology. The book gives relatively little attention to
new ethnographic possibilities emerging from non-Western experience and from feminist theory_ and politics. Let me dwell on this last
exclusion, for it concerns an especially strong intellectual and moral
influence in the university milieux from which these essays have
sprung. Thus its absence cries out for comment. (But by addressing
this one exclusion I do not mean to imply that it offers any privileged
standpoint from which to perceive the partiality of the book.) Feminist
theorizing is obvio'usly of great potential significance for rethinking
ethnographic writing. It debates the historical, political construction
of identities and self/other relations, and it probes the gendered positions that make all accounts of, or by, other people inescapably partial.9 Why, then, are there no essays in this. book written from primarily feminist standpoints?
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Introduction
..
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g. Many of the themes I have been stressing above are supported by recent feminist work. Some theorists have problematized all (Otalizing, Archimedian perspectives
(jehlen 1981). Many have seriously rethought the social constnlction of relationship
and difference (Chodorow 1978, Rich 1976, Keller 1985). Much feminist practice
questions the strict separation of subjective and objective, emphasizing processual
modes of knowledge, closely connecting personal, political, and representational processes. Other strands deepen the critique of visually based modes of surveillance and
portrayal, linking them to domination and masculine desire (Mulvey 1975, Kuhn
J
20
JAMES CLIFFORD
The volume was planned as the publication of a seminar limited

by its sponsoring body to ten participants. It was institutionally defined as an "advanced seminar," and its organizers, George Marcus
and myself, accepted this format without serious question .. We decided to invite people doing "advanced" work on our topic, by which
we understood people who had already contributed significantly to
the analysis of ethnographic textual form. For the sake of coherence,
we located the seminar within, and at the boundaries of, the discipline
of anthropology. We invited. participants well known for their recent
contributions to the opening up of ethnographic writing pOssibilities,
or whom we knew to be well along on research relevant to our focus.
The seminar was small and its formation ad hoc, reflecting our specific personal and intellectual networks, our limited knowledge of appropriate work in progress. (1 shall not go into .individual personalities, friendships, and so forth, though they are dearly relevant.)
Planning the seminar, we were confronted by what seemed to
us an obvious-important and regrettable-fact. Feminism had not
contributed . much to the theoretical analysis of ethnographies as
texts. Where women had made textual innovations (Bowen 1954;
Briggs 1970, Favret-Saada tg8o, 1981) they had not done so on feminist grounds. A few quite recent works (Shostak 1.981, Cesara 1982,
Mernissi 1984) had reflected in their form feminist claims about subjectivity, relationality, and female experience, but these same textual
forms were shared by other, nonfeminist, experimental works. Moreover, their au~hors did not seem conversant with the rhetorical and
textual theory that we wanted to bring to bear on ethnography. Our
focus was thus on textual theory as well as on textual form: a defensible, productive focus.
Within this focus we could not draw on any developed debates
generated by feminism on ethnographic textual practices. A few very
initial indications (for example, Atkinson 1982; Roberts, ed. tg8t)
were all that had been published. And the situaiion has not changed
dramatically since. Feminism clearly has contributed to anthropological theory. And various female ethnographers, like Annette Weiner
(1976), are actively rewriting the masculinist canon. But feminist eth1982). Narrati,ve fonns of representation are analyzed with regard to the gendered
positions they reenact (de Lauretis 1984). Some femiri.ist writing has worked to politicize and subvert all natural essences and identities, including "femininity" and "woman"
(Wittig 1975 Irigaray 1977, Russ 1975, Haraway 1985). "Anthropological'' cu:egories
such as nature and culture, public and private, sex and gender have been brought into
question (Ortner 1974, MacCormack and Strathem 1980, Rosaldo and Lamphere
1974, Rosaldo 1980, Rubin 1975).
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Introduction
21
nography has focused either on setting the record straight about

women or on revising anthropological categories (for example, the
nature/culture opposition). It has not produced either unconventional forms of writing or a developed reflection on ethnographic textuality as such.
The reasons for this general situation need careful exploration,
and this is not the place for it. 10 In the case of our seminar and volume, by stressing textual form and by privileging textual theory,
we focused the topic in ways that excluded certain forms of ethnographic innovation. This fact emerged in the seminar discussions,
during which. it became clear that concrete institutional forces-tenure patterns, canons, the influence of disciplinary authorities, global
inequalities of power-could not be evaded. From this perspective, issues of content in ethnography (the exclusion and inclusion of different experiences in the anthropological archive, the rewriting of established traditions) became directly relevant. And this is where feminist
and non-Western writings have made their greatest impact. 11 Clearly
our sharp separation of form from content-and our fetishizing of
form-was, and is, contestable. It is a bias that may well be implicit in
modernist .. textualism." (Most of us at the seminar, excluding Stephen
Tyler, were not yet thoroughly "post-modern"!)
We see these things better, of course, now that the deed is done,
the book finished. But even early on, in Santa Fe, intense discussions
tumed on the exclusion of several important perspectives and what to
do about them. As editors, we decided not to try and "fill out" the volume by seeking additional essaYs. This seemed to be tokenism and to
reflect an aspiration to false completeness. Our response to the problem of excluded standpoints has been to leave them blatant. The
present volume remains a limited intervention, with no aspiration to
be comprehensive or to cover the territory. It sheds a strong, partial
light.
10. Marilyn Suathem's unpublished essay "Dislodgirig a World View" (1984), also
discussed by Paul Rabinow in this volume, begins the investigation. A fuller analysiS is
being worked out by Deborah Gordon in a disserracion for the History of Consciousness
program, University of California, Santa Cruz. I am indebted to conversations with her.
11. It may generally be true that groups long excluded from positions of institutional power, like women or people of color, have less concrete freedom to indulge in
textual experimentations. To write in an unorthodox way, Paul Rabinow suggests in this
volume; one must first have tenure. In specific contexts a preoccupation with selfreflexivity and style may be an index of-privileged estheticism. For if one does not have
to worry about the exclusion or true representation of one's experience, one is freer to
undermine ways of telling, to focus on form over content. But I am uneasy with a general notion that privileged discourse indulges in esthetic or epistemological subtleties,
whereas marginal discourse "tells it like it is." The reverse is too "often the case. (See
Michael Fischer's essay in this volume.)
:~"
22
JAMES CLIFFORD
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A major consequence of the historical and theoretical movements traced in this Introduction has been .tO dislodge the ground
from which persons and groups securely represent others. A conceptual shift, "tectonic" in its implications, has taken place. We ground
things, now, on a moving earth. There is no longer any place of overview (mountaintop) from which to map human ways of life, no Archimedian point from which to represent the world. Mountains are in
constant motion. So are islands: for one cannot occupy, unambiguously, a bounded cultural world from which to journey out and analyze other cultures. Human ways of life increasingly influence, dominate, parody, translate, and subvert one another. Cultural analysis is
always enmeshed in global movements of difference and power. However one defines it, and the phrase is here used loosely, a "world system" now links the planet's societies in a common historical process. 12
A number of the essays that follow grapple with this predicament.
Their emphases differ. How, George Marcus asks, can ethnographyat home or abroad-define its object of study in ways that permit detailed, local, contextual analysis and simultaneously the portrayal of
global implicating forces? Accepted textual strategies for defining cultural domains, separating micro and macro levels, are no longer adequate to the challenge. He explores new writing possibilities that blur
the distinction between anthrc?pology and sociology, subverting an unproductive division of labor .Talal Asad also confronts the systematic
interconnection of the planet's societies. But he finds persistent, glacial inequalities imposing all-too-coherent forms on the world's diversity and firmly positioning any ethnographic practice. "Translations"
of culmre, however subtle or inventive in textual form, take place
within relations of "weak" and "strong" languages that govern the international flow of knowledge. Ethnography is still very much a oneway street. Michael Fischer's essay suggests that notions of global
hegemony may miss the reflexive, inventive dimensions of ethnicity
and cultural contact. (And in a similar vein, my- own contribution
treats all narratives of lost authenticity and vanishing diversity as Selfconfirming allegories, until proven otherwise.) FiSCher loc.ates ethO.Ographic writing in a syncretic world of ethnicity rather than a world of
discrete cultures and traditions. Post-modernism, in his analysis, is
more than a literary, philosophical, or artistic trend. It is a gene6I
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a unitary direction to the global historical process problematic, and agree with Onner's
reservations (1984: 142-43).
I'
Introduction
23
condition of multicultural life demanding new forms of inventiveness

and subtlety from a fully reflexive ethnography.
Ethnography in the service of anthropology once looked out at
clearly defined others, defined as primitive, or tribal, or non-Western,
or pre-literate, or nonhistorical-the list, if extended, soon becomes
incoherent. Now ethnography encounters others in relation to itself,
while seeing itself as other. Thus an "ethnographic" perspective is
being deployed in diverse and novel circumstances. Renate Rosaldo
probes the way its rhetoric has been appropriated by social history
and how this makes visible certain disturbing assumptions that have
empowered fieldwork. The ethnographer's distinctively intimate, inquisitive perspective turns up in history, literature, advertising, and
many other unlikely places. The science of the exotic is being "repatriated" (Fischer and Marcus 1986).
Ethnography's traditional. vocation of cultural criticism (Montaigne's "On Cannibals," Montesquieu's Persian Letters) has reemerged
with new explicitness and vigor. Anthropological field workers can
now realign their work with pioneers like Henry Mayhew in the nineteenth century and, more recently, with the Chicago school of urban
sociology (Lloyd Warner, William F. Whyte, Robert Park). Sociological
description of everyday practices has recently been complicated by
ethnomethodology (Leiter 1980): the work of Harold Garfinkel,
Harvey Sacks, and Aaron Cicourel (also neglected in the present volume) reflects a crisis in ~ociology similar to that in anthropology.
Meanwhile a different rapprochement between anthropological and
sociological ethnography has been taking place under the influence of
Marxist cultural theory at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies (Stuart Hall, Paul Willis). In America fieldworkers
are turning their attention to laboratory biologists and physicists
(LatOur and Woolgar 1979, Traweek 1982), to American "kinship"
(Schneider 1980), to the dynastic rich (Marcus 1983), to truckers
(Agar 1985), to psychiatric clients (Estroff 1985), to new urban communities (Krieger 1983), to problematic traditional identities (Blu
1980). This is only the beginning of a growing list.
What is at stake is more than anthropological methods being deployed at home, or studying new groups (Nader 1969). Ethnography
is moving into areas long occupied by sociology, the novel, or avantgarde cultural critique (Clifford 1981), rediscovering othemess and
difference within the cultures of the West. It has become clear that
every version of an "other," wherever found, is also the construction
. of a "self," and the making of ethnographic texts, as Michael Fischer,
Vincent Crapanzano, and others in this- volume show, has always in-
1:""
24
I'r
JAMES CLI~FORD
volved a process of "self-fashioning" (Greenblatt 1g8o). Cultural

poesis-and politics-is the constant reconstitution of selves and
others through specific exclusions, conventions, and discursive practices. The essays that follow provide tools for the analysis of these processes, at home and abroad.
These essays do not prophesy. Taken as a whole, they portray historical constraints on the making of ethnographies, as well as are?-s.of
textual experiment and emergence. Talal Asad's tone is sober; preoccupied (like Paul Rabinow) with institutional limits on interpretive freedom. George Marcus and Michael Fischer explore concrete
examples of alternative writing. Stephen Tyler evokes what does
not (cannot?) yet exist, but must be imagined-or, better, sounded.
Many of the essays (especially those of Renato Rosaldo, Vincent
Crapanzano, Mary Pratt, and Talal Asad) are occupied with critical
ground dearing-dislodging canons to make space for alternatives.
.Rabinow identifies a new canon, post-modernism. Other essays (Tyler
on oral and performative modes, my own treatment of allegory) recapture old rhetorics and projects for use now. "For use now!" Charles
Olson;s poetic rule should guide the reading of these essays: they are
responses to a current, changing situation, interventions rather than
positions. :To place this volume in a historical conjuncture, as I have
tried to do here, is to reveal the moving ground on which it stands,
and to do so without benefit of a master narrative of historical development that can offer a coherent direction, or future, for ethnography. 1 ~
One launches a controversial collection like this with some trepidation, hoping it will be seriously engaged-not simply rejected, for
example, as another attack on science or an incitement to relativism.
Rejections of this kind should at least make clear why close analysis of
one of the principal things ethnographers do-that is, write-should
not be central to evaluation of the results of scientific research. The
authors in this volume do not suggest that one cultural account is as
good as any other. If they espoused so trivial and self-refuting a relativism, they would not have gone to the trouble of writing detailed,
committed, critical studies.
Other, more subtle, objections have recently been raised to the literary, theoretical reflexivity represented here. Textual, epistemo13. My notion of historicism owes a great deal to the recent work of Fredric
Jameson (1980, 1981, 19844, b). I am not, however, persuaded by the master narrative
(a global sequence of modes of production) he invokes from time to time as an alternative to post-modem fragmentation (the sense that history is-composed of various
local narratives). The partiality I have been urging in this introduction always presupposes a local historical predicament. This historicist partiality is not the unsituated "partiality and flux" with which Rabinow (see p. 252) taxes a somewhat rigidly defined
"post-modernism."
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logical questions are sometimes thought to be paralyzing, abstract,

dangerously solipsistic-in short, a barrier to the task of writing
"grounded" or "unified" cultural and historical studies. 14 In practice,
however, such queStions do not necessarily inhibit those who entertain
them from producing truthful, realistic accounts. All of the essays collected here point toward new, better modes of writing. One need not
agree with their particular standards to take seriously the fact that in
ethnography, as in literary and historical studies, what counts as "realist" is now a matter of both theoretical debate and practical experimentation.
The writing and reading of ethnography are overdetermined by
forces ultimately beyond the control of either an author or an interpretive community. These contingencies-of language, rhetoric,
power, and history-must n.ow be openly confronted in the process of
writing. They can no longer be evaded. But the confrontation raises
thorny problems of verification: how are the truths of cultural accounts
evaluated? Who has the authority to separate science from art? realism
from fantasy? knowledge from ideology? Of course such separations
will continue to be maintained, and redrawn; but their changing poetic
and political grounds wi!Lbe less easily ignored. In cultural studies at
least, we can no longer know the whole truth, or even claim to approach
it. The rigorous partiality I have been stressing here may be a source of
pessimism for some readers. But is there not a liberation, too,in recognizing that no one can write about others any longer as if they were
discrete objects or texts? And may not the vision of a complex, problematic, partial ethnography lead, not to its a_\>:mdonment, but to more
subtle, concrete ways of writing and reading, to new conceptions of
culture as interactive and historical? Most of the essays in this volume,
for all their trenchant critiques, are optimistic about ethnographic writing. The problems they raise are incitements, not barriers.
These essays Will be accused of having gone too far: poetry will
again be banned from the city, power from the halls of science. And
extreme self-consciousness certainly has its dangers-of irony, of elitism, of solipsism, of putting the whole world in quotation marks. But I
trust that readers who signal these dangers will do so (like some of the
essays below) after they have confronted the changing history, rhetoric, and politics of established representational forms. In the wake of
semiotics, post~structuralism, hermeneutics, a:rid deconstruction there
has been considerable talk about a ~eturn to plain speaking and to realism. But to return to realism one must first have left itt Moreover, to
14. The response is frequendy expressed informally. It appears in different fonns
in Randall (1984), Rosen (1984), Onner (1984: 143), Pullum (1984), and Darnton
(g8s).
IOGAZil;l iJ<~;;;:Oh;,>fESl !tUTOPHANESI
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26
JAMES CUFFORD
recognize the poetic dimensions of ethnography does not require that

one give up facts and accurate accounting for the supposed free play
of poetry ... Poetry" is not limited to romantic or. modernist subjectivism: it can be historical, precise, objective. And of course it is just as
conventional and institutionally determined as "prose." Ethnography
is hybrid textual activity: it traverses genres and disciplines. The essays in this volume do not claim ethnography is "only literature."
They do insist it is always writing.
I would like to thank the members of the Santa Fe seminar for their many suggestions incorporated in, or left out 9f, this Introduction. (I have certainly not tried to rep
resent the "native point of view" of that small group.) In graduate seminars co-taught
with Paul Rabinow at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz, many of
my ideas on these topics haVe been agreeably assaulted. My special thanks to him and to
the students in those classes. At Santa Cruz, Deborah Gordon, Donna Haraway, and
Ruth Frankenberg have helped me with this essay, and 1 have had important encouragement and stimulus from Hayden White and the members of the Research Group on
Colonial Discourse. Various press readers made important suggestions, particularly
Barbara Babcock. George Marcus, Who got the whole project rolling, has been an inestimable ally and friend.
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Fieldwork in Common Places
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In his introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)

Bronislaw Malinowski celebrates the advent of professional, scientific
ethnography: "The time when we could tolerate accounts presenting
us the native as a distorted, childish caricature of a human being are
gone," he declares. "This picture is false, and like many other falsehoods, it has been killed by Science".(Malinowski 1961: 11). The statement is symptomatic of a well-established habit amorig ethnographers
of defining ethnographic writing over and against older, less special. ized genres, such as travel books, personal memoirs, journalism, and
accounts by missionaries, settlers, colon~al officials, and the like. Although it will not supplant these genres altogether, professional ethnography, it is understood, will usurp their authority and correct their
abuses. In almost any ethnography dull-looking figures called "mere
travelers" or "Casual observers" show up from time to time, only to
have their superficial perceptions either corrected or corroborated by
the serious scientist.
This strategy of defining itself by contrast to adjacent and antecedent discourses limits ethnography's ability to explain or examine
itself as a kind of writing. To the extent that it legitimates itself by opposition to other kinds of writing, ethnography blinds itself to the fact
that its own discursive practices were often inherited from these other
genres and are still shared with them today. At times one still hears
expressed as an ideal for ethnography a neutral, tropeless discourse
that would render other realities "exactly as they are," not filtered
through our own values and interpretive Schema. For the most part,
however, that Wild goose is no longer being chased, and it is possible
to suggest that ethnographic writing is as trope-governed as any other
discursive formation. This recognition is obviously fundamental for
those who are interested in changing or enriching ethnographic writing or simply in increasing the discipline's self-understanding. In this
essay I propose to examine how some tropes of ethnographic writing
are deployed and how th~y derive from earlier discursive traditions.
In particular, I propose to focus on the vexed but important relation-
Conren"---------------------------------Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction: Anthropology on the Move
PART ONE: A.."J' EVOLVING PROPOSAL FOR MULTI-SITED

RESEARCH
31
One
Imagining the Whole: Ethnography's Contemporary Efforts to
Situate Itself (1989)
33
Two
Requirements for Ethnographies of Late-Twentieth-Century
Modernity Worldwide (1991)
57
Three
Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of
Multi-5ited Ethnography (1995)
79
Four
The Uses of Complicity in the Changing Mise-en-5dme of
Anthropological Fieldwork (1997)
105
PART TWO: TRACES IN PARALLEL ETHNOGRAPHIC

PROJECTS
133
Five
Power on the Extreme Periphery: The Perspective of Tongan
Elites in the Modem World System (1980)
135
Six
The Problem of the Unseen World of Wealth for the Rich:
Toward an Ethnography of Complex Connections (1989)
152
Seven
On Eccentricity (1995)
161
PART THREE: THE CHANGING CONDITIONS OF

PROFESSIONAL CUUURE IN THE PRODUCTION OF
ETHNOGRAPHY
179
CONTENTS
Eight
On Ideologies of Reflexivity in Contemporary Efforts to
Remake the Human Sciences (1994)
181
Nine
Critical Cultural Studies as One Power/Knowledge Like,
Among, and in Engagement with Others (1997)
203
Ten
Sticking with Ethnography through Thick and Thin (1997)
231
Index
255
Inuoducnon ___________________
Anthropology on the Move 1
THIS voLUME provides an opportunity to pull together and juxtapose

selected papers of mine that have been published over the past decade
in dispersed venues. As I discuss in the final essay of this volume, like
many others and for interestingly complicated reasons that reflect both
the changing objects of study and conditions of knowledge production
in academia, my work has evolved primarily in the form of essays produced for occasions and invitations. While I have been aware of strong
continuities in my thinking since the 1986 publication of Anthrqpology
as Cultural Critique and Writing Culture, the crystallization through assemblage that this volume makes available has proved useful in demonstrating to me (and I hope to others) just how systematic this work has
been. What the collection itself adds, I believe, is a chance to explore
the connection between the two parallel tracks that my work has systematically taken!
The papers of Part I trace my fascination, first registered in my piece
in Writing Culture (not reprinted here), with the impetus, means, and
implications of the emergence of, if not multi-sited fieldwork, then at
least a multi-sited research imaginary in the pursuit of ethnography.
Much of the experimentation and the working into the mainstream of
ethnographic practice of different conventions and sources of authority went in a quite different direction following the critiques of anthropological representation in the 1980s from the one examined in these
essays. While a sense of critical reflexivity, the complexity of voice, and
subject position have transformed the terms in which ethnographic research is now undertaken and written about, the regulative ideals and
framing presumptions of what it is to do fieldwork very much remain
in place in anthropology's professional culture.
Thinking in terms of multi-sited research provokes an entirely diffex:ent set of pwblems that not only go to the heart of adapting ethnography as practices of fieldwork and writing to new conditions of work, but
challenge orientations that underlie this en tire research process that
has been so emblematic for anthropology. This thinking arises from
the very practical need that anthropologists confront all the time these
days to resignity habits of thought about fieldwork and adapt their emblematic method to objects of study that are not simply "peoples" in
INTRODUCTION
topical arenas that do not readily define themselves in terms of sites

available for sustained participant observation. For me, it has been the
multi-sited character of the challenges-the need in any project to
keep in view and mind two or more ethnographically conceived sites
juxtaposed-that has made the difference, that has raised new provocation beyond the trenchant critiques of anthropological practice of
the 1980s, which nonetheless occurred within a sustained mise-enscene of traditional research imaginary.
The essays of Part 3 reflect my unfinished ethnographic memoir of
observation and participation in anthropology's changing professional
culture over the past decade,' as it has related to (as well as kept its
distance from) the strong inter- (some would say, anti-) disciplinary
trend, first known diffusely as postrnodemism and then more concertedly as cultural studies. Many norms have changed in the training of
anthropology students. There is certainly more flexibility in the development of dissertations, and renewed curiosity about new topics and
research possibilities. But, for better and worse, the regulative ideals
and imaginary of ethnographic research remain deeply en grained and
largely unchanged. Consequently there is much discussion, confusion,
and negotiation going on in graduate departments of anthropology
about how to resignify, indeed, reimagine, anthropology's emblematic
research process. There is a lot of informal talk at present about this
process, but very little formal articulation and analysis of it.
By working both sides of the boundary between anthropology concerned about itself as a distinct discipline with a tradition, and anthropology engaged within the arena of cultural studies' constantly seeking
to stimulate itself by a rapid retailing of ideas, I have thought a lot
about the ongoing shifts in the professional culture of anthropology.
The multi-sited challenge can be seen to intrude at various points in
the essays included here reflecting my concern with professional culture.' But the essays of Part 3 were largely developed according to their
own agenda of assessing changes in academic styles, practices, and institutions on the borderlands between anthropology and relevant interdisciplinary movements since the critiques of the 1980s.
Therefore, what I would like to encourage here, as an opportunity
occasioned by the making of this collection, is more thinking about the
interpenetrations and connections between the changes in research
practices implied and entailed by a multi-sited imaginary and the directions that the changing modes of production, demographics, and ethos
of participation seem to be taking in what it has been to be a social or
cultural anthropologist within established disciplinary traditions. My
own contribution to this effort will be to think through in my own
context of graduate teaching a very specific predicament of anthro-
ANTHROPOLOGY ON THE MOVE
pologists-in-the-making in designing their first projects of research,

raised as a focusing observation in the final essay that gives this volume
its title, and the possible effects of a multi-sited research imaginary
upon this most central of processes in the reproduction of professional
culture. However, before turning to this, I want to provide a framing
narrative for each of the essays selected for inclusion.
The essays of Pan 1 probe multi-sited strategies of doing and writing
ethnography primarily as a response to the understanding of cultures
as increasingly in circulation, making all locales and sites of sustained
fieldwork partial perspectives on what anthropology, at least in its traditional rhetorics and subjects as "peoples," promised to study, if not holistically, then more completely (which, in my view, does not entail the
dreaded "totalism," so much the ideological enemy of cultural studies).
This enduring commitment to a sense of holism within the finely observed particular case is the embedded functionalist ghost in ethnography that will not go away. The question is whether anthropological
ethnography can, or should, be satisfied with "partial knowledge" thus
ceding its contexts of holism, significance, and argument to given
frameworks and narratives of theory in history and political economy
that limit the scope of what ethnography can discover on its own, in
terms of its own practices and the sensibilities that these encourage.
This is an issue perhaps more relevant to an ethnography more oriented to elucidating contemporary processes emergent or unfolding
than to locating present subjects within a past that holds the key to
contemporary problems. At any rate these are the preoccupations that
generated "Imagining the Whole: Ethnography's Contemporary Efforts
to Situate Itself."
I composed "Requirements for Ethnographies of Late-TwentiethCentury Modernity Worldwide" to fit into a project on modernity and
identity conceived by scholars associated with the journal Theory, Culture, & Society (such as Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Jonathan
Friedman, among others)-a group whose concerns with the tradition
of social theory I have found most congenial and complementary to an
ethnography, moved primarily by an interest in culture and a multisited research imaginary. This was a comprehensive effort to bring together in one essay many of the diverse conceptual implications of the
interdisciplinary critiques of the 1980s for the future of fieldwork and
ethnographic writing. One key idea here was that the critique of ethnographic writing was not just about writing as such, but had backward
linkages and deep implications for the way fieldwork might be thought
about and designed. The techniques are a composite, not all or any
combination of which would characterize a particular work. As such, it
INTRODUCTION
was an effort at sketching the unfulfilled potentials that might yet occupy the space for exploration in ethnography opened by the critiques
of the 1980s. The need for a multi-sited imaginary is very clear, without
being crystallized as such, in the techniques that discuss "redesigning
the observed." And the techniques that discuss "redesigning the observer" indicate the need to think through the corresponding changes
in the way that basic fieldwork relationships are conceived and what an
act of effectively communicated critique within the confines of ethnographic convention might entail.
The final two papers of Part 1 begin to provide the crystallizations
signaled in the first two papers. "Ethnography in/ of the World System
... ,"written for the same venue as "Ethnographies as Texts'' (Marcus
and Cushman 1982) more than a decade earlier, is self-consciously
methodological in framing and is constrained to some degree by the
genre of a review article, but it effectively foregrounds the importance
of a multi-sited imaginary that had been percolating through my other
papers since Writing Culture. However, the importance of multi-sited
strategies as a research imaginary (provocations to alter or experiment
with the orientations that govern existing practices) rather than a set of
methods that are very specifically prescriptive for the conduct of fieldwork and writing might have been lost in the genre of a review article.
For example, the evocation of "circumstantial activism," sketched at the
end of this essay, raising the key issue surrounding ethics, moral ambiguity, and the reidentification of the ethnographer at the heart of pursuing multi-sited strategies of research, is methodological in intent,
rather than an appeal to rethink the ingrained regulative ideals of
fieldwork practice under differently posed conditions.
The paper on "The Uses of Complicity ... ,"written in response to
an invitation to contribute to an issue of Representations on the work of
Clifford Geertz, is an attempt to fill in more of what is at stake in the
sketch of "circumstantial activism." It is also meant to say more about
the changes in the nature of fieldwork relationships attendant upon
pursuing research in different sites that are not merely variants upon a
unified ethnographic subject (e.g., tracing a "people" or the cultural
artifacts that represent them in different locations, such as rural-urban), but lay across contested and conflicted social ground (e.g., working through ethnographic juxtaposition in expert and governmental
systems and in everyday lifeworlds both within the same research frame
of reference). "Complicity" rather than "rapport" signals the rethinking
that needs to be done about the primary conception of subjectivities
involved in fieldwork relationships when the "Other" and "getting inside" lose their force as the tropes that define the scene of fieldwork.
The essays of Part 2 have been included to show how specific eth-
nographic projects that I have undertaken during roughly the same

span of time that I have been involved with critiques of anthropology
and their implications indicate traces of and inspirations for the latter.
While neither my work in Tonga (through the 1970s), nor my work on
American dynastic fortunes and their legacies (from the late 1970s
through the 1980s) was designed and conducted in terms of a multisited research imaginary, each reveals a groping toward it, and together
they manifest an increasing propensity in this direction.
"Power on the Extreme Periphery ... ," the last creative and speculative piece on my Tongan work, prefigures some of the critical spirit of
the recent interest in the idea of transcultural flow and diaspora (see
James Clifford's review, 1994, of the ways that this trope has functioned
in the recent trends of ethnic, cultural, and postcolonial studies). This
paper contains the first indication of the need for multi-sited methods
and conceptions in anthropology as a response to contemporary transformations of the sorts of "peoples" it has traditionally made its subjects. In this paper a radically "internationalized" vision of Tongan society and culture is imagined such that the idea that the Tongan people
belong only to the Tongan islands, with the notion that their culture is
centered there, is called into question as the continuing frame in the
anthropological tradition of the study of this "people." This work does,
however, in its multi-sited suggestion retain the notion of a unified
subject, albeit engaged in various identity quests and struggles in diverse places, which my later work on dynastic fortunes does not.
The way that a multi-sited imaginary functions in this later work on
. dynastic fortunes indeed suggests the strong critical effect and potential of such an imaginary in line with anthropology's long standing
character as a mode of cultural critique by means of disrupting, "making strange," commonplace categories and perceptions. Dynastic fortunes have mainly been the stories of families, partly because families
have been perceived as natural subjects of ethnographic, or at least
sociological, study, while fortunes have not. Once fortunes-money, assets, abstract values in everyday management-are understood as sites
and objects of ethnographic study similar to the lives of the families
tied to them, then the conventional ways of narrating the stories and
histories of these kinds of old elites are called into question. In their
place is a much more complicated and ethnographically rich field of
study that raises new questions of fieldwork, ethics, analysis, and writing. While I continued to do fieldwork and write largely within the
framework of family relations, the way I thought about them was thoroughly embedded in a multi-sited imaginary, involving not a unified
subject, but subjects (fortunes and families) conventionally conceived
as incommensurate.
INTRODUCTION
The two other essays of Part 2 trace this evolving theme in my dynasty project. 'The Problem of the Unseen World of Wealth for the
Rich ... "was written for a symposium on "Culture As Illusory Order,"
at the American Anthropological Association meetings. It tries to communicate a sense of the innovation brought about in my dynasty project by treating fortunes and families as dual, interrelated, but also independent sites of ethnographic inquiry by an analogy with the multisited imaginary encountered by anthropologists who study the cosmologies infusing everyday life of certain Melanesian peoples, in this
case, of the Kaluli. In our own secular world, "unseen worlds" affecting
local ethnographic subjects either could become necessary and connected sites for further parallel fieldwork, or else they are routinely
finessed by constructs such as "the market," "capitalism," or by the use
of an already constructed historical narrative.
"On Eccentricity," written for another American Anthropological Association symposium on "Rhetorics of Self-Making," reflects indirectly
the concerns of the 'The Uses of Complicity" paper of Pan 1. It focuses
on the subject position within dynastic families-that of the eccentric-that is keenly aware of the multiple authoring of dynastic selves,
at the cost of what is considered normal selfawareness in a culture
hypervaluing the individuaL The eccentric is thus the one subjectivity
in dynastic families that is wholly oriented to the complicities "elsewhere" which construct it. As such, the study of the eccentric in contexts of wealth, celebrity, and power is the study of one manifestation
of the multi-sited imaginary embedded and operative in a particular
form of social life itself.
The essays of Part 3 try to ground certain developments of recent
intellectual history" in certain characteristics, practices, and styles of
thought of corresponding professional cultures within academic institutions. "On Ideologies of Reflexivity ... "looks at the politics of knowledge around the most common positions taken concerning the levels
and kinds of reflexivity supported in social science writing and analysis,
especially in ethnographic genres. What "postmodernism" has practically meant in the social sciences can be read, I argue, in terms of a
field of tolerances for reflexive styles. In this essay I introduce the
symptom of "messy" texts, and the aesthetic of ''worlds apart" cultural
criticism (or what I am calling here a multi-sited imaginary) that they
indicate.
"Critical Cultural Studies as One Power/Knowledge Like, Among,
and in Engagement with Others" detects a lack of confidence, a current worry among some practitioners about the relevance of critical
textual scholarship on contemporary events and processes. It responds
by an analysis (with a new journal on feminist economics in mind) of
what would constitute effective critique and how the orientations of

academic movements of cultural critique would have to change in ori
entation and in terms of whom they address in order to carry out such
critique. In short, culmral studies scholars would have to reidentify
themselves reflexively within spheres of dominant power so as to be
able to talk intimately to and with power, however uncomfortably at
first.
To demonstrate that such a bridging or conversation is at least possi
ble among those who were formed by a distinctive generational experience (often cliched as "the sixties") and with similar class preoccupa
tions but who chose different professional paths, I argue for an affinity
between critical academics and the kind of cold warriors concerned
with nuclear anns competition in terms of a certain shared modernist
intellectual aesthetic that each has bent to their own interests. The
tracing of such an affinity lends support to the possibility of conversation, or even a shared project of critique, within domains of dominant
power. At any rate, taking cultural studies in this provocative direction
might ease its anxieties about efficacy, whatever the attendant risks for
its own traditional political self-definition. The multi-sited imaginary
argued for in Pan 1 is thus present in this paper in the facing up to
and exploration of affinity as possibility by critical scholars in the U.S.
in their reflexive understanding of their own relationship to dominant
spheres of power.
Finally, "Sticking with Ethnography through Thick and Thin," prepared for the twenty-fifth anniversary symposium at the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced Study, focuses on the current
generational predicament of cultural anthropology and tries for an
ethnographic appreciation of a discipline itself in debate about how to
do ethnography, what it is, and can yet be, for. This is the piece on
which the understanding of the functions of a multi-sited research
imaginary in the midst of generational transition and within a changing professional culture most depends.
Advice to Ethnographers-in-the-Making: Some Strategies for

Redesigning the Research Imaginary of Fieldwork
Much of my effort in recent years has been devoted to the training of
anthropology graduate students in dissertation research. This has occurred in a small program (taking in only four new students a year)
noted for its association with the 1980s critiques of ethnography and
for its "alternative" orientation where work is encouraged that proceeds
critically and experimentally in relation to the discipline's mainstream
10
INTRODUCTION
methods and regulative ideals. We have several international students

in the program, and a number of these are from diasporic communities (e.g., South Asians resident in Canada). We have a number of
masters degree students from other graduate programs, in anthropology as well as other disciplines, who transfer to ours to pursue work
that they and we feel might be better done in our departmental environment. Students arrive with research interests that reflect very much
the interdisciplinary trends of the last decade-cultural studies, postcolonial studies, feminist studies, and the development of research by
these movements in the arenas of media, popular culture, science and
technology, institutional, corporate life, the rise of a global political
economy, and the rapid transformation of civil societies in Europe and
elsewhere.
The required entry course for new students-the pro-course-is a
kind of "lab" for discussing new research protocols that are reshaping
the fieldwork tradition in anthropology. Current work in this course
has been inspired by our thinking about the emergent multi-sited
framework in which fieldwork is now being conceived and conducted
and the related changes in the regulative ideals by which relationships
within the arena of fieldwork have been traditionally understood.
At least in U.S. anthropology today, there seems to be a major rethinking, not as yet well articulated, of the models of research practice,
especially with regard to the nature and senses of collaboration, and of
the conceptions of the objects of study around which research is designed, especially with regard to mobility or circulation as constitutive
of cultural formations. What is lacking in discussions of anthropology's
signature research practices is not so much more discussion of the experience of fieldwork under new conditions ( indeed, the popularity of
reflexive writing in recent years has made this kind of account pervasive), or even a critical perspective on the fieldwork idea (see Gupta
and Ferguson 1997), but a sense of the changing presuppositions, or
sensibilities-what I have called a research imaginary-that informs
the way research ideas are formulated and actual fieldwork projects are
conceived. This is a key area for discussion and development over a
decade after the critique of ethnographic writing opened the current
reassessment and readaptation of anthropology to its changing circumstances.
This level of consideration, crystallized as new strategies brought to
the early conception of research, anticipates many of the issues that
might arise later as to what the actual implications of such research
would be for the conduct of fieldwork and what the resulting published ethnographies from such fieldwork would look like. However, I
believe it is very important to operate at this level, somewhat betwixt
and between fieldwork as a method and experience and the profes-
11
sional culture which promotes it, in order to address very specifically

the concerns of the kinds of students we are now training, very much
influenced by ideas outside the discipline of anthropology (e.g., in cultural studies, feminist studies, media studies, etc.), but which have had
such a profound eflect upon it in recent times.
The norms for producing standard or mainstream ethnography have
changed considerably since the early 1980s, but even through such
changes there are still habits and presumptions of work holding certain
potentials in the development of critical research in anthropology
back, and it is in questioning and opening up these strictures that the
contemplation of a multi-sited research imaginary in teaching has been
effective. Where the proposal for a multi-sited research imaginary intersects with the changing norms of professional culture is precisely in the
predicament of students caught between the divergent characteristics
of first and second projects that I focus on in the final essay of this
volume.
Often drawn into anthropology by an interest in the second or later
projects of their professors-projects that are in a sense governed by
experimental norms which alter in various ways those of a standard
training model of fieldwork research in anthropology-graduate students must negotiate with their teachers the standard model by bending and stretching it in designing career-making dissertation research
projects that reflect new kinds of disciplinary interests for which the
standard model is no longer a certain guide.
This predicament is being addressed with a variety of expressions,
attitudes, and outcomes in every graduate department of anthropology.
The multi-sited imaginary of research, developed in Part 1 in perhaps
overly methodological terms, is currently my own way of addressing this
student (and more broadly disciplinary) predicament in learning to be
anthropologists through the choices to be made in the preparation
and doing of dissertation research. It is this contemporary predicament
of students and their professors that I have had in mind as I have
produced the papers of Part 1 over the past decade. And it is in intervening in this key professionalizing process of a discipline in transition
that has provided a major intention for making this collection now.
In the context of a multi-sited imaginary's function within the forming of graduate student research, I pose below some of the knotty issues that might be confronted by anyone formulating such research
nowadays. In relation to each, I suggest how a multi-sited imaginary
offers a challenge and potential opening in approaching the overall
model of anthropology's research process, from the conception of
fieldwork through to the production and reception of its results.
Whether or not the operation of such an imaginary results consistently
in multi-sited fieldwork and ethnography,' the provocation in itself of
12
INTRODUCTION
proposing a modified governing imaginary for ethnography does make

a difference at least in addressing issues that rarely figure prominently
in the choices that are made by ethnographers-in-the-making in their
strategies of fieldwork and writing.
1. The Double Bind of Ethnography's Reception
There is an increasing need to contextualize in equally ethnographic tenns

focused, site-specific projects of fieldwork that address topics and problems shaped outside the traditional ethnographic archive developed in
terms of geographic culture areas. The author/fieldworker did not
bear the weight of this kind of contextualization in the past because, as
several writers have shown (e.g., Appadurai's collection on "Voice and
Place" published in Cultural Anthropology, 1988) there was a density of
distinctive preexisting problem-defining discourse for fieldwork in any
given culture area. The problems in terms of which one conceived
one's ethnography were already given, so to speak. Ethnography in anthropology was thus designed to be only description, or description as
a form of argumentation, within the well-regulated discourse regimes
of culture areas.
All along, and especially in U.S. anthropology, there were studies
that developed outside the traditional archive (e.g., budding urban anthropology), but before the 1980s they mainly followed the conventions of mainstream ethnography, and served more as cases of something than as full, ambitious, and contextualizing arguments about
whatever was being described. Such studies of elites, cities, corporations, hospitals, and other institutions, were rather oddities within anthropology. They were generally admired for trying to do something
different and showing the potential broader relevance of anthropological research, but were not much discussed because nothing like the
density of disciplinary treatments existed for these studies as existed for
a study embedded in a long-standing tradition of culture area discourse.
Outside anthropology, such studies might be taken as cases or supporting illustrations of something the significance of which would be
defined by whatever other disciplines or experts appropriated ethnographic studies for their purposes. They could be taken as policy
concerns, as often marginal illustrations for social scientists like political scientists and economists, or as ethnography standing in for the
now suspect (but nonetheless desired) categories of the "primitive"
and "exotic" for historians of art, literary srholars, and historians in
general. In a sense, by their inability to make more ambitious argu-
13
ments within the frame of doing ethnography, the contributions of anthropologists outside of their own disciplinary archive have often been
circumstantially trivialized. They are always showing the generalized
"humanity" of life wherever it is lived and they arc providing cases to
be lent significance and appropriated by the arguments of others.
This is still very much the situation even after the 1980s critiques of
ethnography which retained the basic conventions of the genre, but
did license dramatically the possibility of more variation about how
ethnography could be written as well as how fieldwork could be
thought about. Indeed, my problem with much contemporary historicized, and historically sensitive ethnography is that its arguments and
significance are not produced or given within the frame of ethnographic work itself but by the contextualizing discourses and narratives
in which the ethnography comes to be embedded. Anthropologists are
more actively selecting framing contexts, theoretical associations, and
narratives for their ethnography, but they still mostly are not creating
them within the heart of the ethnographic process of fieldwork and
writing itself.
This situation is of course changing-but slowly-as more and more
research projects are defined and normalized outside the traditional
discourse realms of culture areas. In time, anthropology as a discipline
should have its own substantial scholarly discourse communities for
some of these topic areas. In the meantime, I would argue, the task of
making arguments, lending significance to the ethnographic project,
rests with the researcher, lest it merely be appropriated by and assimilated into the essentially non-ethnographically derived theoretical,
philosophical, and political agendas of more prominent others in academic and expert communities.
So what does this mean for the design of ethnographic research?
While there are many reasons for the current impulse toward multisited research, I would argue that one of the most important reasons is
precisely this need for ethnography to contextualize itself-its significance, its arguments-in terms of the sensibility and special contribution of its own distinctive practice. The ethnography simply needs to
do more theoretical/argumentation work within its own confines than it
has done in a past of cultural area frameworks or of easy appropriations by others when it is not operating within those frameworks. Now
what does it mean to do this? Not, I think, to make ethnography the
frame to write essays or "do" theory, but to expand and innovate the
possibilities for making arguments through description, the delineating
of processes, the orchestrating and representation (or evocation) of
voice, etc.
For me, the development of multi-sited strategies for doing eth-
14
INTRODUCTION
nography so as to discover and define more complex and surprising

objects of study is literally one important way at present to expand the
significance and power, while at the same time changing the fotm, of
ethnographic knowledge. I am looking for a different, less stereotyped,
and more significant place for the reception of ethnographically produced knowledge in a variety of academic and nonacademic forums.
Viewed in this radical way, multi-sited research presents new challenges
to both ways of writing ethnography and ways of pursuing fieldwork. In
short, within a multi-sited research imaginary, tracing and describing
the connections and relationships among sites previously thought incommensurate is ethnography's way of making arguments and providing its own contexts of significance.
What do multi-sited strategies mean practically at this point in time
for students influenced by these new issues, but also definitely caught
institutionally within the expectations of a disciplinary mainstream?
With possible exceptions, the dissertation for the time being should
take the form of a site-specific, intensively investigated and inhabited
scene of fieldwork but framed and partially investigated by a multi-sited
imaginary that provides the special context of significance and argument for the ethnography. Beyond the site there is still ethnography all
the way up and down, rather than only the "system," or "history," or
"grand historical narrative." Thus, in the shaping of first projects, I am
suggesting that the question of framing context needs, even demands,
more attention, and that while a multi-sited project may not be literally
puTSued at the dissertation level, every project should be imagined in
this way (and critically against the usual borrowed, more programmed
fill-ins for the contextualizing frame of ethnographic work). This kind
of disciplinary and methodological independence is of the utmost importance now if the results of ethnography produced by anthropologists are ever to mean much. Who knows if the other sites in the frame
of specific ethnography will ever be literally investigated by new anthropologists in post-dissertation work? But having this imaginary and some
sense of its empirical validity is absolutely key to making more ambitious and powerful claims through the ethnographic sensibility.
2. The Problem of the Powerful Motivation of Personal Connection in

Shaping Ethnography
The traditional assumption in planning ethnographic research is to

make a subject of study something far from oneself. The necessary estrangement (or defamiliarization) of anthropological work is achieved
by dramatically crossing cultural boundaries. Thus, traditionally, work-
15
ing in one's own society leads to a kind of second-class professional

citizenship for the results (the well-known bias in U.S. anthropology
against producing first fieldwork inside the U.S., among Englishspeakers). Also, ethnography that begins with the self is suspect as leading to a kind of digression from the proper subject of research-the
Other. Self-reflection, in this mode, is useful only to recognize bias and
the effect of subjectivity so as to neutralize it.
Of course, the critical hermeneutics so influential in recent years as
well as the changing demographics of anthropologists toward including and recognizing more bicultural, "hybrid" identities among themselves have encouraged generating research in just the opposite ways.
The extended exploration of existing affinities between the ethnographer and the subject of study is indeed one of the most powerful and
interesting ways to motivate a research design. Self-indulgence might
eventually become a problem, but fully exploring the personal dimensions of a project should not be cut off prematurely so as to deny projects sources of motivation and power. Working from very deeply
probed affinities of varying sorts has often been the way in which the
most interesting research proposals have been generated among students. The projection of these affinities from the realm of the more
personal to the delineation of more generic social-cultural problems
and issues is the key move which gives a project substance and force,
and also more legitimacy in the mainstream tradition bf social science
writing.
The key move of course is in the distancing and the projection of a
problematic that is first found and explored in the realm of the personal and in affinities with a particular subject matter to a more objectively defined subject of study. OtheiWise, there really is the danger of
ethnography becoming mere self-quests and of its vulnerability to the
charges that have so frequently been laid against it in the interest of
discrediting reflexive styles of analysis altogether. How to move from
the personal or from the exploration of affinity to the proposal which
speaks to other scholars and scholarly communities, as well as perhaps
to a nonacademic public, is an important aspect of the evolution of any
contemporary ethnographic research project.
In this move to shift the personal to the distanced "social," a multisited canvas or space of ethnographic research emerges almost naturally. The affinities themselves that motivate research, their exploration, and then projection, are all part of a process that inevitably leads
to a multi-sited frame that should be treated ethnographically, whether
the whole space is actually investigated or not (once again what becomes the focus and what becomes the context is a matter of decision
and strategy in research design). Indeed, it has long been the case that
16
INTRODUCTION
even in the traditional practice of ethnography, the self-conscious censoring or eliminating of these connections early on as "irrelevant,"
"only personal," or "nonprofessional" has made the always present
multi-sited potential canvas of ethnography resolutely single-sited, so as
to be contextualized abstractly by history, political economy, or a traditional culture area's delimited field of recognition of what the problems for investigation are.
So students might proceed initially with what personally ties them to
an object of study, looking at these affinities in objective as well as
subjective ways, but ultimately this process should be translated into
one that does define a distanced, objectified realm of study that continues to be fed by the initial fascinations of connection, but now in a
subterranean way.
3. The Problem of Falling Easily into Naturalized Categories and Frames in

Nontraditional Arenas of Research
Estrangement or defamiliarization remains the distinctive trigger of

ethnographic work, giving it the sense that there is something to be
figured out or discovered by fieldwork. What provides this estrangement now is not so much the literal crossing of cultural boundaries
and the entering of strange spaces (this is a working fiction that socalled globalization makes more difficult anyhow) as the determined
effort to refuse the couching of one's work at its very beginning-in it~
very conception-in naturalized, commonsense categories that is so
easy to do otherwise. Of course, ethnographers-in-the-making might be
studying political economies, art worlds, laboratories, cities, and the
like, but as one of my colleagues taunts his students-is that ALL that
you want to find out about? The subject is already bounded (and to
some extent, described) before the ethnography begins. If there is anything left to discover by ethnography it is relationships, connections,
and indeed cultures of connection, association, and circulation that
are completely missed through the use and naming of the object of
study in terms of categories "natural" to subjects' preexisting discourses
about them.
One of the premises, after all, of the 1980s critique was that ethnographers would no longer be able to define sites and objects of study
that had not already been written about and represented, and that they
could no longer constitute objects of study naively without explicit
strategies of engaging other, often competing modes of representation
about the same concerns and objects of study. While I don't believe,
then, that ethnography can be only the study of representations and
fields of overlapping and competing discourses, the most important
17
kind of reflexivity that enters into and changes the ethnographic form
as it has traditionally developed is precisely that which seriously figures
out ways to meld other traditions of representing particular subject.~
with the one-the anthropological one-that has promoted and produced fieldwork as a methodology for in tum generating a distinctive
kind of writing and representation. Reflexivity about a contending field
of representations in or around a particular site of ethnographic work
stimulates radical rethinkings of research identities and relationships.
The anthropologist becomes one kind of cultural producer among
others, some of whom at least were traditionally identified as merely
subjects or "informants."
While it is fine to warn about the unself-conscious use of naturalized
categories in designing research and defining objects of study, how to
do this in terms of techniques and alternative strategies of research is a
more difficult matter. The danger is that naturalized categories will be
replaced by merely invented, fanciful alternatives as a product of the
imagination, or wishful thinking-the object of study will become too
strange! Here again, the challenges of the multi-sited framing and contextualization of ethnographic research provide one means of alternative conceptualization in which something remains to be discovered,
redefined, or found out that ultimately must be accountable to methodical experience in the world of participant-observation. The juxtapositions among sites embedded in multi-sited strategies of following
leads and making connections tend to offset naturalizing categories
and their bounding of the world common-sensically. A multi-sited
imaginary really, then, creates the space of possibility and discovery in
ethnography, and keeps this space open contextually for intensive fieldwork done in its constructed framing, the kind of site-specific fieldwork
that many students will continue to do for their dissertation projects.
4. The Problem of the Current Ways in Which Ethnography Can Be "Set

Up" By Theory or Even Overtheorized
This issue derives from the same general concern (of each of the above
points, in their different emphases) that ethnography should not be
overdetermined before it begins, that there should be something to be
discovered, found out, in a world that in the literal (geographical)
sense has been totally discovered already. Instead of the danger of too
easily accepting naturalized categories, this time, the danger leading to
the premature closing down of ethnography to possibility is the too
rapid assimilation of the research project and its definition by theoretical terms that have been so influential from work over the past decade
18
INTRODUCTION
and more in interdisciplinary spaces, such as cultural studies, broadly

conceived.
The anthropologist really does have to find something out she
doesn't already know, and she has to do it in terms that ethnography
permits in its own developed form of empiricism. Some contemporary
ethnography is framed by the kind of theoretical concepts and sentiments that it can't possibly address in any cogent way. The problem of
any particular ethnography is thus stated and thought in terms that
ethnography itself, as a genre and method, is not traditionally designed
to probe. Or else the particular ethnographer has not done the very
difficult and uncertain work of translating the theoretical terms into a
design of investigation through fieldwork. The result is the thinness
that characterizes so much cultural studies ethnography, and for that
matter, increasingly, anthropological ethnography as well. The space of
potential discovery and increased understanding of processes and relationships in the world (which require a bedrock of very thick description indeed) is taken over by a discourse of purpose and commitment
within a certain moral economy. While the latter is essential to any
contemporary critical ethnography it cannot be developed at the expense of contributions to ethnographic knowledge that describe, interpret, and discover new relationships and processes embedded in the
world.
Ethnographic projects that are heavily motivated by and cast in culture theory terms must be allowed to "breathe," especially in terms of
their descriptive accounts of things, before the theory kicks in. Or else,
alternatively, the difficult job of translation must be done before the
fieldwork ever begins (I suppose I consider the latter to be much
harder to do than the other way around). That is, the ethnographer
should be able to figure out, describe, and explain very complex realities in fairly plain terms before clearly distinct theoretical framings,
interests, and critiques of ordinary language as political also set in with
full force. Otherwise, why bother with the arduous sweat of fieldwork?
I am arguing here for something very much like the integrity and
center of gravity, so to speak, of old ethnographic discourse-where
the standard of fieldwork quality is being able to inform someone of
your own community (scholarly and otherwise) what is going in the
frame of your project and fieldsite to the full extent of his or her curiosity. Anything less is obfuscation or covering by theoretical agility and
artifice for insufficient involvement in the field and the materials that
one generates from it.
This rather hard line arises from a sensitivity to the slippage in the
density of even anthropological ethnography in recent years and the
inability of disciplinary discussion to "police" this, so to speak, because
of the fact that much of the most interesting work has been developed
19
in new topical arenas on the margins of the old focus of discourses and
debates over ethnography, and by implication, its quality, done in the
framework of the culture area organization of its traditional archive.
I realize the counterarguments: for example, it is after a11 theory that
has powered so much new thinking in anthropology, so how can you
possibly artificially separate the context and terms of the stimulus to
motivating and thinking about research from the terms in which research is actually pursued? But even if you could make this distinction,
and operate in plainer terms (but not of course atheoretical or
aideological terms either-just seemingly so) to figure out fieldwork
and its materials with the idea of then assimilating them later to theory
held in abeyance, why would you bother to do so? Would you have the
energy or motivation to do so? Wouldn't this be the height of artificiality? True, but I still believe the effort must be made or the ability
of ethnography to continue to do what it has always done especially
well-thick description, to use the cliched Geertzian phrase-will be
finally lost.
The multi-sited imaginary lends itself to this moderation of the tendency toward overtheorization in contemporary ethnography in that it
focuses attention on the mapping of complex spaces into which fieldwork literally moves. It thus emphasizes the empirical challenge of just
figuring out, demonstrating through description, and thus arguing for
particular relationships and connections not at all obvious to the naturalized nominal categories of social space (#3 above) or the theoretical
stimulations which might have initially inspired an idea for ethnographic inquiry. So much of recent culture theory focuses upon the
complex construction of subjectivities with particular, but often caricatured, social milieus in mind. A resolute multi-sitedness in ethnographic terms tends to challenge and complicate in a positive way
this hyperemphasis on situated subject positions by juxtaposition and
dispersion through investigation in more complex social spaces than
many recent varieties of poststructuralist theory on culture and identity
have allowed.
5. The Problem of Ethnography's Vulnerability to a Closed, Overly Certain

Moral Economy
As a corollary to the above issue about the overtheorization of eth-
nography, there is a tendency for contemporary ethnographies in their

main arguments and orientations to explore the nuances and compass
of the moral predicaments of their subjects. That is, ethnographies are
mostly about subjects caught in the complexities of dominant regimes
of power, and their critical thrust concerns questions of agency, feeling,
20
INTRODUCTION
and being within a certain moral economy in which explicit judgments

are made about justice and virtue.
Whereas probing moral ambiguities and contradictions should be an
often fearless goal of cultural critique, what I personally find missing in
much cultural studies scholarship and genres such as ethnography influenced by it in anthropology is precisely an exploration of these uncomfortable ambiguities. While there is much sensitive and insightful
probing of a subject's or group's position in contemporary cultural
analysis, I find the moral compass or economy in which this analysis is
probed all too certain. What's more, this effect of a given moral economy that seeks to redeem the subjugated against the powerful is enhanced in the case of anthropology where, regardless of the exact shift
toward unconventional subjects and topics, there is a long-standing disciplinary orientation of sympathy and identification with the peoples
that anthropologists have traditionally studied. The ambiguity of this
normally clear orientation of anthropologists in relation to subjects'
arose for me in the attempt to do ethnography of elites in Tonga and
the U.S.," and I believe it arises ever more often nowadays as ethnographers move away from the traditional model of the study of "peoples,"
toward multi-sited cultural formations that encompass processes across
major fault-lines of the institutional exercise of power and its everyday
life consequences.
There is certainly great potential of a multi-sited research imaginary
to work against the moral certainties so important in shaping and directing critical arguments about culture in ethnography. It is not that
moral judgments cannot be made in the abstract and that ethnographers are always operating in terms of certain definite political and
ethical commitments-this is abundantly and richly communicated in
contemporary ethnographies-but the open-ended problem for critical ethnography is to describe the ways that moral positions and norms
take shape in diverse, broad, and conflicted spaces of social life. Since
the demise of structuralist analysis of various kinds in anthropology,
how very messy and ambiguous situated moral/ethical positions and
possibilities are in relation to regimes of political economy in which
subjects are embedded has less often been posed and probed by ethnography.
What multi-sited strategies of research offer is an opportunity to dislocate the ethnographer from the strong traditional filiation to just one
group of subjects among whom fieldwork is done and instead to place
her within and between groups in direct, or even indirect and blind,
opposition. This is, to be sure, not a very comfortable position for the
ethnographer, in which "not taking sides" is not an option, and in
which deception and betrayal are everpresent possibilities. In each
21
case, some form of "circumstantial activism," as I suggest in the last

papers of Part 1, is necessary to give better access to these more complicated ambiguities of fieldwork ethics. This is not simply a matter of
soul-searching and personal decision, but requires new discussions concerning what the boundaries of ethnographic scholarship are and what
it provides knowledge about. What is often taken for granted in terms
of an encompassing moral ecomony for fieldwork is now actively
probed and questioned along with other matters as the anthropologist
moves among sites of fieldwork. The notion of complicity developed in
the final paper of Part 1, as a positive, but morally ambiguous and
difficult concept of fieldwork participation, is intended to open discussion about the uncertain moral economy of multi-sited strategies of
research.
A Final Word . . .
While the exotic is in eclipse and there is no more of the literal world
to discover, the sense of discovery in ethnographic research is still important and a key to why scholars engage in it. Certainly, there has
always been much room for sel.fdiscovery in fieldwork, and this has only
been reinforced by recent license to explore reflexive forms of analysis
and writing. But this also has depended on being in the presence of
and in interaction with a distinctive and literal "Other," a mise-en-scene
that is attenuated by a multi-sited imaginary. So what remains to dis
cover? Or in what sense does ethnography survive in terms of this
trope? If it is the "making strange" or the act of defamiliarization that
has given discovery its form in ethnography, then in a multi-sited imagi
nary of fieldwork, this operation is sustained in developing knowledge
of the relationships and connections that extend beyond the frames
that have held the traditional act of fieldwork in place. This is the
contribution that a multi-sited imaginary makes in further opening
possibility in the practice of ethnography, commensurate with its new
interests and conditions of work.
Appendix to Introduction
THE EVOLUTION OF SANTIAGO VJLLAVECES-IZQUIERDO'S
DISSERTATION RESEARCH ON ELITE RFSPONSES TO VIOLENCE
IN CONTEMPORARY COLOMBIA
Note: The following brief account by Villaveces-Izquierdo, an anthropology graduate student at Rice University completing his degree, is
22
INTRODUCTION
included here to provide a concrete example of how a multi-sited

imaginary emerges in the development of contemporary ethnography
especially when it focuses on complex processes that are difficult
to literally ground or trace in terms of lineal metaphors. While striking in its originality and ambition, this project wrestles with problems of designing ethnographic research that are by no means atypical
nowadays.
Today, in the society of nations, Colombia is known for being both
Latin America's oldest democracy and the western hemisphere's most
violent country where democratic mechanisms coexist with increasingly
restricted civil rights, authoritarian measures, and acute violence. Attempts to consolidate the nation-state, based on principles of national
integration, have been blurred systematically by the elite's own needs
for containing what they have historically understood as social disorder.
Violence has been a founding problem throughout the history of Colombia, one that became endemically visible and decentered in Colombian modernity with the coming of the era known as La Violencia
(1945-65). Today La Violencia is not only the country's most salient
memory landmark, but also the events that spread long-standing political hatreds which triggered today's complex forms of violence. After
180 years of independence from Spain, Colombia is still caught in a
transitional phase toward democracy.
In the late eighties several years of frustrating attempts to bring guerrillas and government into dialogue marked the Barco administration
(1986-90). During this time I worked in the President's Office on programs to negotiate the demobilization and reintegration of guerrillas
into civil society, and as a Colombian citizen I have, like others, experienced the quotidian effects of the constant awareness and news of various incidents of violence. In 1991 the opportunity to begin graduate
work opened up the possibility of assessing anthropology as a means to
understand something about this culture shaped by pervasive forms
and acts of violence. My interest was not so much in doing an ethnography of the perpetrators, victims, or actual acts of violence themselves and their immediate consequences. Rather, I was interested initially in the impacts of violence on those who most expect to live free
of it in terms of personal security, but of course cannot: that is, the
lower and professional middle classes as well as the upper classes. I
looked at how violence seeped into popular culture, media, advertising, images, architecture (with a distinctive "narco-style" reflecting the
flamboyant taste and wealth of drug trafficking), and everyday speech
and habits, as well as at the marketing of security (for homes, automobiles, etc.) to a culture that is increasingly fearful of the effects of
23
violence and helplessly or complicitly indifferent to its causes. This initial phase of my thinking about research was exemplified in an interview I produced for the Late F.ditions series (in Late Editions 4, Cultural
Producers in Perilous States, ed. by George E. Marcus, University of Chicago Press, 1996) with Doris Salcedo, a Colombian artist, well known
for hel' installations dealing with the traces and effects in everyday life
of the atmosphere of violence.
It was difficult to determine a site-specific ethnogl'aphic access to my
inquiry thus far, so as I planned an extended period of fieldwork in
Bogota, I shifted my interest to those institutional sites in Colombian
state and society in which the daily work of particular professionals was
taken up with responses to violence-understanding it and doing
something about it within particular manifestations and institutional
constraints. Not only do these professionals come from the Colombian
middle- and upper-class culture of fear and indifference in which I had
already been interested, but their work defines locations for sustained
fieldwork participation and observation. Further, probing the more active responses of elites to violence would allow me to assess actual constraints and untapped possibilities in those sites where there are a certain mandate and empowerment to define the pervasive violence of
Colombia as a social problem.
As proposed for funding, my project focused on legal institutions.
My aim was to explore the use and abuse of Colombia's remarkable
"state of siege" legislation before and after the new Constitution of
1991, as the. state's most expedient mechanism for the containment
and management of endemic violence. With this working framework, I
attained funding and set off for a period of fieldwork to last from 1994
through 1996.
Upon arriving in Colombia in August 1994, I found myself visiting
and participating in associations familiar from my past: the Universidad
de los Andes, from which I had graduated in economics in 1986; the
Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia (ICAN); and the Centro para Ia
Investigaci6n y Educaci6n Popular (CINEP), a Jesuit :-./GO and the
main human rights research organization in the country. Such associations and institutions are cross-cut and permeated by very messy networks of personal association and circulation. A mainstay of past social
science inquiry has rested on mapping and defining the characteristics
of such networks as a basic contribution of research. My own questions
were elsewhere, and the tracing of networks was only interesting to me
as a way to locate and define the background of sites where the main
activity and possibility was to act upon social violence as a function of
state office, profession, and expertise. How was I to find my way
through this labyrinth?
24
INTRODUCTION
A1; I began to make contacts that would infonn me about the Constitutional Court, where the most important decisions and debates about
the state of siege legislation were taking place, I met a highly reputed
psychoanalyst, a disciple of Erich Fromm, who was once a political activist and a perceptive witness to changes in Colombia over a long period. We began a series of wide-ranging and open-ended coversations
that continued through my entire period of fieldwork (a record of
these is published in Santiago Villaveces and jose Gutierrez, Una Travesia Freudiana Crnzando Colombia. Bogoti, 1996: Spriridon). Oblique to
the direct pathway of inquiry, this site-meta-site, actually-was perhaps the most important of my fieldwork. It was the "control" upon my
movements among the networks, a context in which interpretations
could be shaped and reflected upon, as they were being thought. Many
fieldwork projects, I imagine, have such a muse, but he or she is located off the map of the work (perhaps evident only in the Acknowledgments).
It became very clear to me that neither networks nor one particular
site-even one as important as the Constitutional Court-would be
sufficient to address the more diffuse elite discussions about violence
and their locations in institutions. Sites of focus were needed so as to
provide some sort of comparative lever on how issues of violence were
fonnulated and hopes for action were expressed. I returned to
Houston in July 1995, to discuss my research with my supervisors, and
in a meeting at a cafe, I drew a sketch on a napkin of a visual representation of the complex spaces and connections that defined the "universe" of my fieldwork thus far.
This sketch decisively posed the problem of a multi-sited strategy for
bounding this project. I finally setded on the juxtaposition of two sites
where different institutional openings and foreclosures were operating
upon opportunities for active response to violence. One was the arena
of the Constitutional Court, which I had initiated fieldwork to research.
The other was that of the expert specialization and enterprise of violentology, the self-defined and often political state supported in tellectual effort of the public sphere to address all aspects of violence in
Colombian society. These were by no means the most obvious nor the
only sites in which elite response to violence could be probed in a
focused way-there is the media, journalism, the practice of criminal
law, and most interesting of all, the recent effort of doctors to medicalize the problem of violence and define it as a public health issue
through epidemiological study (the latter is actually a transnational site
since the movement to define violence as a matter of public health is
truly global in scope).
While my field of study is open-ended and I may very well add sites
25
in the future, I needed to strategically bound my dissertation. To me,

the comparative, juxtaposed movement of my fieldwork back and forth
between the Constitutional jurists and the violentologists made the
most sense, even though as sites for ethnographic study they are quite
incommensurate. But I did not choose them for their structural similarities, or even fm how they define networks of elites, but for the ways
in which each in its particular social manifestation and embeddcdness
defines possibilities for opening new public debates and terms of action in the consideration of the myriad forms and deep past of violence
in Colombia.
Only ethnography that deals with the entire field by moving through
clear design and choice in and between sites has potential as a potent
means for defining this unruly field of intellectual and institutional life
in Colombia's still very restricted democracy. The Constitutional Court
and the academic violentologists can be viewed in juxtaposed relation
to one another as spaces, or even experiments, where alternative and
action are, if only realized in very constrained ways, at least possibilities.
This is why I have made them together the medium of my ethnography
in progress.
Notes
]. I am grateful to the person who recently encouraged me to collect some
of my essays of the last decade. I had thought of doing so myself, but because
of a certain ambivalence about the current "essay mode of production" nourishing in anthropology and more broadly in the interdisciplinary arena stimulated by intellectual trends in the study of culture over the past decade and
more, I probably would not have gotten around to it on my own. Aside from
this exercise of making an assemblage having proved generative in revealing
connections that I had not appreciated before, I also have come to like the
idea of participating intellectually in the fin-dc-siecle in this way. There is something very cogent about anthropology's rellexive (or transitional) predicament
in trying to come to terms with a sense of the contemporary that presents itself
in a different way than the past as well as in indulging in a mode of academic
production into which a good deal might be read about the state of cultural
studies, broadly conceived, at the end of the twentieth century. (See the Late
Editions series of annuals which I have edited since the early 1990s for another
venue in which I and the participants in this project have tried to make something of the fin-de-siecle construction.) If it weren't for the suggestion that
nudged me forward now, this act of assemblage (for example, if I had not
gotten around to it until, say, 2001) would never have enjoyed, at least in my
mind, this contextualization within a constntction of self-consciously heightened sense of historic temporality. To me, the sense of possibility, hope, and
emergence as well as exhaustion-in short, of transition-fits much more the
26
INTRODUCTION
mood of fin-<le-siecle (fin-<le-millenium is much too grand given the relative

youth of anthropology and its prospects), than the beginning of a new century.
The reflexive conception of the moment suited for these essays, and much of
anthropology at present, is one that is forward looking, but very much of the
twentieth century rather than the twenty-first, still immersed in its habitual
technologies of form giving, but with the expectation of immense changes in
media on the very near horizon.
2. Both lines of thought juxtaposed and reflected upon in relation to one
another in this volume were present in my contributions to Writing Culture. In
my essay "Contemporary Problems of Ethnography in the Modem World System, the multi-sited (then "multi-locale") possibility was considered as an alternative to the encompassment (and submission) of ethnography within the classic, highly predictable, and morally certain metanarratives of history and
political economy from which it has come to derive its meanings. As an Afterword to this volume, I also wrote a brief piece on ethnographic writing in the
context of the anthropologist's career process. It seemed to me from the outset
that the fortunes of any intellectual critiques of anthropology would be intimately entwined with the institutional forms and practices that shape anthropologists as well as the character of generational transitions that are affecting
the professional culture of the discipline. Only with the juxtaposed essays of
this volume have I tried to make more explicit the complex relationships between a changing research imaginary and its embedding in a changing professional culture.
3. This memoir in progress has been informed by observations and participation in a variety of conferences, in the U.S. and elsewhere, over the years. To
take one very recent example, I attended in late April 1997, a conference reflecting on fieldwork at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology at the University of Frankfurt am Main. While this conference had a predominantly European flavor, the deep assumptions which shaped most of the presentations I
found to be fairly universal among anthropologists, especially when it comes to
analyzing and reflecting upon their emblematic practice. Most of the presenters were senior scholars, middle-aged, mostly male, and mostly white, although
of diverse nationalities. While there were a number of interesting and provocative arguments made about aspects of contemporary fieldwork, there was an
unstated consensus that ran through the papers about the traditional virtues
and contributions of fieldwork itself as an activity-the best of liberal, humanistic values about openness and humility in negotiating the cross-cultural boundaries and relationships of the field. The audience, heavily composed of students from the Institute and elsewhere, was much more diverse in gender and
ethnicity than the presenters and certainly contrasted with them in generational identification. Someone from the audience made the following provocative comments: none of the papers allowed for the idea that personnel producing fieldwork might change markedly over time, and this would make quite a
difference in how fieldwork might be talked about-and in what precise terms
it might continue to be valued as a professional ethos-simply, that who was
doing fieldwork at the time of Malinowski or of Boas is different from who was
doing it after World War II and is different from who is doing it now, or might
27
do it in the near future. Further, that many of the most valuable lessons of
fieldwork of earlier periods-that instilled liberal values of openness, humility,
etc. and defined its unarticulated ethos for certain generations-may now be
learned in other venues (feminism, postcolonial studies) and even before one
enters anthropology as a profession, so that what fieldwork meant as a powerful
intellectual program to one generation might be very different for a later generation of different backgrounds. This seemed to me to be a very indirect,
polite way of the audience (or certain segments of it) to communicate sympathetically that despite cogent arguments and insights of the presenters, they did
not really speak specifically to them. That while they share the basic value of
doing fieldwork with their seniors, what this experience means to them must
be different from the unstated values of professional fellowship which shaped
the papers they were hearing. What lay behind the indirection I could only
guess. From informal conversations with some of the students in the audience,
I saw that they shared something of an international interdisciplinary intellectual culture with their counterparts in the U.S. In any case, I have witnessed
numerous such moments of social and psychodrama within the academic conference arena over the years, in diverse places. Encounters like this have been
my food for thought, so to speak, reflected in the papers on changing professional culture included in this volume.
4. Or whatever the long interdisciplinary trend focused on cultural analysis
might yet become.
5. For example, the emergence of "messy" texts as a symptom in the essay on
ideologies of reflexivity; the need for cultural studies to reidentify itself and talk
to power while focusing on subaltern and popular culture subjects in the essay
on critical cultural studies as one power/knowledge among and in relation to
others; and again, the identification of fragmented texts and the collected essay
genre as a marker of change in professional culture in the last essay.
6. That is, the waves of critical thought carried to the disciplines over the
past two decades by feminism, postmodemism, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies.
7. Indeed, outcomes are often messy and highly variant in terms of what the
imaginary might be thought to imply about practice.
8. There are many fieldwork accounts which show just how unclear this orientation can be, how psychologically and emotionally complex it is, but still,
there is no question that in professional culture, however objective some
studies might be, or however ambivalent expressions of reflexivity in anthropological writing might be, the identification of one with one's subjects and
their virtues is still overwhelming.
9. In studying elites in the 1970s and 1980s, I was never happy with the idea
of an ethnography of elites expressed as "studying up" (Nader 1969), which
carried the connotation of compensating for the preponderant interest in anthropology in studying the dominated, but also of "getting the goods"-the
ethnographic "goods"-on elites, by probing the interior dynamics of how
power shapes their lives and is produced by them so that they can be opposed.
I didn't think that anthropologists were temperamentally suited to be so clearly
oppositional at the outset in relation to whom they studied, and further to be
28
INTRODUCTION
interesting, at least to me, studies of elites had to be about more than just
proving a broadly understood moral postulate about their nature. In fact, I
found the study of elites to be much more complicated and ambiguous than
this, and indeed their study throws one immediately into multi-sited spaces and
the sort of circumstantial activism that I have posed. The most interesting results of elite research are the unsuspected relationships, connections, and affinities that their ethnographic study reveals, not the seemingly eternal verities of
modernist theories about how they are positioned and what they are responsible for in global histories of relations of domination. Regardless of strong
moral positions and commitments of the ethnographer in the abstract, studies
of elites will rarely confirm who the "good" and bad" guys are, but more likely
pose the ambiguity and messiness of any moral position mapped onto social
life across communities of difference. This is the territory that a multi-sited
imaginary insures ethnography will be exploring, with whatever degrees of success or confidence.
10. There is rarely anything as complex in terms of moral ambiguities
probed in ethnography as very occasionally occurs in journalism and on television dramas. My favorite example-I believe portrayed on L.A. Law or Law and
Order some years back-concerns the adjudication of a legal case in which
concentration camp survivors are opposing the use of crucial data derived from
experiments on prisoners by Nazi doctors in contemporary research on a disease that disables children. This blocks together in situated contradiction good
and evil in the most extreme way. It provides a striking instance of the sort of
ambiguous issues that, while they are resolved under the authority of courts,
remain unresolved problems for extended cultural analysis in the space of
multi-sited ethnographic imaginary. Maybe the extremity of the example is unusual, but its juxtaposition and sense of an ambiguous moral economy is not,
for ethnography pursued within a multi-sited imaginary.
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Ethnography,and the
Historic.al Imagination
John & Jean Comaroff
First Interview with the Chief of the Bachapins
WESTVIEW PRESS
Boulde1 San Francisco Oxj01d
Preface
recently reflected, somewhat ruefully,
that anthropology has lost control over its two most basic terms, culture
and ethnography; that, in the age of deconstruction and critical postmodernism, we have entered a conceptual free-for-all in which our disciplinary
quest has no terrain of its own any more. Our tropes have been taken over,
our signs seized. Even the exotic, the world of cultures unambiguously
other, is no longer a secure refuge. After all, literary criticism has also, to
borrow Torgovnick's aphorism, "gone primitive" (1990). And cultural
studies devote themselves increasingly to the "subcultures" of those who
inhabit the margins of the modern world order. Nice ontological debates
between, say, anthropological structuralists and theorists of practice, materialists and meaning-mongers, slip into insignificance next to the danger
of death by dispossession.
We shall have to wait and see whether this new academic angst is justified;
over its relatively short life, anthropology has been prone to periodic attacks
of epistemological ennui (see, e.g., Leach 1961; Hymes 1969; Banaji 1970;
Worsley 1970; Murphy 1971; Ardener 1971; Crick 1976). In the meantime,
the present volume argues for the continuing value of a historical anthropology in which ethnography and culture remain vital-indeed, are even
revitalized. In specifying what this anthropology rriay entail, amidst the
intellectual turbulence of the late twentieth century, we shall suggest that
the discipline is best distinguished by its method-in the European sense
of "theoretically informed practice"-rather than by its current theories,
its repertoire of terms, or its subject matter. This, of course, echoes Geertz's
(1973) stress on "doing ethnography." As will become clear, however, our
sense of "doing" is quite different from his. The method of which we
speak is emphatically neomodern. It seeks to construct imaginative sociologies of terrains both near and far, more or less complex, familiar and
strange, local and global-accounts at once social and cultural, both
imaginative in their grasp of the interior worlds of others and yet, to
paraphrase Thorburn (1990:x), respectful of the real. In this we keep close
to the essential pulse of anthropology while simultaneously straying into
the territory of social history and literary studies. But no matter. More
than disciplinary proprieties, what counts here is a shared spirit of inquiry.
ONE OF OUR SENIOR COLLEAGUES
IX
Preface
Before we speak further of neomodernist anthropology-its substance

is the subject of Chapter 1-let us say something of the provenance of the
essays themselves. Written between 1982 and 1990, they were produced
in a climate, perhaps already "postdated," in which the social sciences at
large were suffering an acute bout of distrust and doubt. Established
assumptions and powerful paradigms appeared, at least to some, to be
caving in, undermined by forces that were also dissolving meaningful
differences in human experience. Developments such as the rise of global
communications and mass media, the internationalization of the division
of labor, the revolution in worldwide patterns of consumption, the commoditization of popular culture, and the dissolving of neat political and
ideological boundaries around societies and cultures (accompanied by a
renaissance of nationalism and ethnicity) had severely taxed the trusty old
analytic toolkit, not to mention, with apologies to C. Wright Mills (1961),
the sociological imagination. To be sure, if Mrican villagers now found
their heroes in American soap operas rather than in primordial myths, if
their rituals had come to be as much about shopping as making sacrifices,
if their music was mingling with ours to yield a ubiquitous "world beat,"
wherein lay the cultural contrasts, the practices of "otherness," that we had
hitherto spent so much time analyzing-and squabbling about? Cultural
anthropology, for which these contrasts had always been a major stock-intrade, was probably more destabilized by these processes than were the
other social sciences. By the end of the 1980s, many of the bluff certainties
with which the decade had begun seemed to have evaporated.
For some, the growing awareness of past narvete, real or imagined, was
paralyzing; others went on doing the same as they always had done,
reassuring themselves that the crisis would pass. Amidst all this, however,
were signs of the emergence of a new generation of anthropologistsintellectual, that is, not chronological-that made virtue of necessity and
began in earnest to study mass culture and social movements, rapidly
changing societies and state formations, nationalism and ethnicity, colonialism and other global processes. In other words, to do ethnography in,
and ethnographies of, the contemporary world order. This shift in focus
promised, in principle, to save the discipline from some forms of deconstructionist distrust, postmodern pique, and, perhaps most important, the
censure of those "natives" who were formerly the object of study. But,
inevitably, analytic questions presented themselves more quickly than did
persuasive solutions; notwithstanding various piecemeal efforts, many of
them highly creative, we remained heavily dependent on the observer's
omniscient eye. And badly in need of a methodological apparatus to extend
its range.
All of our essays were written to address this need in one or another
form. All sought, in practical terms, to expand upon received techniques
Preface
XI
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of interrogating particular social phenomena. All bear the imprint of

contemporary debates, of assumptions and claims profoundly questioned,
of the impossibility of ironic detachment. But they also assert a faith that
the human wprld, post-anything and -everything, remains the product of
discernible social and cultural processes: processes partially indeterminate
yet, in some measure, systematically determined; ambiguous and polyvalent, yet never utterly incoherent or meaningless; open to multiple constructions and contest, yet never entirely free of order-or the reality of power
and constraint. It is in this sense that we affirm, by prefix and predilection,
our commitment to neomodern anthropology. And to the conviction that,
far from being opposed to (or detachable from) theory, ethnography is
instrumental in its creation-and hence is indispensable to the production
of knowledge about all manner of social phenomena.
Indeed, we would argue that no hun1anist account of the past or present
can (or does) go very far without the kind of understanding that the
ethnographic gaze presupposes. To the extent that historiography is concerned with the recovery of meaningful worlds, with the interplay of the
collective and the subjective, it cannot but rely on the tools of the ethnographer. It must, as the likes ofThompson (1978a), Darnton (1985), Samuel
(1989), and Hobsbawm (1990) have suggested, be more than a little bit
anthropological. By the same token, however, no ethnography can ever hope
to penetrate beyond the surface planes of everyday life, to plumb its invisible
forms, unless it is informed by the historical imagination-the imagination,
that is, of both those who make history and those who write it.
Two further things are to be said about the essays. First, we have
deliberately selected, from among our recent writings, a number of studies
whose themes converge and complement each other, studies that share a
body of ethnographic and historical material; each, of course, was written
to advance a particular line of argument or methodological exploration. As
a result, some repetition is to be found in them. We have not attempted to
eliminate this, for in each case the passages concerned are integral to an
unfolding narrative. We beg the indulgence of the reader, hoping that, in
return, each essay may stand on its own, to be read alone as well as part of
a coherent discourse.
Second, the immediate circumstances that stimulated the essays may
have passed by, but debts remain to those who posed the original questions
and insisted on answers. All were written at the University of Chicago,
where colleagues in Anthropology, the African Studies Workshop, and the
Committee on Critical Practice continue to engage us in energetic debate
over the relationship of anthropology to history and to explore with us the
"crisis of representation" in the human sciences. We are grateful, in
particular, to Nancy Munn and Beth Heisinger for their acute and constructive readings of the title essay and to Amy Stambach for her concerned and
xu
Preface
effective resea~ch assistance. The National Science Foundation, National

Endowment for the Humanities, Lichtstern Fund of the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Spencer Foundation, and
American Bar Foundation have all extended welcome support. Dean Birkenkamp and Kellie Masterson at Westview Press, models of editorial
enlightenment both, persist in oftering cheerful encouragement and advice.
And our children, Josh and Jane, with us perforce on yet another authorial
adventure, contrive to show kindly tolerance and healthy skepticism in
roughly equal measure. But, above all else, a cohort of gifted and generous
students-many non-American-have shared with us the excitement of
their intellectual journeys and faced us with the demand for an anthropology worthy of their age. It is their uncompromising challenge that has
elicited this book and forced us to reflect on the place of ethnography in
the world they will inherit.
John and fum Comaroff
Ethnography and the Histmical Imagination
31
poles, mentalities, tand mass media of Europe and America. And this,
finally, brings us back to the question of method.
IV
How, then, do we do an ethnography of the historical imagination? How
do we contextualize the fragments of human worlds, redeeming them
without losing their fragile uniqueness and ambiguity? To repeat: for us
the answer lies in a historical anthropology that is dedicated to exploring
the processes that make and transform particular worlds-processes that
reciprocally shape subjects and contexts, that allow certain things to be
said and done. Over time, all social fields are swept by contrary waves of
unity and diversity: by forces that diffuse power and meaning and by
counterforces that concentrate and fix them. The premise of unification, of
some limitation to the "chaos of variety" (Holquist in Bakhtin l98l:xix),
is essential to collective life-and, hence, to the very idea of society and
culture. But so is the inevitability of proliferation, polyphony, and plurality.
Situating our fragments is thus a challenging task, for the systems to which
we relate them are systems of a complex sort. Yet, we insist, they are
systems nonetheless. We should not deny them coherence merely because
they refuse to reduce readily to simple structures.
We are not alone in urging that anthropology shift its concentration
away from simple structures and local systems, at least as traditionally
defined. This shift, however, has practical consequences. Above all, it
deprives us of our conventional, all-too-easy means of bounding analytic
fields, forcing us to enter rarified realms of floating texts and macrostructures, where the connective tissues-the processes and pathways of
face-to-face sodalities-seem to dissolve into thin air. In the past, our
strategy for studying "complex" situations was either to turn to the
sociology of networks and symbolic interaction-to a methodological
individualism, that is, without a generic theory of society and culture-or
to find enclaves within the alienating world of modernity. We looked for
"subcultures," informal economies, and marginal minorities, for ritual and
resistance to capitalism; all neatly circumscribed phenomena, for us still
thick with meaning. Until very recently, we have felt ill equipped to broach,
in their own ethnographic right, such things as electronic media, "high"
culture, the discourses of science, or the semantics of commodities. At
best, these have been regarded as forces eroding traditional orders or as
"significant causes of our modern difficulties" (McCracken l988:xi). 29
And so we have remained largely in the countryside, on ethnic islands and
culturally distinct archipelagoes.
32
THEORY, ETHNOGRAPHY, HISTORIOGRAPHY
We are the first to acknowledge that it is not easy to forge units of

analysis in unbounded social fields. But it would be false to assume that
an ethnography of the nation-state, of empire, or of a diaspora presents
problems unprecedented in earlier studies of, say, domestic production,
possession rites, or lineage relations. That assun1ption appears true only as
long as we pretend that such "local" phenomena are visible in the round
and are separable for heuristic purposes from anything beyond their
immediate environs; as long as we sustain the primitivist fiction that
tnditional orders are natt1ral and self-perpetuating-and radically different
from the unruly, unbounded, even unnatural worlds of "modernity" or
"capitalism." But few, surely, would wish to condemn anthropology to
such pastoral archaism; what should define us is a unique analytic stance,
less our locus than our focus. Whether our topic be headhunting in the
Amazon or headshrinking in America (or is it vice versa?), voodoo exorcism
in the Caribbean or voodoo economics on Capitol Hill, we should approach
it from the same perspective: as meaningful practice, produced in the
interplay of subject and object, of the contingent and the contextual.
It is precisely here that anthropology has shown a failure of imagination,
however, and here that we return to our opening theme. Many of us
continue to be hampered, in conceiving open syste!ns, by the dualisms of
an enduring evolutionism. We are still prompted to deal in a priori
contrasts-between stasis and change, gifts and commodities, theodicy
and theory, and so on-that assume the meaning and telos of social
phenomena. The Naparama and their kind remain primitive rebels, not
Promethean heroes or universal soldiers. And this impedes us as we try to
dissolve the great analytic divide between tradition and modernity, to
confront global issues in more inventive, less pejorative terms. Nor, as we
suggested, is the problem resolved by upgrading mechanical models of
local systems, grafting them onto universalist theories of society and
history; or by literary critical methods that make ethnographic fragments
into exemplary texts without adequately relating them to the wider worlds
that produce them.
Ethnography does not have to respect a binary world-map, let alone the
axes of typological difference. As a mode of observation, it need not be
tied either to face-to-face scenes or to a specific sort of social subject. True,
we have classically set our sights on particular persons and palpable
processes, and this has determined our point of entry into any cultural
field. But we are not, for that reason, limited to the writing of microsociologies or histories. The phenomena we observe may be grounded in
everyday human activity; yet such activity, e{et;_ when rural or peripheral,
is always involved in the making of wider structures and social movements.
Nor ought we to confine ourselves to history's outstations. Even macrohistorical processes-the building of states, the making of revolutions, the
Ethnography and the Historical Imagination
33
extension of globakapitalism-have their feet on the ground. Being rooted

in the meaningful practices of people great and small, they are, in short,
suitable cases for anthropological treatment. Indeed, whether or not we
choose to write about them directly, they must always be present in our
accounts (cf. Davis 1990:32).
The methodological implications of all this are best explored by way of
a specific instance. Several of the essays that follow address the anthropology
of empire, in particular the nineteenth-century encounter between British
Nonconformist missionaries and peoples of the South African interior. The
former were footsoldiers of colonialism, the humble agents of a global
movement. The latter, who would come to be known as "the" Tswana,
inhabited a world with its own history, a history of great political communities built and broken. But the African past would become subservient
to the European present, made into the timeless sign of the "traditional"
periphery. In order to grasp this process, we had first to characterize each
party as a complex collectivity, each endowed with its own historicity. And
then we had to retrace the (often barely visible) minutiae of their interactions. For it is in the gradual articulation of such alien worlds that local
and universal realities come to define each other-and that markers like
"ethnicity" and "culture," "regionalism" and "nationalism," take on their
meanmg.
Elsewhere (1991:35ff) we have discussed the general problem of recovering the histories of peoples like the Tswana from evangelical and
official records, a topic now receiving long overdue attention (Amin 1984;
Guha 1983). Here we are more specifically concerned with the question of
how to do a historical anthropology of dominant, world-transforming
processes (cf. Cohn 1987; Cooper and Stoler 1989). Clearly, colonial
evangelism must be understood both as a cultural project in itself and as
the metonym of a global movement; its participants certainly saw themselves as an integral part of the grand imperial design. This, then, is an
appropriate site for an imaginative sociology, a context in which anthropologists might recognize their kinship with cultural historians and embark
on an ethnography of the archives. In our own work, the point of entry
was obvious enough: We began with the conventional chronicles of the
Nonconformist missions. But, in trying to make sense of the churchmen's
various writings, as well as the wealth of reported speech about them, we
soon learned not to rely on any preconstituted "documentary record."
Rather, we had to pursue what Greenblatt (1990:14) terms the "textual
traces" of the period, traces found in newspapers and official publications
as well as in novels, tracts, popular songs, even in drawings and children's
games.
Instead of a clear-cut chain of events, or a discernible perspective, the
colonial archives revealed a set of arguments. They were dialogic in
34
THEORY, ETHNOGRAPHY, HISTORIOGRAPHY
Bakhtin's (l981:272f) sense; that is, they partook of diverse genres, of

cultural and historical heteroglossia that gave voice to complex patterns of
social stratification. If the colonizers formed a single block, it was one
fractured by internal difference-and by diverging images of empire locked
in "socio-ideological" struggle (p. 273). The latter expressed itself in
disputes about such things as abolition, evangelism, and the way to rule
and save savages. But, at root, it involved a contest over both the shape and
meaning of "natural facts" and the 1najor constituents of modern knowledge: its constructs of person, agency, and work, of Africa and Europe,
wildness and civilization. It was only by reconstructing this field of
argument-and, going perhaps beyond Bakhtin, by redeeming its politics-that we began to understand the cultural revolution entailed in both
the rise of European capitalism and the imperial gesture. Here, amidst all
the contradictions of the age, were forged the precepts and projects of a
new hegemony, a new bourgeois modernism with universalist horizons
and global ambitions. These, of course, included the Christian overseas
mlS S!On .
A historical ethnography, then, must begin by constructing its own

archive. It cannot content itself with established canons of documentary
evidence, because these are themselves part of the culture of global modernism-as much the subject as the means of inquiry. As anthropologists,
therefore, we must work both in and outside the official record, both with
and beyond the guardians of memory in the societies we study (Cohn
l987:47f). In order to reconstruct the annals of a cultural imagination,
moreover, we have to operate with a working theory not merely of the
social world, but also of the role of inscriptions of various kinds in the
making of ideology and argument. For only then can we situate individual
expressions and signifying practices within a wider field of representation.
After all, locating our fragments requires a sense of the way in which they
ride the crosscurrents of division and unity at any moment; of how the
autonomous creative urge runs up against cultural constraint. Sahlins
(1990:47) notes that, although persons and collectivities "somehow determine'' each other, they cannot, by that token, be reduced to one another;
But our methods should tell us something of the way in which personal
acts become social facts. In the case of colonial evangelism, we had to
address the matter by locating a flood of rapportage from the imperial
frontier in the complex textual field wrought by the industrial revolution,
the consequences of so-called print capitalism (Anderson 1983). But this
is just a specific instance of the general problem of reading social processes
from exemplary representations: If texts are to be more than literary topoi,
scattered shards from which we presume worlds, they have to be anchored
in the processes of their production, in the orbits of connection and
influence that give them life and force.
Choreographing
HIST-ORY
Edited by
Susan Leigh.Foster
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Indiana University Press

BLOOMINGTON
AND
INDIANAPOLIS
SUSAN LEIGH FOSTER
Choreographing History
Manifesto for Dead and Moving Bodies
Sitting in this chail; squirming away from the glitches, aches, low-grade tensions reverberating in nech and hip, staring wifocused at some space between here and the nearest
objects, shifting again, listening to my stomach growl, to the cloc/1 ticl1ing, shifting, stretching, settling, turning-I am a body writing. I am a bodily writing.' We used to
pretend the body was uninvolved, that it remained mute and still while the
mind thought. We even imagined that thought, once conceived, transferred
itself effortlessly onto the page via a body whose natural role as instrument facilitated the pen. Now we know that the caffeine we imbibe mutates into the
acid of thought which the body then excretes, thereby etching ideas across the
page. Now we know that the body cannot be taken for granted, cannot be
taken seriously, cannot be taken.
A body, whether sitting writing or standing thinking or walking talking

or running screaming, is a bodily writing. Its habits and stances, gestures
and demonstrations, evety action of its various regions, areas, and parts-all
these emerge out of cultural practices, verbal or not, that construct corporeal
meaning. Each of the bodys moves, as with all writings, traces the physical fact
of movement and also an array of references to conceptual entities and events.
Constructed from endless and repeated encounters with other bodies, each
body's writing maintains a nonnatural relation betwe~n its physicality and
referentiality. Each body establishes this relation between physicality and
meaning in concert with the physical actions and verbal descriptions of bodies
that move alongside it. Not only is this relation between the physical and concept)Jal 'nonnatural, it is also impermanent. It mutates, transforms, reinstantiates
with each new encounter.
Todays creaking knee is not yesterdays knee jogging up the hill. The way
one reaches toward that knee, as much a metaphor as any attempt to name or
describe the knee, already presumes identities for hand and knee. But during
their interaction identities for hand and knee become modified. Together they
discover that the knee feels or sounds different, that the hand looks older or
drier than yesterday. Comparisons between past and present knees provide some
FosTER
sense of continuity, but the memory is also unreliable. \Vas it a year ago that the
knee started creaking that way? Did it cease to make that noise during running,
or after stretching? vVhy did it hurt yesterday and feel fine today?
The body is never only what we think it is (dancers pay attention to this difference). Illusive, always on the m.ove, the body is at best li11c something, but it never
is that something. Thus, the metaphors, enunciated in speech or in movement,
that allude to it are what give the body the most tangible substance it has.
Organized collections of these metaphors, established as the various disciplines that scrutinize, discipline, instruct, and cultivate the body, pretend
permanence of and for the body.' Their highly repetitive regimens of observation
and exercise attempt to instantiate physical constants. Thousands of push-ups,
plies, or Pap smears later, the body appears to have consistent features, a clear
structure, identifiable functions. If one is willing to ignore all subtle discrepancies and to uphold the statistical averages, one can almost believe in a body that
obeys natures laws. But then it suddenly does something marvelously aberrant:
it gives out, comes through, or somehow turns up outside the bounds of what
was conceivable.
This is not to say that the bodys latest unanticipated gestures occur beyond
the world of writing. On the contrary, the body's newest pronouncements can
only be apprehended as bricolages of extant moves. A sudden facility at physical
feats figures as the product of past disciplinary efforts to render the body faster,
stronger, longer, more dextrous. The onset of illness signals deleterious habits,
psychological repression, a cleansing process. Any new sensation of sex issues
out of an expanded, but not alternative, sensorium. These new writings, even as
they jar perceptions with their arresting inventiveness, recalibrate, rather than
raze, bodily semiosis.
How to w1ite a histo1y of this bodily writing, this body we can only !mow through
its w1:iting. How to discover what iL has done and then describe its actions in words.
Impossible. Too wild, too chaotic, too insignificant. Vanished, disappeared,
evaporated into thinnest air, the body's habits and idiosyncrasies, even the
practices that codify and regiment it, leave only the most disparate residual
traces. And any residue left behind rests in fragmented forms within adjacent
discursive domains. Still, it may be easier to write the hist01y of this writing body
than of tl1e pen-pushing body. The pen-pushing body, after all, bears only the thinnest significance as an inadequate robotics, the apparatus that fails to execute the
mind!> will.
What markers of its movement might a bodily writing have left behind? But
first, which writing bodies? empowered bodies? enslaved bodies? docile bodies?
rebellious bodies? dark bodies? pale bodies? exotic bodies? virtuoso bodies? feminine bodies? masculine bodies? triumphant bodies? disappeared bodies? All these
genres of bodies first began moving through their days performing what they had
learned how to do: carrying, climbing, standing, sitting, greeting, eating,
dressing, sleeping, touching, laboring, fighting .... These quotidian activitiesnot just the signing of a decree, the waving of the battalion into action, the
posing for a painting, not just the body on the rack, oozing with puss, foaming
at the mouth-these bodies' mundane habits and minuscule gestures mattered.
These "techniques of the body," as named by Marcel Mauss and John Bulwer
before him, bore significance in the way they were patterned and the way they
related with one another. Each body performed these actions in a style both
shared and unique. Each body's movement evidenced a certain force, tension,
weight, shape, tempo, and phrasing. Each manifested a distinct physical structure, some attributes of which vvere reiterated in other bodies. All a body's
characteristic ways of moving resonated with aesthetic and political values. The
intensity of those resonances are what permit genres of bodies to coalesce.
Yet each body's tnovements all day long form part of the skeleton of
meaning that also gives any aberrant or spectacular bodily action its luster. Those
everyday patterns of movement make seduction or incarceration, hysteria or
slaughter, rouLinization or recreation matter more distinctively The writing body
in the constant outpouring of its signification offers up nuances of meaning that
make a difference. The writing body helps to explicate the blank stare of the
black man in the white police station, the raised shoulders and pursed lips of the
lich woman walking past the homeless family, the swishing hips and arched eyebrows of gay men as a straight couple enters their bar, the rigid stance and
frowning forehead of the single woman waiting at the bus stop next to the construction site. Or put differently: the writing body helps to explicate the blank
stare of the black man in the white police station, the blank stare of the rich
woman walking past the homeless famil}' the blank stare of gay men as a straight
couple enters their bar, the blank stare of the single woman waiting at the bus
stop next to the construction site. Each body's distinctive pronouncements at a
given moment must be read against the inscliption, along with others, it continuously produces. A blank stare does not mean the same thing for all bodies in all
contexts.
How to get at this skeleton of movement's meaning for any given past and
place? Some bodies' quotidian movements may have been variously recorded in
manuals-ceremonial, religious, educational, social, amorous, remedial, martial-that instruct the body, or in pictures that portray it, or in literary or
mythological references to its constitution and habits. 3 In their movements, past
bodies also rubbed up against or moved alongside geological and architectural
constructions, music, clothing, interior decorations ... whose material remains
leave further indications of those bodies' dispositions. Insofar as any body's
writings invited measurement, there endure documents from the disciplines of
calculation addressing the body's grammatical makeup-its size, stmcture, composition, and chemistry-that tell us something about what shape a body was in.
These partial records of varying kinds remain. They document the encounter between bodies and some of the discursive and institutional frameworks that
touched them, operated on and through them, in different ways. These documents delineate idealized versions of bodies-what a body was supposed to look
like, how it was supposed to perform, how it was required to submit. Or they
record that which was nonobvious, those details of bodily comportment construed as necessary to specify rather than those deemed self-evident. Occasionally,
fOSTER
they reflect patterns of bodily deviance, whether ironic, inflammatory, inverted,

or perverted, from the expected. Whatever their take on bodies, these docmnems
never produce an isolable and integral single physical figure, bm instead stock an
antiquarium storeroom with the sharded traces of bodily movement across the
cultural landscape.
A historian of bodies approaches these fragmented traces sternum leading, a
sign (in tl1e West since, say, the eighteenth centwy) that his or her own body is
seeking, longing to find, the vanished body whose motions produced them. Yes,
the histolian also has a body, has a sex, gender, sexuality, skin color. And this body
bas a past, more or less privileged, more or less restricted. This historian's body
wants to consort with dead bodies, wants to know from them: vVhat must it have
felt like to move among those things, in those patterns, desiring those proficiencies, being beheld from those vantage points? Moving or being moved by those
other bodies? A historians body wants to inhabit these vanished bodies for specific reasons. It wants to know where it stands, how it came to stand there, what
its options for moving might be. It wants those dead bodies to lend a hand in deciphering its own present predicaments and in staging some future possibilities.
To that end historians' bodies amble down the corridors of documentation,
inclining toward certain discursive domains and veering away from others. Yes,
the production of hist01y is a physical endeavor. It requires a high tolerance for
sitting and for reading, for moving slowly and quietly among other bodies who
likewise sit patiently, staring alternately at the archival evidence and the fantasies
it generates. This physical practice cramps fingers, spawns sneezes and squinting.
Throughout this process historians' own techniques of the body-past practices of viewing or participating in body-centered endeavors-nurture the
framework of motivations that guide the selection of specific documents. One
historians body is drawn toward domestic labor and the panoply of sexual practices. Another responds to etiquette, fashion, and dance, but ignores training for
sports and the military. Another frames questions around physical education, .
anatomy, and medicine, but avoids representations of the body in painting; another looks to hunting or the crafting of musical instruments alongside the
practices of pornographic publishing. Another looks for excessive gestures in
highly contained places. One looks for physical repetitions; another for exaggerations; another for defiant actions. Whatever the kinds and amounts of bodily
references in any given constellation of practices, they will yield versions of historical bodies whose relation to one another is determined as much by the
historians body history as by the times they represent.
In evaluating all these fragments of past bodies, a historians own bodily experience and conceptions of body continue to intervene. Those bodies of the past
were "plumper," "less expansive in space," "more constlicted by dress" than our
own. They tolerated "more pain," lived with "more dirt." The "ankle was sexier,"
the "face less demonstrative," the "preference for vertical equilibrium more pronounced," than in our time. They "smelled," or "shaved," or "covered themselves"
in a different way. They "endured more," "strained harder," "held on more tenaciously." Even the space "between" bodies and the codes for "touching" and
"being touched" signaled differently from today.
These comparisons reflect not only a familiarity with corpo-realities but also
a historians interpretation of their political, social, sexual . and aesthetic significance. Any of the body's featm;es and movements-the space it occupies, its size
and dispositions, the slowness, quickness, or force with which it travels, a bodys
entire physicality--reverberate with this cultural significance twice over: Physical actions embodied these values when the body was alive and kicking, whatever
documentary apparatus registered its actions then reevaluated as it reinscribed
the body's semiotic impact.
But if those bodies of the past incorporate a historians bodily predilections,
its political and aesthetic values, they also take shape from the formal constraints
imposed by the discipline of hiswry. Historians' bodies have been trained to write
history. They have read widely among the volumes that compose the discourse of
history and from them learned how to stand apart in order to select information,
evaluate its facticity, and formulate its presentation in accordance with general expectations for historical research. From this more distant locale, they work to
mold the overall shape of historical bodies by asking a certain consistency. logic,
and continuity from the many and disparate inferences of which they are composed. They have also listened to authorial voices within histories that strive to
solidify themselves so as to speak with transcendental cettainty. From these voices
they have learned that pronouncements about the past should issue in sure and
impartial tones. They have deduced that historians' bodies should not affiliate
with their subjects, nor with felloW historians who likewise labor over the secrets
of the past. Instead, those voices within past histories teach the practice of stillness, a kind of stillness that spreads across time and space, a stillness that
masquerades as omniscience. By bestilling themselves, modestly, historians accomplish the transformation into universal subject that can speak for all.
But dead bodies discourage this staticity. They create a stir out of the assimilated and projected images from which they are concocted, a kind of stirring
that connects past and present bodies. 5 This affiliation, based on a kind of kinesthetic empathy between living and dead but imagined bodies, enjoys no primal
status outside the world of writing. 6 It possesses no organic authority; it offers no
ultimate validation for sentiment. But it is redolent with physical vitality and embraces a concern for beings that live and have lived. Once the historians body
recognizes value and meaning in kinesthesia, it cannot dis-animate the physical
action of past bodies it has begun to sense.
Tensing slightly closed eyelids, some bodies dimly appear: glancing, grasping, mnning in
fear, standing stoically, sitting disgraced, falling defiantly, gesturing enticingly. In that
dream-like space that collects filmed or performed reconstructions of the past,
visual images from the past, and textual references to past bodies, historical
bodies begin to solidify. The head tilts at an angle; the rib cage shifts to the side; the
w1iting body listens and waits as fragments of past bodies shimmer and then vanish.
If writing bodies demand a proprioceptive affiliation between past and

present bodies, they also require interpretation of their role in the cultural production of meaning: their capacities for expression, the relationships between
FosTER
body and subjectivity they may articulate, the bodily discipline and regimentation of which they are capable, the notions of individuality and sociality they may
purvey. The facts as documented in any recorded discourses, however, do not a
body's meaning make. They substantiate the causal relationship between body
and those cultural forces that prod, poke, and then measure its responsiveness.
They substantiate only bodily reaction. They lie askew from a body's significance
and in its wake. And even a historians movements among them cannot draw
them together so as to fashion meaning for a past bodys candid stance or telling
gesture. The construction of corporeal meaning depends on bodily theories-armatures of relations through which bodies perform individual, gendered, ethnic,
or communal identities. 7
Bodily theories already exist embedded in the physical practices with which
any given historian's body is familiar. Each of his or her bodys various pursuits
elaborates notions of identity for body and person, and these conjoin with the
values inscribed in other related activities to produce steadier scenarios of who
the body is in secular, spectacular, sacred, or liminal contexts. Any standardized
regimen of bodily training, for example, embodies, in the very organization of its
exercises, the metaphors used to insnuct the body; and in the criteria specified
for physical competence, a coherent (or not so coherent) set of principles that
govern the action of that regimen. These principles, reticulated with aesthetic,
political, and gendered connotations, cast the body who enacts them into larger
arenas of meaning where it moves alongside bodies bearing related signage.
Theories of bodily significance likewise exist for any prior historical
moment. Circulating around and through the partitions of any established practice and reverberating at the interstices among distinct practices, theories of
bodily practices, like images of the historical body, are deduced from acts of
comparison between past and present, from rubbing one kind of historical document against others. In the frictive encounters between texts, such as those
expressing aesthetic praise, medical insights, proscriptive conduct, and recreational pursuits, theories of bodily significance begin to consolidate.
The first glimmerings of body theories put meaning into motion. Like the
shapes that pieces from a puzzle must fit, theories contour bodily significance
within and among different bodily practices. Theories allow interpolation of evidence from one practice where meaning is specified to another where it has
remained latent, thereby fleshing out an identity for bodies that informs a specific
inquiry and also the larger array of cultural practices of which they are a part. 8
Theories make palpable ways in which a bodys movement can enact meaning.
Not all writing bodies, however, fit into the shapes that such theories make
for them. Some wiggle 'away or even lash out as the h,istorian escorts them to
their proper places, resisting and defying the sweep of significance that would
contain them. In the making of the historical synthesis between past and present
bodies, these bodies fall into a no-mans-land between the factual and the forgotten where they can only wait for subsequent generations of bodies to find them.
I gesture in the ail; a certain tension, speed, and shape flowing through arm, wrist, and
hand. I scrutinize this movement and then feel my torso lift and strain as I search for the
words that would desnibe most accurately this gesture's quality and intent. I repeat the
movement, then roch forward insistently, pressing for a conversion of movement into
words. A sudden inhalation, I haven't tahen a breath in many seconds. I am a body
yearning toward a translation. Am I pinning the movement down, trapping it,
through this search for words to attach to it? This is what we thought when we
thought it was the subject doing the writing. We thought any attempt to specify
more than dates, places, and names would result in mutilation or even desecration of the body's movement. We gave ourselves over to romantic eulogies
of the body's evanescence, the ephemerality of its existence, and we reveled
in the fantasy of its absolute untranslatability." Or else, and this is merely the
complementary posture, we patted the mute dumb thing on the head and explained to it in clearly enunciated, patronizing tones that we would speak for it,
thereby eviscerating its authority and immobilizing its significance.
It is one thing to imagine those bodies of the past, and it is another. to write.
about them. The sense of presence conveyed by a body in'motion, the idiosyncrasies of a given physique, the smallest inclination of the head or gesture of the
hand-all form part of a corporeal discourse whose power and intelligibility
elude translation into words. Bodies' movements may create a kind of writing,
but that writing has no facile verbal equivalence. In commencing to write a historical text, discrepancies between what can be moved and what can be written
require of historians yet another form of bodily engagement and exertion. Yes,
the act of writing is a physical labor, rendered more vividly so when the subject
of that writing is bodily movement resurrected from the past by the imagination.
But to construe bodies' movements as varieties of corporeal writing is already a step in the right direction. Where bodily endeavors assume the status of
forms of articulation and representation, their movements acquire a status and
function equal to the words that describe them. The act of writing about bodies
thereby originates in the assumption that verbal discourse cannot speak for
bodily discourse, but must enter into "dialogue" with that bodily discourse.'" The
written discourse must acknowledge the grammatical, syntactical, and rhetorical
capacities of the moved discourse. Writing the historical text, rather than an act
of ~erbal explanation, must become a process of interpretation, translation, and
rewriting of bodily texts.
How to transpose the moved in the direction of the written. Describing
bodies' movements, the writing itself must move. It must put into play figures of
speech and forms of phrase and sentence construction that evoke the texture and
timing of bodies in motion. It must also become inhabited by all the different
bodies that participate in the constructive process of determining historical
bodily signification. How could the writing record these bodies' gestures toward
one another, the giving and taking of weight, the coordinated or clashing momentum of their trajectories through space, the shaping or rhythmic patterning
of their danced dialogue?
And what if the bodies I am writing about spring off the page or out of my imagination,
I don't hnow which, and invite me to dance. And what if I follow and begin to imitate
10
FosTER
their movements. As we dance alongside one another-not the euphoric dance of the
self-abandoned subject, not the deceptively effortless dance of hyper-disciplined bodies,
but instead, the reflexive dance of self-critical bodies who nonetheless find in dancing
the premise of bodily creativity and responsiveness-l'm not leading or following. It
seems as though this dance we are doing is clwreogmphing itself through me and also
that I am deciding what to do next. Dancers have often described this experience
as the body taking over, as the body thinking its own thoughts ... but this is
as inaccurate as it is unhelpful; it is merely the inverse, again, of the penpushing body.
At some point, historical bodies that have formed in the imagination and
on the written page can seem to take on a life of their own. The historical inquiJy takes on sufficient structure and energy to generate meaning and to narrate
itself. Its representational and narrational determinants, infused with their
authors energy and with the vibrancy of dead bodies, begin to perambulate on
their own. When this transformation in the nature of the inquiry occurs, a corresponding redefinition of autholial function also takes place: The author loses
identity as the guiding authority and finds him or herself immersed in the
process of the project getting made. This is not mystical; its really quite bodily.
Rather than a tmnscendence of the bod)\ it's an awareness of moving with as well as in
and through the body as one moves alongside other bodies.
The transformation in autholial identity shares nothing in common with the
appearance of modest objectivity that the universal subject works to achieve. The
universalist voice, even as it strives not to contaminate the evidence, not to neglect any point of view, nonetheless treats the historical subject as a body of facts.
Similarly, the partisan voice, fervently dedicated to rectifying some oversight and
to actively exposing an area of deficiency in historical knowledge, approaches the
past as fixed sets of elements whose relative visibility needs only an adjustment.
If, instead, the past becomes embodied, then it can move in dialogue with his-torians, who likewise transit to an identity that makes such dialogue possible.
In this dancing out of all the parts that have been created, historians and
historical subjects reflect upon as they reenact a kind of improvised choreographic process that occurs throughout the research and writing of history: As
historians' bodies affiliate with documents about bodies of the past, both past
and present bodies redefine their identities. As historians assimilate the theories
of past bodily practices, those practices begin to designate their own progressions. As translations from moved event to written text occur, the practices of
moving and writing partner each other. And as emerging accounts about past
bodies encounter the body of constraints that shape the writing of history; new
narrative forms present themselves.
To choreograph history, then, is first to grant that history is made by bodies,
and then to acknowledge that all those bodies, in moving and in documenting
their movements, in learning about past movement, continually conspire together and are conspired against. In the process of committing their actions to
history, these past and present bodies transit to a mutmilly constructed semiosis.
Together they configure a tradition of codes and conventions of bodily significa-
ll
tion that allows bodies LO represem and communicate with other bodies. Together they put pen to page. Together they dance with the words. Neither
historians body nor historical bodies nor the body of histmy become fixed
during this choreographic process. Their edges do not harden; their feet do not
stick. Their motions form a byway between their potential to act upon and be
acted upon. In this middle ground they gesture toward one another, accumulating a corpus of guidelines for choreographic signification as they go, making
the next moves out of their fantasies of the past and their memmy of the present.
Ambulant Scholarship
In his essay "Lesson in \Vriting," Roland Barthes contrasts vVestern and Bunraku
puppet traditions in order to imagine a bodily writing. Where the conventions
of Western puppet performances hide the puppeteer backstage either above or
below the puppet, the Bunraku puppeteers hover just behind the puppet, onstage and in full view. Where Western puppets consist of glove-like sacks which
the puppeteers' hands animate, or jiggling, jointed appendages strung up to the
puppeteers' controlling hands, Bunraku puppets are propped up with sticks
swiftly relocated by the puppeteers in order to shift their bodily positions. Paradoxically,_ Barthes obse~ves, the physical presence of the puppeteers in Bunraku
helps to give the puppets an uncanny corporeal power. The Western puppet remains an instrumentality, a simulacmm of the body, whereas the Bunraku puppet
performs its concrete abstraction. In its corporeal writing we see "fragility, discretion, sumptuousness, extraordinaty nuance, abandonment of all triviality, [and]
melodic phrasing of gestures .... "ll
The image of the Western puppet, in its causal dependence on the puppeteer, succinctly summarizes the treattnent of the body in Western scholarship
since the Renaissance. Conceptualized as a natural object, the body has registered, but never manufactured, psychic or social forces; it has conveyed, but
never articulated, unknown or untamable realms of experience. As a mechanics,
the body has constituted a topic of research insofar as it houses diseases, aberrations, and frailties, or as it decomposes into chemical or structural components,
or ris it demonstrates reflexive and instinctual responses, or as it reflects the results of regimentary programs of training that transform it into athlete, actor,
soldier, or dancer. As a metaphor for unknown and mysterious forces, the body
has stood in for the unconscious, desire, libidinal or sexual impulses, or irrational, whimsical or perverse actions. As a bearer of cultural symbols, the body
has been aligned with the feminine, the decorative, the pleasurable, or the fashionable. In each of these capacities, the body, like the Western puppet, is
construed as an index of forces that act upon and through it. Its fascination as a
topic of research resides in its responsiveness as an instrument of expression and
in the degree to which it eludes precise verification of its instrumentality:
In this reification, the body shares with women, racial minorities and colonized peoples, gays and lesbians, and other marginalized groups the scorn and
neglect of mainstream scholarship.U The canonical thrust of Western scholarship
has worked at every turn to deny and repress or else to exoticize the experience
12
FOSTER
of these peoples just as it has dismissed body-centered endeavors and the participation of the body in any endeavor. The critiques of canonical scholarship
established. in feminist and queer theory, postcolonial and minority discourses of
inherent racial, class, and gendered biases have immediate relevance for a scholarship of the body. These critical inquiries explicate techniques of dismissal used
in canonical scholarship that find direct analogues in scholarly approaches to
body-centered endeavors. The unease felt by dancers,_ for example, working in
the academy shares with the Native an exasperated sense of the skewed terms in
which cultural exchange has typically occurred. Little wonder that dancers often
retreat into recalcitrant muteness, insisting that they can only dance their responses to all curricular and research issues.
Critiques of traditional scholarship aid in understanding strategies of the
body's neglect, but inquiries into bodiliness can, in turn, extend these critiques
by elucidating new dimensions of patriarchal and logocentric value systems. A
serious consideration of body can expose and contest such dichotomies as theory
vs. practice or thought vs. action, distinctions that form part of the epistemic
foundations of canonical scholarship. The Platonic fantasy of heads unencumbered by limbs or torso or by the "beast teathered just beneath the diaphragm"
has persevered as a guiding image in academic research, one whose full power
and influence come into sharp relief when bodily participation in endeavors is
allowed to inform the inquiry." Are not reading, speaking, and writing varieties
of bodily action? Can theory attain definition apart from the medium in which
it finds articulation? Critical focus on the body forces new conceptualizations of
these fundamental relations and of the arguments addressing individual and collective action that depend on them.
Body stands along with Woman, Native, and Other as a neglected and misapprehended subject of inquiry, but it stands uniquely as a category that pivots
inquiry easily into any of these marginalized domains. The questions "what
bodies are,being constructed here?" or "how do these values find embodiment?"
or "how does the body figure in this discourse?'' can be asked within each noncanonical field of study. To ask such questions is to establish a possible grounds
on which to base coalitions among these various constituencies. Body thus constitutes both a subject area and also a mode of inquiry that can connect distinct
fields. If bodily actions are allowed to carry their own inscriptive weight, if they
are given more than just a sex or a set of regimented requisites, then they may
empower us with a newly embodied sense of human agency. If body claims consideration as more than holding ground for unconscious desires, instincts, drives,
or impulses, then it may point the way toward new kinds of coalitions and new
forms of collective action.
The possibility of a scholarship that addresses a writing body as well as a
body written upon can be traced to widespread aesthetic, technological, and political changes in the early decades of the twentieth century. At the beginning of
the century, new regimentations of the relations between bodies and machines
isolated the bodys physical labor, giving it intrinsic interest while at the same time
subjecting it to close analysis designed to yield the most efficient routinization of
movement. 14 Cinematic representations of the body as well as its treatment in the
l3
emerging field of advertising enhanced the body's visibility but also imbued it
with an objectified concreteness. Futurist artists, in their praise of the body as machine, reduced it to abstract measurements of velocity and force. Choreographers,
from Nijinsky to Graham and Humphrey, working to develop a modernist aesthetic, treated the body's movement as a kind of material substance, capable of
being shaped and manipulated, even as they atuibuted this corporeal reality to a
manifestation of the psyche. Thus, the body attained a new autonomous existence
as a collection of physical facts, even as this physicality was seen as resulting from
individual subjectivity or from the political and economic forces shaping the individual.1'
This new conception of the body is eloquently reflected in the work of
choreographer and movement theorist Rudolph Laban, whose analyses of human
movement focused on the positions of body parts, the temporal and tensile qualities of movement, and on the body's paths through space. Laban's work generated
two distinct, mature notation systems, one that recorded the body's changes in
position and the timing of those changes (Labanotation), and another that documented the effort and flow of movement and the body's shaped configurations in
relation to its own parts and other surrounding objects (Effort-Shape). His
systems of movement analysis also found application in a second generation of
Tayloristic research on worker efficiency. Laban's pioneering studies elaborated,
for the first time, multiple variables for observing movement and sophisticated
structures to explain their combined physical effects. At the same time, he asserted that the preference for specific patterns of speed, flow, and directionality
clearly indicated a given psychological orientation. In his work as a choreographer, he likewise coordinated large numbers of amateurs in performances,
known as movement choirs, whose spatial configurations and simple movements
would not only represent but also instill in performers and audience alike certain
social values. 16
The conception of body as tangible physicality transporting psychological
and social values likewise registered in the scholarship on the body from that
period. In the 1930s the idea of the body as a subject of historical research
became more widespread, as seen in Norbert Elias's epic histories of bodily conduct and Mikhail Bakhtin's examination of bodies as represented in literature."
Elias and Bakhtin, both writing in response to the rise of fascism, focused critical
attention on the body's relation to the state. Elias, highlighting the significance of
daily patterns of behavior, saw in these compulsory routines the state's capacity
to infuse the body with its controlling devices. His copious lists of prescriptions
for proper comportment are designed to make manifest the increasing effort to
discipline individuals by the progressive containment of social conduct, sexual relations, and affective life. Bakhtin, in search of a conception of body that admitted
individual agency; examined the body's capacity for transgressive and rebellious
resistance through participation in carnival and other rituals of excess. As analyzed by Bakhtin, however, the body's transgressive capacity remains contained
by society's use of the carnival as the designated site at which transgression can
occur. Furthermore, the body's power to function transgressively is never articulated in any detail, so that the body remains only an instrumentality through
14
FosTER
which the dark forces of rebellion and the menace of the uncontrollable are expressed.
This same decade witnessed a burgeoning of ethnographic research that
elaborated distinct identities for the body as an intrinsic feature of culture. Accounts by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, Maurice Leenhardt, Marcel
Mauss, and Marcel Griaule among others gave sustained consideration to the
cultural specificity of beliefs and attitudes toward the body that surfaced as part
of their ethnographic inquiries.'" In this ethnographic ouevre, the body assumes
a kind of isolable existence as a category of cultural experience, as a bearer of
cultural information and participant in the production of meaning. Yet these solicitous inquiries into bodily specificity are conducted as part of the larger
anthropological project of rationalizing difference within an impe!ialist economic
context. Thus Meads profile of Balinese children-full of tacit comparisons with
U.S. children, as in the Balinese "omission" of the cravvl stage, their "meandering"
tonus, "compliant" sitting, "greater eversion, extension, and rotation" of limbs,
their bodily "dependence on supporting forms"-uses the body as mediator between individual and national character, and by extension, as the instrumentality
that will both establish and transcend the relativities of cultures. Mauss, in his
heroic attempt to remove techniques pf the body from the anthropological
category of "the cultural miscellaneous," does so in order to study the "whole
man." Leenhardt, in his dual commitment to anthropology and the ministry,
enacts the ability of a member of a dominant culture to understand and sensitively interpret a "plimitive," and "pre-literate" one. In each of these ethnographic
projects the cultural Other is resolved so as to rationalize a colonizing agenda that
includes humanitarian "aid," cultural "exchange," and economic "development."' 9
If these corpora of historical and ethnographic scholarship generated a profusion of categories of bodily attributes, they did not exhaust the possibilities for
showing how those attributes could generate meaning. The body, now a proliferation of physical characteristics, constituted a transparent conveyance of'
whatever meaning other cultural categories invested in it. Its naturalness remained unquestioned except insofar as cross-cultural comparison pointed up
culturally specific treatments of it. In semiotic terms, the conception of the body
forged in the 1930s presumed the body as a sign, consisting of cultural signifier
and physical signified, yet the relation between the two was far from arbitrary.
Not until Barthes and Foucault, writing as part of the sweeping social upheavals of the 1960s, does the body begin to bear a nonnatural relation between
signifier and signified. With the possibility that minority and colonized voices
might register their protest and be heard, the relations between body and culture
took on distinctive and multiple modes.'" Foucault$ histories track the conversion of publicly punished body into privately incarcerated body and of foolish
body into mad body. His histories examine how the forces that draw bodies together lose their metaphoric magnetism and fracture into endless hierarchized
taxonomies of sameness and difference that inscribe bodies in new ways. 21 In embodying these epistemically distinct structurings of meaning, the body is shown
as able not merely to manifest new meanings, but to participate in the restructuring of meaning production. The body is represented as funqioning among
Choreographing Histmy
15
endless similitudinous attractions or in relation to a set of indexical vectors or as

one of the organically organized microcosms of social processes.
Yet Foucault's aggressive interrogation of the workings of power, even as it
elucidated the body's varying modes of representation, assigned little if any
agency to individual bodies. Now only a set of arbitrary references, bodies after
Foucault are capable of materializing in any form or format. But are they capable
of making signs as well as embodying them? And is there some expanded conception of the transgressive bodily excesses proposed by Bahktin that could resist
what Foucault has depicted as the hegemonic peregrinations of power? 22 What
models of body cultivate physicality as a site for the invention of meaning?
To approach the body as capable of generating ideas, as a bodily writing, is
to approach it as a choreographer might. Dance, perhaps more than any other
body-centered endeavor, cultivates a body that initiates as well as. responds. Even
those dance-makers who see in the dancer's body a mere vehicle for aestheticized
expression must, in their investigation o[ a new work's choreographic problematic, consult bodies, their own or the dancers'. During this playful probing of
physical and semantic potential, choreographers' and dancers' bodies create new
images, relationships, concepts, and reflections. Here, bodies are cast into a discursive framework where they can respond in kind to the moved queries initiated
in the process of formulating a dance. Such bodies have, admittedly; been trained
so as to accomplish this fluency, a disciplining that strongly shapes the quality of
their interaction with dance-making. Nevertheless, they sustain a "conversation,"
throughout the rehearsal process and sometimes in performance, that imaginatively invents and then lucidly enunciates their specific corporeal identities.
Traditional dance studies, replete with the same logocentric values that have
informed general scholarship on the body, have seldom allowed the body this
agency. Instead, they have emphasized individual genius over the rehearsal
process and the social networks and institutional frameworks that enable the
production of the dance. They have glossed over the functionality of dance in a
given time and place by using unexamined distinctions between artistic, popular, social, ritualized, and recreational forms of dancing. And they have p1ivileged
the thrill of the vanished performance over the endming impact of the choreographic intent. Still, those who make and study dancing have developed certain
knowledges of the body as a representational field and certain skills at viewing
and interpreting human movement that offer crucial insights for a scholarship of
the body. This expertise is reflected in recent studies that have begun to ask of
dance the kinds of questions raised in contemporary critical theory about other
cultural phenomena. 23
The possibility of a body that is written upon but that also writes moves
critical studies of the body in new directions. It asks scholars to approach the
bodys involvement in any activity with an assumption of potential agency to
participate in or resist whatever forms of cultural production are underway. It
also endows body-centered endeavors with an integrity as practices that establish
their own lexicons of meaning, their own syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes of
signification, their own capacity to reflect critically onthemselves and on related
practices. Dancemaking, for example, becomes a form of theorizing, one that in-
16
FOSTER
forms and is informed by instantiations of bodily significance-athletic, sexual,

fashionable, mediatized-that endure alongside it. The theoretical, rather than a
contemplative stance achieved afterwards and at a distance, becomes embedded
(embodied) within the practical decisions that build up, through the active engagement of bodies, any specific endeavor.
The act of translating such physical endeavors into verbal descriptions of
them entails, first, a recognition of their distinctiveness, and then a series of tactical decisions that draw the moved and the written into an interdisciplinary
parlance. Utilizing this parhmce, the descriptive text can be fashioned so as to
adhere to the moved example. The organization of the descriptive narrative can
trace out the patterns and shapes that moving bodies make. The narrative voice
can take on not only a positionality and a character but also a quality of engagement with and in the moving subject matter, the authorial presence thereby
exuding both physicality and motionality.
As a body in motion, the writing-and-written body puts into motion the
bodies of all those who would observe it. It demands a scholarship that detects
and records movements of the writer as well as the written about, and it places
at the center of investigation the changing positions of these two groups of bodies
and the co-motion that orchestrates as it differentiates their identities. This ambulant form of scholarship thus acknowledges an object of study that is always
in the making and also always vanishing. It claims for the body, in anxious anticipation of this decade's collapse of the real and the simulated into a global
"informatics of domination," an intense physicality and a reflexive generativity. 24
The essays in this volume undertake to reflect these possible new movements in a scholarship of the body. The products of an interdisciplinary concern
with the body; they point toward a sustained critical inquiry into bodies past and
present by responding to the following kinds of issues: first, how to elucidate a
more detailed reconstruction of historical bodies, one that presents them as political, aesthetic, and also consummately physical entities; second, how such vivid
reconstructions of bodies or even a sustained attention to the category of body
might impact on the very structuring of knowledge as it is constituted in a given
discipline; third, how an investigation of the bodily reveals resonances and intersections among disparate cultural practices and enables a more profound
apprehension of the bodys significance in any given practice; fourth, how a historians body engages a historical subject, shaping its meaning and moving with
it throughout the process of analysis; and finally; how the scholarly text can reflect and even embody the theoretical concerns that a consideration of bodies
brings forward.
Heterogeneous in both subject matter and methodology, these essays
expand, as did scholarship on the body from the 1930s, the range of bodily
actions and endeavors that deserve our attention, for what they indicate about
body and about related cultural practices. Unlike those earlier investigations of
body, they treat corporeality as polyvalent in its forms of signification and as capable of generating its own significance. These essays also enact an awareness of
the theoretical issues, concerning narrative position, form and voice, that are
foregrounded by a consideration of the body. In the reflexive analytic structure
17
that they elaborate, made of similar themes taken up at different moments and
for complementary but not equivalent reasons, they gesture toward the kinds of
multidisciplinary and multiconstituent coalitions that could become possible by
giving the body serious critical attention.
Bodily Musings
I can see them now, Clio and Terpsichore, costttmed in their combat boots and hig!Hop
sneahers, their lycra tights and baggy trousers, a leather jacket, a vest, under w!Jich can
be glimpsed unshaven armpits, perhaps even a bow Lie or some plastic bananas as a
hairpiece . ... I can feel them spinning, lurching, sidling and smashing up agaimt one
anothe1; laughing lmowingly as they wipe the sweat off foreheads and from the sl1in between lips and nose; in a standoff, carefully calculating the other's weight and flexibility,
careening toward one anothe1; rolling as one body and then falling apart, only to circle
around for a fast-paced repartee, trading impersonations of past historians and choreographers they have inspired. Wichedly realistic details of one caricature set the other
muse in motion. These simulated bodies pop out of theirs, a hi netic speaking-in-tongues,
only to be displaced by other corporeal quiddities. Finally, they nm out of steam, collapse on the ground, adjust a soch, scratch an em: But these pedestrian gestitres, hifused
with the natural reflexiveness of all muses, doubly theatricalized by the attentive gaze
of the partne1; commence yet another duet: the crossing of legs in response to the lean
on an elbow, a tossing of hair in response to a sniffle. Tllis duet rejuvenates itself
endlessly. It has an insatiable appetite for motion."
But where are they dancing, Clio and Terpsichore? in what landscape? on_
what occasion? and for whom? No longer capable of standing in contemplative
and gracious poses, no longer coritent to serve as the inspiration for what others
create, these two muses perspire to invent a-new kind of performance, the coordinates of which must be determined by the intersection of historiographies of
dance and of body. But what will they claim as their dance's origin? How will
they justify their new choreographic/scholarly endeavor?
. Sifting through images of originary bodies, Clio and Terpsichore stumble
upon an account of the origins of dance and also of rhetoric, the discipline that,
after all, spawned that of history, iterated in the introductions to several handbooks on rhetorical practices written after the third century A.D. and up until the
Byzantine period.' 6 These mytho-historic anecdotes focus on the city of Syracusae
at a moment when the tyrants Gelon and Hieron rule with savage cruelty. In order
to ensure total control over the populace, they forbid Syracusans to speak. Initially, citizens communicate with the rudimentary gestures of hand and head that
index their basic needs. Over time, however, their gestural language, now identified as orchestihe, or dance-pantomime, attajns a communicative flexibility and
sophistication that leads to the overthrow of the tyrants. In the elated confusion
that follows, one citizen, a former adviser to the tyrants, steps forward to bring
order to the crowd. Integrating gestural and spoken discourses, he organizes his
arguments into an introduction, narration, argument, digression, and epilogue,
the fundamental structural categories of rhetoric, the art of public persuasion.
18
FosTER
In this account, the tyrants eradication of speech-a leveling gesture that

sweeps across public and private spaces-puts all citizens, male and female,
those with expertise in logos and those who excel at chaos, on the same footing.
From this common place, the rebellious bodies of the citizens slowly infuse
movement with linguistic clout. They circulate around the tyran.t, conspiring on
a tacit and circumspect kinegraphy that not only indicates their expressive and
physical needs but also a reflexive awareness of their predicament. Eventually,
their collaborative subversion prevails, and the tyrant is overthrown. In this
moment of political liminality (and tahing precisely the amo11nt of time necesswy to
leap an epistemic fault) the dancing body, forged in subversive communality,
feeds/bleeds into the rhetorical bod)~ a public and powerful figure. The reinstantiation of speech, however, does not return the community to speech as formerly
practiced. Instead, the speaking body attains new eloquence, a new fascination,
a new and seductive hold over its listeners.
What seems so promising about this story. beyond its delicious obscurity or
its singular pairing of dance and rhetoric, as an originary pretext for Clio and
Terpsichores duet? They are not immediately sure, for it takes the two muses
hours of negotiation (danced and spoken) to arrive at an interpretation they can
agree upon: Clio initially refuses to believe that the rhetorical body, once originated, had retained any resonances of the dancing body: Terpsichore sulkily
retreats into silence, gesturing with dignity and disdain the absolute untranslatability of her art. Clio, attempting to dialogue, praises the primordial status of
dance, mother of all the arts. Terpsichore, infinitely bored by this guilt-ridden
and misguided tribute, accuses Clio of inspiring only desiccated, static drivel.
Now, they're mad: They stomp; they shout; they hyperbolize; they posture; they
pinch their faces, hunch their shoulders, and spit out the most absurd and hurtful provocations, then feign distress, victims of their own drama. But in the
ensuing silence, the choreography of their combat in its full rhetorical glory
stands out. Embarrassed by their excesses, but intrigued by the aesthetics of their
anger, they cannot resist a candid glance at one another. Biting their lips to keep
from laughing, they determine to contin11e their deliberations.
Terpsichore senses the need to rationalize choreography as persuasive discourse, and Clio realizes the need to bring movement and fleshiness into
historiography. They both agree that they cannot help but adn;tire the immense
power in the resistive wariness of those bodies that have tangled with the demonic
character of a tyrant. And they sense the strength of a choreographic coalition
composed of multiple constituencies. They desire bodies capable of troping, that
can render or depict, or exaggerate, or fracture, or allude to the world, bodies that
can ironize as well as metaphorize their existence. 27 Troping bodies do not merely
carry a message or faithfully convey an idea, but also assert a physical presence,
one that supports the capacity for producing meaning. Irresistibly, such bodies
retain no authority over some transcendental definition of their being, but instead
remain entirely dependent on their own deictic gestures to establish identity.
Clio and Terpsichore have watched this troping body emerge in their own
collaborations. They believe in this body that fuses dance and rhetoric, but they
also sense, just as the story predicts, its sinister potential. It can become power-
19
ful enough to sway other bodies, or even fix them in its hold. It cannot command such power if other bodies have learned the choreographic and rhetorical
conventions through which meaning is conveyed. As long as every body works
to renew and recalibrate these codes, power remains in many hands. But if any
bodies allow this body of conventions to overtake them unawares, then the tyrannical body gains the upper hand.
Determined to keep such tyrants disembodied, Clio and Terpsichore finish
their coffee, roll up their sleeves, and begin to write (or is it dance?):
Post-Script
The claim for a writing-dancing bod)~ formulated in response to political exigencies of this specific moment, dates itself in the kind of inscription it undertakes
to make apparent. At another moment and given different political circumstances, the metaphor of a bodily tropology might well prove reactionary rather
than resistive. At such a time Clio and Terpsichore might agree instead to reinvent a separation between body and writing so as to preserve the powers of both
rhetoric and dance. In a world, for example, beyond script, one consisting only
of screens of simulacra that invite us to don virtual reality gear and dive through
ever-unfolding windows of images, what could give the body's presence or its
vanishing urgency over other visions?
NOTES
l. Roland Barthes opened up for consideration this approach to bodily writing

most palpably through his attention to the physical circumstances surrounding his own
profession as a writer-the organization of his desk, his daily routines, etc.-in his autobiography Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes and also in his brilliant analysis of the Bunraku
puppet theater appearing both in Image, Music, Text and in Empire of Signs. In that essay,
which I take up in the second section of this chapter, he argues that the dramatic gestures
of the puppets, the pragmatic manipulations of the puppeteers, and the hyperbolic vociferations of the singer can each be consiQ.ered as a form of writing.
2. Michel Foucault$ studies of the body as inscribed by penal, medical, and sexual
systems of meaning have generated a substantial literature investigating the cultural mechanisms through which the body is regulated.
3. See "Techniques of the Body" by Marcel Mauss and John Bulwers Chirologia and
Chironomia (1654), whose significance is addressed by Stephen Greenblatt in his chapter
for this volume.
4. Natalie Zemon Davis introduces this issue in her article titled "Historys Two
Bodies," which served as an inspiration for this essay. In The W1iling of History, Michel de
Certeau provides an eloquent and far more detailed description of the disciplinary training of the historian. See especially his chapter titled "The Historiographical Operation,"
pp. 56-113.
5. My proposal here for a kind of empathic relationship between the historian's body and historical bodies is inspired by the complex use of the term "passion" in
Marta Savigliano's Tango and the Political Economy of Passion. For Savigliano, passion is both
20
FOSTER
a culturally constructed event, susceptible to commodification and exportation, and a

primal rousing of feeling in response to another.
6. The concept of kinesthetic empathy is inspired by dance critic john Martins
conception of inner mimicry elaborated in his Introduction to Dance. Martin argues that
bodies respond proprioceptively to the shaping, rhythmic phrasing, and tensile efforts of
other bodies. Martin proposed this empathic exchange among bodies in order to justify
his conception of choreography as an essentialized or distilled version of feelings which,
via inner mimicry, transfer into the viewers body and psyche. I am clearly not interested
in rationalizing essentialist theories of art, but I do believe that feeling another bodys feelings is a highly significant (and under-valued) aspect of daily and artistic experience.
7. The Oxford English Dictionmy identifies two meanings for the archaic word
theoric, one pertaining to the theoretical and the mher to the performative. In resurrecting this tenn, I am trying to gesture in both directions simultaneous!}~
8. One of the best examples of themys ability to enable the historian to apprehend
analogies among distinct cultural practices remains Raymond Williams$ essay on the
emergence of the monologue as a theauical practice in The Sociology of Cullllre, pp. 119-47.
9. june Vail presents an infom1ative critique of this typical posture in "Issues of
Style: Four Modes of Journalistic Dance Criticism."
10. In "The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d
Others," Donna Haraway makes the distinction between "speaking with" and "speaking
for" in her analysis of the debates over ecological issues in which certain constituencies
claim to speak for species on the verge of extinction.
11. Barthes, "Lesson in Writing," in Image, Music, Text, p. 172.
12. Consider, for example, the relative prestige of the following academic subjects:
anatomy and kinesiology, psychoanalysis and movement therapy, the history of law and
the histmy of manners, literature and dance.
13. The reference here is to descriptions of the body found in Plato$ Timaeus.
14. Of the many studies that take up this new conception of body in relation to
technology Siegfried Giedions Mechanization Tahes Command (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948) remains a landmark and influential point of departure.
15. Much more needs to be said about this originary moment in the historiography of the body In this brief sketch that assembles in one paragraph arts, commerce, and
industry, I am merely trying to avoid the typical separation of art from politics and from
labor that prevailed in early Marxist analyses that asserted the division between base and
superstructure cultural activities.
16. Labans theories of human movement are presented in his books The Maste1y of
Movement, Choreutics, and Modem Educational Dance. His early years as a choreographer
are described in his autobiography A Life for Dance. Cogent overviews of his work are presented in Vera Maletics Body, Space, Expression: The Development of Rudolf Laban's Movement
and Dance Concepts and in Cecily Dells A Plimerfor Movement Desoiption Using EffortShape Analysis.
17. I am deeply indebted to Dorinda Outram\; essay on the history of histories of
the body that opens her book The Body in the Frend1 Revolution. She was the first to observe the intense proliferation of scholarly interest in the body during the 1930s, which
she traces to the threat of fascist policies in Europe. She argues that Elias and subsequently Foucault focused critical attention on societys capacity to infuse the body with
its controlling devices. To this scenario of bodily infiltration and cooptation, she opposes
the unruly bodies delineated in Bakhtins work. In search of a conception of body that
admits individual agency, she privileges Bakhtin over Foucault in her inquiry into political conceptions of the body before and during the French Revolution.
18. Marcel Mausss encyclopedic inventory of bodily endeavors "Techniques of the
Body" was joined by Maurice Leenhardts eloquent depiction of Melanesian conceptions
of the body in Do Kama: Person and Myth in Melanesia; Margaret Mead and Gregory Batesons detailed inquiry into Balinese socialization practices Balinese Character and Mead's
Growth and Culture; and Marcel Griaules comprehensive studies of the Dagon, among
21
others. Amonin Artaud's manifestos on the body could also be listed here as a different
sort of ethnography.
19. Space permits only the sketchiest of arguments concerning the role of the
anthropological project in the imperialist agendas of First World cultures. For a fuller critique the reader is referred to Stanley Diamond, In Search of the Plimitive; Tala! Assad, ed.,
Anthropology and the Colonial Ellcotmter; Genit Huizer and Bmce Mannheim, eds., The Politics of Anthropology: From Colonialism and Sexism toward a View from Below; and Trinh T.
Minh-ha, Woman, Native, OtllCI: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism.
20. Fredric Jameson suggests this interpretation in "Periodizing the Sixties."
21. I refer to Foucaults Discipline and Punish, Madness and Civilization and The Order
of Things.
22. Although I am about to argue that dance offers exemplary versions of bodies.
that can resist even a Foucauldian conception of power, another, equally persuasive model
is provided in the final chapter of Jacques Attali's Noise. This political and economic
history of music applies the epistemic structuring of knowledge proposed by Foucault to
the development of Western music. Attali ends his analysis with the suggestion that new
forms of composition and dissemination of music have the potential to disrupt and disperse the capitalist commodification of music and its production. Attali's version of
composition shares with the analysis that follows the idea that individuals can compose
alternatives to hegemonic cultural values that lie outside those value systems.
23. For example, Cynthia Novack, Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and
American Culture; Mark Franko, Dance As Text: Ideologies of the Baroqt1e Body; Susan
Manning, Ecstasy and tl1e Demon; Sally Ness, Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic
and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community; Lynn Garafola, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes;
Sally Banes, Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Petfonnance and the E[fencscent Body; and
Randy Martin, Petfonnance as Political Act.
24. Donna Haraways essay "Manifesto for Cyborgs" traces the shift from white capitalist patriarchy to what she calls "the informatics of domination," a shift that provides the
political context for the notion of ambulant scholarship that I propose here. Ambulant
scholarship as I develop it embraces the cyborg while also asking for a careful accounting
of the bodys physical participation in it.
25. Here the reader may recognize a reference to Carolyn Browns exquisite essay
on Merce Cunningham titled "An Appetite for Motion." Cunningham's influence on this
duet between Clio and Terpsichore is explicated more fully in my book Reading Dancing:
Bodies and Subjects in Contempormy Amctican Dance.
26. Vincent Farenga brings this account to light in his insightful article "Periphrasis
on the Origin of Rhetoric." His interest in the account is complementary to but differs
from \hat of the muses in that he focuses on the inability of language whether spoken or
gestured to address directly the functioning of rhetoric.
27. Remarkably, the late-eighteenth-century movement theorist Johan Jacob Engel
outlined these rhetorical possibilities for the body in his extraordinary study of dramatic
gesture titled Idees sur le geste et. !'action theiltrale.
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Introduction
Victor Buchli
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This reader is a compilation of some of the representative works of the Material

Culture Group at University College London. It is by no means exhaustive and
representative, but it does provide an idea of the range of subjects, contexts and
problems material culture studies at University College have addressed over

the years and at present. The works here are a sampling of some of the dominant
concerns of the contributors. In turn, each contribution is preceded with an introduction by the author placing the work within broader themes relevant to the study
of the material world. As a result the compass of these works is quite diverse,
giving the reader a sense of the broad and at times conflicting issues in which
material cultures studies as a whole participates. What might appear an unruly collection of works is united by aJ.1 abiding concern. for the materiality of cultural life
and its diverse and at times conflicting vitality.
Up to now there has never been a 'snapshot' of the work of this group, so the
introduction to such a compilation offers a place to look back and try to place this
'snapshot' within the larger scheme of things. As such, this provides the opportunity to examine in general the trajectory of development of material culture
studies through a particular cohort of scholars, It also affords the opportunity to
attempt and delineate some of the overall issues affecting material cultures studies
from this writer's perspective and from there, hopefully, offer some suggestions
as to where we are now and where we might be going next.
The particular cohon of which we are speaking are the contributors: Barbara
Bender, Victor Buchli, Susanne KUchler, Daniel Miller, Christopher Pinney,
Michael Rowlands, Nicholas J. Saunders and Christopher Tilley. It is very obvious
that this cohort represents a viewpoint that is distinctly British despite Buchli
and Ki.icbler being from the United States and Germany respectively (though they
both received their doctorates from British universities). In terms of the British
academic traditions of which this group is a part, the cohort is quite firmly situated
within the Universities of London and Cambridge and their schools, departments
and institutes of archaeology and anthropology. This immediately distinguishes
this cohort from scholars of material culture in the United States who, in addition
to coming .out of the traditions of archaeology and anthropology, are strongly
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Victor Buchli
'
influenced by the tradition of American folklore studies. Bender and Rowlands

received their doctorates in archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, and
Saunders from Southampton.All are closely associated with the Institute's current
director, Peter Ucko and the legacy of its fanner director, the Marxist archaeologist
Gordon Childe. Similarly, Buchli and Tilley received their doctorates in archaeology from Cambridge having both been supervised by Ian Hodder, who was
originally a student of David Clarke's. Miller received his doctorate in oriental
studies from Cambridge, but he is closely associated with the group of postprocessualist archaeologists who gathered around Ian Hodder. This archaeological
leaning within the group is complemented by KUchler and Pinney who both
received their doctorates in anthropology from the London School of Economics
under the supervision of the anthropologist of art Alfred Gell, a student of Anthony
Forge of the London School of Economics.
Material Culture and the Work of Culture

We first encounter the use of the term 'material culture' in English in the nineteenth
century. The origins are murky, the first reference to such a concept according to
the Oxford English Dictionary was made in 1843 by Prescott on in reference to
the 'material civilization' of. Mexico in his travelogue. The intellectual history of
this concept regrettably is beyond the scope of this introduction, except to say that
the study of material culture itself became one of the cornerstones of the nascent
independent discipline of anthropology (for a history of the iole of material culture
in the growth of anthropology see Steadman 1979 andLowie 1937). In fact, in the
late 1800s the concept and its study was almost entirely inseparable from anthropology itself: the so-called 'object-lessons' described by Edward Tylor in his
foreword to Ratzel's monumental treatise on the ethnographic study of artifacts,
The History of Mankind (Ratzel 1896).

However, nineteenth_century Victorians who coined the term 'material culture'
were by no means the only people preoccupied with artefacts per se. People have
always been under their thrall, from palaeolithic assemblages. which seem to
suggest an early propensity for collecting. to Babylonian temple collections,
ancient Chinese and Roman antiquarians and the cabinets of curios established by
Europeans during the Renaissance (Schnapp 1996). In the European context it was
these cabinets of curios which were the ancestors of our museums and our preoccupation with objects in themselves. The history of such collections have been
dealt with elsewhere (Belk 2001, Pearce 1994, Thomas 1997). For our purposes
here, it is necessary to note that the great Euro-Am.er:ican museums were the institutions in which material culture stl:ldies as we lrnow it originally found their home
and thrived.
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So what has happened in terms of the changing fortdnes of material culture

studies since the mid nineteenth century? Why was this super-category of objects
needed in the first place and why has it fallen in and out of use within anthropology? From its beginnings, material culture as a category and as a field of study
was intimately related to larger cultural projects. In the nineteenth century it was
used as a way of gauging the degree of technical and social sophistjr?,tjoo of a
given group. Within these schemes of u~li.neal evolution European Victorian
soctety was on the top of the scale as the most modem and progressive while other
non-European societies descended downwards with various hunter-gatherer
groups at the bottom of the scale of human ~ocial and technical evolution. This
naturally justified European dominance in expansionist imperial affairs, but also
served liberal notions of Enligb.tenment thought which advocated the universality
of human experience and justice. The various 'uncivilized' peoples of the world
were all subject to the same technical and social processes albeit at different levels,
thereby ensuring European imperial dominance. All of humanity's inventions and
institutions could be used as an indicator of this inexorable dynamic of inclusive
progress.
The emergence of material culture studies was an innovation arising from
earlier Enlightenment era preoccupation with the materiality of social life. As
Michel Foucault argued in Space, Knowledge and Power, the interest in the varioUs
material components of social life (i.e. architecture as an aspect of governance) is
an eighteenth century preoccupation where 'One begins to see a form of political
literature. that addresses, what the order of a society should be, what a city should
be, given the requirements of the maintenance of order .. .' (Rabinow 1984:239).
The ethnographic urge to order, manage and constitute new political subjects
(typically colonial and subject to the principles of universality to which all could
aspire to), maintained unilinealism as just such a demonstration of this universal
progression. Statecraft, the fonnation of nationhood and empire were inextricably
bound to these quasi-archaeological and ethnographical impulses (Schnapp 1996).
These 'objects' of knowledge were vital for establishing the building blocks of
statecraft. In short the super-category of objects: material culture, has had from
the beginning a utility with specific cultural work to do. As Edward JYlor observed
in thinking about the future of material culture studies on the eve of the twentieth
century: 'In the next century, to judge from its advance in the present, it will have
largely attained to the realm of positive law, and its full use will then be acknowledged not only as interpreting the past history of mankind, but as even laying
down the first stages of curves of movements which will describe and affect the
courses of future opinions and institutions' (JYlor in Ratzel 1896: xi) .
This emerging understanding of human progress was best expressed in the
American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan's monumental work Ancient
Society which laid out the stages of human social and technical evolution from
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Victor Buchli
savagery to civilization. Each stage was characterized by a particular level of social

and technical achievement which incorporated all peoples and races in the trajectory of human progress. All peoples were alike and uniform and would respond in
similar ways given the same technical limitations. Morgan was acutely aware that
old life ways were passing through his close work with Native Americans. He
could directly witness how older indigenous technical and social achievements
were succumbing to the relentless march of Euro-American expansion and
progress. Existing peoples in isolation, resembling the earlier stages of humans
social evolution existed in Morgan's schema as 'monuments of the past' that is as
a living archaeology of early forms of human life. As Karl Marx (a keen reader of
Morgan) stated: 'Relics of bygone instruments of labour possess the same
importance for the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil
bones for the determination of extinct species of animals' (Marx 1986: 78). The
level of a society was intimately linked to its level of material culture. Thus social
organization, social progress could be 'read' from the material culture of a particular people or nation as a fossil could be read to determine stages of the evolution
of life on earth. Non-European peoples encountered could be understood within
this schema and the differences between nations (especially European nations)
could be understood in terms of the differences in their material culture. Thus
objects were intimately connected with notions of progress- historically, technically and socially- in short, material culture as it was conceived in the nineteenth
century was the modernist super-artefact and the supreme signifier of universal
progress and modernity.
Earlier European collections of objects sought to gather the curiosities of
the world, both natural and manmade, in cabinets of curiosities. These were
not systematized in any particular way, except that they repres~nted everything
that was out of the ordinary, exceptional, that is not conventi~al, be it a tool
from a distant society, an unusual rock formation, or natural defo;nuty. The early
ethnographic collections that formed the basis of material culture studies in the
nineteenth century often contained souvenirs accumulated by sailors- on expeditions that one way or another made their way back to the Europ~an capitals,
forming parts of cabinets of curios or collections dedicated to artefacts of far-flung
peoples (Thomas 1991). Beyond mere curiosity, these artefacts and their collections served as proof of an event and contact and knowledge of the peoples
encountered. Artefact collections essentially were objectifications of authoritative
knowledge (Thomas 1991: 141-3)- and more rarely along with the importation
of actually indigenous peoples- no other could possibly do in light of the intellectual a,nd technical circumstances of the time. Thus, as these forms of objectified
authoritative knowledge became increasingly unsatisfactory, the random collections of curiosities were superseded by the more systematic collections of later
scholars, Haddon, Pitt-Rivers, Boas, etc., These collections were to be rejected
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again during the careers of pivotal figures such as Boas for not being sufficient
objectifications of authoritative knowledge. These objectifications were then
supplanted by the ethnographic monograph as it began to emerge through the
development of British social anthropology as a source of authoritative know ledge
about other societies (Thomas 1991: 141-3). Earlier objectifications of authorit~
ative knowledge were simply superseded by more satisfying techniques -more
satisfying in terms of its being able, as Pomian suggests, to render the invisible
visible, which be describes as the primary impulse of collecting (Pomian 1990).
If initial collections were an attempt to bring such exotic, invisible and otherwise
unknowable reahns into being for Europeans, then these attempts at knowledge
of other realms of experience found more satisfactory expression in the ethnographic
monograph which was based o:O. direct field work and participant observation the souvenir club would no longer suit as an indicator of authoritative knowledge
of another realm of experience. As such this requirement has never really been
exhausted within anthropology as every Ph.D. student who Wldergoes the rite de
passage of fieldwork knows so well.
I do not wish to go over the critical ground covered by others who have emphasized the indisputable ills that have been a consequence of unilinealism and the
role of material culture studies within it, except to say that the constitutiOn of mere
objects into systems of 'material culture' represented a particular intellectual and
political project that required a new kind of conceptual tool: the super-category of
objects 'niaterial culture' itself. This project proceeded to materialize precisely
such a super-category of objects that never existed before and which was meaningless to the individuals who actually produced these objects. Cook Islanders were
hardly producing 'material culture' for the consumption of sailors, travelers,
administrators and scholars (as we know from Thomas, Pacific Islanders had very
different purposes in mind; see Thomas 1991: 131). Similarly, archaeological
excavations constituted a category of objects as 'material culture' entirely foreign
to the past producers of these objects. To insist otherwise and claim its ahistorical
universality, as many still do, is the act of 'retrofitting' (using Bruno Latour's language) that naturalizes a particular 'concresence' of institutionalized and historically
contingent knowledge, which results in his felicitous neologism a 'factish': 'a
sustained mode of existence for facts' within a specific 'spatiotemporal envelope'
(Latour 1999). This super-category materializes something entirely new and
uniquely Victorian and Western, as modern as the artefacts of industrialism on
display at the Great Exposition of 1851 from which our more systematic nineteenth century collections of ethnographic material culture took their inspiration.
At the Great Exposition all of humanity's technical achievements were to be
assembled under one roof- one universal and fully encompassing schema which
excluded no one and not one thing from its purview. More significantly it was
intended to edify and instruct the visiting public - provide them with a view
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Victor Buchli
of universal order, prosperity and progress which no theology up to this point had
ever been able to do to such a telling degree. Thus the Great Exhibition served to .follow Pornian- as a window onto a universal realm of progress and prosperity
just within everyone's reach, especially the inhabitants of the capital of the British
Empire. The items on display became, using Pornian's term, semiophores- objects
which do not have, or no longer have, a general practical use ' ... but which, being
endowed with meaning, represented the invisible' (Pornian 1990)- the promise
of a world of universal progress. Pitt-Rivers's famous and foundational collection
for anthropology was first inspired by his visit to the Great Exhibition (Chapman
1985: 16). Even though something as ostensibly exotic as a neolithic axe found in
Britain or an Aboriginal spear seemed to be as far removed as possible from the
latest technical triumphs of nineteenth century industrialization, they all served
together to emphasize a political, intellectual and cultural project based on
empiricism, progresS and perfectible unlineal evolution. As much as this justified
European superiority, it also insisted on the perfectibility of all peoples (under
European guidance) within the tradition of Enlightenment era liberalism and the
universality of Man. The legacy of this impulse is still very much with us as rising
nation states and creative ethnic self-determination assert claims towards inclusion
and modernity, as Rowlands so cogently discusses in his contribution here.
There is a social reformist agenda here, which is often overlooked. These
exhibitions not only brought in 'primitive' peoples within the unversalizing schema
of European thought, but also brought in and edified the less enlightened in their
own societies, serving as a vehicle for social reform. Both 'savage' and 'proletariat'
were meant to be enlightened, edified and stimulated towards social progress and
reform through these displays. Pitt-Rivers exhibited his collection in the severely
deprived London working-class district of Bethnal Green in the 1870s with the
purpose of edifying the masses so that they might more effectively participate in
governance (Chapman 1985: 39). Eventually he realized the edifying purpose of
his collection on the British working classes by setting up his collectj.on on his
Farnham estate. Thus, within this scheme of thlngs, 'material culture' a peculiar
super-category of objects was constituted and materialized as such. The highly
contrived means by which some objects were separated out, and materialized
as 'artefaCts' within a 'material culture' in the. aid of scholarship, colonial administration, museology and popular exoticism all served in their different ways to
constitute and thereby materialize a very new, original and 'modem' category of
objects.
These collections had a direct affinity with the rise in the nineteenth century of
shopping and consumerism (Belk 2001). The exposition and the department store
emerged at the same time and like the exposition. the newly invented institution
of the department store with its vi trines and window displays provided views onto
a desirable and more readily achievable (that i~ consumable) world that was just
Introduction
-;:;
within reach - more universal and more open to a wider range of people than
anything which preceded it. Such displays of material culture also served well
within university settings as primary authoritative vehicles with which to peer into
and understand non-western, past cultures and rapidly disappearing local 'folk'
cultures. Anthropology appointments were often within museums and these
museum collections formed the basis of instruction serving as the primary 'text',
if you like, of early ethnographic and archaeological training (Hodder 1983: 13).
Similarly, In the United States, before the First World War, jobs in anthropology
were in museums or research bureaux. Early teaching posts were split between
museums and the first academic departments jn anthropology at Harvard, California, and Pennsylvania. Franz Boas, himself worked jointly at the Anthropology
Department of Columbia and the American Museum of Natural History (Fenton
1974: 19).
However, this super-artefact/intellectual tool was soon to lose its usefulness
amongst Anglophone anthropologists and was virtually abandoned with the rise
of British social anthropology, which sought to question the utility of these 'primary texts'. Rather than learning from these 'semiophores', this new turn, signalled
most notably by Malinowski, amongst others. sought to understand societies
directly through the innovative technique of participant observation over long
extended periods of time: interview, discourse, observation and the reconstruction
of social structure prevailed as a more perfect means of understanding. How
societies functioned as social systems was more significant than how they could
be placed within a schema of unlineal evolution based on material traits; the kinship diagram prevailed over the material culture 'fossil'. Transitional figures such
as Boas became disillusioned with museum based work, becoming more interested
instead in the social process which structured material culture (Boas 1907). The
end result was an emphasis on kinship and social structure, the cornerstones of
twentieth century social anthropology. Material culture as an intellectual and
political tool became irrelevant, and faded by the wayside.
However, material culture retained its usefulness in other ways; most notably
for its ability to materialize national identity in the creation of nationhood, as
Rowlands and Bender illustrate here. Thus a number of traditions of material
culture within folkloric studies remained and continued its nineteenth century
mandate for delineating, materializing and stimulating social reform. The establishment of the Soviet Union witnessed the extraordinary institutionalization of the
subject. The nineteenth centucy reformist and progressivist impulse was very much
in evidence here on a scale Pitt-Rivers could never have dreamt of when Lenin
'abolished' archaeology as a 'bourgeois' science and re-created it as the study of
the history of material culture in 1919. The evolution of the understanding of
material culture in Soviet Russia probably followed more completely the logic of
the world's fairs, serving as a new revolutionary form of social reform. This was
II
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Victor Buchli
an intellectual and political transformation that reworked archaeology not as an

antiquarian discipline but as that branch of the human sciences which studies the
'history of material culrure'. As such it was firmly part of history faculties, and a
very long way from its earlier geological origins. Thus there was an understanding
of a distinct field of material culture studies. Archaeology had the mandate to
discern the processes of social change and progress through the study of material
culture in the past, while more recent periods and the present were covered by the
ethnologist, as part of a complementary analysis of the material basis of social
evolution and progress. Archaeology and ethnology alon-g with other arts and
sciences were united in the common goal of the reconstruction of society acCording
to Marxian principles towards the realization of communism and the social
promise of modernity and progress- going some considerable way from Tyler's
observation that the study of material culture ought to 'affect the courses of future
opinions and institutions' (Ratzel1896: xi). The Enlightenment era heritage found
new impetus with the Russian Revolution. Marxian concepts of technical progress
and unilineal evolution privileged the material world to an unprecedented extent
and material culture studies served as revolutionary serniophores opening up on a .
new realm of social being. Within this context, the super-category bad an
extraordinary task to perform- to identify, chart and restructure social life towards
a new future.
Melancholy and the Material

Within a climate stressing progress and social change, another element stood out
that characterized the emergmg preoccupation with artefacts and its study as
rn.atenal culture. This is a melancholic tum in the face of rapid social change both
w1thin the European imperial and national heartlands and colonial peripheries (see
Introduction
This underlying concern with loss rather than consumption is probably rhe
deeper motivation within material culture studies- rather than a view onto a world
that is barely imaginable or about to come, this is a melancholic receding view.
Material culture has been often, and rather uncritically, referred to as a mirror: 'As
material culture, tools are the final objectification of intrinsic hopes. As imprinted
thought and as engraved behavior, material culture becomes a mirror in which man
can see himself' (Richardson, 1974: 12). However, this passive understanding
reveals an unintended but important quality of material culture, that this view,
either forwards or backwards, is constitutive and interpellative. Through its
material constitution and the reiterative effects of its culturally produced durability,
it becomes constitutive of ~esired and imagined subjectivies either nostalgic,
futuristic or transformative which at times can have devastating consequences as
Rowlands here describes in the context of India and the Former Yugoslavia.
'Cultural property' as constituted within material culture studies becomes the
currency whereby nationhood or ethnic self-detennination is ascribed according
to how much of it one can show as 'proof' of one's coherence, integrity and worth.
Rowlands points out little has changed since the Victorians - the emphasis on
property and attendant notions of copyright is something both Rowlands and
KUchler discuss here in greater detail, particularly KUchler in relation to the
'promiscuous' qualities of artefacts in the face of textual metaphors used to
understand indigenous 'art' and its inhibition of material culture's promiscuity.
Both KUchler and Pinney assert a renewed engagement with the nondiscursive, that
is the phenomenological and somatic effects of material culture beyond textuality
as does Tilley - a reassertion of the problematic relations between bodies an_d
things (see Merleau-Ponty 1962 and Latour 1999), returning to aMaussian understanding of this flUid and hybrid relationship as revealed through AJfred Gell's An
and Agency (Gell1998).
Rowland's introduction here). Traditional European life was changing quickly and
much of traditional society, especially rural agrarian society was vanishing with
The Disillusionment of Objects and their Revival
the onslaught of industrialism. This nostalgia was a key element in the creation of
foundational myths of industrialized nations. Similarly colonized societies that
rarely had any contact with Europeans were rapidly changing with the expansion
of colonial administration, trade and contact. This melancholy so well documented
by writers such as Proust and Zola in France, was keenly felt by the early pioneers
of anthici].:iOlogical research such as Haddon, Boas and others who were desperately aware of the precipitous rate of change in non-European societies whose
ways of life were radically changing and whose traditiorial cultures were rapidly
disappearing with the onslaught of imperial expansion in trade and administration.
Obviously the demise of unilinealism with the beginning of British social anthro
pology in the early twentieth century saw the demise of these objects as 'fossils'
(which had served their purpose as appropriate serniophores). Material culture as
cultural work was rendered increasingly useless in light of the developments of
British social anthropology. In Britain few figures retained an interest. Wissler, a
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key figure in the field in the United States, already lamented the drop-off of interest
before the First World War (Fenton 1974:20). Whereas Sayee in Britain was one
of the few anthropological figures who pursued research in the inter-war period
(Sayee 1933). Similarly the foundation of the department of anthropology at University College, London by Darryl Forde retained a link with this tradition through
Vtcror Buchli
Introduction
Forde's interests in 'primitive technology' (Forde 1934) and a synthetic approach

to the study of human society/evolution. Forde himself completed his Ph.D. at
University Coilege London but he was closely associated with Boas's students
Kroeber and Lowie at Berkeley. He established and maintained the tradition of a
teaching collection of material culture at UCL. However, by 1930 according to
William Sturtevant, museum anthropology and traditional material culture studies
reached their peak in most Euro-American traditions (Stocking 1985: 9). Between
the wars and afterwards, material culture studies become increasingly irrelevant
and stagnant
The Anglophone tradition of material culture studies receded but did not
disappear. The renewed force it was to achieve in the second half of the twentieth
century drew much of its force in Britain from the pioneering work of the
archaeologist Gordon Childe which reassened the social within archaeological
studies along with later Marxist-inspired critiques of consumerism in sociology.
Childe was a keen observer of Soviet archaeology with its emphasis on the socially
diagnostic aspect of material culture studies. Childe's subtle Marxism, his rejection
of antiquarianism and assertion of the significance of social processes in the study
of archaeology paved the way along with others for the eventual formation of the
'New Archaeology' in Britain and America, which broke the slumbering theoretical innocence of antiquarian Anglo-American archaeology with a renewed
emphasis on the study of social processes as materialized in the material culture
of the past.
Material culture studies as we come to know it now, emerged within the British
tradition and gained renewed impetus amongst a group of variously Marxistinspired archaeologists based at The Archaeology Institute of University College
London and the archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology and
Anthropology at Cambridge University. Many of the figures associated with this
period are represented in this volume: Bender, Miller, Rowlands who worked
closely with Jonathan Friedman, and Tilley. At the same time at the UCL department of anthropology m the 1970s, Mary Douglas was worldng on sOine of the key
texts that brought this field of interest back into prominence: Purity and Danger
and, with Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods. Her work was paralleled by that
of other anthropologists such as Arjun Appadurai and Pierre Bourdieu. French
trends particularly within the work of the Annales School of History took significant turns in reconsidering the significance of material cultures studies (Braude!
1992, Baudrillard 1996, Barthes 1973), As Miller here notes, the emerging significance of semiology from within linguistics (Barthes 1973, Baudrillard 1996) and
especially structuralism (Levi-Strauss) saw the re-evaluation of the material within
symbolic systems. Tiris is especially so in Uvi.-Strauss's work on Pacific Northwest Coast masks (Uvi-Strauss 1988) and his reappraisal of the work of Franz
Boas. Structural Marxism provided a powerful critique of the role of objects in
symbolic systems and social structures at the time of the social tumult and student
riots of the 1960s and early 1970s. These were powerful conceptual tools with
which to confront post-war capitalist countries with critical and diagnostic Marxist
studies of material culture.
The rise of interest in semiotics and structuralism had an important effect on
the revival of interest in material culture studies in the United States as well
(Glassie 1975, Deetz 1977), as did offshoots of the 'New Archaeology' through
the development of ethno-archaeology and the resulting interest in modern
material culture studies on their own as in the works of Rathje, Schiffer and later
Marxist archaeologists such as Layton, Paynter and Leone. With the 1980s of
course, this direction had by no means disappeared, but a new reappraisal emerged
which began to see consumption as an active process, whereby individuals actively
appropriated material goods towards the creation of inalienable culture (Miller
1987, Belk 200 I). Finally, the Journal of Material Culture was established in 1996
at University College London (Editorial 1996) being the first Anglophone academic journal explicitly dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the field and
which has been edited at various times by the individuals represented in this
volume.
Within the British Tradition, the post-war revival of interest in material culture
studies is often associated with the Curl Lecture by Peter Ucko on the crosscultural study of penis sheaths (Ucko 1969). Ucko following in the footsteps of
Darryl Forde played a key role in formalizing the Material Culture group at UCL.
That the re-emphasis on the material should have been heralded by the arch
material signifier, the sheathed phallus, whether intentional or not, is a point best
explored by Lacanian analysts. Regardless it is a fundamentally apt beginning for
a reappraisal of the presence of material signifiers in anthropological analyses. The
foundational Curl lecture, however, raises some interesting questions regarding a
masculinist bias in material culture studies that has been rarely discussed. Feminist
analyses have shown that material presence (which is what material culture studies
deal with: the socially constituted and materialized physical artefact) is a consequence of a deeply placed masculinist bias- as feminine subjectivities are understood in terms of their inherent 'lack' vis-a-vis the elemental presenced material
signifier, the phallus (Butler 1993). Ruth Olendziel's discussion of technology,
culture and gender (Oldenziell996) explores another masculinist bias in material
culture studies: the link to industrial modernization, progress and imperial
governance, and its overt emphasis on the material and production (male) at the
expense of use and consumption (female): a focus which does not emerge openly
until the anthropological studies of consumption in the 1980s (Miller 1987,
Douglas and Isherwood 1979, Appadurai 1986). As Judith Butler has suggested,
much of the materialized world is forged within this masculinist bi~, that sees the
realm of the 'feminine' as one of lack, and constitutive of the 'masculfue signifier',
.[
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Victor Buchli
Introduction
thus fonning what she refers to as the 'constitutive outside' that defines and
materializes the dominant 'masculine'. Thus the 'feminine', an abject category, is
unmaterialized in two senses, as not 'mattered physically' and also as not 'mattering' as social worth- its absence thereby secures and delineates the contours of
the 'masculine'. So if this emphasis on materiality that presences the masculinist
signifier renders our understanding of the feminine and women problematic, what
does it do for other subjectivities and other states of being? Olendziel is one of the
few voices to call into question the universality of the concept of material culture
irself despite the prevalent celebration of its universality which to this day is still
triumphantly announced. As a universal, this may be just an empty sign, but it is a
sign nonetheless that constitutes a bracketing and certain original exclusions that
the hiStory of this topic of study demonstrates (see LOfgren 1997) as have the
masculinist universals revealed by various traditions of feminist scholarship.
Olendziel argues quite rightly that this signifier, though empty, has an ideological
basis that might not pennit us to understand those processes that are entailed in
materialization and the exclusions that inevitably result.
as in Potlach rituals or those in museums- objects are withdrawn from one sphere
of social use, wasted in relation to that sphere to constitute and materialize alternate
ideal realms. As suggested earlier, material culture studies as part of a sacrificial
economy has historically occurred within a framework of social purpose, which
required the constitution of such super-material objects - material culture - to
facilitate these goals whether industrial progress, social revolution or critical
consciousness.
Daniel Miller- has noted t~at the study of material culture is an integrative
endeavour (Miller 1983). Thus one might hazard to describe here three attempts
where material culture has emerged as an integrative intellectual project: evolutionary thought in the nineteenth century; Marxian social analysis and revolution
in the early twentieth century and progressivist New Archaeology and Marxian
social theory in the second half of the twentieth century. The problem with current
approaches is the lack of an overtly integrative intellectual project, a consequence
of the postmodern condition and the demise of Enlightenment era ideologies such
as liberal notions of universalism, progress and Marxism. The fragmentation of
such narratives that otherwise describe our so-called 'postmodem' condition may
in part explain material culture studies' persistent and increasing heterogeneity as
it surfaces within so many disciplines. Its instability is a consequence of its virtue
-being a socially motivated and contingent materialization of objects into systems
of material culture. It has never really been a discipline - it is effectively an
intervention within and between disciplines; translations from one realm into
another. But it is precisely this persistent heterogeneity and the proven ability of
material culture studies to translate (by virtue of its disruptive abilities) not just
simply between different and incommensurable social and physical realms, but
between discipliriary realms as both Rowlands and Bender argue here. Tbis might
partially explain the increasing tum towards the material across the various disciplines of the humanities in addition to the consequences of the rapidity of culture
change which typically evinces a melancholic preoccupation with the material as
a means of coping with change. The moment we are in right now is just one in a
history of many other attempts to focus and mediate between a realm rapidly
becoming invisible and unrecognizable from our own. The nineteenth century idea
that culture change could be evinced from our relationship to objects and thereby
coped with more effectively has not really shifted much.
The reconstitutive (and destructive) operation of material culture involves a
certain degree of waste and sacrifice; with war as the most spectacular expression
of 'the transformation of matter through the agency of destruction' (Saunders, this
volume). It also transforms a mostly inarticulate realm of sensual experience into
the two dimensions of a scholarly text or the 'nature-mane' of the museum display
(as in all translations something is always 'lost'). This suggests a decrease in
physicality across dimensions - moving sensual reality increasingly towards the
The Present
Material culture as we understand it is a direct consequence of the collecting
traditions of the nineteenth century, liberal Enlightenment era notions of universality, colonial expansion, industrialization and the birth of consumerism. As stated
before, these collections were the primary means by which we studied other
societies in distant time and space. We abandoned these studies to the promises
made by social anthropology, which sought to go direct to the source rather than
try and understand and translate it through ethnographic collections. If we consider
KrystoffPomian's thesis here, these earlier ethnograP:hic collections were clearly
attempts to mediate between two worlds, one known (Western) and one not known
and invisible (non-Western), that could be comprehended through thee mediating
objects we call material culture. There is an element of sacrifice and wastage here
in terms of utility not unlike the negation of the feminine as 'lack'- as that which
is precluded or 'pre-disposed', to borrow Strathem 's useful term (Strathem 2001),
to ensure a desired category. However, Bataille might be instructive here in his
similar investigations of the Potlatch and other practices within what he describes
as sacrificial economies. These are sacrifices of objects, attempts to render ultimate
inalienability be they through the creative destruction of archaeological sites, or
the deathlike still-life artefact assemblages of museum collections. Through this
inalienability, ideal worlds and stares of being are delineated, whether it be the
small sacrifices a housewife makes in her shopping excursions to realize a familial
ideal (Miller !998b) or the grandiloquent sacrifices of previously useful obje~,
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Victor BuchU
lnrroducrion
dimensionless and ephemeraL Vast realms of sensual reality and utility are
removed, transformed and made into the sensually 'dead' objectifications of
'material culture' we call an ethnographic monograph which preclude as required
by a modernist science the more promiscuous and multiple meanings generated
by the materialized 'artefact'. So much, and quite necessarily so, is wasted in tenns
of twentieth century cultural work - the troublesome fetish Of a conservative
Marxist discourse is suppressed, rendered harmless and erased by edifying
analyses that attempt to keep the transfixing , enchanting and promiscuous affects
of the artefact at bay (Belk 2001; Editorial 1996). This process is bemoaned by
LOfgren as we neglect and unproblern.atize the materiality of material culture. We
no longer dare to stroke those 'consenting molecules' (LOfgren 1997) which constitute material culture as our antiquarian ancestors did. The erotics and attendant
politics of this materiality are inadequately discussed. There is a promiscuity here
as both Pinney and Kuchler describe that is rarely explored (but see Shanks 1992)
and hindered by our preoccupation with textuality. Most of our publications deny
us any visual representation of the very physical objects we explore. This was
never the case in the beautifully illustrated discussions of material culture in the
past and their exquisite display when the affects of these objects were at their most
problematic from the standpoint of mid-twentieth century anti-consumerist and
post-colonial anxieties. Their visuality and form was the primary vehicle of authority and information, the text was merely supplementary and discursive (Lucas
200 I, see also Thomas 1997: 93-132). This is the reverse of how we recently have
valued the authority of such visual materialization of material culture. That we
have sanitized them to such a degree, evacuating them into inaccessible collections,
constituting them as edifying discursive texts, and at times even rendering them
dangerous- as some frustrated Native American groups have found their repatriated objects conserved with highly poisonous substances. Conservation is anything
but that: it is a very active and deliberate process of materializatio'n; it conserves'
nothing but 'produces' everything, as we can learn from Bruno Latour's work
(Latour 1999). So what are the social effects and costs of such productive materializations such as 'conservation'? Are these poisoned artefacts the result of some
misplaced fear of the seduction of the commodity fetish- a legacy of a conservative
critique that sought to deny earthly seductions in an effort to achieve an idealized
order - or something else entirely?
may always need to be preserved as such, since to rupture such a category is always
to place its contents in danger' (Rowlands 1983: 16). This emphasis on translation
and rupture suggest a different perspective from the imperial, universalistic,
panoptic one of tbe nineteenth century. The issue of translatability from one realm
to the another, the invisible into the visible, described by Pomian recalls a recent
point made by Judith Butler regarding left politics as being one centred on
translation, from an interstitial position 'to shatter the confidence of dominance,
to show how equivocal its claims to universality are, and, from that equivocation,
track the break-up of its regime, an opening towards alternative versions of universality that are wrought from the work of translation itself' (Butler, Laclau and
Zi.Zek, 2000: 179).
The interstitial positions occupied by material culture studies provide a platform
for a critical engagement with materiality for understanding issues facing us such
as the fluidity of gender and body/object interfaces, recyclia, biotech, genetic
engineering and the Internet- in short, those key materializing and transfonnative
processes that shape new inclusions and exclusions as the critical focus of material
culture studies such as new kinds of bodies, fonns of 'nature' and political subjects.
One might consider here the nature of alienability as a tendency towards fluidity
that denies a certain 'cultural' mass. As this fluidity quickens it moves, losing the
'weight of tradition' towards an increasingly 'lighter' and immaterial state
(Oldenziel 1996: 63). This process is like that described by Thompson whereby
objects are literally transformed in terms of their physicality and durability as a
consequence of the cultural work that transforms rubbish on its way to becoming
immaterial dust into durable artefacts- materiality is by no means a non-negotiable
and unquestionable empirical reality it is a produced social one. As Thompson
states Those people near the top have the power to make things durable and to
make things transient .. .'(Thompson 1994: 271). This socially produced durability is the effect of extensive cultural interventions - the exchange value of the
market or the science and politics of museum curation being prominent amongst
others. In short this is the production of what one might call an artefactual effect
(see Fletcher 1997a, b); the result of a profound social alchemy. This massiveness,
or this so-called 'weight of tradition' is shown by Gilles Lipovetsky (Lipovetsky
1994) to be entirely undermined by the ephemerality of the fashion system of
consumerism dating back to the nineteenth century, that since this time has actively
worn away at the 'gravity' and 'mass' of custom. The crushing ephemerality of
late capitalism (its constant material flux), its 'tragic lightness' (as Lipovetksy calls
it) combined with the increasingly immaterial nature by which individuals assert
agency and intervene in the social world (information technology over production,
the Internet, the extreme mobility and liquidity of capital, and the intense rate of
consumption and waste production) all create a situation where the insistence on
the peculiar, limited and highly contingent fixity of the material artefact seems all
Waste, Change and Ephemerality

Material culture studies bas been described by Rowlands as an intellectual refuge
' ... during periods of antipathy when anthropology's rupture with its nineteenth
century origins threatened to abolish all questions that recalled a tainted past. .It
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Victor Buchli
Introduction
the more inadequate to cope with the social effects of these increasingly ephemeral,
highly fluid and immaterial interventions within the material world that sustains
us.
This issue is becoming more the focus of recent work in material culture studies
that focuses on cultures of waste, destruction (Saunders, this volume), recycling,
divestment, moving, capital flows, etc., which suggests that the processes of
materialization are more significant than materiality itself and in fact variably constitutive of it- material culture itself is just a peculiar moment in these processes
- an alchemical cultural effect which serves as a diagnostic formed by processes
of waste and sacrifice required of our various cultural projects. This more recent
work on materiality and material culture has focused on a certain critical empiricism (Miller personal communication, Buchli and Lucas 2000, Oldenziel 1996:
66) which examines closely the terms by which discursive empirical reality is materialized and produced. 1bis is a continuation of the suggestions of Bataille which
moved the focus of consumption and the understanding of material culture from
consumption and uSe value, to an exploration of the processes of waste, and the
logics of sacrificial economies rather than normative notions of utility. 1bis we ~an
understand as a preoccupation with the means by which alienability occurs, how
things are released, given away, wasted, taken away, sacrificed or disposed of
towards the creation of the social terms of existence. These are key concerns within
recent studies of recycling and moving and similarly the repatriation of artefacts
and reburial of remains. These are all actions of one sort or another that facilitate
a transformation of the materiality of material culture in terms of durability and
visibility. New subjectivities are facilitated through this process which,tends to
diminish the materiality of material culture and even to move out of the realm of
durable conserved' material culture itself. In the case of recent repatriation and
reburial controversies - what for a museum curator represents an almost iconoclastic wastage of precious artefacts (a fact that is undeniable from the point of
view of orthodox Western science) is on the other hand the highly creative act of
cultural construction and consolidation from the point of view of some indigenous
groups- and additionally, a radical reconstitution of identity facilitaied by the very
same obj.ects of material culture that facilitated the original exclusions and
subaltern status of such groups in the first place (Jacknis 1996: 209). Conservation
and creative destruction become problematic in the face of differing and conflicting material strategies vying for social control (see Rowlands and Saunders this
volume).
The more recent emphasis in material culture studies, one might say, in many
respecis has been its most traditional - that is in terms of its focus on translation
and the- material processes at work to facilitate a view from one realm on to
another. Such translations are more significant and m~re frequent in terms of the
increasing rapid change and superfluity of knowledge and goods. This is a point
explored by Lipovetsky in terms of the significance of the ephemerality of fashion

as non-durable, changing, frequently wasted and fleeting to facilitate a view from
one realm on to another. Rather than suggesting a lack of distinction, authenticity
and inalienability -the inherent alienability of fashion, as fleeting, frequently cast
off- are the very terms by which social viability and enfranchised subjectivity are
possible. Through the democratizing and enfranchising effects of the fluid and
mobile immateriality of fashiQn all stabilizing authority and tradition is challenged.
A constantly fluid and i~aterial means is established by which to assert new
subjectivies. Neo-pragmadi.t thinkers such as Rorty and Radical Democratic
theorists such as Laclau and Mouffe and Butler argue for the importance of this
instability and openendedness that never lets any one particular way of getting
things done ever get the upper hand. This is the ethical 'scrappiness' of Smith
( 1988) or the disorderly virtuous cities of Sennett, which are believed to best secure
democratic freedoms (Sennett 1971). The production and waste of objects and
their constitution and dissipation are the two sides of the larger processes of
materialization that facilitate the terms of social life, perpetuating its inclusions
and exclusions as well as reworking and challenging them.
Material culture's ability to constitute through the cultural articulation of its
durability as increasing inalienablity shows that it has not disappeared in the
present day and is still very mu?h in force. Material culture functions as a means
of resistance against globalization or as a way of countering colonial legacies
(Rowlands this volume), or through consumption facilitates inalienable authenticity (Miller 1987), and the generation of various 'strategic essentialisms'- the
cultural property' of Rowlands's contribution here. However, as various neepragmatist and Radical Democratic thinkers have suggested, these critical interventions are momentary, contingent and strategic- creating what one might call a
critical empiricism. These concerns echo Lip"ovetsky's understanding of the
fashion system as conspiring against the solidity of objects, and that personal
liberty is in fact guaranteed by the increasing ephemerality of the material world.
Its rapid flux does not allow one to make firm attachments either to an object or
an ideology, or tradition. An ideology of superficiality within a rapidly changing
and wasteful material world ensures that no one fonn of materiality will eyer
prevail or get the upper hand, which can be rejected and left behind like the poetic
metaphors of Richard Rorty: 'The proper honor to pay new, vibrantly alive metaphors, is to help them become dead metaphors as quickly as possible , to rapidly
reduce them to the tools of social progress' (Rorty 1991: 17). What is more important probably is not to study the materializations themselves but rather what was
wasted towards these rapid and increasingly ephemeral materializations (what
Strathem refers to as the universe of meanings predisposed by social conventions
(Strathem 2001)) The realm of the abject, the realm of the wasted beyond the
constitutive outsides of social reality is where critical work needs to be done
n
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Victor Buchli
(rubbish studies, divestment studies, the disenfranchised of globalization, the 'nonplaces' of Auge (Auge 1999) and the general effects of late capitalist ephemerality).
This is the territory of 'tragic lightness' described by Lipovetsky. The ephemerality
of human interaction, the inability of any one regime to take hold subject to the
ever-increasing individualized needs of consumerist novelty means that ontological security is tentative and supremely contingent at best. This ethos of ethical
disorder which ensures that no one regime gets the upper hand and the boundaries
of social legitimacy can always be challenged means that even though 'The
consummate reign of fashion pacifies social conflict; it allows more individual
freedom, but it generates greater malaise of living [... ] which renders us increasingly problematic to ourselves and others' (Lipovetsky 1994: 241). How people
negotiate the increasing immateriality and alienability of our material world is one
of the challenges facing material cultures studies.
The fragmented nature of the discipline is hardly a sign of crisis, but rather a
testimony to its vigour in an expanded and diffuse realm of social inquiry. Within
this of course lies the issue of materiality, the various ways we materialize social
being and the ways in which this process is challenged in light of rapid social
change and the increasingly ephemeral nature of our social interactions. Under
such circumstances numerous voices disappear as quickly as they appear, or are
never able to appear at all, buried within the rapid superfluity of information and
materiality. How things come to matter both physically and socially, how the terms
of materiality are reconfigured to facilitate various forms of social inclusion and
exclusion are questions which become increasingly relevant. This is another way
of understanding materiality not so much as physics but as cultural process- the
immateriality of cyberspace can cause as much pain (Haraway 1991) because of
the social effects by which these materialities or immaterialities are constituted.
The material realm has not been supplanted, the virtual realm works alongside
in a hybrid fashion to facilitate such connections, views and realms as most
innovations in the past have done (see Haraway 1991 and Latour 1999). Its 'ailefactuality' (Fletcher 1997a) is just as effective as it was early on: the Internet as
much as the constituted and 'conserved' artefact, or nineteenth century engraving
are different constitutive representations. They have specific social effects as
relevant along the continuum of various materialized and de-materialized states
from the actual object to its manifestation in cyberspace. They all produce a certain
artefactuality (Fletcher 1997b) - that is an artefact effect with contingent social
purpose: the 'factishes' of Latour (1999). In this respect anthropology since its
beginnings has always traditionally dealt with and produced the virtual - whose
respective social worths are assessed in terms of how they are able to mediate
between. One state and another with their respective social effects. What is very
different is how we consider and configure the material conditions of our interactions, that is how does materiality function, what does it do, what are its new
-18-
'.)
Introduction
I
. I
social costs and who is included or excluded, given a voice or silenced. A number
[J,
of the contributions of this volume provide excellent examples such as the conflicts
over cultural properties in India mentioned by Rowlands, or those over Stonehenge
described by Bender and the kinds of subjectivities that could be accommodated
within the changing Soviet home described here by Buchli.ln a sense, looking at
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what happens before and after the artefact is more significant than the artefact
itself; that is, the terms of materiality rather than material culture itself and the
differential ability of individuals to participate in these processes is more important. As Butler has suggested in relation to the materiality of gender, this means
' ... a return ro the notion of matter, not as site or surface, but as a process of
materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity,
and surface we call matter' (Butler 1993: 9, see also Strathern 1988). The materializing function of archaeological and anthropological projects in material culture
studies serves to render discursively legible, groups, worlds, individuals, subjectivities and experiences that were otherwise outside of the discursive realm (Buchli
and Lucas 2001), thus they help refigure the boundaries of inclusion- suggesting
possible worlds and views that are increasingly silenced, overlooked and forgotten
in the increasingly ephemeralised world of human interaction - and thereby
address and challenge the social and ontological costs of this 'tragic lightness'
(Lipovetsky) which surrounds us.
t.
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~~
il
l,I
References
Appadurai, A. (1986), The Social Life ofThings: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Attfield, J. (2000), Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life, Oxford:
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Auge, M. (1999), Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology ofSupermodemiry,
London: Verso.
Barthes, R. (1973), Mythologies, St. Albans: Paladin.
Bataille, G. (1991), The Accursed Share vol. I, New York: Zone Books.
Baudrillard, J. (1996), The System of Objects, London: Verso.
Belk, R.W. (2001), Collecting in a Consumer Society, London: Routledge.
Boas, F. (1907), 'Some Principles of Museum Administration', Science 25: 921-33.
- - (1955,) Primitive Art, New York: Dover Publications.
Braude!, F. (1992), Civilization and Capitalism, Berkeley: University of California
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Buchli, V.and Lucas, G. (2001), Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, London:
Routledge.
Butler, J. (1993), Bodies that Matter, London: Routledge.
-19-
r
'Victor Buchli
Introduction
Butler, J., Laclau, E. and Zi:Zek, S. (2000), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality:

Contemporary Dialogues on The Left, London: Verso.
Lowie, R.H. (1960), The History of Ethnological Theory, New York: Holt, Rinehart
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Lucas, G. (2001), Critical Approaches to Fieldwork: Contemporary and Historical
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Marx, K. (1986), Karl Marx: a Reader, J. Elstner (ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge
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Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962), The Phenomenology of Perception, London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (1983), 'Things ain't what they used to be', Royal Anthropological
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- - (1987), Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- - (1998a), Materia1 Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, London: University
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- - ( 1998b), A Theory of Shopping, Cambridge: Polity.
Morgan, L.H. (1978), Ancient Society, New York: Labor Press.
Mouffe, C. (1993), The Return of the Political, London: Verso.
Chapman, W.R. (1985), 'Arranging Ethnology: A.H.L. F. Pitt-Rivers and the

'JYpological Tradition', in G.W. Stocking Jr (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays
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Deetz, J. (1977), In Small Things Forgotten, New York: Anchor Press.
Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. (1979), The World a/Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption, London: Routledge.
Editorial (1996), Journal of Material Culture 1(1): 5-14.
Fenton, W.F. (1974) 'The Advancement of Material Culture Studies in Modem
Anthropological Research', in M. Richardson (ed.), The Human Mirror, Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Fletcher, G. (1997a), 'Excavating Posts: an Archaeology of Cyberspace', Paper
presented at WIP-ing post Conference, University of Queensland, Australia
Fletcher, G. (1997b) Excavating the Social. Paper presented at Rethinking the
Social Conference, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.
Forde, D. (1934), Habitat, Economy and Society, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
Forty, A. and Kuchler, S. (eds) (1999), The Art of Forgetting. Oxford: Berg.
Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: an Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon.
Glassie, H. (1975), Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, Knoxville: The University
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Haddon, A. C. (ed.) (1935), Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition
to Torres Straits, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haraway, D. (1991), Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature,
London: Free Association Books.

Hodder, I. (1983), Material Culture Studies at British Universities: Cambridge, in
Things ain't what they used to be, Daniel Miller (ed.) Royal Anthropological
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Jacknis, I. (1996), 'The Ethnographic Object and the Object of Ethnology in the
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Kingery, W.D. (ed.) (1996), Learning From Things: Method and Theory in
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Latour, B. (1999), Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Uvi-Strauss, C. (1988), The Way of the Masks, Seattle: University of Washington
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Lipovetsky, G. (1994), The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modem Democracy,
Princeton: Princeton University Press.

LOfgren, 0. (1997), 'Scenes from a Troubled Marriage: Swedish Ethnology and
Material Culture Studies', Journal of Material Culture, 2 (1): .95-113.
-20-
I.
I
Mouffe, C. (1996), 'Deconstruction, Pragmatism and the Politics of Democracy',

in C. Mouffe (ed.), Deconstruction and Pragmatism, London: Routledge.
Oldenziel, R. (1996), 'Object/ions: Technology, Culture, and Gender', in W.D.
Kingery (ed.), Learning From Things: Method and Theory in Material Culture
Studies, Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Pearce, S. (1994), Interpreting Objeds and Collections, London: Routledge.
Pomian, K. (1990), Collectors and Curiosities: Paris and Venice, 1500-1800,
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Rabinow, P. (ed.) (1984), The Foucault Reader, London: Penguin Books.
Ratzel, F. (1896), The History of Mankind, London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd.
Richardson, M. (ed.) (!974), The Human Mirror, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press.
Rorty, R. (1991), Essays on Heidegger and Others, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rowlands, M. (1983), University College London, in Things ain't what they used
to be, Daniel Miller (ed.) Royal Anthropological Institute News, 59: 15-16.
Sayee, R.U. (1933), Primitive Arts and Crafts, Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Schnapp, A. (1996), The Discovery of the Past: the Origins of Archaeology,
London: British Museum Press.
Sennett, R. (1971), Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life. London:
Allen Lane.
Shanks, M. (1992), Experiencing the Past: On the Character of Archaeology,
London: Routledge.
Smith, B.H. (1988), Contingencies of Value, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
-21-
'I
I
~il
II
i!.l
\111
Vzctor Buchli
Steadman, P. (1979), The Evolution ofDesigns: Biological Analogy in Architecture
and the Applied Arts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stocking, G. (ed.) (1985), Objects and Others: Essays on Museu.m.s and Material
Culture, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Strathern, M. (1988), The Gender of the Gift, Berkeley: University of California
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- - (2001), 'The Aesthetics of Substance', inN. Cummings and M. Lewandowska
(eds) Capital, London: Tate Publishing.
Thomas, N. (1991), Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Thomas, N. (1997), In Oceania: Visions, Artifacts, Histories, Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Thompson, M. (1994), 'The Filth in the Way', inS. Pearce (ed.), Interpreting
Objects and Collections, London: Routledge.
Tilley, C. (199!), Material Culture and Text: The Art of Ambiguity, London:
Routledge.
Trigger, B. (1989), A History ofArchaeological Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ucko, P. (1969), 'Penis Sheaths: a Comparative Study', Proceedings of the RAJ,
pp. 24-66.
-2Metaphor, Materiality and Interpretation

Christopher Tilley
Introduction
During the past thirty years some of the most exciting and innovatory ethnographic
and archaeological studies of material culture have exploited analogies with language
to provide a fresh way of understaoding of what things mean, and why they are
important. Structuralist approaches have led us to think about things as communicating meaning like a language, silent 'grammars' of artefact forms such a$
sequences of designs on calabashes, pots or bark cloth. Similarly 'grammars' Of
household and village space, gravegoods and burials, etc. have ~een produced and
then linked back to a structure of social and political relations in various ways (see
Tilley 2000 for a recent review). Things have thus become regarded as texts,
structured sign systems whose relationship with each other and the social world is to
be decoded. In various post-structural approaches to material forms the metaphors
of language, or discourse, and text have remained dominant in an understanding of
things. The new emphasis here has been on polysemy, biographical, historical and
cultural shifts in meaning, the active role or 'agency' of things in constituting rather
than reflecting social realities, power/knowledge relations and the poetics and politics
of the process of interpretation itself, that we write things rather than somehow
passively read off their meanings independently Of our social and political location,
values and interests.
But a design is not a word and _a _house is not a text: words and things, discourses
and material practices are fundamentally different. Clearly linguistic analogies may
serve to obscure as much as they may illuminate the nature and meanings of things
as material forms. Yet (at least as academics) we primarily have to write and speak of
things, transform them into utterances and thus risk domesticating their difference
from the language used to re-present them. Much as perhaps we might like it, the
problem of language will not go away in the study of the things. It is only through the
use of words that we can claim, assert, Investigate and understand why things matter
and why a study of them is important, why it makes a difference to an understanding
of persons and their social worlds. It is this general problem of how we cope with
language in the study of things that I attempted to explore in some detail in my book
Metaphor and Material Cuffure (Tilley 1999) of which the study of canoes in Vanuatu,
reproduced in this volume, forms a part.
-22-
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EXPANDED
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illustrated by an1y eli:abeth grey
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FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, 1977

EXPANDED AND REVISED ANCHOR BOOKS
EDITION, 1996
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Copyright <C 1977, 1996 by James Dcc:tz

Illustrations copyright <i:l by Amy Eli=bc:th Grey
All rights reserved under International and PanAmerican Copyright Conventions. Published in the
United States by Anchor BoOks, a division of
Random House, Inc., New. York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House: of
Canada Limited, Toronto.
Anchor Books and colophon arc registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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ln.troduczion
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L..brary of Congn:ss Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deetz, James.
In small things forgotten : = archaeology of c:ariy
American life I James Deetz ; illustrated by Amy
Elizabeth Grey.- Rev. and expanded cd.
p.
em.
I. New England-Antiquities. Z. New EnglandSocial life and customs--To 1775. 3. VirginiaAntiquities. 4. Virginia--Social life and customs-To 1775. 5. Archaeology and history-New
England. 6. Archaeology and history-Virginia.
. I. Tide.
F6.D43 1996
974'.01-dc:ZO
96-1739
CIP
ISBN 0-385-48399-6
Book design
1.
RECALLING THINGS FORGOTTEN:

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE AMERICAN ARTIFACT
2.
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN PAST
38
3.
ALL THE EARTHENWARE PLAIN AND FLOWERED
68
4. REMEMBER ME AS
5. 1
You PASS By
WOULD HAVE THE HOWSE STRONG IN TIMBER
89
125
6.
SMALL THINGS REMEMBERED
165
7.
PARTING WAYS
187
8.
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PAST
212
9. SMALL THINGS FORGOTTEN
253
Notes
261
by Jt:nnifer Ann IJadJW
www.anchorbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
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recalling things forgotten :
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1780
Little Isaac Jefferson watched as his mother prepared their
evening meal in the tiny slave cabin which was home. As
pastry chef in the big house at Monticello, she was familiar
with European ways of cooking, but here at home she was
doing something quite:: diffc::rc::nt. Two pots simmered by the
fire. Handmade and unglazed, they were gray-brown in
color. The larger held a thick porridge of dried corn, the
smaller a rich mixture of herbs, tomatoes, and bits of rabbit
and squirrel. Their contents would be served together in
shallow bowls.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA,
:li
1745
The job had been a big one, and the house carpenter had
been at it for over a month. Now complete, Jacob Mott's
farmhouse had a new wing and a new look. The old, projecting end of the second floor of the house had been re-
PORTSMOUTH, RHODE ISLAND,
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moved, and the location of the door had been changed.

Standing back to view his work, the carpenter noticed how
much more the house now seemed like those in the center
?f town. Although it stood in the middle of more than a
hundred acres of farmland tilled by the Mott family, its
new face would tell the people of Portsmouth that Jacob
Mott was one of them, just as though he lived as their nextdoor neighbor.
I
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1765
Ebenezer Soule set down his hammer and chisel. It was late
evening, but he had completed the gravestone that he had
been carving and that now stood before him. On its top he
had carved a cheerful angel's face, and he thought of how it
would look when it was placed over the grave the next day.
Although he had been making gravestones for years, this
design was new to him. He knew that the people in the
area had recently come to prefer cherubs on their monuments, and lately ht: had been carving more and more of
them to meet the new demand.
;I
PLYMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS,
1932
Sint:e his return from a trip to Tennessee, Wade Ward had
been practicing a new way to play his banjo. Plat:ing his
fingers across all four strings high on the neck, he pick.ed
out a series of notes, then Tepeated the sequen<:e farther
down ID:e fretboard. The day before, making music with
his nephew Fields, he had alternated the style he. had used
since. childhood-striking the strings with the nails of his
2
in s=all thiu.Q"s or<gotteu.
right hand-with another new trick: picking up with his

fingertips. In doing this he was playing his banjo as the
musicians did on so many of the new records that people
listened to on their radios almost every day.
1765
The ads in the Boston newspapers had announced a new
shipment of English china. William Rand made a special
trip from his home in Kingston to Boston, where he purchased a dozen matching blue-and-white plates. They
would make a handsome addition to his household and
complement the new set of matching ehairs he had recently
acquired for his dining room.
KINGSTON, MASSACHUSETTS,
1695
From the outside, the house gave the appearance of substance and permanence, down to the fine casements of
leaded windowpanes. But its owner, John Limbrey Wilkins, knew better, The house was framed on stout posts
whit:h were set deep into the ground without benefit of
footings. In having the house bqilt in this fashion, Wilkins
was able to save a substantial amount of capital, which he
felt was better directed to producing a toba<:co crop which
would give him a handsome return onhis investment. After all . . .
FLOWERDEW HUNDRED, VIRGINIA,
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INDEPENDENCE, VIRGINIA,
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1658
The appraiser appointed by the court worked slowly and
carefully from room to room in the small, dimly lit house.
PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS,
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f~otten
Its owner had recently died, and his property had to be

valued so that a proper tax could be levied on his estate.
The list covered several pages: chairs, fireplace equipment,
beds, napkins, chests, clothing-all of the property that had
been us<:d to mak<: th<: world a more comfortable plac<: in
which to live. At the end of the listing, the appraiser made
a final <:nrry: "In small things forgott<:n, eight shillings sixpence." In this he acknowledg<:d things that h<: may hav<:
overlooked but that nevertheless had value.
Sev<:n Am<:ricans engaged in commonplace activities; all in

their fashion were communicating with us in a subtle way.
In <:ach case, material objects were involved-a house, a
gravestone, a set of dishes--and if we could in some way
find a way to understand the signifieance of artifacts as they
were thought of and used by Americans in the past, we
might gain new insight into the history of our nation.
Such a concern for the material obj<:cts of the past, the
"small things forgotten," is central to the work of historical
archaeologists. Archaeology is the study of past peoples
based on the things they left behind and the ways they left
their imprint on the world. Chipped-stone hand axes made
hundreds of thousands of years ago and porcelain teacups
from the <:ight<:enth century carry messages from thrir
makers and users. It is the-archaeologist's task to decode
those messages and apply them to our understanding of the
human experience. Modern American culture, a rich and
vibrant blend of African, Asian, European, and Native
4
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American cultural traditions, is studied by folklorists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. Historical, arc:haeology can add to our understanding of th<: American expe. rience in a unique way, by looking not at the written record
alone but at the almost countless objects left behind by
Americans for over three and a half centuries.
Historical archaeology studies the cultural remains of
literate societies that were capable of recording their own
histories. In this respect it contrasts directly with prehistoric
archaeology, which treats all of cultural history before the
advent of writing, millions of years in duration. A popular
definition of historical archaeology is the archaeology of the
spread of European cultures throughout the world since the
fifteenth century, and their impact on and interaction with the
cultures of indigenous peoples. Two things should be noted
regarding this definition. First, the words "throughout the
world'' take on special significance when comparisons are
made with prehistoric archaeology. By and large, prehistorians do not think on a scale that is truly global, and have
no need to operate on such a scale. However, historical
archaeology must adopt a global perspective on its data, for
when the first European sailing ships set out for distant
parts of the world, a chain of events never before seen in
human history was set into motion. Two worlds that had
been separate from each other for millennia suddenly were
brought into close contact, with speetacula:r and often catastrophic results. This contact leads to the second point. The
millions of Africans who were transported to the Americas
were relocated, against their will, as a direct result of Eurorecalling things :forgotten
'l
pean colonial expansion into the New World. In like manner,_ the Asian presence in- America came as a result of
American expansion westward, and while the particular
circumstances were different, the end result was the same.
As such, both African American and Asian American archaeology are integral components of American historical
archaeology, as is the history of the Native American peoples following the initial contact with European peoples.
In England, studies of sites and artifaCts that relate to
Anglo-American sites are done by postmedieval arcl:aeologisu. Their work and that of historical archaeologists in
America tell the story of the development of Anglo-American culture from its English beginnings to its ultimate
twentieth-century form in North America. The examples
to be examined in this volume will treat the Americanization of both English and African traditions as this was
played out along the eastern seaboard during colonial and
postcolonial times. To be sure, other European nations were
involved in the colonization of North America--notably
Spain, France, and Holland-and the bearers of their cultural traditions interacted with those of others as well, but
this volume will restrict its concerns to only two, to illustrate the workings of historical archaeology as it is actually
practiced in the United States.
It is in its sharp contrasts with prehistoric archaeology
that historical archaeology may be further defined. Not
only do the two disciplir:tes treat complementary sets of
data, based on the presence or absence of literacy and writ~
'",:..,
ten records, but they differ in other critical ways which are
only part! y a result of this essential difference.
I
I*I
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1
.:II
J
1
T=imony of the Spade, Still Digging, Archaeology from

the Earth-ali are titles of books by prehistorians which
reflect the near identity in most people's minds between
archaeology and excavation. This is so simply because the
vast majority of human cultural remains are buried and
must be dug up. But the excavation of archaeological sites,
though an obviously essential first step in studying past
cultures, is just that. Only after the material has been excavated can we begin to study it.
Because historical archaeologists work with materials
that are centuries old at most, rather than millennia or
longer periods, these materials stand a much better chance
of surviving above the ground. Of course, much of historical archaeology is the digging of archaeologiCai sites, but
these sites are not the sole source of information. They can
provide information that is not available from other
sources, and the value of this material is further enhanced
through the suppon of aboveground information. For example, there is no need to detail the architecture of early
New England timber-framed houses on the basis of excavated material alone, since the landscape is dotted with
such buildings, still standing and in use.
Like old houses, there are cenain other artifaets from
America's past available for study, but their value is subject
to cenain limitations, which must be kept in mind. Collections in museums have preserved a vast wealth of Ameri-
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can artifactS: c<:ramics, maalwork, and glasswar<: hav<: thcir

archa.:ological count<:rpans, and many mat<:rials that th<:
ar<:ha<:ologist rardy has acc.:ss to, such as l.:ath.:r, pape:r,
fabric, and wood, are also available for study. The qu.:stion
of the factors that favor survival of certain obj<:cts and th<:
disappe:arance of oth.:rs is important h<:re. For a variety of
r<:asons, surviving artifacts cannot be taken as necessarily
r<:pr<:S<:ntativ<: obj<:cts of their period. If we were to rely on
m=um collections, w<: might g<:t an impr.:ssion of a mu<:h
rich.:r !<:vel of mat<:rial wealth than truly was the case. This
is-becaUS<: most mus.:ums save the unusual and the valuable
object, and individuals now and in the past consign commonplace objects to the dump. A museum exhibit of all of
the pottery found in a household of modest means in the
mid cighteenth century would not be beautiful to behold,
since most of it would be simple, locally manufactured,
coarse earthenware, red in color and undecorated. But su<:h
an exhibit would certainly be repr.:sentative of the world of
the people who lived in it. In a similar way, we often are
told that old garments, shoes, or pieces of armor show ddinitdy that "people were smaller in those days." This conclusion does not allow for the probability that very small
items of pe:rsonal wear would not be as eligible for hand.:
me-down status, and thus were less likely to wear out. The
hous.:s that survive from the sevente<:nth and cighteenth
centuries also cannot be taken at face value as typical of
their time, since their ruder counterpartS almost certainly
disappe:ar<:d from the scene in a short time. Indeed, Jack
Larkin t~lls us that according to the 1798 Direct Tax, whi<:h
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described every free families' dwelling hoUS<:, the American

housing landscape was "striking in its small scale, its plainness and its inequality." 1 Most families lived in houses of
one or possibly two rooms, and these have mostly dis,app<:ared.
As historical archaeologists work in increasingly more
recent pe:riods, they find on occasion an information so~ce
that few if any prehistorians have encountered: the
archaeological informant. Since the pe:riod with which his-
torical archaeology is concerned extends to the present, the

last seventy-odd years can be studied through direct interviews with p<:ople who actually experienced the lifeways
being studied. Memory, of course, is fallible, and whenever
possible, it is best to conduct interviews with more than one
p<:rson for corroborative purposes.
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The widespread use of photography by the mid nineteenth century provides the historical archaeologist with
another valuable data source. Buildings that have long since
vanished and landscapes that have been transformed can be
seen in old photographs as they appeared at the time that
the archaeologist is investigating if the site in question dates
to the pe:riod when the photograph was taken. An ingenious US<: of photographs as an archaeological resource has
been devdope:d by Eugene Prince of the Phoebe Hearst
Museum of the University of California at Berkeley.2 The
technique is simple in execution but dramatic in results. A
historical photograph of a building or even an entire community is first made into a thirty-five-millimeter transparency. The transparency is then inserted in the prism
/:'
in sD>all things forgotten
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recalling things :forst<>ttcn
mounting of a single-lens reflex, which enables one to see

the photograph when looking through the viewfinder of
the camera. One need only identify at least two reference
points in the photograph on the modern landscape. Using
these points and a zoom lens, since the focal length of the
camera which took the original photograph is unknown,
the. camera is moved around until the reference points
match. Once this has been done, the precise location of
buildings, roads, or fence lines can be seen on the modern
landscape. It is even possible to have people "enter" the
historical photograph and measure a building or buildings
that are no longer in existence. The technique has been
used successfully to identify the precise point where Ulysses
S. Grant's army crossed the James River en route to Petersburg, to check the accur .cy of a restoration at Colonial
Williamsburg, and to locate an early-nineteenth-century
shipyard at Fort Ross, California, photographed in 1862.
Archaeological investigations at the abandoned coal mining
town of Somersville, California, were immensely aided
through the use of this technique. With a panoramic view
of the town, it was possible to pinpoint all of the buildings
and fence lines. With additional information obtained from
oral history accounts, it was possible to construct a very
accurate map of the town, when none had existed before.
The literacy of the people it studies is what sets historical archaeology apart from prehistory. But not all the people were able to read and write; indeed only a minority
could through most of the time with which we are concerned. But even if a majority lacked the ability to write,
10
in onnall things forgotten
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others often wrote about them. They were born, married,

and died, and these events were recorded; their estates were
listed for tax purposes and so were recorded. The church
records, diaries, court records, land deeds, and contemporary histories give us a window through which to witness
the past.. This is not to say that we can learn all there is to
know just from studying the written record. If this were so,
there would be no need to dig into the ground or to sort,
measure, and cl:assify artifacts. In spite of the richness and
diversity of the historical record, there are things we want
to know that are not to be discovered from it. Simple people doing simple things, the normal, everyday routine of
life and how these people thought about it, are not the
kinds of things anyone thought worthy of noting. We
know far more about the philosophical underpinnings of
Puritanism than we do about what its practitioners consumed at countless meals. But all left behind the material
residue of their existence, and it, too, is worth study. As
Henry Glassie says of the folks of middle Virginia: "They
left no writing, but they did leave all those houses."3
The documentary record and the archaeological record complcment each other. One of the most useful sets of
written material is probate records. These are listings, of
the c:ontents of the houses and properties of persons, taken
for tax purposes at their deaths. Although not every estate
was probated--m.ore often only the richer estates were-those inventories that we have access to are valuable for a
number of reasons. Hundreds of thousands of inventories
exist for the Anglo-American world. They usually take the
recalling_~. forgotten
11
II
form of a rather detailed listing of the contents of a person's

estate, with accompanying values. The inventory of
Thomas Lumbert's estate, which follows, is an example.
il
Item his wearing

clothes
.!
Item in beding and

yearne
The Inventory of Thomas Lumbert
j
.
A true Inventory of the estate of Thomas
Lumbert of Barnstable senir: deceased; exhibited to
the Court held att Plymouth March the seauenth

1664 on the oath of Ioyce Lumbert widdow;
1<
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.?>
Impr in Lands and
12
housing
Item 2 oxen
Item 5 Cowes
Item 1 heiffer
60
00
00
00
00
00
12
19
00
10
03
00
Item 4 yearlings
04
10
Item 2 Calues
Item 2 oxen 12 li and
six pound in [vse?]
laied out for mc:ddow
Item 2 mares
Item 1 mare Colt
Item 2 horses
Item a two ycare old
Colt
Item 1 yearling Calfe
Item swine
00
10
00
00
18
15
03
00
00
00
14
00
00
00
04
{10]
$'
~
02
10
01
00
00
in a=all things forgotten
Item in brasse potts and

kettles
Item one warming pan
Item 1 frying pan 3s
10
00
07
02
15
00
00
00
03
00
10
08
00
00
00
07
06
01
00
00
01
00
05
04
00
00
00
00
00
12
00
01
15
00
01
12
00
04
00
00
1 Iron kettle 3s and
hangers ls6d
Item Cubbert and
Chistes
Item Chernes harrells
tubbs trcyc:s and such
like lumber
Item bookc:s
Item Amunition
Item in a saddle and
bridle
Item in flesh meale and
pr~uision for the
family
00
00
00
00
I tern in lin nine
03
14
Item in Corne and
l:)
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pease
Item in Cart wheeles

plough and plow
tackling
r~ thing., forgotten
13
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Item in Carpenters
tooles
Item the loomes
Item in sythes hoes
wedges old lronmatt~k & such like
thingc:s
Item in debtes due
February the 8th 1664)
more in triuiall
thinges omited
To debts owing to
seuerall men
03
00
00
00
10
00
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01
00
00
[16]
00
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210
08
06
00
10
00
00
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henerey Cobb
lohn Gorum
Nathanid Bacon
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Ioyce Lumbert was deposed to the truth of this Inventory; soe farr as shee knowes) before mee Thomas hinckley
this sixt of March (64)
65
The uses of inventories transcend the obvious, descriptive one. The terms used in the inventories are those
used by the people themselves, and as such constitute what
is known as a folk taxonomy. This can be very misleading
on occasion. Numerous listings of ''looking glasses" in inventories of early-seventeenth-century Plymouth might
1-4
in e:mall thinlte 0'1'1toHcn
lead the reader to believe there was a good supply of mirrors. While this is possible, we learn from the Oxford En-.
glish Dictionary that "looking glass" was a common vernacular term for chamber pot during the first half of the
seventeenth century. "Bedstead" at this time denotes what
we eall a bed, and "bed" in the folk taxonomy refers to
what we would eall a mattress. The adjective "coarse" did
not denote texture until late in the seventeenth century;
earlier, it meant normal or average. It is therefore necessary
that one become familiar with the semantics of the English
language during .the period under study.
A significant number of inventories were taken on a
room-by-room basis, and as such give us not only an idea of
the layout of the house but the terms used foJ;" its various
rooms. In such cases, the objects listed for various rooms
also hint at the activities that went on in them.
But the inventories always stop short of the kind of
detail that the archaeologist often finds important. A listing
of earthenware could refer either to fancy, imported pottery
or to plain coarse ware of local manufacture. "Six old
spoons" might have been of either pewter or brass, and
even if the material is mentioned, there was a variety of
styles of spoons in use at any one time. In many ways the
inventories are given detail by what is excavated from the
earth. Taken together, inventories and archaeological assemblages give a more detailed and complete picture than
either could alone.
$o it is with many other types of recorded information. Building contracts often give specific descriptions of
recallist.lt thmlte forltoHen
1.5
the house: or barn to be constructed. The following 1s a
Even the eourt records provide us with information
good example:
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concerning architecture. Certain important details are sup-
f,
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plied by two coroners' inquests in seventeenth-century
;~
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Thomas Joy hath an account against M' Robert
Keayne for Doing the Carpentry worke of a Barne
at M' Keaynes house at Rumney Marsh & for setting up
length
&
finishing the same being of 72 foot in
26 foot wide
&
10 foot high wh 2 porches
&
each of 13 foot wide one way & 12 another for w""

the said Tho:
alleageth he ought to be payd so
much as the Carpentry worke thereof is worth and

he saith that the said worke comes unto in value as
followeth in particulares viz' the framing of the
said barne 30 the sawing thereof 17. The felling
crosse cutting
&
squaring of the timber 15 and .
Plymouth:
.,
1,1
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Wee dedare, y' coming into the house of the said
I
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Richard Bishope, wee saw at the foot of a ladder

w<h leadeth into an vpper chamber, much blood;
and going vp all of vs into the chamber, wee found
a woman child, of about foure years . . .
{AN INQUEST HEU:l AT
Pt.YMOUTH,
MAs.<A<:HUSETTS,
1648; PLl:VfX,7H CrJL.aw l?h"CrJNJS, II, Cm::xr ORDERS. P. 133)
! :~
. . . they sent vp into the chamber by one of the
,1]1'
children, whoe cried out that his mother is hanging
'
more the rearing up of the_ barn<: by him & his
hersdfe; whereupon the said Elizabeth and Robert
servants 7 the dapboarding of the barne 11 5s for
ran vp . . . and there found an haire rope or hal-
boards 4 16s for laying of 600 of boards over the

porches 18s for making of 4 payre of great doores
ter, fastened very feirme to the collar hearne . . .
&
(\'"ERDICT OF <X>ROI"ERs JURY RE SUlCIDE OF THE WIFE
y All.\t<lUTH, MAssACHUSETTS,
1677; PL>OHJUTH CoLOA~' RF..cwws, V, Cm:RT 0JWF.J<S,.
()F }AMES CLAGH<>RNE,
hanging of them 2 for making of two paire of
stayres 6s for making of four little doors 6s for

,'11
P. 249)
Iaying the barne floare wth plancks 600 1Os for

putting on gutters upon the barne 1 lOs for fer-
:f
rayge of him and his servants 2 1Os for lossc: of

time.in going and comming 4 w<h comes in all to
',!...I
than stairs to gain access to an upper chamber. The second

tells us that collar beams were used, typic:al of one of several
r;I
roof-framing techniques.
As we can sec: from the three examples above, historic:al archaeology must work with parallel and rdated sets of
98 ls
(A 1640 COl'-'TRACT, BETWEEN THOMAS joy AND RoBERT i{EAYNE, FOR A BARN TO
MARSH, EssEX
CoUNTY,
BE~ IN RUMNEY
In the first example, we learn of the use of a ladder rather
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forgotten
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17
i:nformation. Yet in some cases there is a disturbing contradiction between what is excavated and what is written
down. For example, listings of livestock often do not reflect
the ratios of various species that are turned up by excavating animal bones in sites of the same period. This is because
not all livestock was used as a meat source. Early Plymouth
supported its economy in large measure by trading cattle to
Massachusetts Bay Colony; the islands in Narragansett Bay
were used to raise vast herds of sheep for export to the
West Indies. In neither case would the actual frequency of
one species to another appear in excavated animal bone,
since the latter reflects only those animals consumed as
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food.
A second kind of accommodation between excavated
materials and documentary information bears directly on
the whole complex problem of artifact typology as it is
practiced by prehistorians. The classification of the artifacts
recovered from a prehistoric site is a critical initial step in
any arehaeological analysis. In briefest terms, typology involves the classification of objects based on similarity of
form; triangular arrowheads are different from those with
curved sides; pots painted red on white are different from
those painted black on red. Such classification allows colitrolled comparison between 'collections from different sites.
But such classifications aJ;"e entirely formal, and arrived at,
by necessity, independently of what the makers of the objects perceived as different types. With the rich documentary materials of historical archaeology, such classifications
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are not only sterile exercises but potentially very misleading. European-made ceramics excavated from AngloAmerican sites are complex and very diverse, but since so
much research has been done on the history of the pottery
industry in England and continental Europe, it is not unusual to know how the makers of this pottery classified,
named, and traded their wares. To apply strictly formal
classificatory methods to this material and ignore the historical data is like trying to reinvent the incandescent lamp
by candlelight while ignoring the light switch at one's elbow.
A poor fit between the two above kinds of information forces researchers to refine their interpretations, to the
benefit of the final results. At the same time, the historical
sources have the potential to provide the archaeologist with
a much more richly detailed statement of a past lifestyle,
and with deeper and more sophisticated understandings of
the workings and development of the American past.
If you were to visit a "typical" histOrical archaeological site, it would look not terribly different from its prehistoric counterpart. To be sure, the artifacts being recovered
would be very different, but the use of excavation grids,
trenches, and test pits would be identical. Field archaeology
is based on observation. Earth is removed from the objectS
recovered to make observation more efficient. The same
earth covers a seventeenth-century colonial foundation and
a nearby prehistoric Indian shell heap, and the techniques
for its removal are essentially the same. But the historical
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18
in sm.all thiDQ:ts o:r:gotten
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19
features and structures that are covered by this earth are so

different from those found in many prehistoric sites that
they demand a different excavation scheme.
Most historic sites are quite visible even before any
digging is done. Mounds indicate collapsed chimneys, large
stones marking wall footings often protrude through the
sod, and frequently there are standing structural remains
associated with those buried. At the most visible extreme,
whole buildings form the focus of archaeological excavation, and the excavation must proceed in a manner coordinated with the analysis of the structures themselves. In the
case of many prehistoric sites there is so little evidence of
the area of occupation prior to digging that rather sophisticated sampling techniques are often required to ensure the
proper location and recovery of significant information.
Given the higher visibility of historic sites, such techniques
are often unnecessary, and if used under such circumstances, can also be highly inefficient.
There are, of course, notable exceptions. An entire
building tradition in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake
has vanished leaving hardly a trace; only two examples
have survived the passage of time. Known as earthfast or
post-in-ground construction, this tradition involved frallling the house on posts buried directly in the earth (see
Figure 1). What has survived of houses of this type is little
more than a faint pattern. of soil stains, marking the location of the posts, to be seen only when the plowed earth has
been removed, and then with difficulty. This building tradition was linked to a number of economic factors, to be
20
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11111
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.:;'(:=~
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Figur~ 1. &rthfast or post-in-ground constTuction
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discussed later, and was the commonest form of construction throughout the seventeenth century and in some places
into the eighteenth. Combined with frequent short supply
of essential goods, resulting in a thin refuse deposit, at
reeallinst thinsta forstotten
21
____________ . - -----, ...
:i
times the absence of cellars, and hearth bases which were
removed by plowing, this manner of building led to sites
that are very difficult to detect from the surface. As a result,
the field techniques used in excavating these sites more
closely resemble those employed on prehistoric sites.
Another important difference between historic and
prehistoric sites is the manner in which large quantities of
fill, a mixture of soil and refuse, were shifted about in the
historic period. This tendency has increased dramatically
since the seventeenth century, as we can see from today's
landfill projects, which are built up from refuse on a wholesale basis. Since such deposits invariably contain artifacts,
they can be extremely misleading. An excavation of a large
portion of a city block in downtown Providence, Rhode
Island, encountered fill, with a rich artifact content, that
had been hauled in from Attleboro, Massachusetts, some
fifteen miles distant. Excavations in the rear of the post
office in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the supposed 1620
site of the Pilgrim William Brewster's first house, revealed
nine feet of fill with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
artifacts, whiCh had been originally excavated in another
part of town. A park in New York City is composed partly
of fill from Bristol, England, which was hauled in ships as
ballast during the Battle of Britain. This refuse probably
includes artifacts from the medieval period or earlier, the
fac:t of the park's c:onstruction is noted on a plaque, yet this
instance does illustrate in dramatic fashion how potentially
misleading such wholesale shifting of large quantities of
earth can be. In earlier times, technology was simpler, and
H
in ..mall thinae ~ortc:n
':;._~-~
!r
large-scale filling was not common. Yet it occurred enough

to require an accommodation for it in the digging of historic sites. Fill is an artifact itself, and intelligent srudy of it
can be most instructive. This is particularly true in excavations carried out in high-density urban areas, where the
same soil may have been removed, shifted, and redeposited
many times.
A less dramatic example of how such filling might be
misleading is the common tendency for people to have deposited large quantities of clean fill in privies, wells, cellars.
and trash pits. In excavating a prehistoric site, once such
clean soil is encountered, the base of the deposit probably
has been reached. However, on historic sites,. it is not uncommon to encounter soil that seems undisturbed but is in
fact a deposit of sterile fill that might be three feet thick ~r
more. Usually the edges of the pit in which it has been
placed can be followed or an occasional fleck of charcoal or
brick gives the lie to its apparent virginity, but on occasion
such fill can be very deceptive.
Chro~ology in archaeology is one of the cornerstones
for all analysis. The determination of the age of this or that
archaeological site is critical before any consideration of
process through time can be attempted. The battery of dating techniques available. to the prehistorian is large and
complex. Historical archaeology has different dating methods. Some methods, such as stratigraphy, which operates on
the principle that arehaeological deposits are laid down like
layers of a cake, with the older ones deeper in the ground,
are equally applicable in historical and prehistoric archaeol-
..
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recalling thinge fore"otten
ogy. Yet radiocarbon dating, a mainstay in prehistory, is of

very limi~ed use in historical archaeology, simply because
the limits within which such dates are given are too general
to be of much use to the historical archaeologist. A radiocarbon date in the seventeenth century might be stated as
1680 plus or minus forty or more years.
The more specialized dating techniques of historical
archaeology can produce a much more precise statement of
age. For example, the dates of manufacture of many English pottery types are known to within five years or less. If
a cellar were excavated that contained fragments of
creamware (an ivory-colored earthenware perfected by
Josiah Wedgwood circa 1762), then the deposit in the cellar
must be only as early as that date. The principle of dating
such deposits on the basis of the newest artifact found in
them is common to all of archaeology, both historic and
prehistoric. Known as the terminus post quem (the date after
which), this kind of dating is powerful when combined
with a detailed knowledge of the history of the invention
and development of the artifacts in question. The principle
of the terminus ante quem (the date before which) is somewhat more difficult to apply, since any number of factors
might account for the absenct: of a given artifact type.
Nonetheless, it can be employed in historical archaeology
with some confidence. A site that lacks creamware probably preda~es the 1770s, sin!'e by that time this ponery had
become extremely common in England and America.
Extending the application of these principles to the
great variety of artifacts of the historic period that is com~
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manly encountered in the course of excavation provides the

historical archaeologist with a very high degree of chronological control. Such dating precision in turn enables the
construction of much more finely detailed chronologies and
permits a correspondingly more specific description of culture chang~ than one usually encounters in prehistory. Of
course, with only three and a half centuries to work with,
the need for chronological precision is greater than that for
prehistory, which deals in greater time segments over a
total period of millions of years.
The luxury of such detailed knowledge of the chronology of the pottery industry in Europe forms the basis of
the Mean Ceramic Date Formula, a dating technique developed by Stanley South of the South Carolina Archaeology and Anthropology Institute.4 The formula relies on the
fact that the periods of manufacture of over a hundred
pottery types are known. The first step in using the formula consists of counting all the fragments of each type
from a site. Then we determine the mean manufacturing
date for each type--the midpoint in the period when it was
known to have been made. For example, if a kind of pottery was made between 1680 and 1740, the mean manufacturing date would be 1710, halfway between the two dates.
These mean dates are assigned importance according to the
relative quantity .of each type of pottery at the site. An
average of mean dates is taken, and the date that results
should approximate the midpoint in the period when the
site was occupied. The value of this technique is demonstrated in its use: it works.. South applied it to a number of
'
. 24
in small things forgotten
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25
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,
pottery collections from sites with known dates of occupation, with a resultant close: match.
However, certain factors might introduce error in special cases. For example, if because of their social statuS,
certain people either kept older pottery for a longer period
of time or received hand-me-downs from their more affluent neighbors, the result would be an earlier date obtained
from the formula than was acrually so. The example is not
purely theoretical. Excavations at the Parting Ways site,
'which was occupied by four families of freed slaves in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, from circa 1785 through 1900,
revealed a cellar that is thought to have been filled in upon
its abandonment in 1850: The krminus post quem for the
materials in the cellar is firmly established by a New England stoneware jar that bears the name of the maker,
documented to have been working in Taunton, MassachusettS, in the 1840s. Yet the mean ceramic date of thecellar
fill is 1794 by the South formula, while the actual mean
occupation date would be circa 1822. In this case, indepen~
dent archaeological and documentary information shows
clearly that the occupants of the Parting Ways site were
very poor, and for that reason could only have come by the
rather fancy ceramics they owned through some secondhand way. However, what might at first appear as an.erroneous date from the Mean Ceramic Date Formula could
also be viewed as a potentially useful technique for the
interpretation of archaeological remains. We have seen that
when there is not a comfortable fit between archaeological
and documentary materials, further questions are callec:i
t
::%
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for. It follows that if the Mean Ceramic Date Formula

were applied to sites for which the dates are independently
determined, any major disagreement between these dates
would require an explanation. The search for the explanation might well result in a better understanding of the material in cultural or behavioral terms.
The introduction of tobacco to England in the late
sixteenth century led to a rapid development of the smoking-pipe industry. Pipes of white clay became extremely
common, and sites in both England and America produce
fragments of them by the thousa11ds. Jean Harrington, an
archaeologist working at Jamestown, noticed a definite relationship between the diameter of the ~re of the pipestem
and the age of the pipe of which it was a part. Pipes had
earlier bec:n dated on the basis of shapes of their bowls, but
such a method was useless if only stem fragments were
available; they are always far more numerous than bowls or
whole pipes.
Using dated bowls with portions of their stems attached, Harrington discovered that the older the pipe, the
larger the bore diameter of the stem. The earliest pipes,
dating to about 1600, had stems with bores of %.-inch diameter. By 1800 this diameter had decreased to %-inch.
This change in diameter probably is due to the fact that
pipestems beeame longer during this period,. requiring a
narrower bo.re diameter. This transformation in turn might
ultimately relate to the greater availability of tobacco,
which led to larger pipe bowls and potentially longer and
honer smokes. Lengthening the stem would remove the
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26
in small th.in!t" forltatt.=
;jl
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recallinlt th.U.!t.,
forltcnten
27
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i
hot bowl farther from the mouth, and reducing the bore
would cut down on the amount of matter transmitted
through the stem to the smoker's mouth. Indeed, the earlyseventeenth-century term for smoking was .. drinking," and
the method of smoking seems to have been much more
hurried gulping of smoke from the small bowls typical of
the period, with the relatively open stern bore allowing
maximum transferral of the smoke to the mouth. The long,
contemplative smoking of pipes with which we are so familiar today is probably of more recent origin.
Since the diameter of the stern bore slowly became
smaller, apparently at a relatively uniform rate, this change
provides the basis of a rather precise dating technique available to archaeologists working on Anglo-American sites of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Using this
method, the archaeologist has only to measure the diameter
of the bores of pipesterns from his site and compare the
average bore diameters against a table that gives the average bore diameters for a number of periods. The time periods and average bore diameters are as follows:
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Suppose we have dug a site in w~ich 70 percent of the

sterns have a bore diameter of 7;,,. inch, 15 percent are 6/64
inch, and 15 percent % inch. This distribution would suggest that the site was occupied from 1650 to 1680. The few
stems in the larger and smaller categories reflect either normal variation in bore diameter or a slightly longer time of
occupation on either end of the period indicated by the
majority of the stems. A refinement of this method using a
simple and mathematical formula and yielding a single
date, which can be thought of as being the middle of the
occupation period, has been devised by Lewis Binford.5
Such a date is similar to that obtained from the Mean
Ceramic Date Formula, and one can usually obtain both
from a given collection. In most cases they will be approximately the same, lending mutual support. At present, the
pipestem dating method is applicable only to pipes manufactured in England. Dutch pipes sometimes occur also on
Anglo-American sites of the colonial period, but as yet a
comparable chronology has not been established for the
Dutch examples. In situations where the possibility of fx-agments of both Dutch and English pipestems exists, some
errox- could be introduced into the data from this source.
We can see from the foregoing discussion that the
basis for chronology in historical archaeology derives in one
way or another from the greater independent control that
can be marshaled from historical sources. The same applies
to
wealth of primary documentary material, such as
deeds, maps, diaries, and first-person histories, which often
the
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in sm..all thi:ags orgot'ten
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provides dir=t chr.onological information. If a house can be

shown from recorded history to have been burned in 1676
during Bacon's Rebellion, and located accurately by researching land titles, then the archaeologist has as secure a
tenninu; ante quem as he could ever hope for.
The wall trenches of a building beneath a standing
wall of an extension to the Quaker meetinghouse in Newport, Rhode Island, must predate 1730, since church records
tell us that the addition was built in that year. Given reliable documentation of this type, the urgency of deriving an
artifactual tenninus post quem or a mean ceramic date is
lessened dramatically, although such independent information has strong corroborative value.
The historical archaeologist's approach to artifacts differs from the prehistorian's. Historical artifacts arc vastly
more diverse in terms of the materials from which they arc
made and their places of origin, which in North America
commonly include such distant sources as China, the West
Indies, and most of Europe. Much is known of their history
and technology.6
On the one hand, then, the historical archaeologist
enjoys the advantage of a detailed body of information concerning the artifacts, but, at the same time, it is essential
that this information be controlled, which is no mean task,
Yet it does remove the researcher from mueh of the formal
analysis in which the prehistorian must become deeply involved. Given control of the necessary historical information, one can ultimately move on more easily and with a
greater sense of security to the explanation of the artifacts
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in terms of the society that used them. After all, this is the
end toward which all archaeology is ultimately directed.
Finally, historical archaeology places less reliance on
the natural sciences than does prehistoric archaeology. Not
that the srody of plant and animal remains, of soils, or of
past climates has no place in historical archaeology; it emphatically does. But relative to its relationship to other disciplines, such as folklore or history, historical archaeology's
reliance on the natural sciences is less than is that of prehistory. This .lessened dependency on the natural sciences is
but a reflection of the role played by the natural world in
the history of human development. The earlier in rime one
goes, the more people were directly and intimately tied to
their environment, so that such disciplines as paleontology
and geology are essential to the proper understanding of
life in the distant past. As culture became more complex,
our removal from the natural world increased. Since historical archaeology treats only the past few hundred years of
our multimillion-year history, it follows that this last, brief
time would find us at our greatest remove.
The existence of artifaCts and written records from
the same society makes possible the use of historical
archaeological materials for the testing and refinement of
numerous methods and theories developed by prehistorians. An excellent example of such refinement is the use of
New England colonial gravestone designs to observe stylistic change under conditions of rigorous control. This study,
described fully in a later chapter in this book, not only
confirmed in a positive fashion a dating tcchnique-seria-
mJ
30
in amall 'thmga or1ifotteD
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rccallmg 'things :forgotten
31
cion-long a standby for prehistorians, bur also showed

how design changed for very specific. cultural reasons. We
have seen that probate inventories are among the most useful primary documents to the historical archaeologist. As
documents for independent controlled checking of archaeological results they are excellent, since it is logical to assume
that they should bear a close relation to that which is recovered from sites of the same period. On occasion they do not,
but the disagreement only forces the archaeologist to ask
more enlightened questions of his or her data. More often,
the fit between archaeological collections and inventory materials is comfortable, and this in turn permits the archaeologist a greater assurance that the sample is somewhat representative:.
On a more general level, the combined use of archaeological and documentary materials should permit us to say
something about the past that could not have been said
using only one set of data. This criterion is the most critical
to be applied to avoid the charge often heard that historical
archaeology is "an expensive way of learning what we already know." A simple example will make this clear. The
existence of earthfast construction in the seventeenth- and
earlier-eighteenth-century Chesapeake is known almost en~
tirdy through archaeological evidence. While there are occasional passing references to such construction in the documents, its widespread and sometimes universal use was
only determined through the excavation of large numbers
of sites in Maryland and Virginia. In an important study of
this architectural tradition; Cary .Carson and his colleagues
32
in sm.all things forgotten
i~i
have shown that this way of constructing a house is closely

correlated with the cultivation of tobacco to the exclusion of
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other cash crops? Throughout the region, in some places

earlier and in others later, tobacco monoculture gave way to
mixed crop farming, and when this occurred, more substantial permanent dwelling houses were built. The reasons
for this rdationship are clear. Tobacco cultivation is labor
intensive in comparison to mixed crop farming. In a world
of limited resources, cheap land, and expensive labor, one
had to set priorities, and tobacco production took precedence over expensive housing. We could not have known
this without the archaeology, which provided information
on the distribution and date of houses built in the earthfast
tradition, and without the documents, we would not have
known the pattern of agricultural change. Taken together,
the two sets of information not only allow us to say something about attitudes toward place and permanence, but
also when these attitudes changed in different parts of the
Chesapeake region.
Perhaps the most important and subtle aspects of the
control afforded by historical archaeology are those factors
that would be forever lost to the prehistorian but can be
seen to have a strong effect on the nature of cultural change
as reflected by the archaeological data. Such aspects of a
past people as the way in which they perceived their environment, the worldview that underlay the organization of
their physical universe, and the way ideology shaped their
lives are as difficult to discover in prehistory as they are
important. But in working in the context of historical materecalli..Jt thU..ts forgotten
33
.... ..,
_,
tion-fit within our definition. Nor is the definition limited

only to matter in the solid state. Fountains are liquid exampies, as are Iii y ponds, and material that is partly gas includes hot-air balloons and neon signs. I have suggested in
Invitation to Archaeology9 that even language is a part of
material culture, a prime example of it in its gaseous state.
Words, after all, are air masses shaped by the speech apparatus according to culturally acquired rules.
The advantages of this general definition of material
culture are twofold. First, since disciplines such as kinesics
and linguistics have developed analytical techniques well
suited to their subject matter, these techniques might well
be of use to the student of material culture. Second, it
forces us to look at archaeological information in the
broader framework of whole material cultural systems,
which might well permit sharper delineations of their corresponding behavioral systems. For example, we know
from the study of proxemics, which deals with spatial relationships between people as they are dictated culturally,
that all cultures have typical sets of .. invisible" limits that
dictate the placement of people in a social situation. We
have all at some time or other encountered people who
stood too close while talking; the resulting discomfort is
due to the closeness violating our perception of the cultural
rule that dictates a proper distance in such a situation. The
same rules apply to the relationship, in a systemic way,
between people and the architectUral space they occupy.
Thus any study of the size of rooms in an early American
building must take into account this relationship, a subject
36
iD small t:hings forgotten
:~i(r
discussed by Glassie in his excellent work on Virginia folk

housing.
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Since historical archaeology must deal with nor only

excavated material from the American past but also all that
has survived above the ground, including old houses, collections of pottery, weapons, bottles, glassware, cudery, and
textiles, it is truly the study of American material culture in
historical perspective. It stands in contrast to the study of
history or the decorative arts not so much in terms of su~
jeer matter as in terms of its analytical approach. An appreciation for the simple details of past existence, which escape
historical mention, and for simple artifacts, not deemed significant in art-historical terms, viewed from the perspective
of a broad social-scientific base, characterizes historical archaeology.
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ERZURUM
Erzurum.'a ug defa, iigiinde de ayr1 ayn yol-.

lardan gittim:. Bu yolculuklarm .birincisinde hemen hemen gocuk denecek bir yal?taydrm. Balkan harbinin sonunda, iki felaketli muharebe
arasmdaki o 'lo.sa, azapll soluk alma ylluun bal?IDda, babamm memur ,bulundugu bir ':uk Sancagmdan doniiyorduk. Onbir giin, b~lki daha
fazla siiren, geceleri gad1rda, bocek seslerinm
genil? bir dut yaprag1 gibi dort ibir ya.mr;.dan yiyip bitiremedikleri sonsuz tabiat iginde, degirmen veya dere ugultularnn dinliyerek, g.:>banlarm birbirlerini gagwd1klar1 seslerle karan.lJ.kta
fazla kJmJldanan hayvanlan azarlayan yahut
gecenin top1adl~ hayaletlerden iirken bekgi kopeklerinin havlamalariyle iirpererek, sabahlan
klnc1 bir sogukta donmul? ellerimin farkmda olmadl~ hareketlerine l?al?arak gegen bu yolcuilugu hig unutamam. Anneannemin ma,s.allariyle
Kerem'den, Yunus'tan oikud.ugu beyitlerle, bana ogretmeye Qahl?tlgi yild1z adlariyle muhayyelemde biiyillenen hatrras1 hala pznl pml tu-
tusur.
'
21
".'.
Babamm, ~ag1daki dereyi gormek ic;;in,

pervaslZca sarkb~ maz1 agac;;lar1 arasmdaki bir
uc;;urum, Botan Suyu'nun da~mk kolla.l'lrun yer
yer g\ine~e bogdugu ye~ill bir ova, kenarmdan
gegtigimiz Bitlis s;eJ.o..ri namma kligi.i.k bir ba.kka!
di.i.kkammn camlarma dizilmi~ gordi.i.gi.im kiic;;ii.k, kirli lamba ~is;eleri; Balkan Harbinin kimbilir hangi cefasma katlandlktan sonra memleketine yorgun donen bir redif tabur.~yle iistiinde kar~1la~tigim1z eski, harap Murat Suyu koprlisii, nihayet bir gece, dibinde yatt1~m1z YlldlZ Dagr ve bir gi.in uzagmdan gegtigimiz Suphan Dag1, sonra bu dagaann benim gocuk muhayyelemde yapbg1 aoaip tesir ...
. Bu daglardan soma .A!;nk Kerem benim igin
bir hayalet yolcu gibi kervammlZa takllmitl.
Zaten ninem.in Slk slk hatJ.rlaYIlari yii.ziinden
bu yolculuk ibiraz da onun namma yap11Iyor gibiydi. Bu Trrubzonlu kaduun biitiin cografya bilgisi, memleketiyle gengligmde gittigi Yemen,
Mekke bir yana ib1rakilirsa, bu hikayede.:.1 gelirdi. Bu, bilgiden ziyade dine benzeyen bir cografya idi. Biitiin :akarsulara, daglara car:th, ebedi varhklar gibi bakardJ.. Sanki !}iir, din, gur.bet
duygusu, hayat tecrubesi, birbiri ardmca ya!}anmi hayatlann rliyalarrmlZda bir;birine karlmasma gok benzeyen bir Ylgru inaUI9 arb.~
bu daglan, dereleri onun ic;;in llahi varllklar yahut Veliler haline getirm.ilerdi.
Ikide bir beni m.abfesinin yanma c;;agrrarak
bir>az sonra uzagmdan gegecegimiz veya huzuruna varaca~lZ ebedlyetin adJ.m, varsa hikayesini soyler, Yunus'tan, A9ik Kerem'den beyit22
ler okurdu. Suphan Dagmm yolumuzun hangi

tarafma dii~ecegini, hangi gece Y1ld1z Dagmm
dibinde konakhyacagmuzi mekkarecilerden daha yola g1kmadan sorup ogrenmh;:ti. Onun igin
ikimiz de r...azirdlk.
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Bu daglar sadece adlariyle memleketin bir k?~Sinde bir nevi "semavat" rliyas1 kur.m.u:;; gibldirler. Astrlar boyunca .bu yaylalarda siirii otlatan, k19m giinlerce siiren kurt avlar1 yapan,
masal ilnzlan bak1:;;h geyiklerin pe:;;inde yolunu
&Iran, hulasa hemen biitiin seneyi yildizlarla
sermadola y~Iyan insanlarm ri'tyas1. Bu yii.zdendir ki bu daglarla ilk defa .kar.!ll,a,;;an ve bpkl aydmlatt1~ su parc;;as1 iginde galkanan bir
191k gibi, onlarm kudret ve niifuzlarw.m muhayyelemizde ayn bir ~ekilde canlandrrd1g1 manZJara iginde adlarm1 duyan yolcuuun, bir an bile
olsa, bir nevi ebediyet vehmiyJ.e dolmamasi, hliviyetlerini yapan uzletin bir kader duygusu halinde kendisinde yerlememesi kabil degildi:r.
Yllfuz Dagnun dibinde, gecenin dort bir
yandan getirip gadrr1m1zm llzerL'1e ylkClgl :bin.
tiirlii ses ve ugultu arasmda ben hep bu dagm
96yle bir gordiigi.i.m m.agrur ve dumanll baIru
diiiinmii~tiim. Ond!a bir nevi Ecdat - Tann
gehresi sezer gibiydim. Bana oyle gei.lyordu ki
kull.agl.ID.l biraz daha iyi versem, yild1zlarla ne
konu9-tugu.nu duyacaktrm. Kimbilir, be!ki dP
her gece, oldugu yerden ellerini uzatarak, trpk1
lie;; y1l once Sinop'ta iptida1 mektebine giderken
her sabah on linden gegtigim Mu vakkithanenin >)enceresinden sevkle biiyiik asma saatla~
' 23:
.,
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n kurdugunu gordi.igum ihtiyar gibi, yiliiiZlann

saatini kuruyor, Kervanlnran'la QobanYJ.ldlz'nn,
Yedikandil'i, kiminin mesafeler igindeki yalmzll~na htizlin duydugum, kiminin kadife kadar
yumu~ak ve Jwyu kara.iJ.hga U2lattJ.gi mucevher
salkimlarma imrendigim biitlin oteki y.ildiZlan
birbirine ayarhyor, giine~in dbgacagr dakikaYJ.,
aym sihirli sandalmm gegecegi sulan tayin
ediyor, do~ gocuklan gok defterine parlak
bir noktayla i~aret ediyor, olenlerin ad.rm, uzaklarda kaybolmu~ ibir YJ.ldizm gozlerin.i yav~ga
yumarak siliyor, hulasa kainat ve kade:r:- dedigim.iz biiyiik muammaYJ. oradan tek ba.:;;ma ve
kendi kendine idare ediyol'du.
0 gece Yild:t.z Dagrnm eteginde ya.tarken
benim gocuk hayalim, bugiin bile ne oldugunu
bilmedigim, fakat hangi derin kaynaklardan

geldigini az gok tabmjn edebildigim bu tesirin
altmoo idi. Qadinn karanhgmda, her yanm, her
~eym sihirli bir kimya iginde yiizdiigunii, yildJ.z
panltilariyle YJkamp temizlendignu, igten biiyiidugunii samyordum. Oyle ki ak~amley:in siiriileriyle dag yoluna dogru glkt1grm gordiigumiiz kll abal1 Bingo! gobanlarma ertesi sabah
gene :vaskelince, lbu kil abalar :iizerimde adeta
yildiZlardan oriilmii~ lbir harmani tesiri yapblar ve siiriiniin koyunlan, ibabamm .~ritaplari
arasmda seyrettigim kainat haritasmm o muhte~em ve hoyrn.t bakx~h kos_u gibi igimi iirperme ve hayretle doldurdular. I~te birkag gUn sonra Erzurum'a bu duygularla, bpk1 koyunlanm
biitiin bir yaz boyunca menzil menzil bu otla:k-
24
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larda otlata otlata giiz b~mda ~ehre getiren

Cizre ve Bingol gooonlar1 gibi girdim.
0 za:maron Erzurum'u, on yil sonr<!-_:1.~23 te
gordiigum Erzurm'dan gok b~kaydJ.. Her tiirlti
klyafette bir kalabal1gm garI pazarrru doldurdugu, saraQ, kuyumcu, baklrc1 diikkanlariyle
senede o kadar maim girip g1ktl~ hanlariylc,
a:mbarla:riyle, ~raf ve ayam, esnafr, otuz sekiz
medresesi, elli dort camisiyle, :i:ran tran5itinin
besledigi refahh ve imarh Erzurum'la on yrl
sonra gordiigiim harap ~ehir arasmda kolay kolay m.linasebet tasavvur edilemezdi. Sonradan
ogrendigime gore, muhtelif g~Ilarmda onbinlerce zenaatQI gah~xr, sar.aglarnnn yapt1g1 egerler biitiin ~ark vilayetlerine haW~. Tebriz'e kadar giderm:i~- Ben babamla, annemle g1ttigimiz
siyah kebribarcilari ~imdi bir masal gibi habrhyorum. Kiigiik ve ya:r1 1aydmb:k diikkanlarda
ince, dikkatli ~in terbiyesini alml~, Meta ~
terbiyesiyle durulrou~ birtaklm adamlar, oturduklan yerden konu~uyorlar, pazarlLklar ediyorlar, ellerindeki kehribar i~lerini haVI dOkiilmii~ guha ~alvarl!arma siirterek cilahyorlardi.
Sonra keskin bir mesin kokusu, yumUak derinin adeta sondUrdii.gu, klvamrm bozdugu tokmak sesleri ve 1bir yrgxn ugultu ...
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Bu sefer geldigim Erzurum ba~ka bir Erzurm'du. Ona Dogu Anadolu daglanrun eski bir
'}arap gibi zam.anla takdis edilmi~, ruh besleyici uzletinden degil, dort Cihian Harbi yllmm. ve
istiklal Sav~1'run iistiinden a~arak gelmi~
Vakla bu sefer de muhtesem bir tabia.tin ara,
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smdan gegmi;tik; fakat ona, birinci seferda oldugu gibi, her ~eyini yeni ve harikulME'. bulan
bir ruhla degil, sihrini, glizelliklerini bi.r Ylbn
1ztlrap tecriibesinin soldurdugu bir gozle baklyordum. Ne Ziganal.ar'm her doneme9.t<:: .bir kere daha ~aJlrt1c1 olan guzelligi, ne Rop Dag1'run
ihti~anu ibeni pe~inden siirtiklemiyordu. Dekordan ziyade bu yerlerde birkag yll once oynannn~ kanh oyunun tesiri altmdaydrm. Tiyatroda
nas1l bo~ sahnede dekorun O}'lalad!gi seyirci, soz
ba:lar b~lamaz biitiin o teferruati gormoz olursa, ben de oylece insan lZtlrabl kar~lSnda tabiat
giizelligine kaYJts!zd:un, yabane1ydnn.
Gfun~hane'den sonra yava:? yav~ artan bu
9-uygu, Erzurum'da adeta ezici bir hale geldi.
Ikinci defa gordiigum bu ~ehir, artlk ~ark vilayetlerinin ikt:isadi merkezi, yaylanm gillii, bu
havalide soylenen itiirktilerin yansmdan gogunun giizelligini ovdiigu -eski Erzurum degildi.
Harp, hicret, katliamlar, tifiis, ge:?it ge9it felaket, tizerinden a~r bir sillndir gibi gegmi:?, her
:;;eyi ezip devlr!xili}ti.
Hig bir yerde memleketin birin~i Cihan

Hai'lbinde gegirdigi tecriibenin aclh~ but'.ada oldugu kadar vuzuhla goriilemezd:i. Bu, eski res
samlarm tasvir etmekten hoslandlklan sekilde,
-oliimtin zaferi idi. Dort YD., bu daglarda.
kurtlara insari etinden ziyafetler !<ekilmi:;;, olfun
her yqna dolu dizgin saldlrnn~, segmeden avlaDll~tl. Ugursuz tlrpan durmadan, bir saat rak~
kas1 gi:bi i.le~, rasgeldigi her ~e:>:i bigmi:t~.
Bununla beraber, ntifusu altmiS bmden sek1z
:26
bine inen Erzurum, Milll Miicadele'ye 6nayak

olmu, Ermenistan zaferini idrak etmh;;, yava~
yaVa: sag kalan hem:erilerini toplamaya ba:;;la-
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Oliimiin zaferinin yamba:;>mda, irokanslZ

bir ~m kas1p kavurdugu bir bahgede, buzlann
kilidi goziiliir gozillmez b~layan o acaip baharlar gibi, yava yava~ hayatin tlirkiisii yiikseliyordu. Y1k!k ehrin ortasmda yeniden gengler
evleniyor, gocuklar doguyor, yans1 toprak ole
mu~ evlerde baba ocaklan ttitilyor,
ak:?amm
alaca karanllgmda klllg art1~ gocuklar ttirkti
soyliiyorlar, adlariyle artlk mevcut clm1yan
eylere hudut gizen ebir kapllarmm ontindeki
meydanlarda davul zurna gahmyor, cirit, ba1~
oyn,amyordu.
Hulasa frrtmanm dag1tt1~ kartal yuvasr
yeniden kuruluyor, sag kalanlar, giine~in adma
ne~ide soyliiyo.riard1. Her yerde adeta rnarazi
bir bahar :?enligi vardl. Klv:an:um henliz bulmal!ll olan bu canhhk insam, on YJ.l once gormii!?
oldugum muhte:em yazdan daha ba:?ka tiirlii
sanyordu. Bu, her ~eye ragmen hiiklim siiren
hayatm zaferi idi. 0, ge~, ilahi aln~mda kendisiyle birlikte ge}emiyenlerin etnafnn zalim bir
yalmzhkla gevirerek yolunda yiiriiyordu.
Fakat dort kap!ll ehrin kendisi. yoktu. Denebilir ki asll'larca gururunu yapan ve topluluk
. hayat!na istikamet veren serhat ~ehri ruhundan
ba:ka or:tlada pek az ey kalml:?tl. Bu yllciu;:,
Erzurum'da ilk defa nu oluyordu? 1855 maglii.biyeti, 1876 felaketi ve daha once birgok isyan27
~~
lar muhakkak :ki buralari gene sarsiDLtl. Birincisinde yiiz otuz iki bin olan ntifus, yiizbine inrn.i;;ti. Ikincisinde ~ehir koktinden sars1~b.
Fakat bu seferki yllnh~ ~ok ba~kia bir ~eydi.
Bu sefer i:ilfun, geride kendinden ba~?ka hi~ bir
canh :;;ey koymamak ister gibi, :;;ehre saldrrmi~?
b. Ger~ekten kendi mall olan ugsuz bucaksiZ bir
mezarhgrn bir ucunda kliglik bir ~ehlr iskeleti,
arhk Sadece bir harabeyi gevreleyen bir k~g
:IDap1 adiyla bir :kag 1bozuk yol b1rakarak ~ekilip
gitrrrilJti.
Hemen herkesin yalniZ kendisinin anlatabilecegi bir hikayesi vardl. Hemen herkes birka~ kiiye aghyor ve ak1betini hala bi1m.edigi.
bir sevdigini .bekliyordu.
Bir ihtiyar adamdan bahsettiler ki yillarca
pencere i:inlinden aynlmamJ:;;tl. Kafk?-sy.a'ya, gi.den torununun di:inmesini istiyordu. Ig mahallelerde her kap1 gahru:;;1 hala heyecanla kar:;;J.laruyor, iin garibi, aradan be:;; yll gegtig-1 halde,
hala tek tli.k di:inenler oluyordu. Sibirya buzlanru gi:izdlik~e, Hint cengelleri yo! verdikge Y'a.:;;amaktan :;;akm ibir bigare yurduna di:iniiyor,
kurtuldugu cehennemin hikayesi, insaru ~an
kudretini katlanilan IZbrabm tbiiyiikliigiinden
alan yeni bir Od:ise gibi :;;ehre yaylhyordu. Kii..:
~iik bir ki:iy kahvesinde Kamgatkta'nm sogugunu, Seylan'm s1cagmr, Ma;dagaskar'm .yllanlanru her giin ba:;;ka balka agrzlardan dinlemek kaibildi.
DabJa :;;ehre girmeden, .Akale'de yatbgnn
harun kahvesinde, esirlikten yeni donen yamk
~28
yiizlli, tek kollu bir
bi~are
ibana, giderken blra.kb.gr oglu, kar1s1 ve anasmdan hig birini, hatta. evinin yerini bile bulamadigr igin, girdig-1 gii.:Iii
niin ak:;;ammda l?ehri terkettigini anJ.atb.
'.jl
- Peki limdi nereye gidiyorsun? diye sor, ;:~: dum.
,''/
~ ~
Bir mliddet diiiindii. Ytizti. alttist olmu:;;tu .
;'
nf;
Nihayet :
!i~
!)
- Efendi, dedi; nereye gittigimi ne sorar~
sm? Geldigim yeri sana soyledim, yetmez m.i?
Dogru si:iyliiyordu. Geldigi yeri ogrenmiltim..
.?~;:
Oliim bu kadar yaklndan kokladlgr insan''i'
:'i
lann
pe:;;ini kolay kolay brraknnyordu. Ergeg
;;,I
bir barafta karIlanna glkiyor, sofrasrm a~1yor,
,\1
''buyurun!" diyordu. Ba:;;ka bir :;;ey yapamadlgr
.'(',:
i~in .sadece habrlabyordu .
.~;;~i
'~
Her mecliste, yol ustiinde brrakllnn:;; ihb..1.1
yarlarm, slit emen gocugunun ayak albnda ezil'! '
:m.il pargalarrm kundakhyoarak ninni soyleye
!/.! si:iyleye agZI kilitlenmi:;; annelerin, sahibinin
i:' gogsiine ba:;;rm dayayrp olen cins atlarm habra=~m
,,.'
s1 diriliyor; kaybolan garI, yikJ.lan :;;ehir, bo.zulan ev, birdenbire suyu gekilmi bir nehir gibi
ortadan silinen biitiin bir hayat dinmeyen ya::
ralar gibi kamyordu.
'f
Erzurum hatrrhyordu : gomilldiigll to.z ve
!.
.;{;
};
9amur yrguun iginde canl! diiniinii, dort kapl.::~
smdan girip ~l!kan kervanlan, ~~1 pazannm
ugultusunu, gah:;;an insanlarmi, rub!ani yiizleri
ve saglam ahlaklariyle l?ehrin hayabna kutsilik
, ..~
..
.!' ':
\ i,
:,I '
.
I
I
:'1'.
~t!,,
i]~!
i'l~.
~t
:;
~,1
t~
29
-..
katan alimlerini, glizel sesli muezzinlerini, her

y1l hayatma yeni bir moda temin eden dtigun- :1
lerini, esnaf toplantiJ.,armr, bayramlarmr idare
eden ve halk hayatiru bir saZl col}turur gibi col}- '~
turan brgkm endamlr, yigit o:dlli dad8_$larllli, ci- ~
rit oyunlarmr barlariru, bazan bir .alayr birden gtinlerce misafir eden ve bir menzilik arazisine ..
paytonla gidip gelen beylerini, krsaca.sr, blittin
haya.tiru hatJ.rllyordu.
'
Bununla beraber, yr.k.rlarun, kaybolarun nasll bir ley oldugunu, blitiin yaralann hentiz ta-. .
ze oldugu, kanadJ.gr bu glinlerde aribamak gii~- ;~,
tli. Btittin cemiyet o kadar kat'i bir :talibin etra-
fmda. dolaIllll}, o kadar donill.miyecek yerlere 1
kadar gitmil} ve gelmis,ti ki, l}ehir, 5ltimtin mu- ;j
ka.dder gorlindligu ka.zadan nas11Sia kurtulm~ . ;
bir insana benziyordu. Tipki hikayede bacaguu. -~
kaybeden adamm en ltizumsuz el}yasrru aramasr gibi, yeniden canlanan ~mur bir tlirlii esashrun iizerinde duram.Iyor, teferruat iizerinde geziniyordu.
Gergekte kaybolan ley, ibi.itiin bir hayat:
tarzr, btitan bir dlinya idi. 1855 te yilz:
otuz iki bin nlifuslu bir sehir olan Erzurum, bu gelil}~esini bir lktisadi -denklilik iizerine kurmustu. Imn, Trabzon- Tebriz - kervan
yoluyla ithalatrru yapry-ordu. L]te bu kervan yolu, Erzurum'u asrrlar iginde elrafiyle, ayaniyle,
ulemasiyle, esnafiyle tam bir lark orta~ag :;;ehri olarak kurm~tu. Bu transit yolunda her y:Il
otuz bin deve ve belki iki misli kat:lr iliyordu.
Bunlar Erzurum'dan gegiyor, Tebriz'den gelil}in30
-de, Trabzon' dan donii:;;linde kumanyas1m daima

Erzurum'dan tedarik ediyor, hayvamm nallab.yor, at egeri, yUk semeri, nal, gem, agrzhk, hulasa her tlirlti eksigi."li orada tamamllyordu..
Is,in fenas1 s,u idi : Bu hayat 'bir daha don:n::emek _iiz:!'~ ,ka_;ybolmul}tu. Q~nkli Bliytik ~ar
bm getirdig1 :a.elaket olmasa bile, gene bu gar~a
sonecek, bu esnaf dagrlacak ve l}ehir kendi bi.inyesini yapacak bir hayata gegemeoigi takdirde
gene kligiilecek, koyle~ecekti. Fakat bu degif?m-e
daha yav~ olacak, yere atllarak klnlan bliylik
fanus, yagr ttikendigi igin, kendi kendi.ne
karararak sonecekti. y ahut da, daha bliyi.ik bir
ihtim.alle, yeni bir hayata gegmenin yolunu bulacak, bas,ka ttirli.i mlistahsil olacaktJ.. $urasrm
hemen soyliyelim ki Erzurum'un istikbali boyle
bir gelil}meye elveril}lidir. Civannda bulunan
ye eskiden bir klsmr il}letilen i.ig komiir madeni,
modern kagrtg11Iga gok elveril}li sazhg1, vadettigi. kadar ise Tercan'daki petrolii ve nihayet Anadolu'yu ibal}ka hir Anadolu yapacak olan elektriklel}me il}i gergeklel}irse memleket iginde klademe kademe inecek olan bu hayat kaynagrmn
ib~mda gelen Tortum ~elalesi, yeni ve eskisinden gok b~ka tlirlli canh bir Erzurum'u yaratmaya elveril}li olan bliyi.ik imk.anlardlr.
Hakikat ~u ki Umumi Harp ve yeni zaman1ar bir arada gelmi~ti. Y eni transit yolunu.o
agrlfu~ zaman flriDCl Hasan admda bir Erznrumlu ~oyle ~miti :
- Efendi, eskiden kervan gelir, blitlin kumanyasmi burad.a dlizer, sehre para dolardl.
31
imdi yi.rmi. katmn yiikiinii birden alan kamyon, sabahleyin Trabzo~'dan kalklyor, ogleyin
buraya geliyor. ofor, Inh:isar'dan aldlgr klrk-dokuzluk bir rakl l?i:;;esini duvarda kL."'lp i~iyor, '-~
yoluna devam ediyor...
4te eski ErZ1L.rum'u, dort yanmdan refah.
akan .bu ark ticaret !ehrinin macerasrm kapatan ey. Umumi Harp, otuz krrk YJ.lda yav.ru;; yava olacak bir eyi dart Ylla sigdlrdl.
Eski Erzurum'da bu ticaret hayati ve ker--

van yolu otuz iki sanati beslerdi : Dabaklar,
sar.a~lar, semerciler, dikiciler, garik~Ilar, mesgi-ler, kiirkgiiler, kevelciler, ikunduracllar, kazaz-lar, ar.abacllar, kegeciler, gadlrcllar, culfalar, ipgi
ler, demirciler, dakmeciler, baklrc:Ilar, kilig~Ilar,
b1~akgllar, kuyuniclar, hlzarcllar, sandlk~Ilar,.
kaIkgllar, tarakgllar, marancilar, boyacllar, dUIgerler, yaprcllar, sabuncular, mumcular, taknn:cllar.
Defterdar Mehmet Raa ile Erzurum.' a ge:,
len ve orada giimriik katipligine -tayin edilen.
Evliya Qelebi, ehrin kap1Iarmdan bahsederken,.
yabancr ti'i.ccarlann 'Giircii KapiSI'nda oturduk-
lanm sayler :
''Ha.kirin katibi bulundugum giimriik bundadur..
Dort !levresinde Arap, Acem, Hint, Sint, Hatay, Haten>
bezirga.nlannm haneleri de vardl.r. istanbul ve !zmir
gtimriij?;Unden sonra en i"?lek giimti.ik bu Erzurum giimriigudtir. Zira tiiccanna adalet ederler.;z '
Erzurum giimriigu XVII. as1r sonu .impa-

ratorluk tarihine bir baka ~ekilde de geger...
Miiverrih Ra~it, Nemge muharebesinden donen.
32
Faz1l Ahmet Pa1,>a'mn Edirne' de Dardiinci.i

Mehmet'e bu miinasebetle Saray bahgesinde kuruian otag'da bu muharebe, hele biitiin l:mparatorlugu sevindiren ve Evliya Qelebi'yi Seyahatna.mesinin yedinci cildinde o kadar co:;?turan
Oyvar muharebesi hakkmda izahlar verirken
maiyetinde bulunan Erzurumlu Abbas admda
bir kahramandan bahseder. Hikayeyi R~it'ten
dinleyelim :
"Alelhusus kulunuz ya.nmda Erzurumlu Abbas tler
ler bir yigd.t vard1r. Oyvar muharebesinde bi bak. -ii- per ..
va kale bedenine !l1k1p kiiffar-1 hakisar her !lent l>i tize
rdne tiifenk daneleri yagd1rdl.lar, yerinden aYJramayip
dii:i;Jmana sebat gosterdikte am goriip bir yeni!leri dilav::..
ri dahi ,anun yanma uru!l ettigm sair guzat-1 miislimln
gordlikleri saat 1\icce-i cemiyetleri huru:;;a gelip zemzeme-i k:3.firkii:;;-ii tekbir ile ctimlesi yekpare yiiril.yii::;;
ettiklerinde dti:;;men-i din i!lin ademi muka,vemet mukarrer ve bu tarikle an-1 vahitte kalenin fethi milyesser oldu, deyu tal-ttir eyledi. l?ehriya1-1 inayetmedar
hazretleri otagdan has odaYl te"?rif buyurduklarmda
mezbur Abbas'1 huzur-u hiimayunlanna getirtip kenduyu vafir istintak buyurduklanndan sonra avab:f-1
aliye-i miililkanelerinden ba..,<nna !lifte ~elenk taklp ve
kendu talebiyle hatt-r hiimayun-u :;;evketmakrunlariyle
. Erzurum giimriigu malmdan yevmi yetmi:;; be:;; ak!le
tekaiit ulOfesi ve dort top kuma:;; ve dort donluk guh'3.
ve vafir sikke-i hasene ihsan ve karmda:;;ma dahl yine
Erzurum giim:Migiinden elli ak!le ulilfe ve roezbur Abbas ile maan balay-1 beden-i 1-;:aleye uru!l eden yeni!lcriye dahl ocagmdan tekaiit ulilfesi verilmesin fP.rman
eylediler." (Rafit Tarihi, ikinci tabt, cilt I, s~ 100).
33
'"--~
~if
~te lm.paratorluk bu idi. Erzurum ile

Oyvar, Bagdat ile Girit, Tebriz :ile Belgrat, Atina ile Cezayir birbirine kan~rm~ y~1yordu. Evliya Qelebi'yi her satlrda mi.zahtan ~ehname'ye
gottiren bu tezatlar yigmi, Tiirk milletinin gururu, l.ZJbraJbiydl. Erzurumlu Abbas, Oyvar fethinde muzaffer donen veya olenlerin i~inde adlru bildigimiz tek insandlr. Oyvar'm, Tuna'nm
ilerisinde verdigimiz binlerce muharebeden biri
oldugu gibi... Onun macemsmdan Cevat Dursunoglu'na bahseden Y.abya Kemal, ErzurunJ..
sokaklarmdan birine Oyv,areri Abbas admm verilmesini tavsiye et:mi.;. Giizel fikir. Temenni ederiz ki Erzurumlular Gtircii Kapl.Sl'ndaki .sckaklardan birine de Evliya Qellebi'nin ad.nn verirler. Boylece Erzurum gfunriigunden tekaiidiye vey.a maa~ alan bu iki insan, a:dJ.m bir tesa.,.
diiftin kurtard1~ Oyvar ]i!ahramanl ile Oyvar
~ehnamecisi, biribirlerini 'banlmadan y~adlkla
n sehrin
b!atlrasmda birlesnrls. ohrrlar.
-
ill
Servetin, gah~manm bullundugu yerde igtima1 nizam kendiliginden dogar. Eski Erzut"U.Ill
gok munta~am. ibir ger~eV'e i~indeydL En ba~ta
toprak sahipleri gelirdi. Es'ki devirlerde mahalli ve askeri idareye de istirak eden, kale dizdarh~. muharl:rzhk, v.s. gtb(vazifeiler aJan bu Beyier,
bpkl Rumeli' de, Tuna'nm bizim tar:afa d~er-.
;:;ehlt anavatan pa.r~as1 klsmmda oldugu gibi,
tam bir toprak r.uistokrasisi kurmu~lardi. Biribirlerine slkl Orflerle baghy&lar. Kuvvetli bn
34
~
~uunlan-vaxdl.. Hele kadmla.r, her zaman oldugu

gJ.Di, bu ;;uuru devam ettiriyorlardl. Evlepmelerde akran ,a.ra.ru.rdl. Kendilerine denk olanlarda:r.:
se~tikleri kadmlarma paa denir, esnaf ziimresinden, ~ardan ald:l.klan yahut cariyelikten
gelen kadmlan sadece ha.mm1 olurdu. Bu evle.nmeler bazan vilayetin sl.D.lrlan d1:ma ~lkar, Gtircii Beylerinin k:tzlan Erzurum'a paa olarak gelirle~.
Osmanhlardan ~ok evvel asll ~6hretini

Kurtaba'dan yapan biiyiik Arap lisanCllSl Abdullah Alka.Ii'yi medreselerinde ye~tiren. Erzurum.'da islami ilim gelenegi bu ~ehri ~a.rkm on
safta merkezlerinden 'biri yap1yordu.
Son zamanlarda "Ulema" srmf1 ii~ dort buyiik aileden ibaretti. Solakzadeler, Kadlzadeler,
Miiftizadeler, Goziibiiyiikler giJbi. Bun1ardan
sonra, b~larmda Dabaklar eyhi olmak iizere. _
~ehrin as1l ibelkemigi olan esnaf gelirdi. Dabakl!ar eyhl, icabmda Hukfunet kuvvetine kar~l
ko)'iabiU.ecek kudrette bir ~ahsiyetti. Ne T.anzimat, ne Abdillhamit idaresinin merkezciligi ehrin ruhu olan ve esasm1 Ahilikten alan bu otoriteyi Y'..kamaml~tl. urasrm da soyliyelim ki eskiden Dabaklar eyihi, asll btinyesini esDJafm
tekil ettigi Anadolu ~ehlr1erinde daima bu kudreti ta~Irdl. Dabak!lrgm ayakkabiClhk,- saraghk
gibi gen~ ihtiyaglan k~llayan sanatlan beslemesi, hayvanCihg.a dayanmasr ytizlinden 9ehrin dlmda kalanlann miibim lbir klsmmi igine
almas1, boylece koyle, ~iretle yakmdan alak!.'!.!lanmasi !bu sanab esas sanat )'iap1y9rc;Iu.
35.
~
':'i
Dabaklar 9eyhi'nin arkasmdra, 1stanbul'da

bile XVII, XVIII. as1r ihtiHUlerinde iki azgm 0:
caga kar~n kuvvetini zaman zanian goster.::ri
~ar~as1 gelirdi. Fakat as1l ::nuhim olan bu ziim~
reler zinci...-i deg:ildi; onun arkasmdaki canh ku~
rulu'}tu. Bu kurulu$, ~ehrin hayatm1 gergeklcn
kuvetlendiriyordu. Ki5ylli ile gifgi s1mfmm hakla~
n toprak sahibi beyler tarafmdan korunurd:;.
Koylli ile Bey arasmdaki mlinasebetler, bir ser~.
at vilayeti oldugu igin, Erzurum'da ba.:s;ka yererdekinden daha ba:baca kurulmustu. Ba..<;~m~za
Gelenler mlielllifi Mehmet Arif bey{n fikri ~de bu~
. dur. Hem carSl bukadar kuvvetle koklesi..'1ce se.
hlrde tagalllip fikrinin yerl~mesi gok gii~tlir.
Bu sebeple her canh ~eyde raslanan anl~mamaz
llklara ragmen, eski Erzurum'da bir nevi mlivazene meydana gelmi9ti. Bu hal, her s1mf1 kendi
hay:atmda, kendi zevkinde mustakil bulundura.rak, mesut ederek, :i:kinci Me~rutiyet'e, hatta
biraz sonrasma kadar 'surer. Bu s1mf aynhg,.,
kayna~ma, anla~ma havasma ragmen camilere,
va1zlara kadar gider. Son devirlerde Caferiye
Camiinde gengler, aglk fikirliler toplamr, biroz
son:t'la bahsedecegim Mliftizade Edip Hoca'mr..
vaz1m dinlerlermis.. Pervizoglu, koyu zahitlerin
camii imis. Orada Abdlilkadir Hoca vaa:zeder, 0.:.
niinde fermanlarm okundugu Devlet camii Lala .
Pa,:s;a, d!alha kan~1k, daha ges.itli halkla dolarmii(\,
Burada Solakzadelerden va1zlar varm1s..
_.
,}"
Halk, tatil giinleri, en :iia:ltirinde bile bulunan, cumahk elbiselerini giyerek yaz1an mesire
,'1
'(. :yerlerine cirit oyunLanna, glir$lere gider, ay!llk

' 1
ta z~gva 9a1lvar, belde A<!em 9ah, silahhk, daha
\.:.~ listte gazeki denen gepken . ile a;ba, hart~ denen
palto ile ba~ma gok defa Istanbul'un Kandilli
i:', yazma.s1 saran esnaf, kl~ gecelerinde benim yel . ti~eme_?j.giln Aynah Kahve'de (Tebriz Kap1s1'
::! . nda) A~1k Kerem, Battal Gazi hikayeleri -oku-yan, Geyik Destam soyleyen, saz galan, bpki
Kerem'in zamamnda oUdugu gibi ~iir miisabakasi yapan, birbirine tarizli cevaplar veren, yeti~
tikleri memleketin g"lizelligini oven, gegtigi yol, 1ar1, gurbet duygusunu anlatan, irticali de:y~
"' 1er soyleyen cs.airilerin, halk hikayecilerinin e'a>
rafmda topUwur, yahut da ~ag1 yukan on aslrl 1Ik ibir gelenekle sliriip gelen srra gezmelerind::
" kendi aralarmda eglenirmi~.
Bu kanaatkar, ~al1~kan esnaf1n Erzurum'' . m runl hayabm meydana getirdigi muhakkakt1. /
As:lll giizel olan ~ey de, geni~, asil ~ir snuf ::;;u. v.runa ermesi, yukanya imrenmeden kendisini
~ya 12.~1k tutmas1yd1. Esnaf kadm1, ~raf
'kadmm elbisesini giymez, yan~ kutnu larla,
1 srrn1.ah ellbiselerle s'lislenmezdi. Is. terbiyesini
1 alml~, eli i~ledigi_ yarat~1~ i?n nef~ine __ say~1
i . duygusu ye:ill~rm~, ~1yetli, kendine guve:rnr
vatandaslardan tesekklil etmis ~ir kalaballk ...
'Onlig ya~mda henik c;,:Ir.akhga giren hir ~ocukta.
bile az za:manda nefsine giiven h~lar, el emegine dayanan bir hayatm, mesuliyet fikrinin in~sanoglunu nas1l yUkseB.ttigi gorilllirmlis..
Musiki zevki de boyle idi. Blitlin E:rzurum"'
:1,;..
36
37
'-~
:;':'
lJiler, kiirk~iiyii -ga@.nrlar:m.ll. Bu sefer eski golu'larm bildigi. Bar oyunlarmda, ciritte, klsaca.Sli ' cnklar, samur, til.ki, kurt postundan kiirkler,
tulumlar genil selaml1k sofralannda ortaya kogelenegin her yer i~in hemen aym :;;ekilde tes11
mir, gozliiklii ihtiyar kiirk ustalan tlglariytle onpit ettigi topra:klarda bizi Malazgirt'ten Viyan.a'y;"ia kadar gotfuen da-v-ul zurna, o mfu.;eri bando " 1ar1 diizeltir, eksiklerini tamamlarm.J.9. Bu, Erzurum'un i.kinci hayatmm ba!langlCl, s1e;a;k so~ailnu.rnu;;. Halk kahvelerinde fu.;lk saz1, e;;raf:ui:
gittigi. g,azinolarda, laraathanelerde takun mu- , . bamn, giim~ -gay tepsisinde kiigiik ibir ~afak
siltisi v~.En son tak1m, Kor Vahan'm san- ' .gibi gillen gaylarm, uzun .sohbetlerin devrid.ir.
turlu, armonyomlu takun1 imil. Bunlardan ba!l.?ehlr, kap:!!Lanm ikapatrr, kendi aleminde
ka, bir de Kuran. okuyan biiyiik ib.anendeler vary.a!ardi: klzak iistiinde siy.ah yamg1h, uzun
dl. Bunla:r Lala p,ala'run hat:i!bi KitapgiZade Hakonglu gizmeli, klvrak b1y:rkh postacllann acaip
fiZ Hfunit Efendi, Ebiilhindili Hamdi Bey ile .
kurt, tipi hikayeleriyle iberaber ili iig haitada
Goziibiiyiikzade idi.
bir getirdikleri gazetelerin havad:isleri uzun uzun miinakala edilir, gegmi:;; .zaman mtrtalan
Auguste Comte'u diizenine imrendirecek: , anllatlllr, dedikodu yapllrr, gok zarif, usta.hkb
bu aydm ortagagda her ;;ey, mevsimler bile,
cfunlelerl-e e~e dosta tari.z edilirdi. Belki de bu
eski garp orta~$ takvimlerindeki tasvirleri,.
.kapah kll 'ayla.nmn besledigi. sohbet yiiziinden
mesela Due de Berry'nin mesut sa:atlerini anhemen her Erzurumlu. biraz niiMeci, biraz hi...,. dl!'aeak lek:ilde, bu. einsten :bir diizen i~indedir.
-eivcidir. Fakat, her :;;eyde oldugu gibi, bu. umuQocuklar, yaz geldigi.ni gad1rc1 ustasuun eve
mi meziyetin iistiine :her nesilden birkrag lrii g1~
ugradl~ zaman ogrenirlermi;;. 0 zaman bahgekar. Bunlar konus.ma sanatmm :;;Ohret kurye gadlrlar y1~hr, ihtiyar, yatkm eilli ustalar .
mus. ustalliand:l.r.
Bogaz'a, llwa'ya, aglk hava:yJa, .eglenceye kavu.-:
Miitareke ylllaxm.da Ermem meselesi do~acakla...TJ.ru anlay!p sevinen kiigiiklerin glghklalaYlsiyle Erzurum'a gelmi:;; olan Amerikan Hen arasmda onlan tamir eder, sokuklerini diker,
yJ.rtlk yerlerini degi:?tirir. yr.:tgmura, riizgara:. " -yet'ine o :mmamn Belediye Re:isi Za:kir Be:)"lll
verdrigi cevab1 kim hlab.rlamaz? Terciimana :
dayanacak haJle getir:i.rm.il.
(.
" - Dilmag, bana ibak, bu beyler uzun boyKllm geldigini kiirkgii miijdelermi;;. Da;ha , 1u anll:ab.yorlar. Ben klsa bir misalle Erzurum'- V
Kop D~nm bal?I beyaz1anmadan, P,alandoken
da ekseriyet kim.lerde idi, Cener:ale aillataYJ.ID.."
Slrt1arl 0 efsanel~mil yiiziinii .almadan gok On- '!illi diyerek Heyeti oturdukla.n revin penceresine goc
ce, Erzincan'dan gelen siyah iiziimiin renginden~
:tUrmiil,
yaylanm iistiinden cenuba dogru akan ku;; sii39
riilerin.den va:ktm yakla;;tl~m anlayan tecriibe-
1i
r1.
38
ol)l~
if" ;a2)arlayan Kazasker Karagelebizade Abdlilaziz

" - Ba,km, demi:;;, blit&n :;;ehri sa:mn bir:{{ .Efendiyi, hatrras1 Ankaranm tarihine okadar
tasllk var. Onun da ortasmda yirmide biri ka- 1' i "kari:;;rm:;; olan Kazasker Vildanzade'yi, .tkinci
dar duvarla ~evJ:'!ilmi:;; bir yer var. 0 bliyiik ta.:;;--'w l'. .Mabmut zramamrun celadetli Miiderrisi Abdurllk Mlislliman mezarhgr, o -kli<;ligu de Ermeni ~~~ raihman Efendiyi de hatrr:Lamak gerekir. Germezarhgrdn; btmlar kendi ollilerini yemedilerl, {;ekte bu adam, esash bir killtliriin, ibir dliny.a
ya!"
~; ve insan g6rii9iiniin en glizel tar.aflariyle yet1J?Erzurum'da Tlirrklerin daima ezici bir gok--~: J:nl.9ti. 1923 Erzurumunda, XVI. veyra XVII. aluk halinde ya.:;;adlklan bin tiirlli :;;ekilde goste-,[!,. .~nrlann lark ordularmdan lbiriyle gelip orada
rile:bilirdi. Za;..ltir Beyin haz1r ceva.phhgr bunla- [: : kallvermil? bir m>azi yadiganna, yahut Usklinn en lasasrru, itiraza yer brrakmayamm bu:l-J1,. dar'dan ;>am'a, oradan da Hicaz'a gitmek iizere
mu:;;tu.
w~ telillillerle, tekbirlerle yola gikanldrktan s01rra
yanlr:;;hkla Erzurum'a gelmi:;; bir siirre alayma
Ben Erzurum'da iken bu konw;;ma ust3Jlarr-% \ benzerdi. Ne~esi, pervasrzhgr, mlicadeledekl harun ibirini ibol bol dinledigim hikayeleriyle, biri- l:i ,
:zrrcevaphgr, kafasmdaki ol~li duygusuyla, iyi
ni de 'allsen rtarudmi. Kaleli Burhan Bey 1923::1! kalbiy(le Edip Hoca blitlin bir alemdi.
den gok once olmli:;;tli. Fakat levent istihzasl, 'j( I
hazrrcevaphhgr hala aanh bir hatirayd1. Edip i :
Bir glin dostlarmdran birine ugrayarak gay
Hoca ise hayattaydl. Garip 1bir tedai iile bana, II : lbardagr iste~, gok glizel bir talmru begen~,
ligyliz yrlm iizerinden a:;;arak, XVI. rasrm :;;air Iii ., . "''Hakkl, bunlan ayrr, ben birini alryorum, bu
!shak gelebi'sini hatlrlatan, bpkl onun gibi :~ 1 ak~am tecrlibe edecegim" demi:;;. Fakat ertesi
.am'daki kiSa misafirligini "amdan g~krt2g~m.[;'; . :giin ~ay b:ardagrm geri geti~. "Haca, ne diakama dedim am-t eTif' mrsraiyle bitiren:if>, ye bege!Ilmedin, bu glizel bardaklran ?" diye sobu :;;a:;;rrtrcr adam, gergekten hatlrlaninaya de-;~ ; Tan dostuna o dik sesiyle: "HakkJ., delnill?, barger. Edip Hoca'yr iben gok sevmi~-tin:J.. Bana o- 'iK : daklar giizel, ama han:a uymuyor. Sabahleyin
kadar a:Sil, okadar koklli, okadar killtiirli:roliziinl!i; ( ~y!La doldurdum, ~?5yle bir onlime koydum, bir
adamr gelirdi ki sevmemek elde degildi. Ge~:rw "kendimi dlil?iindlim, bir ona bak:ttm: nispetsiz...
atllet g6V"desiyle her gegtdgi yolu kendi etrafm-\ . Rele, Hiakk1 can, sen bana biraz daha ibiiyligiinu
da bir nevi fon g:ibi toplayan, ~rsma ~rii..al)..~. - 'bul"
her ~eyi ikinci planda brrakan bu adam, Erzu- 1,( ,
Bu kliglik frkra Edip Hoca'nm nasli .bir arum'da, blitlin eslci]j,gme r.agme!Il, belki en can--!,;.: ,dam oldugunu, ne kadar tam bir alemden kopup
h nokta idi. Onu . IShak Qelebi'ye benzettim;
;ge1digini g6st-erir. Onun .unutamryacag;m bir
portreyi tamamlamak i~in, Dordiincu Mehmed'i.i'i!
;,
.r
40
41
i;'(l '.
, t-1'
~~.
)}.
:~,
':
.
... 1 .
(!:.
c~
.cizeli l}airi dev.rirri.n t.am :adarm yapan da bu mi:zagb.r. Nefi" hu m.izagla miicehhez oilarak !stanhikayesi de birinci Cihan. Harbindedir. Etrafmbul'a geldi. Onun mptedilm.ez neesiyle tiirkQeda.ki lZtlrapla sabn ti.i.kenen Hoca, 'bir Ra.m-aan
yi
saglarmdan yakaladl. Onunla "Bir elde cam'i
giinii, Nuruosmaniye'de ki Merkezi Umumi'ye i
..lM.efam, bir elde zli.l:fii. hambeham" yaadi. Bu
gider, hademelerin mani olm.ak istemelerme ,
ragmen . .igtima sailonunun :ild kaplSiru birden a.mizagla eski paYitahtm her cins ilitWasr gemsiz
garak Nabi'nin --mz bn meydamn nice ~abtiksii- :~,
-bJ.:mkmJ~, tehlike dolu havasi iginde, burun devarm gormiiiiz" m.rsra.I ile balayan, tazir ve:
:likleri heyecandan kabara kabara y39:adi, sonunda devrinin olfuniiyle, kemend altmda Olldii.
taazirler'le dolu ibir Yigm soz sayler. Sonra
Bu miza!:lladlr ki, ibir taraftan, ~iirin, sanatm
gelir, Meserret Klra.athane~i'nde dii~iinceli dii~iinceli oturur. Ertesi gii.n Ittih:at ve Terakki,
.fani nimetler, ikballer ~1smdaki asilligini :
Ed:ip Hoca'YI, iyice hatJ.r1ro almak ~iyle, Es
Nitekim abi hayati silllem Balridir.
~ehir'de oturmaya raz1 eder.
Baredek zinde kilan Nami Silleyman Ham
Erzurumda hikayelle:cini <linledigim insan,. .
.diye overken bir taraftan da :
lardian biri de 93 de Erzurum mebusu olan AhHem kadeh, hem b~ide, hem bir Uh sahlili.r
met Muhtar Beydir. Onun hay:atml bir torunuu- \
gonill.
dan ogrendim. Beyenmedigi bir V aliyi ovdugu ~!
i9n ofkelendigi Envar-1, ;:larkiye gazetesini, her}~~' diyerek isterse 9ah-ane bir inmvada kendi .kenhafta, us;agr Omer' .agaya: "0 maaYI al, o ka 'I!
dine yetebilecegini soyler.
grt pargas1n1 o ma~a ile tut, o sobaYI ag, ~imdi 4'
Biitiin bunlar, daha birgok .sa.yaJblilecekleigine at, .sen de git, elini y1ka" diyerek ;:;;obaya ~
rim, batmak iizere bulunan gemilerinin ~anak
atbran bu adamm yapmac1~ fazla hiddetleri,.::f.,.,
bklarmdan etraflarmda kabar.an. oliimii seyrede
gorenegin giigli.ikle hapsettigi hi1tiin bir miza- i
ede suU:ara gomillen cesur ikaptanlar1 andlran
c1 gosterir.
li.nsanl.a.rdl. Y aad.J.kilan alemden ve omiirlerinill
~te Erzurum'da benim en sevdigim ~ey .........
riiyasmdan. big bir 9ey feda etmeyi aklllanna
mizag oildu. BakJ'.den sonra en biiyiik ~)
getirmeden, yencinin b1zm1 durdurmaya hi~ yel-= olan, eski sfu son s6ziinii soyleyene kadar ne- ;,
tenmeden, manti~ kavrama;dlklan bir dlinyasilden nesile d-aima taklit edilen Nefl, bu miza-!
nm ortasmda dik, heybetli, tok sa.zm, daima neem ta kendisi degil :roidir? Sozle, terbiye ettigi.
~eli, aaima kendi kendilerine yeterek ya~adllar.
bir arslanla olfunlliik, dirimlik bir oytm.a
~te eski Erzurum, benim yirmi yii sonra
~bi oynayru:, d~k~duJ11 her. hayrali _Yayla su~,1
;iigiincii seyahatimde yeniden bulmaya ~ah~il.1le dolm~ b1r ibillur kase haline getiren bu mu<
43
42
gun ~rzuru.rn, onlann nayatun yap.an, miza\<la-nm bukadar parlatan lbu degerli alemin ta kendisiydi.
IV
Benim Erzurum'a gittigim sene \<adlrCI yine hahar sonunda Bogaz'a, Thca'ya, y.aylaya glkl.lacagml gocukl1ara mtijdeliyor, ktirkgti yine e-linde tigr, agrr tokmakh kap1lan galarak uzun
kl~ .aylar1lll, y;aman tipileri haber vermeye geli-
yordu. Fiakat bu yerlerde birbirinden okadar
degi~ik olan bu iki mevsh?-e haz1rlana:n :;;ehir,
art1k eski ~-ehi.r degi:Idi. ~m garibi, boyle bir
t~ekkiiltin rb.i:r vakltlar varoldugunu
g('isteren.
big bir :;;ey orta:da kalmami, canl1 hayatm yerini ,bir yrgm Oltim hikayesi, hicret hikayesi alID19ti.
Gerci bu sehri o hikayelerde bulm:ak mtimktindti. Fall::at' ya::;;anmi hay;atm s1cakhgrm o.

dagrruk hatmillardan glkarmak gok giigtti. $ehrin belliba:;;h mimarllk eserleri de b<ma yardrm.
edemezdi. .Birgoklarr etmflarmda uguldayan
hayatla goktan bagrru kesmi . eserlerdi. Dailia
IV. Murat zamanmda Erzurum'da top imalathanesi gibi bir ite kuillarulan Qifte Minare, stadece kendi lk:endisi olmakla klahyordu.$tiphesiz Qifte Minare, Sivas't.a ve daha ~1daki kardeleriyle birlikte bir ~aheserdir. Uslup, t~ yontuculugu, abidevi duru baklmmdan kendi nevinde
bundan gtizel brr ~ey ibulmak kolay degrldirOnu Erzurum'un 1bir ucunda, ehrin btittin yansma htikmeden :irh~amh kap1siyle, minar:eleriy44
le, giiniin. herhangi bir saatmda bir kere gortip

te hayran olmamall:: ka:bil degildir. Onun gibi,
Y.akutiye'nin .aydmhkta topnaktan hentiz glkarlllnn9 hir eski za:man slisti gibi p1nl p1nl minaresinin daima muhayyeleyi .avlayan bir gekiciligi var:drrYakutiye'nin igi plan bakJIDmdan dogu ..:\- nadolu'nun -en d:ikkate deger eseridir. Daha sade biT planda yapllmi9 o:Lan Ulu Cami, be9 be-.
~lkli igi ile magnp camilerini hatrrlatlr. D1~tan
onlar gibi sadedir. Erken geli~mi~ 'bir gotik kemer, Ulu Cami'de ibizi gergekten tizerinde durula:call:: ibir mimarhk mesellesiyle kar~Il~tlnr.
Fakat bunlar, kiiltlirlimliziin olkadar uzak yerlerinden gelen eserlerftir ki onlarla hemen yaruba:ImiZdaki hayat arasmda bir mtiruassbet bulmall:: imkansizdlr; Mimarhk, mesel1a musik1de,
~iirde, resimde oldugu g:i:bi bize derhal hayat1
veren bir sanat degildir. Bu tecrit, d!aha ytikseklerde dola:;;rr, hatrrlatmadan duyguyu tatmin
edebilir. Sonra bu eser1erin kenililerine mah-sus bir devirlleri var. Bursa'run, 1znik'in, E!lirne'nin, istanbul'un, ytiriidlikge degi_en yumulak gizgileriyle topr.akta c.anh !bir heykel gibi
ytikselen her aslldlklan tepeden ugmaya hazrr
biiytik kUl.ar g:i:bi goriinen mimarhk eserleriyle
bunlar a:vasmda blittin ibir ik.aynama, annma
devri gegmi:tir. K!hgarslan, Alparslian gibi yalmz vatan ku:ran savaslardaki sert ytizleriylle tamdlglmlz hliktimdarlarm y.amba:mda, kara top
mktan h"iiUerine, kemikle1.;...ne ibiraz y.agmur, bi-
45.
raz ylldl:z parJ.ltlsi, biraz giin JIgl s1zsm diye "'

tfubesinin listiinu aglk 1b1r.akan ll. Murat, yahut
karde~lerini oldfudlikten sonra, "bizim. pez-4;anb.gmuz gonillleri toplarrn:alk igindir" diye onlara
aglayan Yavuz g:ilbi dururlar. Birincilerinde sade biiylikliik, sade kudret halinde goriinen port.,.
reye ikincilerinde klvanum bulm~ bir zevki.n
'beraberinde getirdigi bin tfulli hal ve mana
kendiliginden girer.
im.paratorU.ugun buyiik hatalan iginde, ilikin kendisinden onceki devrin nrimarb.k eserlerine laylk olduk1an deger.i vermemesi, mahalli
valuf1!arla iktifa etmesi, sonra da .kendi .zevk:i:nin en miikemmel taraf1 olan mim.axilJk sanatnll
Jlil.yrk oldugu ehemmiyetle biitiin memlekete
yaymam11J olmasr say:r!abilfr. Bursa, Edirne, lstanbul dlsmda hiikiimdarlann adilar.uu tasryan
camiler pek azd1r. Oyle ki bu mimarllk, XVI.
aSirdan itibaren arleta zengin ~ra.tla hayrat
yapmaktan b.o~lanan Vezir .,e Beyler':ley~erine
b1ralulnu~hr. Onun igindir ki Anadolu'da Imparatorluk mimarhgmda.n oaima ihltinci derecede,
ikinci elden yap1lm1~ eserler gorlillir. A.nadolu
>ehi!ileri hep eski fatihlerinin -c.amileri, medreseleri, kervansaraylan etrafma toplanml: olarak Y!a~adllar. Belki biraz da bu yiizden balkm
zev:ki Osmanb. Ronesansma uymakta giigllik
-gekti. Sade bir cuma, bir bayram namazm:m eski hayatm::uzdaki yeri diil]iinilliirse, bu iddia be~.
nim tkorktugpm kadar yan~ goriinmez. Fakat
bunun asJ.tl .fe:n:a neticesi, biiyiik ml:marhk sana,..
46
Anadolu'nun mu:htelif sehirlerinde daha eskiden klalma eserlerle, yerli, sivil ve resmi
eserlerle temasa gelmemes:i., mahall.li malzemen:in, iklhn sartlarmm tesirleri altmda. kavusaca..
gi gel.i.Ji;meden mahrum kalmasr, yani ibirkag
koldran kavu>abilecegi bir ge~Ji.9meyi, sadece .bir
gelenegm bir tek ~ehirde gegirdigi merhalelere
indir:mis olmas1dlr. Gelismesinde diimdliz akan
nehir, bu doniil]lerle oldugundan daha gok zen-
t1m1ZJD
ginle~ebiil.irdi.
:iJ.k. !istila ordularmm ustiiste .akmlarla dogudan Anadolu'ya girdikleri devirde
temelleri :atllan, bu ordillarla birlikte zraferden zafere

ko~tukga yeni vatam li=lehir f?ehlr adeta AtalanmiZ ve Qocuklar:O:mz adlna teslim .alan bu ilk
Selguk eserlerinin medeniyetimizde gok ayr1 bir
yeri vardlr.
He.,.- se~,.,;..,
altust oldugu- ' orf ' adet ' akide '
~ .J~
. efsane, her ~eyin birbirln.e gdrdigi bu zengin fakat karJ..>lk devirde, gok hususi >artlari haiz bir
medeniyetin bir istilladan mukadder dogu>u butiin haY!atl bir s1tma gl\bi sararken, Erzurum'un, Jl...hlat'In, Sivas'rn, Kayseri'nin, Konya':ron
ca:m.ileri, medreseleri, kervansaraylan, gok usta bir elin gektigi yay gibi, bu yeni kurul~un
ilk notasnn, biitiin bu yeniyi hazrrJa.mak igin
dagunu~ unsur1an igine ralacak ollan senfoninin
ana te:mini verirler. Onlar, kartal siizlil~lii ordularm arkasmdan girdikleri >ehirlerin ortasmda, renka.i minareleriyle, endamh kapllariyle, diJimiz ve killclmiZ gibi ilk atal.ar yurdund:an ge-
47
<:JXan.gumz eklll-er,i, hususilikleriyle yiik.seldikge, etmflarmdaki tblitlin hayat birdenbire degiir, derinden kav~ayan hir 'arSIJ.,an pengesi gibi
toprak kendisine yeni bir ruh, yeni bir nizam
verildigini duyar.
Miislliman Tiirk mimarhk sanatmm geli( ro.esi kadar zengin tarih pek azd.Ir. Blitlin Orta
Asya bizim oldugu gibi, mahalll dayanmalara,
bazJ. ufuksuz fu;>klr~lru<a ragro.en !ran yaylas1
da 1bizimdi.r. Bu agag, dal.m1 budaguu nere!lere
salma.nu~trr! Semerkand'm mavi, Yeil ginileriyle olliro.li ezeli bir baih!ar haline getiren tlirbeleri, Tiirkistan'm, M2:ver.aiinehr'in mezar1a:.
n, camileri, Aniaddlu Suriye mimarhgr, bundan
sonra ikd:nci !mparatorluk d-evrinde ba~layar.ak,
Rumeli'ye, Thnanm otesine kadar nisbetlerini,
ilahi hendesesini gotliren !stanbul mimarisi.
Bir devir gelir iki !slam medeniyetinde yaplclllk rolii bizim olur. Yunan, M1S1r gi:bi daha
ziyade kav.me mahsus diyeib]lecegimiz medeniyetler fbir y.ana h1railnhrsa, bir medeniyetin bukadar tek bru}ma 1bir milletin damgasilll ~I:dlg-I
gorllll.m.ez. Hele Selguk devrinden
sonra Islam medeniyeti ' adeta ibize devrediliL'
Yaz1da, mimarhkta, musikid.e moday1, . iislubu
biz veririz. Biz y:apanz, derinletirir, zenginle~
tiririz.
Erzurum'tdakli Ulu Cam.i'yi gezerken, bugiin bir amhar olarak kullamlan bu biri:ay1
do!Ld.uran mesin kolrusunu bile bana duyurmayan bir heyecan igindeydim. Dzerine bashgun
48
ou t~lar.a degen rbalar1, onlarm kaderini, ugrunda yorulduklar1 ;;eyin bliyliklligunu dlitinli. yordum.
!nsan ,kaderinin buyiik taraflarmdan birj
de, bugiin aJtbgr adlmm kendisini nereye gotu
recegini bilmemesidir. Bar.k!'nin F:atih Oamii'nde .
orta halli bir muezzin oLan babas1, ogJ.unun
tti.rkgeyi kendi adlna fethedecegini, sozlin ebedi saltanatlru kuracag'uu;._ Nedim'in anas1, tfu.-k.genin iklimrinde oglunun ibir bahar Ttanns1 gibi
giilecegini, onun gegtigi yerlerde billblil aklmasmm kesilmeyecegini,. agzmdan g1kan her
.sozlin ebediligm bir ko~esinde bir erguvan
gU!bi kanayacagrru biliyorlar nnydl? Bunun gibi, Malazgirt Ovas1'nda dogulen yigitler, klhglannm havada gizdigi kavsin, butlin ufku doJdur.an nal alnrbl.annm Sinan'In, Hayrettin'in,
rtri'nin, Dede'nin diinyalarma gebe oldugundan
efl.bette habersizdiler. !nsan ruhu bir taraf1m
tamamlasm, yarat1l~1n btiyiik rliyalanndan b~
ri gergeklelsin diye, onlan bu ov.ay.a kader _g6ndel'IIili?oti. Yaraticl ruhun emrinde idiler, OUUil
'istediigini yaptllar.
Osmanll devri mimarhgr Erzurum'da LaJa
.P.a~a Camii iile yaar. F.akat Lafta P~a, gomtil. dugu yerden ehre hakim degildir. Hatta gorrll..mesi igin yaruna sokulmak J,az,mdlr. Sonra Kiigiik nisbetiyle daha ziyade ibiiyiik bir heykelin
toprak.tan y.apllml ornegme benzer_ Klsacas1,
$tileymaniye'nin, Yeni Cam.i'nin c.anhbgr, adeota ibakanm de:I'i.sil').den gegen sfuiikll.eyici ruhani49
""
ligi, onda bulabilm.ek igin biro.z yorulmak, lbira.z
da boyle olmasrm istemek laz,mdlr. Bu yiizden,
kiiglik bir pn-lantaya benzeyen giizelliguu ben \\11
ancak Erzurum'a iigiincii gi~imde duyabil-
dim. Bir ak::;;a.m iistu oniinden ge~erken XVI. 'as- .
rm mucizesi oOian 0 harikuJJa.de nispet beni yakalad.I...
Burada eski bir merkez olan Erzurumdak!i butiin sanatlardan bahsetmek benim igin
imkansiZdJ.r.
Fakat SaltJ:k kiinbetlerinin ve medreseil.erinin i
kitabelerini veren mahalili hattatlar1a h~hyan
ve asirlar boyunca devam eden Erzurumdaki
yaz1 ocagm;. ibm.al etmelk istemem. Erzurum
Halkevinin hjmmetiyle kiiglik bir kolleksiyonu a.rbk goz6niinde bulunan bu ustalahn bir
k1smmm .adrm biliyoruz. Osmanlh devrinden ad.I
bize kadar gelen en eski hatta;t De~ Ali
(1080) dir. Yusuf Fehmi, T.ahtaciZade ve damadJ. As1m Efendi, Topgu oglu Ahmet Efendi, Namik Efendizade As1m Bey daha yakm zamanlard.a yeti~mi~lerdir. Bunlann yam ba~mda KadJ.z.ade Mehmet $e:rdf ve akirdi Kamil Efendi
. gibi miizehhip ve miiceJJJ.itler de v,ardl.
v
Erzurum'da kaldl~ miiddetge musikiyi
~ahsi bir macera gibi ya!?an:ubm. Fakak anca'k
yrll:ardan sonra onunla yeniden ka.r~ala::;;mca, taId.I~ IZb.rap yiikiinii anlayabildim. Tabii bu
havalarm hepsmde, olgun ibir sanat kuvvetini.
50
:aramak, oii.lardan meseD.a b.ll Tellalzade'nin veya Tab'1 Mustafa Efendi'nin, bir Sadullah Ag.amn yahut butiin klasik formuDJa. ragmen kendisine yakm tabakaliardan gelen Seyyit Nuh'un
veya bpkl Sinan gibi, diger mim.arlarliDIZ gibi
mllll hayatm her yanm1 yoklam1~ bi.r deha olan
Dede Efendi'nin eserUerind~n beklediklerimizi
isteyemeyiz. Qogu, daha ziyade, buylik bir sa-natm tezglahmda dokundugu zaman gergek manasmda sanat eseri olabilecek pargalardlr. Fam.t bilhassa boyle oldugu i~indir ki kendilerini
yaratan insanlann mahd.Irlar. Qok derin bir !?ekilde bize topr~, ikllimi, hayat1, 'insam, onun
talihirri, acllariDI verirler. Bir kere zibninize taklld.Iktan sonra onlarm mfrcizeli bir nebat btiyliyiiu ile hir an gelip dort yJan!D.1Zl almamalart
kaabil degilldir. Tabiatla dogrudan dogruya temas gibi insam 'Saran bir hummalar1 vard1r.
~uphesiz bu eserler k!lasiklerden daha fazla gelenege tabidirler. Herhangi ibir m.akamdan bir
Yorllk Sem.ai, bestekardan bestekara gegtikge
ayn bi.r ~ey olur. Fakat bir Maya'mn, bi.r Hoy~at'm de~mesine imkan yoktur. As1rla:rm haZirltadi~ bu kadeh, oldugu gibi kalacak, igine
dokU1en her ~eye kendi hususi !lezzetini verecekti.r. Bu itibarla genisi ,ancak cografyaya tabi
olan bir uslfrptur, denebilir.
Bu tfukillerle !?Wkllann hepsin.in Erzu.rum
un kendi mah oldugu liddia edileroez. Baz1lan
Erzurum.'da dogmu~ardrr. Bir kismiDda Azer. bayaan ile, Kafkasya ile slln m.unasebetin do-gurdugu tuhaf bir ~es.ni, butun melez eylerdeki
51
o marazi hislilik vard1r. Birta:kJ.m hoyratlar, mayalar butiin Bingol hav:alisinin ma:hd!r; Bingcil
gobanlanrun koyun otlatlrken gald.Ll;:lan kaval
nagm.elerinden izler t~rrlai. Bunlardan bazrlarr, bu gobanlarm rssiZ daglar1~1 oirinden 6iJtiriine iinle}'i9le~~ne benzeyen seslerle ba~lar. Bir
klsm1, biraz sonra .bahsedecegim Y ernen TurkrUsu gibi, Harput agzrdrr. Bazrsr istanbul'da grk:rru~, kervan yoluyla Zigana'yr, Kop'u; yahut da
Samsun, Sivas, Erzincan yoluyla Sansa'Yl gegerek, ugradrg1 yerlerden rbir YJ.gm hususil.ik alar:ak Erzuru:t;t:t'ta gelm.is;tir. Kim.inin bestesi yerli,
sozli b~ka yerlerdend:ir. Kiminde drlardan gelen beste, makamiU biraz daha iistune basmak
y,ahut karar:l1ll deg~tirmek suretiyle yerJ.ile~mi9,
bu daglann, yJa.ylarun mali olmu~tur. Fakat hepsi birden bize buylilii bir aynada gegm.il bir hayatm izinden gider gibi Erzurum'u, gurbeti verirler. Bunlar ar.asmda Y.ayza Tur:kiZsu'nii balta
sayabiliriz :
Yaz gelende glkam yaylii bru;;ma,
Kurban olam topragma, tal?ma.
Zalim felek agu kattl arma;
Agam, nerden aar yoln yaylanm?
diye b~layan ibu ~acaip, 'kudretli rztrrap, hangi
Umitsiz gurbetten dogmUJ?tur? Hangi zindanda
havas1zllktan bogulduktan sonra, ruh birdenbire bu ge~, bu hiir havaya kavu:;;ur; ibu gimen,
ta:ze sajp.lml:;; slit, koyun sliriisii, krr gigegi lkokusunu, bu dalga dalga biiyiik daglar riizganm .
nereden tbulmu~ur? S1la hasreti bukadar ge~
52
bir bayragr pek az aQnu::Jtrr. Ses bir kartal gibi

siiziiliip yiikseil<likge ruhumuzu da beraberinde
sUriikliiyor. Yolda sevdiklerini eke eke kendini
S119ehri'nde veya Sivas'ta bulmUJ? hangi biQare,.
sadece hatrrlamanm kuvvetiyle bu YiikS'ekliklere
eri~ti?
Y-emen Tiirkiisii'nu okuyahm :

M12aka galmfu, dtigiin mli sanilin,
Al beyaz bayrajp. gelin mi sandm,
Yemen'e gideni gelir :mi sandm?
Don gel agam, don gel, dayanamiram,
Uyku, gaflet basiDJ, uyanamiram,
A gam oldiigune inanamiram ...
Agami yolladnn Yemen eline;
Qifte taba.ncalar ta~ beline.
Ayrilm.ak olur mn taze geline?
(Dol?eme)
Akam olur, mumlar yanar ka~:unda,
.Bu ayr1hk cfunle ~Hem ba~mda;
Glindiiz hayalimde, gece dii;;fu:ude.
(Doseme)
Koyun gelir, kuznsunun .ad1 yok,
'
S~ralannn kiileklerin siidii yok;
AgamsiZ da bu yerlerin tad1 yok.
(DO!?eme)
Bastaki ii~ nnsra Ey Gaziler'de vard!r. j<'ak.at dos~meler ma:hallidir. Yemen TiiikUsu i~e
ona beiu:er tiirkiiler Anadolu'nun iQ romamru
yaparlar.
53:
--:::
Bulgar komitacllan, ceplerinde Abdiil3.ziz

1ian'a hitap eden istidalarla, Balkan daglarm.da
Tiirk vatammn birligme pusu kurarlarken Anadolu kachn.Ian :redif ihtiyat, miistahfaz adlariyle
evle:r:Uiden ahp bir da.ha memleketlerine donemiyen erkeklerine, esini
- arayan geyi.kler gibi aghyorlardl. Falkat hizim acllannuz nedense hapsed.iihneye m.a.hkfundur. Onlar, dinlenllmesi sadece
tesadtife bagll birkag tlirklide ~ryor... Bugiinkli nesil ortada.n -Qekilince belki onlar da kaybolacak. Yemen, Anadolu'nun gektigi acilann
bir pargas1, hatta en kligligudtir. Daha aclklls1
var: verimsiz bir topragm getirdiklerine be on
kuru; eklemek igin memleketinden aynhp !stanbul soka:klannda kaybolan zavallllara arkada
kalanlarm hasreti.. "Di gel , di gel, dada gel!...,
diye atllan grghklar belJti tam m.usikiden isteyecegimizi verm.ezler. Fakat bu topragm i.istiinde
yalayanlann asll romamm, ?artlann, zaruretlerin gergek ylizlinli verirler. Bunlann birinden
ald!guu :
Qerden ~opten yuva lru:rdmn,
U 91U"madnn hala ben...
beytinin blitlin bir hayat destam olabilmesi igin
bir an gergek bir romanCI muhayyelesine garpm.asi yeter.
Bu halk 'havalan :iginde beni en gok saran

Billur Piyale oldu :
Nezaket vaktm.da serv-i biilendim,
Salm, :reftare gel yasemenJib.-te.
Kim.seler gorri:J.emi~, camm efenilim
Sen gihi bir i!ilber giilbedenlikte.
54
I
.
J;
.~;rjl:.
..
.,~
r(
r{;
f:-
f;:
,..
r,:;
\1,::
Bezm.e terif eyle, ey ~e~m.-i afet!

J:Su eb h.ane halvet, eyle muhabbet,
Ba~ iizre yerin var, teklif ne hacet't
Sen bix giilsiin, gezm.e her dikenlikte
Qaguu-un, ~gurnm yannna gelm.ez,
Biilbillden ogre~, ilikene konmaz.
Yiiz bin ognt versem biri kar etmez;
Ash da bey1:adelim, sen sefa geldin!
Billitr piyalelim, bize mi gel din.?
Bin ttirlli acemiligi, safllgr iginde, bu kligiik par~a ba~tan ~ag1 incelik, zevk, lezzettir.
Ger~ekten ibillitr tbir kadeh. .. Belki bliF. bir gelenegin son tezga.hmda yapild!gr igin kiigiik bir
gatlakhgr, tad!m artiran bir donuklugu var. Fa~
kat mesela Behzad'm elinden ~1km1~ bir minyatlir kopyas1 gihi biitiin bir tarz, blitlin bir eda~
.dlr... Asll giizel tarafr, bu ki.igiik billOxdan blitiin zevki, hayah, dli~iinceyi, zaman telakkisini f1~klrtan bestesidir. Esnaf srra gezmelerinde
soylendigi tahmin edilen bu tlirkliye orta Ana..dolu'da da raslamyor. Fakat Erzurum'da soylenen leklinde, oraya m3i.hsus hil' g~ni ayrlh~
gosterdigi, taamm daha keskinle!;>tigi :muhak.kaktJ.r. Billur Piyale, bizi 'hiiyiik bir gelenegm
agac1 altmda yeti~Irlli? bir sanata, "malialli klasik" adml verebilecegimiz .orta srmf musjk]sine
gotliriir. Bu silllf musikisinin daha belli hususi~
likler ta~ryan eserlerine ge~meden once, iki tlirkiiden bahsetmek istiyorum. Bunlardan biri, Bil]fu- Piyale gibi giizelligi oven, onun gjtbi oyun
55
.l.
havasi olan Sari Gelin'dir .. "Erzurum gar;;a pa. zar, diye baslayan bu ii.irkiintin canlandlrma
kudretine dalma hayran oldum. :tkincisi Yllfuz
Tiirktisti diye tamdig1m1z pargadir. Bu tiirkiide
insan sesi yJldlZ panltllariyle, onlann bu iklirnde her s;eye sindirdikleri talih sezi'iyle, bir nevi
hurafeyi andlran bir korkuyla dolup bo::;alJ.r. Sonuna dogru .ges;it g~it .renkler her yammz1 esrarh bir s;afak lI~yla sararlar. Bir billur priz. mada omriin riiyas1m seyredersiniz. SOzlerinde
sert, hoyrat Tann gehresiyle gegen Kervankiran'a ragmen bu tiirkiide big :bir biiyiikliik kaygiSl yoktur. Daha ziyade, penceresinden ayJ. ilk
defa goren bir gocugun :rmr:tldandi~ o garip ~ey
ler gibi, yan duaya, yan tiirkiiye benzer. Fakat
belki de bunun igin bizi s1rnn ta ortasma atar.
Son zamanlarda olen Hac1 Hafiz Ham.id'in
Tatyan bestesi, Erzurumlu Kami admda bir ~a
irin. 96yle boyle bir s;iirinden birdenbire altm gizgilerin hendesesini fis;kirtan acaip ibir beste Erzurum'un mahalli klasigme en gi.izel ornektir.Do. .gu ve s;imal dogu tesirinin az gok karltlg-J. bir'kag beste bu s1raya konmahdir. Fakat daha piiriizsiiz, daha temizi ~ehrin biiylik hem9erilerinden biri olan, ondan Marifetname'sinde "belde-i
tayyibemiz Erzurum'u rifat!liizum" diye bahseden :i:brahim Hakk1'mn Su manzumesinin beste-sidir.
Su viuli-i hayrette
Her senk ile cenk eyler.
:56
Deryasma vuslatta
Aheng-i pelerik eyler.
Su havza kudum eyJ.er,
evkiyle hiicum eyler.
Geh nagme-i Rum eyler,
Geh raks-1 F:irenk eyler.
kltalan biiyiik aHmin, biiyiik mutasaVVIil"J. aki-.
ke veya yJ.ld1z tru?ma ikiazilinl o eski miihiirleri
andiran :
Hi ummadigm yerde
Nagah a!;Ilir perde,
Derman eri9ir derde.
MevJ.a gorelim neyler,
Neylerse gU.zel eyle:r.
B~ligini aratmayacak kadar h-uvvetlidir:...
Erzurum'da 'otedenberi devam eden bu iki
b~h musiki ananesinin son varisi olan dostu.m.
Faruk Kaleli'nin repertuvari bir giin plaklarla
tambldi~ zaman, Su manzumesirun, Bursah tsmail Hakkl'mn Celveti bestesinin ger~ek giizelligine epeyce ~aca~Biiyiik Harp' ten onceki yillarda Erzurum'da y~ayan Kol Agas1 Ali Riza Bey de, gelecek
~ohretini Faruk Kaleli'ye bor~lu kalacaktir. Hasankale rllcasmda kubbeyi tepesinderi atacak
kadar giir sesiyle besteler okuyan bu co9kun
adamm tekke iirinin tarihinde bir yeri olmas1
J.azJmdir. Onun, s;air FaiZi'Irin "Taam-u-emnii
asayi~ gibi bir nimetim vardll"' rmsra1m ihtiva
eden gazeUni tahinin ederek yapbg-J. beste, "Ey
5'r-
..,._~-~
gonill, i~ek dilersen c8.m1 cem" m1srru. iil.e b~

layan nefes, unutulmamas1, gereken eserlerdendir.
~imdi,
yirmi yJl iistlinden, biitlin bu beste-
leri, mayalan, hoyratlan, Zihni, Siimmani ~

larnu dinledigim zamanlara bak:tyorum; musikinin, nagmenin bir toplulugun hayatmdaki yerini anhyorum. "Baki kalan bn knbbede bir ho~
seda itni" diyorum. Qii.nkii nagmenin kadehi. .
kendisine ibo~altllia.nl sonuna kadar sa;khyor.
Ya.hya Kemal :
''Eski :i:stanbnl bir ut sesindedir"

demisti. Eski Erzurum,
ya~JYor ...
birka~
halk havasmda
VI
Erzurum' a iigiincii gi!fu.;im g~n yaz, tren}e oldu. Yatakll vagonda yolculuk ~iiphesiz ~ok
rahat bir ~ey. Fakat insam garip bir surette etrafmdan 'ayrriyor; adeta eSki manasmda yolculugu oldiirliyor. Bir mermi gibi sagla solla telnas etmek f1rsatlm bulmadan, gideceginiz yere
sadece yammzda gotiirdiiguniiz ~eylerle vanyorsunu:z. Falan istasyondan iiziilerek veya sevinerek biniyorsunuz, bir iba~kasmda esniyerek
iniyorsunuz. !kisinin arasma, kitaplanmzm,
her giinkii en~elerinlzi.n i~den, ancak ~oyle
bir goz at:!la!bilen bir ilri manzara girebiliyor.
Asll yolculugu galiba iigiincii mevki vagonlarda
" :aramak lanm. Gevgek hayatl halk arasmda ara-
58
lll.ak )azJm geldigi gibi... giin:ku orada insa'n)ar~

la en gen4; manasmda temas var. Her istasyonda inen, binen, gidip gelen, aglayan, slZlayan halIan arasmda insan eski yolculugun manasll
yapan hana, lkervana yakl~In19 oluyor. Hanlar,
kervanlar... 1;;te eski yolculuklarm. sihrini yapan ~eyler. .. Bir kervana katllmak, bir handa
gecelemek... Bir gece i~ ta~mak, ertesi sabah ayrllmak, hayabna bir ~ey katmak !?artiy.;
le gormek. .. Binbirgece'den Gil Blas'a kadar, eski bikayeleri bu cins tesadiifler doldurur. Onlar
yoleulugu zengin bir tecriibe haline getirirdi.
Bugiinkii yolculuk ise, ta:bli bu harpte oldugu gibi fevkallade hailer bir yana l:nrak1lnsa, s,adece yerinde iyi kotii bir anket .olabiliyor. Bunun
akm o1Jarak ibiraz olsun yoleulugu y~ayabilmek
i~in umum1 seya:hat ~artlarmm dl$ma !;llkmak,.
yahut rahatmdan feda etmek lazrm.
Bu U\<UIJ:Cii gi<fu?imde Erzurum'u bir oncekine nisbetle daha ~ok toparlanm1~, g~~ buldum. Yaralar d!inrni~ti. Araya zaman 9-eiligigimiz bliyiik yaplCl girmi~ti. insan omrii, unutmamn ~erbetine yiyecek kadar muhtag, Yeni hayatm e~iginde Erzurum eskiyi, bir b2.!?ka alemi
hatlrlar gibi hatrrhyordu. Yaluc1 yaz giinelllinin
altinda parga par~a dokillen, toz haline gelen
eSki ~ebirle yeni yapllan beton binalar arasmdaki farklar 'biiyiiktli. Fakat asll beni sevindiren, dus.iindi.i.ren J?ey, istili.salin zaferi!rl . gordiigfun noktalar oldu. $ehir, iktisadi hayatmm yembas.tan diizenlenecegi gtinleri bekleyedursun;
59
verimli, zengin toprak, koyleri yeniden saglam

bir 9ekilde kurmu9tu. Erzurum ~an;nsmda gezerken rasladrgun, kalm siyah saglam paltolarnn
giymi::;; dev yapili, uzun sakalh, keskin bak19ll
Daphan koyltilerinin ;klyafetinde ve hemen o gece gittigirniz Cinis'te, a1:nl yayla koylerinde bunu farketmemek imkansiZdr.
Oinis'te vaktiyle lastik t~kerlekli paytonla A!?kale'ye gidip gelen Beyleri bulamadrk. Emekle, zevkle yeti:?tirilrnil? gill bahgeleri gibi onlar da kaybolmu!?tu. S.imdi onlarm gocuklan,
koylillerle hemen hemen aym refah seviyesinde
degilse bile, aym gah~a 9artlar1 iginde y~Iyorlardr. Hepsi de topragrnm ba9mda duruyor, giindelik gah9maya katlllyor, ~uval kaldrnp yilldliyor, arabasma at ko9uyor, degirmenin suyunu,
patatesin ekilme vakbm dli9linliyor, harman
maklnesinin yoklugundan, Ziraat Bankas1'nm
ticarl kredi 9eklinden 9ikayet ediyorlardi. Bana
as1l ehemmiyetli gelen 9ey, kendisiyle ugra:?ana
topragm gillmesiydi.
Eski Cinis Beylerinin torunlan, muhacirlikten sonra baba yurtlanna dondlikleri zaman
yemek igin bir guval bulgurla, Kars'tan tedarik
ettikleri :bir gift oklizle i~e ba>laiDI>lardr. Fakat
. topra:k onlara gillmli9tli. On yll sonra koy, (lel?itli ekinleriyle ,hayvanlariyle yeniden kurulmu::;;tu. Koylin "emvali metruke" sini kendileri
ala:bilecekleri yerde onlan topraksiZlara dagrtan Bay Mutahhar'm 'bu ba9andaki payma i9aret etmek isterim. Ciniste onun misafiri idim.
~0
Dlinyada bundan .sevimli insan bulamazs1mz.

Qif~iligi bir macera gibi yas,ryordu. Yorulrnak
nedir bilmiyordu. Nitekim okadar gli~lUkle Cinis'i kurduktan sonra koy, bundan oniki yll once, bir e:;;kiya basklmna ugram.l!?, gene tohumdan hayvana, hal1dan elbiseye kadar ne varsa
b.epsi gitmi9ti. S.u halde benhn gordligum, bes,
evinde radyo ~ahnan koylin hakikl ge~mi:;;i on
yJilllkb.. Gene aym aileden Bay Naci'nin cvinde
bize 9erbet ikram ettikleri zaman gordliglim giimli> taklm bir yana brraklllrsa, gegmis, zamandan ~hlarm hatlrasmda kalanlardan ba:?ka big
bir IDliras yok gibiydi. Bununla beraber koy mesuttu, refahhydr.
Bir ogle yemegini yedigimiz Germel?evi Slrtlannda iki bin hayvan otluyordu. Kliglik bir
kaynak bas,mda halkalanarak gevli;l getiren onbel? kadar oklize baktun: ebediyetlerinde vekarh.
. anzasiZ sessizlikleri iginde dalgm duran Olimposlulara benziyorlardi. Genil:,l govdeleri aras1ra
bir sarsmb gegiriyor, adaleli boyunlar1 geriliyor, ~oyle bir gerdan kJ.r1s;la bir sinegi kovahyorlar, sonra siyab., 1slak ~eneleri gene eski yerine donuyor, gene aym rliya bir iplik halinde
ag,.zlarmda sarklyordu.
Kay toplanmca yeniden geleneklerini, llir. killerini lbulmU9tu. Aym ~am, gece yansma
. dogru, Germe9evi'den lliks lambalariyle inerken
gozlerimin onunde .o eski alem canland1. Anado-lu, gegirdigi tecrli:belerle yikllmaml.s;, sadece ders
a~ti- Do:rt giin siiren 'bu misafirlik bana bix
kUtiiphane ka:dar faydall oldu.
61
..-;;
iki Cinisliden bahsedeyim: bunlardan biri,

diiveninde arslanlarmm gektigi zafer arabasmda bir Semiram.ilj gi.bi kurulmuE? oniki, oniig yaE?larmda kiigiik bir klzcb:r. Etrafmda parlayan,
uguE?an, yiizi.in.ii okayan samanm altm parilbSl
i~inde kumral saglan daha koyu goriiniiyordu ..
Kiigiiciik esmer yi.izii, sanki topraktan yeni gl-
karlimlE;l bir eski madalyondu. Qok temiz, diizgiin olan profili, vekra.rm, giizel!lik ~uurunun ya-ratb~ bir hava iginde yiiziiyor gi.biydi. Diiveninin iistiinde hlg ildrnseye babnadan, dimdik du
ruyor, riizgar etrafmda dolM.hlga viieuduna
daha s1kl sarilan yrrtik entarisinin iginde kiigiik~
olgiilii viicudii, bir midye ;J;:a;bugunun diizgiin in. hlnasiyle, birkag sene sonra .ge~ecek kadmhgm biitiin giizelliklerini mlijdeliyordu. Ertesi
giin ona yolda rasgeldik. Topraga tam bir tesahiip duygusiyle basan ~1plak ayaklariyle son derece ahenkli yiiriiyordu. Duveninden illi~ olmasl kendisini kli~illtmemi.E;lti. Karpuz tarlalan
arasmdaki kligiik yolda aym sade vekarla yamnuzdan gegip gitti.
ikincisi, Mutahhar'm bahgesinin duvarmdan konuE;ltugumuz ihtiyar giftgi idi. Ding,.

br sakalh, giir kaE;lh, uzun boylu bir ilitiyar.
Seksen ya9mda imis.. Ha.la :bir top:rak Tanns1
gibi sagla..>ndl. Elindeki degnege dayanarak bizimle vekarh, sayg:ili kon~tu. Yanmda ortakgi
olarak ga.h9t1W. Mutahhar' a, onun dostlan.
bildigi bizlere gosterdigi saygi iginde, topraga
yakrn oldugu iQin kendini Ta.n:r1'ya dah.a yakm
62
bulmanm l?Uurunu, gururunu duymamak kaabil

degildi. Bu bir ii:tsan degu, adeta ya9h bir gmardl. Bir ara yerden bir avug saman aldl, ellerinin
arasmda bir nezri yerine getirir gibi o~turup
]J.avaya iifledi. Blitiin hareketlerine baktJ.m: tabiatln yetil?tirici kuvvetlerine bir nevi ibadet gibiyd.i. Gelecegimiz gi.in onu ogluyla, torunlariyle
gene aym yerde ~~Irken gordiik. Soyunun sopunun i~inde mesut bir Kitab1 Mukaddes ihtiyarl sand.J.k. Bu iki Cinisli bana insanoglunun sa- ""\..
dece toprakla temas ederek yaptlgr bir annma- )
n.m muzaffer, ilahi mahsulleri gi.bi gelcli.
Cinis'ten igimde, biri 6liimlin e9iginde bekleyen, oburii hayabn kaplsmdan henliz girmi;;
bu iki insanril. bende uyan&rdlW. bir Ylgm dii~iince ile ayrildl.m. Bugi.inlin iskelet taklrtllariyle dolu dlinyas1 i~inde ,dort bir yam kavrayan
y3:11gm ortasmda, onla:r benim !i.!<in yeni bir alemin, asil insanhgm dersini verir gi.biydiler. !nsanlar ga~rrken nekadar mesut oluyorlar! Yaratmanm hlzl, onlan iglerinden kavrayip kurdugu zaman bu ollim makinesi ne giizel, ne temiz bir a.henkle ~liyor! Sonra insanoglu roesut
olunca biitiin varhk nasil de~iyor, ollime kadar her ~ey nasil sevimli, cana yakm oluyor, big
bir ~ey kendi almteri ik.adar lbir insam tartmin
edemez. Qah9an insan, kendi varhgmda hiiklim
sliren bir ahengi blitiin kainata nakleder. Hayatm biricik nizam1 ibu lahengin kendisi olm'ahdlr. Boyle olunca her ~ey de~ir, pel?inde km}:tugumuz muvazeneyi buluruz. ;;tl.phesiz bugii-
63
~t
vn
+
64:
',.,II'
~!\
'
,;f. : ', '
~'
:~I''
l;t_::"_;.
,.
..
..
Tepsi Minare denen eski Selguk Kule;si'uden.;;

la:Y~cakla?- ~dan ~::mce, bu ~aglaru:- ?e~~-sed-~~: . 1916 ::)ubatmda.> ordusunun ricatin~ temin igin
dini kendilern::e temm etmek 1ster gJ.bL, il~ 0 "1: ; gocugu, kadJ.ru sipere kol?an destam ~ehrl seyra.lara yer~el~>er. On?-an sonra_,~a;ra:p ~u:ans,;~,} re bas.ladlk. Onlim,Uzde__, henliz sararmaya yliz
d~vanna ust~~te getin darbele_ri~l mdirdiler.)f~ tutmu9 ekinleri;IW,emsalsiz .bir panorama dailBrr Tann-Dag dan f~;o.ran _:>U g1b!; oradan Ana-.Thj .: galamyordu. Dogu, cenup-dogu tarafmqaJglpdolu'ya, sonr~ _R~~li ~ d?.~ ~ogal~ar.
. j i lak daglar bl_ter bi~mez, kligiik .koyleri,#Th~ agag.. T~ tkinc: donum. ye~de, Milhy&, !J'k su ha:lari;Vle-, enginligi~~ova ba~hyord~.
Mucadele'nm ilk temeh gene Erzurum. da atihr.~ .. Daha uzakta, Anadolu'nun SliT, g-urbet kaynag1
Her fijeye ragmen hlir, mli.stakil YSl?amak irade~it ' olan, halkJmJztn duyufjUlldaki o keskin hfuri.lin
si, ilkin bu ikarrtal yuvasmda kanatl~rur. ~ta-~
belki de srr:nn1 veren liiaglar vardl. Glinlin blitlirk Erzurum'dan i~e ba~lar. 'I'lpkl gk f~eri\~
yiik bir klsnuru orada gegirdik. Sonra..,~ehrin ovaya kansti.kl yerde, Belediye Bahgesi'nin bi!?:ibi:;oradan Anadolu'nun i9ine dogru yurur;,j;;
~radan ba~layarak ~;;umuzu, llri,lleti:J?izin ta-',~'?; . raz otesindeki yeni bir ilkokul binasma girdik.
,.
rihl haklan adma,ye ~tan fe.:tJ1'edenz
,~1 Erzurum talll dururken.gimentonun kullamlma-r.'
Bu iki hadise arasmda_,iki.~parato:!uk ~- !~1 t SJ?-1 -~ir tiirlii akhm almaz. BetO!rl.un getirdigi
.
. rihi, bu tarihin aCI, tath bir YI.:,O'J.D. tecru?esi_l}:\ ~. b1r YJ.gm_ kolayhk meydanda. ~akat bu kolay- ~
\ gin_de meydana ge~ bir -~~~J!et _ruhu, brr mil-~(! " . Irklar, nn:narhE; sanahrun aleyhinde oluyor. He1 let terbiyesi, bir hayat gorlllu, brr .zevk, sanat '!!'; . le_,.mahalli reng1 bozuyor. Erzu~. ta~1, Ankara
-f!v
/ anlaYJ.~I; krsacas1, d~kli? bu~li gehrele~~/i, ' . ta~I -~~bi, gok ~~~ }fer"girdigi y~re abide
\ile biz vanz. Onun igmdir ki.JErzurum Kales! m::: asrlhgi veren 'brr mimarhk malzemes1dir.
\ gezerken; goztimlin ontinde olan 9eylerden gokl;
:i:J.kokul ~, konforlu. Yirmi yll once gor\ba~kalanm gorlir gibi:f9iro Sanki _,vatana gaU-'jb . dligfun Y3:_pllarm hlg birine benzemiyor. BUt~.n
~mdan baklyordum.
-r,
':!
ovayr ayagJ.ruZm altlna seren tla!-:agasmda, eni. Bu_, gok giize~ .bir gundii. ~ once di.m.ileri,.,l: .. s~siz _bir guru, k;~rlr:=:md~ .> ~~ylamruz:_ igtik.
abideleri gezm.4;tik .Sonra; :ehrin so~akl.a:nnda1;1 . Gunel_, bulutsuz, dumduz brr gokte ,oldu~~
ballbo~ dola~mllb.k. Yolda karrlal?tl~ ~-.;~ yerd:en;~>;da:ha~y~ssrl~Inll?, ~vaya kar}l?IDI~ gorudliklarla durup konllfijuyor, iher agik diikkJa.na bl!'v& nen Kop Dag1 ile B~a~ :.UU arasrna rn.n:eye
kere ugrayorduk. Kendimi yirmi yll ,once,_ Er~.~~ h_aZirlalll:yor~l! ~e _gokyt~ ~za~, ne gunezurum' da, Lisede edebiyat muallimi olduguni '.0 . l?J?- :engi deg_!l?~ti; hafif l?.U:. sar~t~n. bal?ka
.;* { hig~:U:: bah alam.eti yoktu. Butun demikhk ovazamana donm~ sandlm.
Nihayet j Kale'ye ~bk. Tepesi ugtugu i~ cj . da Idi,
67
66
+-
:tl~n daglann etekleri giimli:? bir Zlrha ben-)!~ . Birka~ saat once, iistiinde Tiirk tarihinin
Slrrl-
~yen b1r ~izgi:ylle ovadan a:yrlld1. Sonra d~tli- *; :xu yakalad1gmu sandi~ Kale' den lenlik topgu yerde sanki ikiilgelenen bir aydmhk, !bendi ~
lari atihyor, iki gece once Cinis'ten donerken
:rkllrru~ hir su gibi, biitlin .ovay1 kapladi, topra-!~ .-beni dort yammdan sanp yutan yayla gecesinin
~m, ekmin rengini sildi. Goziimliziln oniinde sa-'ly . . . karanhgrm yer yer hava fi9eklerinin ciimbu:?lli
~ec~ 1-~j:kta~ bir gol meydana gelmi9ti. Biitiin o- i~ !/ panltllan YJ.rtlyordu. Bize mesut bir gelocegin
'~ili ur d~~enrnil? gibi parhyordu. Daglar bUI~~ _ miijdesini veren bu l}enligm ruh hafifligirle Erc _ satJ.h lizerinde yiizer gibiydiier. Gune:? ba-ll'i '- zurum'dan aynldlk.
-i
t acag1 Yere
__,_1
d ''' :-yaJJ:.. almca, ovan1n l;lurasin an,,11 :
nunY""'n saran fela~ket yan<nm ir>inde bu
burasmd an k1y1ce
lk t 0 zl
b
1 ""''-de l ~;.1
"'J ~
o
"'
-
tm elke
a.
ar, _ u go ?n us ... u.u: a_ -m t bayram gecesi bana butiin insanhk igin manall
_ Y
nler g1b1 sallanmaga ba~aadllar. Bu bir)'l i - b';,.. ders <Tib1 corundu Bu top ses,eri olfunii de"'1rsam saati d - 1 t k -'-
t 1
d 1 .....
o"'
'"
r1 uze~nde
.: - , toplanan
egr ' e ;:nr rengm u~ ~ per: e e-;i t e-n yasamaYJ. yasamanm zaferini haykrnyorbrr masal muSJkls1ydi. Za-: E( "' '
'
'
ten
gun.,~
k
d
ak"
k
d
h
k
""-
.,_
.
_
..
-du
...
h ld
'-9 -o a ar s - In, o a ar
are -et-SIZ --
~ e _alc;:ahyordu ki -dikkatimiz ister
goz~enmiz~en ziyade kulaklanm1zda toplannu~o.. Hepunizde ~ok derin, GO'k esrarll bir
.
~fYtnm . ~endi diliyle yapbgr biiyiik bir duay1
run ::r ~b1 bir hal vardi. Sonra _bu billur
n _ustu_nde, kendi panlhsmdan daha koyu
11
d~rlen t~maya bal;llad1. Nihayet giine$
~11 a:aslnda kay;bolacag1 zaman, bpkl
. sen omYl bitiren, bir kurtulusun sevincini
s1ya
ih
,
ISlk n
_tilamh notalara ~ok benzeyen son
0
'. ' '
. ugumuz yere 'kadar uzan-ch. Toprak
~n -de:'-n_ iirperdi. Ova yava.f} yav~ saf glimii:;.;l 11 erum~ altm -rengine, ondan da akl;lam saat~
anmn esrnerligine ge!<ti.
c:n
fd
-+-
_0 gece Erzurum'dan ayrlhyorduk. Biz

~~ hlllnlek igin yola g1khglmlZ saatta, 3 Tenunuz
19 un ~ehri 30 Aii!ustos zaferini kutluyordul
.
.
~
68
()9
4
"t
TURK!Sl! 'IRADIDONAL 1\XT TODAY
new units: the interiors within which life is lived, community is

shaped, God is worshiped. But all of these contexts are texts too,
themselves creative entities, and they interlock, the village with
the city, the mosque with the home and market, into a single
collaborative creation. Roads over the plains and up along the
ridge, the village, its mosque and houses and fields, the town, its
streets and mosques, its shops and houses and fountains; the
whole Turkish landscape is an historical text and a single massive
artifact, the creation of its women and its men.
302
10
ERZURUM
EI7:unilri commands the routes through eastern Anatolia. From

ErzUrum highways go east, northeast through Kars into Georgia
and Russia, southeast through Tabriz into Iran, and highways go
west, northwest to Trabzon on the Black Sea, southwest through
Malatya to the Mediterranean, due west through Sivas and An
kara toward ls!anbW.. Its position at a key node in a vast net of
trade helps shape the city's character. At the city center, in the Lala
Mustafa P~ Mosque, designed perhaps by Sinan, there are more
Iranian and Caucasian than Turkish carpets on the flooL
When Evliya <;elebi, a native of Istanbul who made it his
life to travel and write of his travels,came to Erzurum in the seventeenth century, he found thousands of shops, and he found the
residencesofmerchantsfromArabia,Persia,lndia,andChina.The
city, he said, had the third busiest customs station, after Istanbul
andlzmir.
The routes good for caravans and builders of railways are
goOd, too, for amries on the march. Erzurum is set strategically. It
is a major military center for modern Turkey, and history has
dropped the city repeatedly between powers at contention. Southeast of Erzurum, toward Van, men fought one of history's great
battles, named for the frontier fortress of Malazgirt There had
been raids before. Turkish warriors had ripped far into Anatolia;
they had sacked Erzururn and found places to settle in the mountainous east. In 1071 the Byzantines stiffened in the path of inva
sion. The Seljuks, Turks in the line of Oguz, who held Tehran,
Isfahan, and Baghdad, met and defeated them, captured their
emperor, and inaugurated the Turkish phase of Anatolian history.
.:~:.:\~"11;:
303
1>'.
;_;;
i:'.
i'
ERZURUM
Byzantine defenses collapsed. Horsemen dtove to the sea, taking
1znik south of Istanbul, and the Great Seljuk Empire stretched
'I
::.
<;il!e- ~... (125S).

Enunun,Augusti986 . .
I..
The view from the~~.
.:..-
-,,"'
from Central Asia to the Aegean. The Byzantine Empire recoiled.

contracted. Then the Great Seljuk Empire split, and the Seljuks of
Rum, Muslim Tlltks of the Roman realm, of Anatolia, consolidated
their holdings and eslablished their capital at Konya. Between the
Byzantines and the Seljuks lay a wide frontier zone within which
the Ottomans would rise.
Poised to the east, Erzunun holds monuments from the first
great phaseo!Tlltl<ish occupation: pointed stone tombs, two richly
carved theological colleges. Go up to the old kale and look south.
Mountains rise beyond the plain. The city nearby, the section of
the Tabriz Gate, is gathered and dominated, emplaced by the cone
and twin minarets of the <;:ifte Minareli Medrese, built to the order
of Hand Hatun, daughter of the Seljuk sultan of Kenya, in 1253.
Next to the medre;e stands the Ulu Cami, a shadowy series of
vaults in procession upon themihrab-familiar in feel to the Westerner who knoWs the Romanesque. Often repaired, rebuilt in the
1970s, Ulu Cami was erected in Saltuk times, in 1179.
Cumhuriyet Caddesi,Street of the Republic, runs past these
ancient buildings, west toward the city center, while the market
district descends the gentle slope before them, north wand.
Around the market, old houses shape a wide circle. Blocky
and big, with flat grassy roofs, low doors, thick stone walls, and
lofty bays cantilevered on timber, the houses are built to resist
earthquakes and provide bastions against the weather. Erzurum
stands on the high Asian plateau. Winter holds for eight hard
months. The house is the type for the cold northeast; found also in
Bayburt and Kars, it is built for warmth. At the top of the stair, the
sofa (a wide and open space to sit in warmer regions) squeezes
down into a vestibule offering no more than entry to the heated ..
odtllllr. The lower floor widens to embrace stabling and a generous
kitchen, the tarulmmi, with commodious fireplaces. Outside, snow.
piles deep in the narrowstreets.Smoke stands in the icy bright air.
i'
;,.-:- ..
305
B=nmt.
. August1986
TURKISH TRADmONAL AKr TODJ>Cl
ERZURUM
Within the loose curl of residence, the market strikes down

from the old mdJ'ese of Hand Hatun. The market seems new. !twas
destroyed, I was told, by the Russians in the Frrst World War. But
it was rebuilt in the old location, where Evliya <;elebi found it in
the seventeenth century: down from the city's first Islamic center
and alongside the citadel. Its setting and sequence exemplify the
Turkish pattern.
A pair of parallel streets comprise the marke~s first section.
One is for jewelers, the other for sellers of textiles. Running down,
the next section is the coppersmiths' market with an elbowed back
street for smiths at work, a transverse street agleam with copper
and aluminum for sale. After the coppersmiths come the
leatherworl<ers and then spreads the wide market for agricultural
produce.
In Istanbul, before the Golden Horn was made a park, you
could cross from the market for produce and follow a sequence of
!Iades-baskets, leather, metal, wood-until you came to the Covered Bazaar where cloth was sold, then jewelry; oryoumightwa!k
uphill to the Siileymaniye and follow the trail of metal through the
coppersmiths' market into the Bazaar. Then leaving the Kapah
~at either end of the street of gold you would find old mosques.
The hill is less steep, the market smaller and shnpler in Erzurum.
but as in Istanbul you walk uphill from produce through artisans-leather before copper-until you meet cloth and jewehy,
and the market ends at an old mosque, the gateway to commerce
and craft.
The urban market situates the city in the wideness of space,
at once developing connections beyond its region and reinforcing
local affinities.
Bringing goods from great distances, the market creates a
fluctuating pattern of wide association. In Erzurom I found. along
with mechanical devices from the global trove, saddles from Tokat
and Mara!, carved wooden spoons from Konya, and a shop filled
with the same happily splashed, colorful earthenware I had found
at Mlsrr~x in Istanbul. Dogan c;aianur sajd he ordered it from

Bursa and thinks it was made in Bursa and lnego!. The big unglazed jugs he sells were made in Bursa, while the flowerpots and
water pitchers dripping with color were made between lnegoland
BUecik in the mountain village of Kxruk, and the many examples I
found in Erzurom, some of them old, told me thatlrade across the
length of Anatolia in fragile pottery preceded the smooth highways and big trucks of the present
The stock of the dealers in old rugs-Fuat Egilmez at the
head of the street of the textile merchants, Halit Aklai on a
backstreet to the west-bespeaks the wide reach of old trade: there
are carpets from the Caucasus, Iran, and Central Asia, carpets
from all of Turkey and Konya especially, and piles ofkilims woven
on the border of E = and Kars between Oltu and Sa.nkamxi.
Distinctive for their blackish-brown fields and for the naturalistic
rendering of their birds and flowers, the result, Halit told me, of
Russian influence in the early twentieth century, these kilims flow
through the Turkish market with names from the northeastBardlz and~ onto the international market where
they are attributed to places as distant as Bessarabla and Karabagh
in the southern Caucasus.
The market brims, too, with local products. In its first section there are dowry chests, and down the street of the textile
merchants, shops fill with knitted socks and mittens, shepherds'
coats. and long rugs of felt, feedbags and saddlebags woven of
scratchy goat hair. Outside the shop ofHaa Karabey Davutogullan
hangs a gauzy fold of cloth, the eltram worn by manyofE='s
women as an outer garment for warm weather. Hao Karabey
dismantled the neat piles in his double shop while teaching me.
The ehram is woven by women in the city and nearby villages, not
on the loom they use for carpets, but on a small box loom; he called
it a toothed loom. Tmy geometrical motifs brocaded in a neat
spatter, blue on brown most often, green or blue on tan, white on
white, give the piece its name: watch chain, bird's eye, rowboat,
Detail of a kilim.
~.1936
.... ~
(:'
306
307
.,,
. f'~~
r~'
,.
1.
('
ERZURUM
New samowus.
Mu<at Al<s>k:>l and frie!\ds.
~Augost1986.
branch of sweet basil, grain of rice-this last recalling the old

saying that not more than a rice grain of flesh should be revealed
when a woman walks in public. The characteristic feature of the
t!hratn is its clear, muslin-like weave. I have watched women and
men in villages beside the broad rivers of Bangladesh weave
jamdani, cloth so sheer and fine that its brocade seems to float on
vapor. The exquisite cloth of Bengal, traded through Mosul and so
called muslin, was treasured in the West for centuries. Here in
Eizurum, old city of trade, an imitation has become part of the
local tradition. Woven in a long strip, cut and sewn into a square,
the light ehram is placed over the head like a scart it is also called
a head cover. With the seam running horiaontally; the ehram falls to
be folded in at the wais~ hanging below like a skirt, leaving wings
above to gather modestly about the bosom and chin.
On sunny summer days, the lacties of Eizurum sit in the
shady small gardens behind their houses, chatting around a samovar. West of the coppersmiths' mark~ a whole street shines with
stoves and samovars. While samovars are made in Istanbul, their
abundance here, like the abundance of floral kilims, reminds one
of the proximity of Russia; their manufacture here, like the weaving of the ehram, represents a local appropriation.Atwork in their
backstreet, the coppersmiths make and repair the usual useful
utensils-a rounded giigum, the bucket-like bakraq-but the ~t
work of the masters, of men like Omer Yaruk and YaVI.l2 Ozniitepe,
is the alem, a jointed sequence of copper tubes and spheres rising .
through a cone to a crescent and painted gold, the tall ones for the :
tops of minarets and domes, the short for the minberwithin. When ,
I took their pictures, they chose to pose with a tall alem, as country
women pose with their carpets, country men with a sleek cow or
hefty ram. The smiths hunker and lean while the alem, upright and
formally composed like the body of a soldier, stands with them
and for them. As.they explained to me, thealem is their object of
pride for two reasons. It is the most ctifficult to make of all their
creations; it contains the most of themselves, symbolizing their
'
309
TURKISH TRADmONAL ART TODAY
ERZURUM
qualities as designers and masters of technique. In use it is the

most profound, a symbol of their religion.
Horses pulling wagons through thestreetsofErzurum wear
tight decorative necklaces of blue beads, boncuJdar.lkram Pergel
works with his brother Mlniip in the J<anaat Sara~ Evi, one in the
line ofleatherworkers' shops running down from the cOrner where
the tall alemltr stand. I asked lkram to select the best boncuk. The
simplest is a string suspending a muska., a triangular amulet. A
single strand of blue beads, then multiple strands with both red
and blue beads, mark stages of elaboration carrying higher prices.
lkram singled out as en liiks, the most luxurious, a boncuk for a
riding horse that incorporated, like those made by AhmetAblma.z
in Istanbul, a fine beadwork muska.. The beaded birds bobbing
about the word Maallah, the hanging beaded ornaments request
ingGod'sprotection,A!lahKmusun,thefloweredbeadworkpurses
andkeychainssoidinthecoveredmarketsoflstanbul,Mls~r<;:ari151
Boncuk for a wmking horse.

.
lkrnm Pergel, 1986
and Kapah <;:ar$I. and throughoutTurkey, including Erzurum, are

made in prisons, and prisoners make, too, ornaments reading
/vfaallah, which the saTilf mounts at the center of strings of large
beads, red, blue, and yellow, to make the fanciest necklaces for
riding horses. The working horse's boncuk, more like a collar than
a necklace, lacks such extravagance, stilllkram easily chose one as
best It was sturdy. The boncuk might be unbacked, but this one
was mounted on leather, edged in red plastic. The bancuk might
have two strands of blue beads, but this one had four strands of
beads in four colors arranged into a pattern of eight squares, each
subcliv:ided diagonally to contain a pair of colors: green, yellow;
red, blue; yellow, red; green, blue; yellow, red; green, yellow; blue,
red; yellow, green. The first two at each end mirror each other. The
gneen and blue block is flanked by yellow and red blocks. Symmetry is suggested, then it is disrupted by one green and yellow block
to create an offbeat rhythm of alternating colors. Between every
other square, lkram affixed a copper bell to add music to the
horse's motion.
:t
To lkram Pergel, the best is strongest and most complex. It

contains the most it;ilik. Put lkram's boncuk together with other
things made and sold in Erzurum, the alnn and the ehram, and you
are back in the midclie ofTurkish art,surrounded by things useful
and beautiful, fine and strong, plain and ornamented, brown and
gold, red and blue, geometric, symmetricaL technically accom
plished, Islamic.
The market, context for creation and commerce, sells to the
country, and buys !rom the country, both artifacts and raw materi
als. Farmers bring in the produce of the tan hillsides: fruit and
vegetables, animals on the hoof, hides and wooL The sheep of
northeasternAnatolia are dar!(; mounds of their black and brown
wool in Erzurum's market explain simply the dark undertone of
the eastern Turkish carpet. At the edge of the market, to the east,
work the furriers Y....- Mehtar and his son Kemal. Farmers bring
them sheep hides, hunters bring them the skins of wolves and
foxes, deer and wild mountain sheep, which they stretch and
scrape and cure for sale.
Services as well as goods are sold. Among the textile mer

chams onEski Batpa:zan,men make cushions. Inside Bizim Yasb.kc,
the Geyll< brothers, Azi2 and Mensiir, bundle cut reed into reel
angles and cover them with cloth to which they sew machine
woven faces from Gaziantep in symmetrically centered old yashk
designs. If you area weaver from the country who has made a pair
of yasllk covers, bring them toAziz and he will make stiff cushions
to lit them so that they can be lined decoratively along the back of :
: . the sedir.
East of the market where blacksmiths pound out branding

irons and locks and hinges, carpenters repair the solid wooden :
wheels of the carts that rattl~ over the rocks in the country. In a ,
shop in an alley, Hac Canip. S?n~ takes up a wheel that has :
shrunk out of round. His shop is narrow and deep. Wood is.
heaped in the shadows. A power band saw stands back from his
.. workspace, lit by light shed t):u-ough _the door. Hac Canip flicks a
312
313
lkrnm Pe-gel.
August!986
Y-Meh!ar.
Allg:ust !986
1URKlSH TRADIDONAL ART TODAY
switch, the saw whines and rips the top and bottom off the old
wheel, and he splits the bits into kindling. Out of new stock, he
saws two strips which he roughs out with an adze to fit the old
wheel, one above, one below.
Lively Haa Canip sparkles his talk with picks of poetry and
legend.At work. he shifts quickly from big smiles and light chat to
the frown and silence of concentration, moving in the familiar
space of his shop, rummaging out of a pile the top and bottom of
an old wheel, sawed off in some past campaign and larger than the
one that holds his attention now. While he beazs down on his task.
his slim. black-eyed daughter circles, anticipating every need. Giilseren is her name, and she must know the work as he does, gracefully stepping out of the way, then placing into his hand, without
a word of direction, the tool required by the moment
Receiving an auger, Baa Canip bores a pair of holes into
the bottom of the semilunate section of old wheel In a shop like
Mustafa Saigll\'s in Istanbul or Haa Canip's in Erzurum, I delight
in the little tricks of old skill Haa Canip runs sawdust into the
holes and dumps it out; then, placing the drilled piece precisely
over the new one, roughed out and nailed to the wheel's midsection, he taps its top, removes it, and two perfect little circles of
sawdust remain to tell him where to drill down so the parts will
match. Taking up a pair of wooden pins, he reaches into the air,
finds an adze in his hand, and with it he trims off the pins' corners.
Inserting the not-quite-square pegs into the round holes of the
wheel top, then into the matching holes bored through the new
section below, he bumps the wheel on the floor so its parts are
aligned but space remains between them. The show is about to
begin.
Around him while he works, his lovely daughter moves
like a dancer. Hespeaksonlytoremindher to stay away from the
saw. It is quiet but remains a vious presence in the shop. In the
dull light of the doorwF,~ old mari sits on his heels, folded up,
saying nothing. watching.
Giilseren and C.mip San~
....:.:..:.
314
"''
TURJ<ISH TRADmONAL APJ: TODAY
Hao Canip SanAugust!986
Now you, Haa Canip, lift that wheel and hurl it down to
the floor, crack. The report runs along the alley and brings a young
man to the door. There seem always to be young men like !Wn,
handsome with a black mustache, in need of a shave, ready to
watch. Again Haa Canip lifts the wheel, straightens !tis back, his
biceps flexed, and throws it down. "Ha Haa Baba," the young
man shouts, and "Hey HaaBaba," asHaaCanipgrits and gathers
his muscles and sbnns the wheel down again. With every throw
the pins bite deeper into the holes until the parts are seated together. I think of epic heroes lifting stones soch as we cannot
budge and heaving them down in warfare. The young man stands
in the doorway until the pins are placed on the wheel's other side,
and Haa Canip flexes and lifts and slams down, crack. "Ha Haa
Baba"-Pilgrim Father-and "Hey Haa Baba," the young man
shouts, cheering, participating, lifting himself to his toes and driving his fists down with every mighty throw until the parts of the
wheel have been driven together.
The show is over. The :Y?ung man drifts oil, the old man
blinks, the maiden dances, Haa Gu]ip receives a rigid compass,
wrought of iron in the 1om of a pair of elegant horns, which he
twirls from point to point, walking it around the iron rim he had
removed from the wheeL using it to gauge the rim's size as an
American wheelwright would use a traveler. Converting ciraunfere:nce to radius in his head, he sets the points on the horizontal
arm of a compass beam, sticks one point in the axle hole and
scribes a circle on the old and new, gray and white, compound
wheeL then saws it round. Measured and found a shade too big,
the wheel gets its edge adzed until it is two fingers' width larger
than the iron tire. He will put the wheel in the sun to dry. He will
heat the tire to make it expand, then drive it on and nail i~ com-
pressing the parts.
,
Now Haa Canip's job is malcing the wheel smooth. Like
Sabri Acar with his chests, he worried about lit, not look, while he
assembled the parts. Crushed together, thewheel'se!ements present
316
ERZURUM
an uneven surface; the white wood stands above the gray. Sabri's
tool is the plane. Haa Canip's is the adze, in essence the blade of a
plane, mounted on a shalt, swung rather than shoved. So far he
has used a short hand adze to chop out the parts. Now he uses a
sharp loot adze with a long graceful handle, standing over the
wheel on the floor, holding it steady with his foot, swinging,
chipping, shaving until the lace is glassy smooth, the parts seem
cast together out of some woody liquid. Like the calligrapher with
his pen, Haa Canip with his adze reworks his work, blending a
series of speedy acts into impeccable unity.
It is a wonder, says Haa Canip San<;am, how God can lift a
man out of America, and r:;my him across the length ofTurkey and
through the streets of Erzurum, and bring hiin into exactly this
shop so that men from the ends of the earth can know the unity of
friendship.
317
11
KoNYA
-Ankara,
6
0
Er.zU.YU.fl'"l,
K_onya,
Turkey. On the relief map above, the unshadecl.land lies below 200 meters, theslippled between 200 owi
1500, the blackened rises over 1500 meters above sea level.
Anatolia: mountain ranges in parallel bands run east and west,

pulling apart so they swing north and south of a vast drc:ular
plain. the floor of a lost sea that in drying up left an enormous
puddle at the center: Tuz GOlii, the Salt Lake. North and south,
over high ridges, lie the Black Sea and the White Sea. Westward,
ridges and valleys run to the Aegean, so that cities at the valley
ends control the interior, while others guard the northward crossings into the West <;anakka!e in Asia, Istanbul in Europe. Eastward over a longer course, the ridges run for the Caucasus, affording an overland route along their grain from Sivas through
Erzurum. North of the Salt Lake stands Ankara, capital of the
Republic. To the south stands the city of the plain, Kenya, the
ancient !conium.
Of all the cultural layers laid down through the immensity
of history to create the Anatolian palimpsest, one-late in the
sequence, thin butdlstinct-is anchored atKonya. This is the layer
of the thirteenth-century Seljuk.s of Rum, marked on today's landscape by mosques of many columns called Ulu Cami in Divrigi,
Eski Malatya, andAfyon; by splendid theological colleges in Sivas
and Erzurum; by caravansaraies set a day apart along the old
trade routes. The primary point in the wide Seljuk network is the
AiaaddinMosque, long abuilding and completed during the reigu
of Sultan AJaaddin Keykubad, which ended in 1237. The mosque
stands in the middle of Konya, surrounded by a rich collection of
architectural works from its period. It would seem to follow that
the Ali.addin Mosque would center the old city within the city, the
city of the artisans, as Eski Cami does in Edirne at one end of
319
KDnya
j_
ISTANBUL
FETIH
CEMIYETI
ISTANBUL
ENSTITOSO
NE$RIYATI ' 51
Samiha Ayverdi
iBRAHiM EFENDi
KONAGI
Bogazici University Library
.' . lllllll~lllllllll
11\llll\11 llllllllll ~ .
39001103312677
BARA MATBAASI- ISTANBUL, 1964
)t]
I~
~~
.i 9
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iBRAHiM EFENDi
Meclis-i Miliye Reisi !bd.him Efendi'yi, vaktinde kim tammazd1?
karde~i Hilmi Bey'in toronu .ise dart
ya~mda bulunuyorlardl. Oyun ve eJ:lence zamanlann1, biiyiiklerin yanmda ge~irmekten ho?Ianan bu kii~iik k1z da, annesinin amcas1 o,lan
1brahim Efendi'yi herkes gibi tamyordu. Hatta biraz herkesten de
fa2la.
Efendi, devrinin miihim simalarmdand1. Onun i~ de kendisiyle
dostluk, a~inal>k ve ahbaphk kurmak, hatta kom~uk edebilm.ek bir
~eref sayilird.l. Sonra da, hem ailenin en ya~lls1, hem de varllk ve dirlik bakmundan en hatJr1Is1 olmas1, ~evresinin akraba ve ~ina halkaSinl, sun'i ve zorlama ibir alaka ve ~ yan~mda tutard1.
!briihlm Efendi, kans1 oldiikten sonra evlenmemi~, odallklannm
silik ve ~hsiyetsiz mevcudiyetleri, kadm mevzuunda ona yetip de
artnu~tl.
Esasen efendi, -hangi sahada olursa olsun, kar>Sinda kuvvetli ~ah

siyete asia taham.mii.l edemezdi. Ne i~ ,hayatmda ne dostlan ve akrabalan arasmda kendisini a~, d~ce ve kararlanna mukavemet
eden varllklann tutunmasma meydan vermez, hemen bir kenara itiverirdi. Ama buna ragmen gene de yan sayg1 yar1 korku ile tahammiil etmek zoronda kald1g1 kimseler de yok degildi. Bunlann ba~mda,
kendisinden on ya kiisiik olan karde~i Hilmi Bey gelirdi. Hilmi Bey,
agabeyisinin dillere destan serveti ve akillar durduran saltanatl1 ya~Yllil kar~ISlilda ezici bir siikutla susar, buna ragmen, ailenin ve
an'anenin gerektirdigi hiirmet ve itibarda da kusur etmezdi. Ancak,
iki karde~in tamamen ayn istikamet t:ll<ib ed~ hayat prensipleri
!brahim Efendi'yi, kendisinden on yrl sonra dogmu~ olan bu kii~iik
karde~in kar~1smda hesapll, hi.zall, 9ekingen ve hatta saygll1 bir tuturna zorlardl.
Hil!ni Bey, karde~inden sade ya~ca kii~k de~il, mevkice de, !b 1909 senesin<fe o; seksen,
~
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rahim Efendi'nin maiyetinde Vezne Ba~ Mumeyyizi alan, orta halli

bir istanbul efendisiydi. Buna ragmen meslek ve cemiyet hayatmm
muhte~em ve magrur ibriihim Efendi'si, ya~9a da varhk9a da kendinden kat kat a~aj!1 clan diiriist, mert, tok gBzlii, tok sozlii Hilmi
Bey'in manevi basklS! altmda ezilmekten adeta y1lard1. Cyle ki hayatmm hem en de tek gururu ve gayesi alan biiyiik servetini, karde~inin kar~lsmda utamlacak bir ay1pm1~ gibi hissettigi zamanlar olur;
onun yanmda bu hesaps!Z varll[;m adetii aziib1m 9eker ve zenginliginden soz etmemeye bilhassa dikka t ederdi.
lbrii.him Efendi'nin servetine mu,ii.zi olarak, mesloj!indeki iktidar ve niifuzu da bir geq;ekti. 0 kadar ki Maiiye demek, bir mii.nada
!brahim Efendi demekti. Zira devletin bu son derece nazik ve in~
killden mii~kill makamma nii.zJrlar gelip gider; -her kriz, her mali huhran. bir nii.z1n iskemlesinden yere y1k1p bir ba~as1n1 aturtur; boyIeee de neziiret kaltugu -bir ba~ahr bir dolar, ama tecriibesi, bilgisi
ve kabiliyeti ile Devlet hazinesini parmag,nda aynatan !brii.him Efendi, azametle yerinde oturmakta devam ederdi. KadJYa millk ohnayan
mahkeme, ii.deta ona kayd-1 hayat ~artlyle bagll .gibiydi. Pek tabii ki
bu arada, imparat-orluk Ulkelerine dag1l.ml~ alan defterdarlar, muhase_
beciler ve mal mudiirleri ordusunu kmuldatan ve idare eden ip u9lar1
da gene onun elinde t-oplamr; onun emrinin ve keyfinin kar~1smda
elpen9e dururdu. !~te bu bir taraftan siyasl bir taraft-an idari hakinliyetinin rnakamma perginledigi ibr~im Efendi, haklkaten bir baluma
Maliye demekti.
1-brahim Efendi'yle Hihni Bey ve k1zkarde~leri Baise Hanun'1n

babalaN, yeni~eri ortalar1ndan bir.ine bagh Gediz Derebeylerinden
tiftik taciri Ali Bey isminde varllkh ve namuslu bir kimseymi~. !kin"
ci Sultan Mahmut, ocagm lagvma karar verip o amansiiz yeni!;eri
l<~ram ba~d,_g, zaman, tavan aralarmda saklanmak suretiy1e can1n1
zor kurtarml~. Fakat ba~1w klllgtan kurtarrnak, ecelden amii.n bulmak
mtd!r? N.itekim Oliim, bu gen> adamt giiniin birinde rahat do~egmde
yakalad!g1 zaman, biiyiik oglu lbrarum onsekiz, Jaz, Baise on, kligiik
oglu Hilmi sekiz ya!nda imi~ler. Ne hikmetse ;babarun serveti kiigiik"
leri S!Jlflp gegerek, biitiin mal ve miilk, konaklar ko~ler, gidip devlet ku~ gibi buyiigiin ba~ma konm~. Keza, F.lriize 15ultan'la Hekimog!u Ali Pa~'xun kl.z1 clan analarmdan kalan mal ve sult-amn vaklflarJ da, ayn1 sekmeyi yaparak, gene ibrahim Efendi'ye intikal etmi.
Ekber evlact olarak kendini ailenin -tek vansi kabul.eden
lbrarum
.
'
Efendi, niMyet bir atiiet .edasiyle, bu iki tarafu ser:vetten Hilmi Bey'e
blr ev, klzkardeine de bir miktar esham vermekle adilane bir taksinl
yapt1gma kendini inand;nru~ ve sonuna kadar da karde~lerinin haklanm odemi~ hami agabey tavrml muhafaza etmitir.
Hilmi Bey sonradan da bu gegmi hikii.yenin hesabJDI kurcalamaml ve agabeyisine Ol!;ii.lli sayglSJnl gilstermekte kusur etmemi~. Hatt:!i
bu kii~iik karde~. ibrahim Efendi'nin serveti dalga dalga kabar1p
daglar gibi )'lglldlk!;a da, bunlann, yolunu alrlP karde~inin kiipiine
akm.1~ ne rnene bir varlrk oldu~unu da ara1,'trrrnam.l~tlr.
Ne ki !brahim E'fendi, muhitin.in gozlinde mevki ve serveti olgiisiinde biiyiidiik>e biiy\irke11, aym varhk onu, kardeinin nazannda
oldugu yerden bir arpa boyu yiiksaltmi~ olmuyordu. Bunun igjn de
kli>iil!iin biiyiige kart olan bu yazJsJz, sozsiiz, ima ve iii.retsiz istignasJ, en a>Jk t:i.riz ve tenkitlerden daha ag,r daha sert diiiiyordu.
Fakat !brahim Efendi i<;in anlamazlJktan gelmek ve hi<; degtlse keyfiyeti kardeiyle ortalanna al1p a<;lk bir !;ekime mevzulll yapmamaok
da kar say1hrdL ~ayet gliniin birinde Hilmi Bey, agabeyisini bu tiirlii
bir suale muhatab tutup, 'U, gU.nden gi.ine kaba:ran servetinin artl~
yollanm -bir bildir! diyecek elsa ne cevap verecekti? Ho, oldu olas1
kendisini manid~ siikutiyle ezmi alan Hilmi Bey, cepheden ve bu
tiirlu a>lk bir tarizde bulunmazdL Amma farz.-1 muhal, taktigini degitirip bir s1k~!Jracak olsa, imendifer kumpanyalanndan, harici
istikrazlarm arac1llgmdan gelen komisy,onlarm, defterdarlann, malmiidiirlerinin vihiyet muhasebecilerinin !mparatorlugun dort bucag,ndan akan ikrarnlarm1 m1 soyliyecekti? Ho~, soylese de saklasa da,
kendisi kadar ak1lli bir adam olan kardei, agabeyisinin biitiin ince
hesaplanm ve mali kaynaklanm zaten avucunun i>i gibi blliyardu.
Fakat her eye ragmen, cetttiyet geleneklerinin -biiyiige sayg1 teac
miilii, iki karde~ arasmdaki ipi kopmayacak bir ayarda gevek tuttugundan, ibrahim.1:fendi'nin muhte~em kana~ ile Hilmi Bey'in miitevazt evi, fikir Ve :kanaat aynllg,na ragmen, dia karl -birbirini tamamlJyan ve birbirine her koesinden baglJ bulunan iki yakm akraba
evi. manzaras1 arzederdi.
Dftima :bu iki ev arasulda bir gidi~-geli~ bir harel\:et ve :habe:;-le;;me vaziyet{ vard1. Hilmi Bey'in kii!;iik torunu da -bu devamh gitgeller ortasmda, fih-ri sorulm!yacak, isteyip istemiyecegine dikkat
edihniyecek ya~ta bir gocuk olarak, amca efendinin konag1 i!e kendi
ev1eri ari.slnm sad!k yolculan meyamnda idi.
Fakat kii9iik klZ, bu biiy\ik amcadan pek ho~lanmazd1. Hemen -her
ihtiyarla aralannda kurcluveren yak1nhk ve sJcakhk bag1, bu heybet-
li adamla kendi arasmda bir tiirlii teessiis etmemi, biiy!ece de hi~ bir
zaman kaynaamamllardl.
Koesinde, yalmz bir ailenin del\il, koca bir devletin idarecisi azametiyle oturan bu muhteem ve yakllkh ihtiyar da, kardeinin torununu pek sever gOrtinmezdi. Esasen onl.lll yak1ndan uzaktan~ :iilesinden~ iinden, e~inden ve dostundan hemen de sevip baglanmr~ oldugu
bir kimse yoktu. Sevmeyi bilmek, sevebilmek de bir hiiner, bir mutlu
Allah vergisiydi. Ne 9are ki ibr:i.him Efendi'nin dagarc1g1 bu kismetten nasipsiz yaratllnutl.
Kii~iik lma gelince belki tek bildigi ve bayat1 boyunca da tek
bilecegi, alP taan kopiiriip coan bir muhabbetti. Fakat dokillecek
yer arayan bu ezelden ~ahlanm1~ sevgi, ihtiyar arncanrn yanrnda kasrllr; ne yiireginde bir haz ne dudagxnda bir tcbessiim ne de dilinde
bir kelam olup kendini giisterirdi.
!htiyarda ve ihtiyarhkta tiikenmek iizre olan iimriin ~ehreye i~le
digi bir derin .giizellik ve asil bir mana vard1 ki kii~iik k1z her zaman,
alevi hatt;l. koru gegmi~ bu klv1knnl1 kiile rahat rahat sokulup 1sm1r
ve hattii eeleyip, derinlerinde kalml son ate pargalanm yiize ~lkar
makla mes'ut olurdu. O.nun i~;in de, masallm bilmecesini dinlemedigi, bata kendi biiyiik babas1, kiirkiiniin am h1rkasmm igine girmedigi il1tiyar, bah~e sularken giil keserken pelerinden gitmedigi yal1
komU, !;Olujllmu ~ocugunu, davannt tarlasml sormarug1 emektar ah~l
ve Uak yoktu.
lhtiyar demek, yo! alml~, diinyaya gozii doymu adam demeltti.
Ge<;ip tiikettigi yol boyunca da hemen daima fazlalJklarlnl, ay1plarm1,
noksanlanm allp, yerine giizellikler, feragatler, olgunluklar koymu
olmahyd:J. Halbuki 1briihim Efendi, fethedilmez bir gurur kal'esi igjne
kendi kendini hapsetmi gibiydi. N e kendisi d1ar1 91kabilir, ne de
kimse .bu sarp kal'e bedenine urmamp i>erisini gozliyebilir, helc
zaptetmek kimsenin hat1rmdan ge!;lnezdi.
!bra,him Efendi'de, Hilmi Bey'in torununun as1l yadlrgadl)l:l, hayiita kar1 takmd:Igl serke tav1r ve yaama hususunda gosterdigi direnme idi. Seksen sene, ona asia ihtiyarhjll kabul ettirememiti. ayet
kii,Uk k!Z, ibr:i.him Efendi'ye ihtiyarhk kondurup yah bir insan olarak gorebilseydi mutlaka onu severdi. Zira ,evresinde buldugu veya
tabayyiil ettigi eski zaman ihtiyarlarmm -hemen hepsi de, sanki yah
olarak dogmu bir rahathk i~indeydiler. Kocanll ohnalann1 kabul etmek her birine, zafere ermi bir rnucahit haZZl bag!larnlll.
!br:i.him Efendi konagmm protokol emirleri ve yasaklan d:Imda

kalan rumre, ancak yakm akrabalan idi. Gerek Hilmi Bey'in oglu ve
kJ.Zl gerek Baise Harum'm ~olugu ~ocugu konal\a gelir gelmez harem
kaplsmdan girerek dogruca efendinin odasma ~1kar, el iiperek bir kenara otururlard1.
!brahlm Efendi'nin kii~iigii, Hilmi Bey'in biiyiigii olan Baise Hamm, agabeyisinin nazannda, ai!eye kenanndan iliIIlesi yetip de artacak fazladan bir insan olup kalrnam1~ olmas1ru, kii~k karde;;ine
bor~uydu. Zira Hilmi Bey'in, saf ve yava~ bir kadm olan ablasma
giisterdigi itibar, alaka ve efkat, ibrahim Efendi'nin konajllnda da
onu s1raya koymll ve hala hanimh)l:lm teyit ettirmiti. Onun i!;in de
Baise Hamm, agabeyisinin konajllmn imtiyazh ziyaret~ileri arasmda
bulunur, bilhassa gece yatlsma geldii;!i zamanlar hizmetine bir veya
iki halayJ..k tahsis edilir; sofrada ve salonda d:llma en itibarh yer
kendisine giisterilirdi.
Pek yakmlan d10mda, her akraba ve bilhassa her misafir i!;in !briihim Efendi'yi gormek o kadar kolay ilerden degildi. Bilhassa e10ke.k
ziyaret~iler ism selamhk dairesinin terifat ve merasimine katlanmak bir za:rUretti. Kad:Jn misafirlere ise efendinin seliimma nail olmak daha kolay sayilird1. Zira giiniin muayyen saatinde !brahim
Efendi, kona)l:lmn kadm ziyaret>ilerine bizzat kendini giisterirdi.
Bu, daba ziyade geceleri olurdu. Bamda kahpslZ Aziziye fesi, sutlnda
kiirkii, belirli kabul giinleri ve bilhassa geceleri, selamhh-ta.n Mreme
ge9erek, agzma kadar dolup taan salonun kaplSllll a!;ar ve k1zlarmm
misafir~erini gayet niizik ve .galiin bir erkek ediisiyle seliim!ard1. Efendinin gelecegi saati bilen han1mlar ise, muayyen zaman yaklamca
iideta heyecanlarur, kukulu ve sayg1h bir bekleyile bu gii!iimser
yiiziin goriinmesini beklerlerdi. Kap1 a91hr a!<1lmaz da hep birden
ayaga h-alkarak, yakllkh ve kibar ev siihibinin, bir eli kap1 tokmagmda bir eli pervazda, tebessiimle kendilerini seliimlayLp siiziliine
bayran olurlardL
Ibr:i.him Efendi bu mutad nezal<et ziyaretini hi~ axrmaz fakat
hi!; bir zaman da tesbit ettigi hududu aarak, iseri bir ad1m fazla at1p .
ii uzatmazd1. Zira herkese, her eye karl mesaieli, ihtiyath hattii
biraz da evhiimh olan !br:i.him Efendi'nin, gens, giizel ve seskin kadmlara bezledecegi alrl iltifat veya onlardan her hangi birine giisterecegi yakmhk, kendisini bir daha U l<aplYJ a!;lp o bir demet ~i,egi
tek nefeste koklamak zevkinden dahi mahriirn edebilirdi.
Efendide ajllr basan druma manug1 idi. Hisleri ise, zindanda ~iirii
m~ mahkii.mlar mis:ili. bu zodu mantlgm elinden kurtulup keyfince

8
buyruk yiiriitemezdi. Bu sebeple de !briihim Efendi i!;in, kona~nda
toplanan kadm!ara, rengiirenk bir !;i~ek tarlasma bakar gibi ~oyle bir
goz atmak her ne kadar ho~ ise de, -bu !;lc;eklerden herhangi birini
derlemek o kadar tehlikeliydi. 9u halde boyle bir te~ebbiisii akhndan dahi ges:iremczdi. Zira onun i~in rniihim olan~ itibari, debdebesi
ve mevkii idi. Bunlardan birini bozmaya miituf hareketler ise, cennetin hfuileri ic;in dahi olsa, budalallgm ta k'endisi demekti. Zira
efendi ic;in kadm, kadmd1 i~te. Aralannda ne bir sec;me yapmaya deger, ne romantik heyecanlara mevzu olabilir, ne de ugrunda feragatler, fedakiirhklar ihtiyar olunurdu.
Kadm, ~iiphe yok ki ev ic;in liizumlu ve i~e yarar bir nesne idi.
Altmp sattlan e 0yalar gibi ona, bir maddeden ote b<i.ha bic;mek aktlstzhk olurdu. Bu yiizden de, en zarifinl def:il, en dayamkhsmt aramak; en incesini degil, en rahatlm bulinak; en pahahsma degil, en
ehvenine gitmek liizlmd1. Onun ic;in de !brlihim Efendi hayat1 boyunca kad1n1, giizel, ~uh, zeki, alui~h ya da saf 1 durgun, silik diye iki ayr1
smlfa bohnemi; biraz yiiziine baktlan oldu mu odasma altve~ti.
1brahtm ":Efendi seksen y~ma ragmen dine;, heybetli yakt!;lkh ve
bilhassa son derece zekl bh~ adamd1. Yalmz, mavi gozlerinden kandil
kandil dokiilen bu zeka, ,biraz istihza, biraz kiic;iimseme, biraz da kurnazltkla melezle.ip yiiziine acayip bir sogukluk verirdi. Daha dog~
rusu, bu birbirine dolantp kab~arak bulanan <;eitli hislerin, yiiziine
iliive ei:tig'i karanhk c;izgiier, ashnda giizel bir adam alan ibriihim
Eiendi'yi c;irkinle~dirmezse de kar~tsmdakine bir !;el<ingenlik bir giivensizlik telkin ettigi i!;in boyle goriiniirdii. Bu yiizden, efendinin
yamnda en yakmlan dahi ralilltc;a konuamaz, i~erini ac;1p dertleemez; hele hele istek ve ricalar1m a~lkca soyliyemez, mutlaka bir ara-
cmm tavassutuna ba~ vururlardt.
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Bu arac1 da c;ck d~fa, Hilmi .Bey'in kans1 H;llet Hamm olurdu.
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HAlEY HANIMEFENDi
tbriihim 'Efendi'uin c;o,k erken hammstz kalan kona~mn ve kiic;iik y~ta anastz kalan iki 'k1Zlnm idaresi, ba~mdan beri bu dirayetli
yenge hantmm kontroliinde olarak yiiriidiigu ic;in Hiilet Hamm,
efendi nezdinde adeta bir emniyet siipabt \-azifesi goriirdii. Onun naztm ve hakim karekterinin tath sert murakabesi, yalmz ibriihim
Efendi tara:fmdan degil, konagm her ferdince kabul edilmi:; ve yenge
harumm kendi evinden uzaYJp bu konagm i~lemedik 'koesini btraknuyan tesir ve nii:flizu, bilhassa 1brahtm Efendi'nin ktzlan i<;in giivenilir :bix ana ve hfuni kuvvet olmutu.
Fakat, a~1kca .itiraf etmemelde beraber, bu aktlh :fikirli ve tok
sBzlii yenge, as1l ibrahim Efendi i!;ill bulunmaz bir nlmetti. Zira ne
tam evin i<;inde ne de tam dt:;mda oluU, i:;te bu tath mesafe, bir c;ok
i<; stklct ihtilaf!ann, gec;imsizliklerin, basktlarm ve hoIIutsllzluklarm
yolunu keserdi.
Hiilet Hamm'm kuvvetli ahsiyeti, uzaktan dah:i tesirini projekte
edebilir bir kudrette oldu~ ic;in, kendi <;alls1 altmda bulundugu zamanlarda bile golgesi, diiima Ibrahim Efendi'nin kona~nda idi ki bu
mesafe!i ve muraka:beli mevc11diyet, hem konagm ahengini temin eder
hem de yenge han1m ,bir l<abus degil, bir koruyucu melek gjbi, konakla efendi arasmdaki mii~killlerin taleplerin ve arzulann c;iiziililp baglandtgl bir stgmak olurdu.
M1s1r Vekili Hac> Silleyman Aga'nm torunu olan- Halet Hanim
da, kocas1 Hihni Bey gibi, aile servetinden hlssesine ancak mahrumi-
yet isabet eden bir kimse ohnakla beraber, ic;timai seviye ve gorgii
tasnifinde istanbul aristo!--.rasisinin sayg1, allka ve giiven millraklannda:t) birini tekil ederdi.
Gerc;i Halet Hanun, 'dede mahrumu olarak, o biiyi1k servetten paYJTI1 alama= bir kadm idi ise de ailenin manevi miras1 kendisine-comerl!;e intikal etmi bulunuyordu: ' <;ocuk ya~nda kaybetti!1;i 'c;ok
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efendi ~ok miitev.iz! ve s.ok gijzcl bir kadm alan gene; annesinden
edeb, erkan, ev kadml1g1 ve el hiineri aim!, fal<a t as1l biiyiik annesi
Zekiye Hammefendi'nin manevi mirasc1s1 olm~tu.
M1S1r Vekili Hac1 Siileyman Aga'nm kans1 olan Zekiye HanJmefendi, ger~ekten miistesna bir kadmdl. Bilgili, akilll ve faziletli idi.
ustelik efsane mahluklanm imrendirecel< muhteem bir giizelligin de
sabibi idi. Uzaga ileyen zekiis1 ve ihatah zihin yapJsi, !stanbul'da dilden dile gezer ve bildik bilmedik ciimle a!eme parmak ISirtird!.
g~~ kadm da Sirtmda yeldirme, bamda ortii, sadrazaml kabul ede-
rek paanln karar vermekte tereddiit ettigi meseleler iistiinde konuUrlar ve Zekiye Hammefendi miiliihaza ve miiabedelerini ~ekinme
den soylerdi. Bu fahri miiavire ac;Ilan maslahatlann, devlet ve cemiyet ilerine temas eden ciddl meseloler oldugu, Hiisrev Paa - Zekiye Harumefendi ahbabl!gmm en dikkate deger sahnelerindendi.
Klasik devlet adann tipinin en cebbar ve dili t1rnakh orneklerinden biri olan Hiisrev Paa, Tanzirnat ruhuna perviisJZca meydan okuyan bu tecriibeli fakat son derece haris adam, an'anevi devlet ve idareciligin koruyucusu olarak, belki de muha!efette c;ok yararl1 olurdu.
Fakat kendini devlete degil, devleti kendine harcarnak yolunun hatal! bir yolcusu olmas1 ile, bilgisinin zeka ve tecriibesinin semeresi
mernlekete, gerekli fayday1 teminden uzak bulunuyordu .
Bogazic;i'nde Ya!Ilar
ZEKiYE HANIMEFENDi
M1s1r Vekili'nin Fmd1lth'daki sahllhanesi Sadrlizam Hlisrev Paa
yaltsiyle hem-hudut bulunuyordu. Zehiye Hammefendi'nin dirayet
ve akl-1 selimini duymu olmak ic;in ise, komu olmaya h;!icet yoktu.
Uzak yakm muayyen bir seviyenin mensuplan i~in Hae1 SU!eyman
Aga'mn gen~ ve gtizel kans1, belirli bir ;;ohretti.
Hiisrev Pa;;a ise, yal! kom;;usu olmaktan otllrii aynca imtiyaz!J. da
sayllabilirdi. Zira liizum gi:irdllkc;e komusu Hac1 Siileyman Aga'mn
yal!s1na haber g5nderir ve Zekiye Hammefendi'den miilakat ister,
Devir, oyle bir doniim noktasma gelip dayanrru\1 ki, siyasi iktisMi ve miili krizlerin el ele ,-erip batan-kara ettigi devlet gemisini
seliimet sahiline gi:itiirecek bir merkeze en fazla ihtiyac; duyuldugu bir
zamandi. Yeni goriilere, yeni bulu.,<lara madde ve teknik esas1na gore ayarlanmaya dogru giden bir diinya karlS1nda, yerinde sayan devlet ve cemiyet biinyesine c;eki-duzen verecel< otorite, keke bir HU.Srev Paa olsayd1. Halbuki o da, mensub oldugu klik de, kemikleIDi
kliisik olc;iilerin dort duvan arasma s>k1IP kalmi a1rl muhiifazakarlardi. Halbuki bu Sirada, milli ve tariM esaslara k1yas1ya balta sallayan Tanzinlat zibniyetinin kar~1smda, tarilii mantaliteden hareket
eden Uurlu, realist ve uyamk bir mukavernet cephesinin mevcudiyetine ne buyiik ihtiyac; vard1.
Esef olunur ki memleket, ink1lap~Il.tgm da muhafazakarhgm da
felsefesini yapabilecek ilmi ehliyeti haiz, ustiin insanlardan mahrumdu. Koca HU.Srev Paa'ya da, bunlardan biri demek caizdi.
Paa, M1s1r vruisi iken Kavalal1 Mehmed Ali Paa'nm oyununa
gelerek idliri bir hezimete u~ffil ve istanb\ll'a camm dar atm1\l.
MlSir eyruetini ba~J~bozuk asl<erden temizlemek istiyordu. Bu i i~in
de sergerdelere imkanlar tan1m~; fakat ulufeleri geciken ibu sergerdeler de, Kavalalt'nm tahrildyle ayaklamp Defterdar Rec:ii Efendi'yi
oldurmiiler; Htisrev Paa ise ka>maya muvaffak olmutU.
lte Mehmed Ali Paa ile Hiisrev Paa arasmda sonuna kadar devam edecek olan gayz ve kinin balangtc! bu vak'a idi. Nill<i.yet ylllar sonra da, Hiisrev Paa'mn sadarette kalmasl, MlSir mes'elesinin
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halline engel goriileceginden, Kavalah, bu defa da paanm mevkiinden diimesine sebep olacaktJ.
Kanuni Sultan Siileyman'm sadr.lzamlarmdan Lutfi Paa, Asainame'sinde devlet adam! karekterini Cizerken U isabetli tavsiyede
bulunur: "Devlet adam1 Dlanda gayz, kin menfaats:ilL~ bulunmaya ...
Her ne ilerse kendiiniin de gil, devletinin itilasm1 gozete ... "
Oras1 oyle ... lakin nerede camm kiitleye nezretmi o biiyii.k insan? Dikkat edilecek olursa dev!etlerin milletlerin yiizlerinin giildiig;; devirler, hep toplumun menfaatine balnJ koyan merkez insanm i
baWda oldugu zamanlara rastlad1g1 goriilmez mi? Osmanl1 !mparatorlugu'na da yeryiiziinde bir ei olmayan fiituhat ve medeniyet asl.I'larlm a1;an, hep o seri hlinde gelip ge1;mi biiyiik insanlar degil midir? Ama kinleri garazlan iliklerine ilemi bu Mehmed Ali Paa'lardan, bu Hiisrev Paa'Jardan -bu Ahmed Paa'lardan o, hesabm1 Allaha
verircesine memlekete hizrnet eden hUkiimdarlarin vezirlerin im2runi
ihlasm1 beklemek ne abes ...
Yine koca Hiisrev Paa'mn in tikamc1 politikas1 deg;J. midir ki,
Derya Kaptaru Ahmed Paa'y1, sadrazannn h1m1ndan konkutarak Ml.SJ.r sergerdesine iltica ettirmi ve emrindeki donanmay1 da diimana
teslim eyletmitir? Amma bu ite Hiisrev Paa su1;lu da Ahmed Paa
mazur ve masum mu say1hr? Kendi ba~m kurtarm.ak i~in ba yemek,
siyasi namus ve i~imal ada!etten nasipsiz kalmi gafil ve nadanlann
kan .olail beri degil midir ki memleket oksiiz, bikes ve saitibsiz kalakalnutlr.
gotiirmez adamm sert, hattii kanl1 tutumu iistiinde belki zaman za.
man bir yumuama bir geveme yapmill. Fakat iki padiaha hizme!
eden ve en yiiksek devlet kademelerinde ~;ahtlktan sonra nihayet
sadarete gelen bu adamm, siyasi tarihimiz i>indeki ilhsiyeti tahlil ve
izah edilirken, tarih. Zekiye Hammefendi diye bir golge tamm1yacak ve gen~ kadm da, ger~ekten bir gOlge gibi, zaman ve mekan
sisleri i!;inde silinip gidecekdi.
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!.ste zaman za!Ilan kendi yahsmdan Haq Sii!eyman Aga ya!1suia

ge1;en bu kurnaz ve umur gormii 0 devlet adam1, gene ve ferasetli
kom:;usunun tavsiye, tek!if hattii.. tehditlerine muhatab olmaya can
atard1. Haks1z da degi!di. Zlrii. Zekiye Harumefendi'nin es~arlt f<iraseti, sihirli 'konumaSl, miistesn:ii bit Alla-h vergisi clan zek:iisiyle
yarrm saat babaa kalmak, hem benzeri olmaym1 bir zevk, hem de
ah2ne bir nimetti.
Uzak ve yakm tarih, ka!Iplar h:iiline dokii!iip, degimez metinler
olarak ilml cehresini a!1rken, bu tariM gercekler iistiinde miiessir
olmu lrulis faaliyetlerini ara~tJrmak hemen de hi~ hatlr1m1za gelmez. Ho gelmi~ olsa da, pek bilmeye imkan yokhir. Boylece .de
gerek diplomasi gerek askerlik gere:k sosyal t:lrih kervanma yo! .gosteren .eller, dhlma me!;huJ ka!Ir.
Hiisrev Pa~a'nm M1s1r Veki!i. ya!Isma gidi~ gelileri de buaka'
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Gercekten de, paanm ser.t niyetlerini yumualml, menilleri

miisbete _cevirmi, ikaz etmi, ihtarlar yapmi alan Zekiye Hammefendi, tarihin haf!Zasma gecmedikten Qaka, giiniin birinde paanm
mii~vir-dostlugu kadr<>sundan da bir hayal gibi ka91p, kaplSml Koca sadr:iizamm yiiziine kapamltlt.
Clyle ki Zekiye Hammefendi akJ,yla yana Clkml bir giizelligin
de sahil>i. idi. Serhad kal'elerinin, palangalarm gozleri pek, cesur ve
serdenge1;ti akmc1lan Macaristan'1 Nemse'yi alP Bavyera iclerinden
Leipzig'e kadar bir nida .iareti gibi uzayan akmlarmda, imal memleketlerine llgar edip ya:in1z ganimet ve esir getirmemilerdi. J;,eipzig'in a!tm ve kestane saci1 giizellerinde gozleri de goniilleri de oyIesine kalm1t! ki, ite Tiirk han9eresi bu sar1m dilberler ehrinin
ad1ru bozarak o agda ve altJn kanlffil sag rengine Iepiska demiti.
Zekiye Hantmefendi'r..in mehur lepiska sacJart da ite Cermen
di1berlerinin <> sihirli sac rengindendi. Gene aym renkteki klVUClmb
gozlerinin hem hal<im hem uysal hem kuvvetli hem yumuak ifadesi,
icine diieni dayarulmaz bir anafor gibi derinlerine ceker, camru ba~mi kurtaraiillyacag,. diiny<il.ara gotiiriirdii.
!te Osmanh fmparator!ugu'nun muhteem vezir-i az:iimi da giiniin
birinde kendini .bu derinden derin sihrin iginde. buldu. Ve dayanamayarak: '"B1raks1n o koca Tiirh.i.i de bana g.elsin!" diye, Zekiye Harumefendi'ye haber gondermek iafletini gosterdi.
Zekiye Hamm oniig ya 0mda, su damlas1 gibi bir k1z >ken, k1rk
yaInda bir adam c>lan M!Slr Vekili Hac1 Sii!eyman Aga ile evlenmiti. Hi.isrev Pa~a'n1n "koca Ti.ir.k'' diye istihlmr ettigi i~te bu ~dam
dl. Fakat iki erkek bir k1z evJadla ciceklenen bu izdiva>. kaduu da
erkegi de bir diinya saadet ve nimetinin ganisi kllmi~tl. Gercekten
mes'ut olmulardl.
:lginde milll zevkin, milli UUrun ve toplu bir medeniyet hfifulayer a!dlg,. Fmd1kh sahi!hanesi, bir yahdan ziyade ibir sarayd1.
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Esasen o devrin vezir, ric:ll ve tacir kok, konak ve yalllarma, gerek hacim gerek te~kil~t bak1mmdan birer minyatiir saray demek
daha dogru olurdu.
M!Slr Vekilinin yal1S1 da beyaz ve siyah bir halay1k, taya, !ala,
kavas, -harernaga. u~ak? ah~1. bah~1van, arabac1, kUrek~i "te yamak kadrosiyle, medeniyet ve iht~ani devirlerinin son merkezlerinden biriydi.
Daha da evvel, devletin varidatl; a;:ar, cizye, tuzla hli.s1latl ve
kom;;u devletlerden ahnan vergiler ve hele ganimet, ah-m ve fetihlerden temin olunurken, cemiyet t"b"kalarmdaki refah da devletin
geni~ eli gibi Ol~i.isiizdU. Amma gide gide ultifeler artlp, israf ahp yiiriiyerek devletin de masraf1 yiikselmekle slkmt1 ba,Ia)'lnca, a)'lll
darhk kiitleye de sirayet etmekte ge~ikmemi;;ti.
Fakat temeller ne kadar sars!lml olsa da her ;;eye ragmen eskinin bollugu, eskinin tortu ve kalmtls1 gene de memlekette hiikmiinii
siirmekte bulunuyordu. 1te bu eli a~k kap1s1 dayal! varllk sahiplerinden biri de Hac1 Siileyman Aga idi.
Kavala ~rbaclSl Hiiseyin Aga'nm a;1k gozlii yegeni Mehmed Ali
Aga, devletin ballla dert ustiine dert a\'ttktan sonra, Mls1r'1 bu as!
sergerdenin pen!;esinden kurtarmak yolunda ikinci Sultan Mahmud'la
Sultan Abdiilmecid az ~ile sekmemilerdi. Bu siyasi sekimelerin
gah o tarafa gall bu tarafa meylettii?;i kavak noktalanndan birinde
Hac1 Siileyman Aga M!Slr'm idaresine devlet tarafmdan vekil edil. mi~se de, Hiisrev Pa~a gibi o da Mehmed Al~ Aga'nln oyununa gelerek asH olamanutl.
Ne kr Hac1 Siileyman Aga'mn Akdeniz limanlarma ve biThassa
!skenderiye'ye mal gotiiriip mal getiren, tic~ret kalyonlan, ailenin refiihmi sagladlktan baka hanlar hamamlar ve iriidlar ile de gene ailenin gelecegini teminat altma alm1 bulunUiyordu.
*
<;ogu zaman Hac! Sii!eyman Aga ile gen~ kans1, Bogazm afakla
dirildigi gurupla alev aldlii:I ve mehtapla vuslata vard!li:J sulanna
karl yahlanmn penceresinde otururlardl. Bazan konuUp halleir,
blizan da kar01lannda el pense duran tabiatm biiyi."JSiirle biiyillenip
kal!rlardl.
Ak;;am vakitleri, kat! sahillerin hiily<lli gozler gibi bakan, bakarken de giineoin rengine lxlyanan pencereleri, k!SaCJk saltanatiyle
yere goge s1gmayan devletliler mis:lli, varhklanna ne de magrur goriiniirdii. Ya sular: Bir rer.k ciimbiillne dalm1~ sular da oyleydi. '0!:
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beo dakika siirecek ihtisamlaru1m sa~hOlugu ile adeta mest, mahmur ve dalgm durulur; 11ihayet yakla;;an gece, dalgalarda bir kartal gibi g1rp1nan 1~1klan birden ,ahp yok ediverirdi. 0 zaman da bu
kmlan kJvrllan, yamp tutu;;an dalgac1klann beti benzi atar ve art1k
karanhgln saltanatl hiikmiinii siirmege haz1rlarurdt.
Hac1 Silleyman Aj!a yal1smda gece hayal!, daha ak;:amm loslugu
bir duman gibi iseri dolarken, ilk .laplrtllanna ba,'<lardl. Giimii;; sinilerin, ilemeli pe;;kirlerin, mercanh sedefli kalklann dort ayak11 ;;ahilerin ortaya l,'!klp ~~am sofrasmm hazJrlanma telii1, yag mumIanmn bal mumlarmm aydJnlattl~l divanb.linelerde, dehlizlerde, so!alarda, ta;;llklarda gidi~-gelilerin artmasl, dad1larm !;Ocuklara sofrabal iidlibrm kim bilir ka~mc1 defa tekrarlamalan, legen-ibrik ve
hav!u tutan hala)'lklarm yerlerini almas1 ve nihliyet Mlenin yemek
sinisi etrafmda toplan1~1 ile gece ba~lanu~ olurdu.
Ailey; etrnfmda toplayan bu soframn hazJ.rlanmas1, giiniin miihim ilerinden biriydi. Yemek zamamm kollayan cariyelerin yava;;dan harekete .gegmeleriyle ilk ortaya getirilen eYa, sofra ortiisii
olurdu. Hem y1kanmaya gelen hem de solmaz ipeklerle ilenmi;; o!an
bu ortii yere yaylld1ktan sonra iistiine dort ayakh ahi, onun iistiine
de meydan sinisi gelir ve etrafma da minderler konurdu. Ayr1ca sininin is ooaYglSl ile yekpare pekir, san'atla san'atkarm iistiinde bari~~P bagdatlli:J bir zafer meydam idi.
' Herkes yerli yerine oturdu mu, ayakta bekliyen cariye iki avucu
aras1nda top! u olarak tuttugu yekpare ve uzun pek,iri, oturan.lann
dizlerine oy!e mahiiretle atardl ki pe~kir, tam sofrada oturanlann
dizleri iistiine dii;;iip, cliriyenin <> ihiinerli el hareketiyle yay!hverirdi. !to bu salme, adeta aile sofrasmm iir taraflyd1.
Sinilerin ortasma mutlaka mein iistiine zerdiis ilemeli yuvarlak nihiili konurdu. Soframn en cazip eyasma gelince bunlaT, muhakkak ki kaIklard!. Bunlar sorba, pihlv, tath ve hoaf ka~ii:J olarak
altln, giimi.is, sedef, fildi;;i boynuz, mercan, abonoz, sombal!li:J, ceviz;
baga, yeim, kehriiba ve yiikutlu ziimriitlii miicevherli boy boy renk
renk san'at aheserleriydi. Sonra kiil,'iik t&baklann ve kaselerin il,'inde
sabunlaruru ve giil suyu serpilmi elbezleri bulunurdu. Eski zamanda bunlara "destlnal" denirdi.
Hact Sii!eyman Aga yallSill!n kiler ve mutbak mutemilatl arasJndaki ta~ odalarm en dikkate deger olanlanndan biri de mumhline
idi. Tavanlara kadar )'lgllml yag ve bal mumlan, geceleri avklandlrmak iizre yanmaya hazlr, nobet!erini bekler gibi, SJra Slfa dururJardL Fakat hizmet ettikleri olsi.ide hizmet de bekliyen bu mumlarm
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baktmlan az i~ degildi. Hfilet Hammefendi, Gedizli Ali Bey'in konagma gelin gittigi zaman, biitiin vazifesi mumlann fitillerini kesip
diizeltmek olan kii~iik cariyeyi onun i!,!in hi> yadJrgamanu~\1. Zira
kendi dogup biiyiidiigi.l evde de boy boy mum!ara bizmet edenler
'l.'ardl.
Yand.lk~a ktvnlan fitillerin etrafmdaki pislikler temizlenmezse
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mum karanrd1. Onun i9in de bu i~e elleri yatkm cil.riyeler bakar ve

mumu sOn.diirmeden fitilleri kesip liizumsuz .par!,!alarl atarlard.l.
Eski konaklarda !,!ubuk>uluk da, zerafet ve tecriibe isteyen hizmetlerdendi. <3yle ki 9ubukdil.r, bir elinde doldurdugu uzun ~ubuk,
diger elinde pirin> tabla, misafirin veya efendinin oniine dikkatle
yaklaJr ve edebli oldugu kadar hesapll bir hareketle de diz 9okerdi.
Bu hareketinin o !mdar ol!,!iil"ii olmas1 laztmdl ki, ,ubugun agzmm tam
i!,!ecek olarun agzma, liilenin de tablamn hiz::lsma gelmesi usUlden-
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di.
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Miihim olan, bu yerle~mi~ ve kiikle~mi medeniyette, en basit en

slide ilerin ve giinllik hayat itiyatlarmm dahi bir uslup ve nizamm
tasarrufu altma allnml olmas1ydl. Devlet, idare ve politika hayatmda oldugu kadar, cerniyet diizeninde de ahenk ve nizam, adeta biinyenin tabii ve zaruri icil.blan hfiline girrni~ bulunuyordu.
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Bir ifahi kiiltiir"iin iliklerine iledigi, sonra da elinden, di!inden,

goziinden, kula&tndan ta>P diiki.lldGgii eski kad.lna nas1l da cahil denebilir ki, U -~-i_kapllj@l_ artii, ll-.9.P~.r..gibi ..di<)~e 9ep9evre j,em~- e_deAJ>~J;Jr.,.u. minde.n.l.eJ;.iC!...:tllma se)jJ,en sofra yaygLSl, bez iistiine nakedilmiLJ:>\l >i>el< bah>eleri. zeratetlii:-Z"eVI<_fnvemu"Cerret
san'atm senb{,l!er.dili;yl~ konuUr ol.dugu bir "iistiin <leha: fD.:!Hftltlaegil
d~ ne idl? Yarat1C1. centi'yet." kadmm san' at insiyaklanria h.'l.UiJ.'anda
eden ve zevk iklimini fetheden an'anevi kuvvetini henuz kay-betmemiti. Onun i9in de kadm, cesur terkiplerin, dekoratif temalartn, muzaffer renklerin sen~onisini, iideta bir tabiat hiidisesi imi~cesine, ko. laybkla meydana .getiriyordu.
M1s1r Vekili iiilesi, bu ~iirlemi sini batndan kalkt1ktan SOllf".
kan-koca yukan !;lklp -pencere oniine karlllkll otururlardl. Az sonra, orgiileri bellerine degen cariyeler, yava~a i!;eri. girer ve bir ibadet
sayg!Sl ile kahve getirirlerdi. Lakin bu zarf-fincanlar, pek de harC!
alem cinsten degildi..
Cariye, kahye t\'psisjyle evvela ev:in .efendisine gelir; Aga'run da
iri ve ahsiyet!i eli, fincan1 al!p .zarfm i'ine oturtmasiyle yavatan
diinen zarf, hafif bir melodi 9almaya ba~ard.l. Tepsi Zekiye Harumefendi'nin oniine geldigi zaman, bu defa da evin hanum bir sogut
. yaprag1 gibi nirin ve ince eliyle kendi fincan1ru. zarfa koyar ve bu
yakutlu ziimrutlii incili zarf da gene hafiften terenniim eder olurdu.
Hac1 Siileyman Aga'mn zevklerlnden biri de tiitiin i~ekti. Cubugunu, haremde oldt>gu zaman ~ubuk kalfas1; selarnl!kta ise 'ubuk
a!?;as1 haZirlardl.
Cubuk i9mek, heniiz o devirde adt tarihin derinliklerine gizlenmemi adetlerden biriydi. Nasli kahve ikr2llllllln adiib1 ve usiilii var
idiyse, s1rasmda boylar1 iki arID! ge,en gubugun da misatire bir ikram ediJi ekli vard>,
(;ubug,m dudaga degen kehriibii k1snuna imame veya bapare denirdi. Orta kJsml ise, g"iil, yasemin, pelesenk, hezaren, abanoz gibi
a)!a!;lardan yaplitrd.l. Ekleri birbirlerlne tutturan bilezikler ise, !;Ubugun klymetine gore altm g"iimii ya da mine uzerine zii.mriit, yakut
ve miicevherle i~enirdi.
Tiitiiniin i>ine 'kondugu topraUiile, I'Ok defa zerafetle san'atm
omeguil tekil eden -bir >i!;ege .benzerdi. Ktl"l!llZJ topraktan yap!lan
bu liileler!n en zarii!eri T<>phane'deki im2.lathanelerden 91kard1.
Cubugun liile k!S!lllrun altma bir de .s_ubuk ta;blast konurdu ki
bunlar da all!n, g"iimii, pirin!; veya baklrdan ..Plurdu.
Cubugun rnisafire iklamwa gelince; ite bu ayn bir hiiner, ayr1
bir san'at demekti. Saraylarda ve konaklarda !;Ubuk>ular, ~ubuk>u
bal ve ~ubukagalan bu hizmete bakar; haremlerde ise daha narin
!:llbuklar kullaruhr ve hizmeti, ~ubuk kalfalan idare ederdi.
Cubuklarm muhafaza edildigi yerlere ~ubt'llduk veya cubuk odas1
denirdi. Ve devirlere gore I'Ubuk~ularlll k1yafetleri de diger hizmetkarlardan aynlJrd.l. Onsekizinci as1rdan ondoJ.:uzuncu y(iz yllin ortalanna kadar,.-gubuk>~r ..:k'avuk giyerlerdi. Eteklerin.in u>Iar1 bellerine ili~tirilir vli "katu;ill~;;:. altmdan alvarlarl goriiliir, bel:lerinde kual<larl olur ve bu zarlf klyafeti de bir ktrrnlZl gedik papul' tamamlardl.
Bilhassa, I'Ubuk ikrammm ehetamiyeti biiyiiktii. Misafir adedine
gore ~;ubuklar hazrrlarur ve !;Ubukgu, getirdigi ~ubu&tl sag oniuzuna
allp sag eliyle tutarak i~eriye girer; sol eliD.de d'e cubuk tablas1 olurdu. !En hat1rll misafirden ballyarak sag dizini yere koyar ve o kadar
hesapll hareket ederdi ki gubug,m ballaresin.i hemen misafirin dudaklarrna degecek kadar yaklatlrlrdL Onun i~in de ~ubuk iki-liml hayll
gii~ ve ince .bir iti.
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<;;ubuklar misaire tevzi edildikten sonra ~buk9ulara da bir

kenara 9ekilerek, s()nen veya iyi i~Jemiyen 9Ubuklara bah-mak iizere
beklemek )Tazifesi kahrdt.
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Mis.fire kahve ikrrum da, muhtelif devirlere gore tarz ve ~ekil

deg;~tirmi~ adetlerden biriYdi. D~iincii Selim devrinde~. verilirdi.
En az ii~, en fazla sekiz ki~ilik taklmlarla yaptlan bu~ahane ikram
sahnesine, Tiirk gelenekleri arasmda yer alml~ en zarif merasimlerden .biri dense re~dlr.
Gerek saraylarda, gerek konaklarda stil takmum tegifatct ~
idare ederdi. Selamhklarda agalann gordiigii bu vazife, haremlerde
se>i]mi~ gen~ ktzlann uhdesindeydi. i'llisafirin adedine gore bir veya
iki cariye stil ortiisiinii getirir, bir ba~kastllln elinde tepsi bulunur;
bir digeri de gii~mden fincana kahveyi bo~altlr ve nihayet yiisemin
gibi ak ve yum~ak bir eJ de bir sihirbaz nefesi tesiri ile dumanrm savuran fincanlan misiliirlere ikram ederdi.
Lakin kahveci cariyeler,_tevzi i~ bitti-kten so-nra hemen salondan
9>kmazlar .bii:-J<eri~ekilip, misafirlerden kahvelerini tazeletmek
isteyenlere tekrar ikram etmek iizre beklerlerdi.
D ~ ki~ilik stillerde ortii elde de gil, omuzda gelirdi. Bu stil ortiileri claire ~eklinde olur, kadife veya atlas iistiine strma, giimii~ veya altm pulla ~lenir, etraflarmda da suma sa9"k olurdu. Bunlann
miicevherli ve incili olanlan da vard1. Diiima iki kat edilerek ~p
razlantp bir omuzdan bele dogru indirilirdi.
Kahvecilerin k1yafetleri de gene devirlere g5re de~e gehni~tir;
D9Uncii Selim zamamnda gen9 cariyeler ii~ etekli s~ii.l\Lelb~~e
~var g_i.Zltrlerdi. Sultan Mecid devrinde ise:-efel<"ii?in bellerine dogru kaldmlm!~ onii Yirtma9h elbiseler giyer ve ba~anndaki hotozlara
da :miicevherli igneler takarlard1. Tanzimat'dan sonJ:a seJfunhklarda
agalar istanbulin denen 5nleri ilikli bir setre -giyerlerdi.
:tkincCSmtan. Abdiilhamid devrinde stille kahve ikram1, saraylardan ba~ka konaklarda da az ~k devam etmekle beraber, cezY.e_ye
fincan, hemen hemen kahve ibrikler!Jlin yerini alm!~ bulunuyordu.
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de stU .:aaar:dahii
id-y_ade
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giinlerinin dekoruna inhisar -.eder ob!l~tu~
~erbet ve tatl1 ikilimi da, kahveden sonra unutulmamaSI icab edengeleneklerdendi. Kal;l._Y.e 5rtiilerind~__ .!Jk..~ah.a a~1r olan ~:<b~=
tiilt>ri, damak .~!'vkinden "evveC:iilisaf:irlere_bir goz
goniii-~lugu.
olur; kapakh bardaklarda-gei~n ~erbeUer ise, lcoruk;--ahiidudu, firenk
ve
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19
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Uziimii. vi~ne nev'inden it ina ile kayna hlrm~ veya savrula savrula
9igden yap1lmt~ alkolsiiz me~rubaun en JWUarmt te~kil ederdi.
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Kocas1nm, ~ocuklar1n1n, evmm ve muhitinin Ustiine dci.im.& gOZU.
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a>~k, dikkaUi ve uyamk olan Zekiye Hammefendi, hi~ bir i~i olu-
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runa b1raJ..-maz; vazife ve mes'uliyetlerinin yiikii alttna bizzat girer

ve her birini kontrolii altlnda tutard1. Onun i~in de ~er ve menfi tesirlere ka~ Zirhh ve haZlrl!kl, bulunup kolayma gafil avlanmazd1.
!~te vezir~i azrunm kem niyetini de, tetik iistii nobet tutan bu
silah11 ~iyetiyle derhal piiskiirtmii~ ~-e bir daha da pa~ay1 yahsma
kabul etme~ti:
: ~ayt fazla bir tazyik _altuida kalacak olursa Kiipliice'deki ko~
kiine ~ekilmeye karar vermi~i. Pmara uzanan bir el ayast gibi, CamIlea ile Beylerbeyi daglarmm yum~ay1p hafif~e 9ukur~tlgr diizliigwlde -bulunan bu yayvan ko~kii de o ~k severdi. Hele baharlarda
yag1 tiikemni~ kandiller gibi etraflarma renk renk b~ sallayan laleler ve bir riiya ~ileminin giine~ler1 im~cesine kokulanm havaya kan~tlran giiller, yaseminler ve hammelleriyle kopiiren deliren bah>e,
mevsimlerin yiiriiyii~ne gore boz renkli topragrn strtuu yanp ftrlayan tiirlii ye~illikler ve >i>ekler cenneti Kiipliice ko~kii, Fmdlkl! sahilhiinesini aratacak bir yer deg;Jdi.
Ama Zekiye Hammefendi, kendisini evinden ka!;lracak bir zaniretin vukuuna. asla inanmamitx. Hiisrev Pa~l makairunln selahiyetine dayanarak cana k>imak, mal miisadere eylemek gibi zecri hareketlerde bulunabilir; lakin devlet zoruyla bir g5niile soz ge9lremezdi. Zira be~er tari.hinde bunun tek misiili dahl yoktu.
Zekiye Haiumefendi'nin ~iddetle direnmesi ka~tsmda Hiisrev
P~a, o ilk g5nderdig-J laubiili ve kaba haberi yumu!"ltml~, hattii yan
itizar yan iliin-1 a~k denecek bir serenat hilline sokm~ ise de, gen~
kadm p~m el>ilerine de kaplSIID kapadl,ktan sonra, hiicum, evvela
bir miitareke safhastna girmi~, sonra da Osmanh !mparatorlugu'nun
_veZir-i azfunt :m.aglubiyeti kabul ederek geri piiskiirmii~ ve bu a~k hikayesi de bi:iylece bi~ti.
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rarken hemen d;i.ima site fikrinin sad1k bir muhif!Zl oJarak kalmltlr.
Oyle ki, ibadethaneyi merkez ahp onun etrafmda birleerek iirgiileymekten haz duymu; bir yandan ona sokularak kuvvetini tazelerken,
bir yandan da kendi taze kuvvetiy!e ana destek olmutur.
Cami bulamad!gJ zamanlarda ise gene gordugunden, .biJdiginden
amlyarak, bir meydanm hattii bir >mann etrafmda ba~baa vermi
ve daima merkezleffie an'anesine bagh kaimltlr. Biiylece de >emesi,
sebili, imareti, medresesi, meydant, agaci ve ~ar~asiyle mahalle, bir
amme .hizmetleri muesseselerinin sosyar ve bedii dekoru i>inde, uzlaffil ve anla~ml bir biitiin olmutur.
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Binlerce yill1k geleneklemi Tiirk psikoloj~i, bir merkez etrafmda toplanmay1 !;Ok sevmitir. Ta ath. medeniyet ,aglannda, yiizlerini 9ark'a da Garb'a da >evirmi olan Hun, Uz, Pe!;enek ve KlP!;ak
ak1nlarmm muvaffakiyetleri, ancak kuvvetli bir reise sahip olmak t31ihine eritikleri zaman tahakkuk etmitir. Aym tern, biitiin Tiirk tarihi
boyunca, hi> a~dan ilenmi durrnU ve gerek uzak 9ark Tiirkliigiinde, gerek Sel!;uklu ve Osmanl1 devirlerinde taht, halkm alika ve
heyecamnm temerkiiz noktasml tekil etmitir. Boylece de biiyiik kiit-,.
le, kudretli bir hiikiimdarm arkasmda k1t'alar fethetmi ve kudretli
idareciler etrafmda mes'ut olmUtur.
Ondaki bu merkezleffie insiyik1, bilhassa sosyal dfu.ende en sarih
Widesini bularak, aym motif, i> i>e daralan halkalar g:ibi, mahalle teki.latlrul. ve aile >evresine kadl!r inerek, i!;tim3.l hayatm biitiiniine Mkim ve amil olmUtur. Bunun i!;in de Tiirk gelenegi, mahallesini ku-
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Bir mahalle, cemiyet biinyesi i~inde saglam bir hucre, ureme ve

devam vazifesini bir ibadet kutsiyetiyle iistiine alml .bir kale demekti.
Mahalle denen bu dayan1kh, saglam ve tarihi .uzviyetin bir minyatiir dev!etcik hiiviyeti ile, devam ve idaresi ise, bu devletcigin bir
nevi icra ve teri organlan alan imam, mu-htar ve bek!;inin uhtesine
ha vle edilmiti.
lmam, dinden gelen giiven ve saygmm; muhtar, devlet ve hukuk
nizammm; bek~i ise, din ve devlet buyrugu giizciiluguniin birer temsilcisi idiler. Mahaile ile bu ii> muterek kuvvet aras1nda sevg:i ve
itimat esasma dayanan i5yle bir su s1zmaz all-veri vard1 ki, mahalleli, IXZina, nitc.usuna erefine ve menfaatine kale olan bu ii~U otoriteye karl ,edeb ve itaatle boyun keser ve sok defa ihtilaflaruu ve
meselelerini devlet kapHi!na ~1kannadan, hakim oniine gi)tiirmeden,
onlann miidahalesiyle hallederdi. Mesela imam efendinin "yap" dedigini. yapmamak; "yapma" dedigmi yapmak, mahalle geleneginin pek
affedecegl iJerden degildi.
Heniiz politika riizgarlarmm f>rildag1 halini almam1 muhtarlar
ise, mahallenin yerli ve erefli sakinle1:inden se~ildigl i->in. tutumlarJ, fikirleri ve kararlan sayg1 ile karllamrdl.
Bek>ilere gelince, poturlar1, alvarlarl, abani sanklan ile iiniformalartmn ger~el.."ten ehli alan -bu cesur ve merd adamlar, imamla muh-.
tarm oldugu kadar mahallelinin de emrinde idi. Hi> kirnse bek>i deyip de miihimsemezlik edemezdi. Zira onlar mahallenin asayi ve inzibatJ kadar eref ve haysiyetinin de canlariyle b'alariyle hizmetinde
idiler. Eski zamanda mahalle bel<siligi.. bir kariyer meselesi, kapah sm1f
UUrunun memleket SS:thmda en kii~ fakat >ak ehemmiyetli bir miiessesesiydi. Bir mal'>.alleye beksi olabilmek, namusun, ahlikm ve mesIck evsanrun yerli yeril1de olmasJ kadar, bek!;i tayin etmek de gedi-
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22
gin, ocag1n hakk1 idi. TekiHitm .bii' mahalleye gonderdigi bek~iye rilahalle, 1rz1nr, namusunu, malm1, canm1 tereddUtsiiu teslim edebilirdi. 0,
SJla)a gidip de yerine .gelen meslektaJ ise ayn1 evsa1 ayru terhilii
haiz cisimler gibi, emniyet, sad3.kat, "Y""atife ve mes'uliyet zincirini hi~
kopmada11 devam ettirirdi.
1te bir nevi idareciler ve idare edilenler denebilecek maha!leli ile,
onun u~Jii bal arasmdaki kollektif hayat, her semte hatta her st>kaga
,.. ha tta her e,e bir ahsiyet, bir kendine gorelik imtiyaiJ. bahetmiti. Onun i>in de insanlann, mahallelerine, sokaklanna hele evlerine
olan baghl1klarma bu derinden gelen anlaY:Im bir neticesi denebiliroi.
0 devirlerde herkes mutlaka kendi evinde dogar; bazan da oliin~
ceye kadar bu dogdugu evde ya;;ard1. Onun i>in de dogdugu ev, yaadlgJ mahalle hususi bir vatan, hayilinin ve hii.t.lrasmm beikten mezara kadar itina ile ustiine titredigi bir alak:O: ve rabrta merkezi olurdu. ite semtlinin semtliye, mahallelinin mahalleliye olan o Sicak, o
i9ten. -alii.ka, efkat ve muhabbet tezgilh1Ill dokuyan .bu koklilliik, bu
baglantl, bu kollektif anlaYtdl. Bu yiizden de el ele tutUan. aile. ve
mahalle, sosyal hayat:n srrtrm dayad1gr fethedilmez bfr kale, gorenek
ve geleneklerin itahi kanunlan ile idare olunan feodal merkezcikler
idi.
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i>lerinde iki ii9 bin nefer kapr halk1 olan 'bu eski vezir .konaklan,
gide gide iki ii9 yiiz mevcuda ve ondan da krrk elli miistahdeme inerek
Ondokuzuncu asrr sonu ile Yirminci as1r balannda son kadrosunu
bulmUtu.
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S1k1 ag1zli, salnrh ve temkinli ~inalar gibi yan yana karl ka.r$1ya uza)'lp giden <>U: semtlerin, bu mahallelerin, bn sotiklarm evleri, silhiplerinin varhk,. 1iitbe ve makalnlanna gore isini degitirerek,
konak, kok, saray ve kasrr olurdu.
Vezirlerin, vezir-i azarruarm, kadlaskerlerin, seraskerlerin, eyhiilisU\mlann ikametgii.!u olan konaklar, eskide,. hiikUmet diliresi ola~
rak da kullamllrdt: Tanziniat otesine kadar bu.an'ane yu:iiimii. ve sad-raziinun konag1, resmi devlet diiiresi hiiviyetini de: mu:hafaza etmiti.
Hatta Sultan Abdiilazi:z;'in hal'ini haiD.rlayanlarm elebaISI olan rerasc
ker Hiiseyi.l1 Avni Paa, Cerkes Hasan taratmdanMithat Pa;,a'nm So~
ganaga'daki kona!linda bir vekil:ler hey'eti toplantlsmda bastlr1Iarak
oldiirillmiitii.
..
0 devirlerde devletin yiiksek kademeli mercileri11e. "kapu''. denirai:
Rata halkm dilinde gezen devlet kapusu sozii de o devi:derd<m kalma
bir tarih berguziin olarak yaamaktadir. l~te o zamanlat> bu devlet
kapularmdan mesela sadriizamm, ayru zamanda bir resmi dilire vazi"
fesini goren konagrna Bab-1 Asafi, Biib-r Ali denir; bir beyle!'beyinin
konagma PaaKapusu ismiverilirdi..
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Yiikseli, ganimet ve fiituhat devirleri kapand1ktan sonra da devlet otoritesinin etrafrnda bir nevi zrrh, bir koruyucu kuvvetler kadrosu
hiilinde devam eden bu organjze asa.let barikat1, her ne kadar eski
kudret ve kuvvetinden kesillni idiyse de, gene ya;;amakta devam ediyordu .
Onsekizinci asrr sonlannda orta halli liir vezir konagmm kapu
halk1, binlerden be alt1 yiize diiffiii liulunmakla beraber, gene de bir
minyati:ir devlet ornegi vasfrm muhiifaza ediyordu. oyle ki, bir vezir
dairesinin idare tekililtl i~inde yer alanlar, kethiida, kethiida katipleri, harem kethiidasr, divan efendisi, mektup~u, haznedar, hazine katipleri ve imam gibi yiiksek kademelerden sonra; v~zirin muhaflz taburunu tekil eden gedikli i~ agalan ve liunlann ziibitleriyle sihihdar aga geliroi.
Silahtar aganm liahca vazifesi selam agasiyle 'beraber vezirin yanmda bulunmakti. Harem kethiidasmm vazifesi ise, hemen de sarayciaki darussUade . agasniJ.n vazifesine .muadildi.
Kethiida efendi, konagm idiire amiri demekti. Divan efendisi, ve. min huzurunda kurulacak meclislerin tertip ve tanzimi ii ile meg(J.J
Olur; mektup~ti, evrak oh.-ur ceYap yazar, dairenin n11.ihabere ilerini
i dare ederdi.
.
Konagm diger ;aztfelilerini say1p srralamakla. bitirmek pek mumkiln degilse de, dairenin idare ci:li.azr, bir hiyerarik kademenin el ele
vermi gayretiyle kll kadar aksamadali yiiriirdii.'
Mesela, konagrn dolup boalan ziyaret>ilerine selilm agas1 ile kaPJCilar kethudiisr te.:;rifatphk ''azifesini goriirlerdi. Haznedai', hem
paan1n servetini muh3iaza eder~ hem de hazinenin geli:r Ve giderini
defter ederdi.
Miihiird.ar ise, vezirin m"iihrlinii muhifaza eden ve gene onun emriyle kullailabi!en adamdr. Divitdiir, yazr yazarken vezirin hokkasuu
tutarak hizmetinde bulunur, kalem ve kag1tlarnlin tertibiyle m~g1il
olurdu.
1~ oglanlariyle ~VUlar ve ~malilr agaSI, pa3Illn nustisi hi=et- .
lerini goriir, giyinip soy:unmasina yardlm ederlerdi. Bu g~dikli il; agalarui da her birinitr dlirl be0 yardJmCISI .vardlr lti bunlata .''zobu" de-
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24
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nir ve yaln1z uak ve seyisleriyle beraber kogu]anrun mevcudu yi.iz

kiiyi bulurdu.
Zobuluk, i~ agah~n menei demekti. Hi~ kimse dogrudan dcgruya i~ agasr clamaz, once zcbuluga kabul edilir ve .bu cca~n terbiye
ve inzib1it1 ile pitikten sonrad:r ki i9 agahga yiiksclebilirdi.
Fakat bu terfi iinin de gene bir merasimi vard.t. oyle ki, i~ agasr
zcbusunu \!!rag edecegi zamrut cna silah, elbise ve at verir, sonra da
bir ziyafet tertip ederek hazine cdasmda ve gedikli agalann.huzlirunda
duma yap!I1r ve gen9 zcbunun bama bir kavuk giydirilerek i~ a~ga
yiikselmek keyfiyeti tamamlanmi olurdu.
Ancak, biitiin .bu riitbe ve makam sahiplerinin ;;azlielerinde kalabilmeleri i ve meslek namusu geregmce ~al1malanna bagli idi. Mesela bir i~ agas1 su~ i]eyecek clsa, ona agahk payesi venni clan lademli agalar birleip miizakere ederler, ger~ekten su~unu slibit goriirJerse bamdan kavu~un al1runasma karar verilerek 'ke~e kiillih"
edilmek suretiyle meslekten j;lkar1rlard.t.
Vezir dairelerinde piyade ve siivari boliikleri bulunmak da ust11dendi. Piyadelere tiifenk~i tak11n1; reislerine tiifenk~i ba1; siivarilere
deli; reislerine de delibaI denirdi.
BoHikler, yiiz ila yiizelli nefer clur, bunlarm da maiyetinde goniillii agas1 denen bir z.ibit ,bulunurdu. Baz1 vezir kcnaklannda delibaIlarla tiifenk~ibaJlar bir ka9 tane bulunur ve i9lerinden riitbesi binbal makamma tekabiil edene "ser~eme" denirdi.
Deliler, siivan olduklarmdan, piyilde clan tiifenk~erin onlerinden
giderlerdi. Bu Sinlfm aSil ismi, onden gidici, pidar ve rehber manasma gelen "dell" idiyse de, kelimelerle oynalill!Yl i gug etmi5 halk1n
agz1, son harfi atarak onu "deli" yapmlti.
Aroma bir vezir dairesinin vazlfeliler kadrosu, biitiln bu salflp
srralananlardan ibaret degildi ki .. , anahtar agas1, vekil:har9, sancaktar,
tugcubaI, tiitilnciibaI, scfracibaI, mirahur, seccadecibal, ;pekiragaSl, kahvecibaI _gibi, her birinin dorder )leer yamag1 clan agalardan
baka, mehter tak!m1, kavaslar, seyisler, me'aleciler, alJc;Ilar, balJ>Ivanlar ve yamaklar1 da kapu halk1 arasmdaydi. Nihayet pcsta ileriyle
megUl bir tataragaSI iJe tatarodab3lS!U!U k1rk elJi kiilik maiye\ tatan, konagm en alt kademcdeki vazifelileri meyanmda bulunurdu.
V ezir kcna~mn harem halk1na gelince, kalabahk bir iii.le efradmdan b3ka, !mparatcrlugun her bir ko~esinden se!;ilip getirtllmi
siyah beyaz yiizlerce hizmet cariyesi; hanende, si\zende ve oyuncu
kiZlardan baka, klihya kad.tnlar, tayalar, bac!Iar, yanaII!alar "e ha"
25
remagalari ile konagm vahdetli ve "-henkli kalabahgi, adeta bir tek
vucut, bir nab1z gibi miiterek ve yekpare hayat1ru yaardi.
Faka t ge!;mi~ as1rlarda bir ka~ bin mevcudu nihayet bir ka> yiize
diien bu kcnaklar, gide gide k1rk elli niifUsa inerek arl!k yirminci
yuz y1hn bami .bu ku~Ulmii ve daralml!i kadro i!e idrak etmi bulunuycrdu.
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ite ibrahim Efendi konag1 da bunlardan biriydi. 0 zama!1lar

ehrin g<izde bir semti clan ehza.debaI'nda Kalenderhil.ne Camii'nln
oniindeki rneydana bakmakta idi.
Birbiri.11.e hem benzeyen, hem de kii9iik hususiyetlerle birbirinden
aynlan istanbul meydanlarmdan bu geni mahalle aras1 meydarunm,
bir tarafmda Kalenderhane Camii ile imam meriltas1, tam katlsmda Ibrahim Efendi'nin lt::mag1 ve miiezzin ile mulitarm evleri, oteki
koede ise medrese, ~eme ve geceli giindiizlii bir su tiirkiisii minldanan bu ~eII!enin iistiine, medresenin bah,esinden kcllann1 kanatlanru
uzatml aga~lar ve 9marlar vardl. Meydamn sabit, k1n:uldamaz, somurtkan ve siikuti biniilar1 arasmda giller gibi, soyler gibi, diiiiniir
diiiindiiriir gibi ba sallayan, el 91rpan, gam da~tan, teselli eden.
yclda clan bu en atir r,eit 9eit aga~ar nas1l da 'ck nas1! da bcldu ...
Ah bu aga9lar ... ehri ehir yapan, binlerce yeil goziin kadehi ile
etrafa huzur dag1tan vef:ili, sefah, sadlk dostlar ... eskiden Istanbul
ehri bu asil bu kanaatli aini\larm varl!g1 ile ne kadar mes'ut, ne !<adar memnun ve ne kadar mamurdu.
Sonra meydamn dort ayr1 koeSinden, semtin dart ayn istikametine giden geni, dar, gormii gO!;irmi sokaklar gelirdi. Nihayet bu,
nice maceradan nice serencamdan arta kalml ib.sanlar gibi hatiralarla
yilklii sokaklarm iistiindeki evler, bir lneVerete bir muhabbete bJr.
derin diiilnceye dalnu dostlar gibi yan yana, ba baa, kat! katlya
s1ralannu biiyiik evler, kii!;iik evler, bcyal! evler, bcyas1z evler, yeni
evler, eski evler ve bu evler silsilesinden hacimlan, ekilleri, planlanyla ayrrhp sivrilen kcnaklar .. malJallenin muhtac1na, yokauluna, duluna, yetimine kap!Iari 29lk varllkll kcnaklar, dirlikli kcnaklar, ma-.
halleyi tamamlard.t .
Ibrahim Efendi'nin yirmibe odah, haremli sel:l.mllkli konag,. da,
devrinin i~timai 9ehresini ve gelenek iciblarlnl ~izgisi !;izgisine aksettiren binalarmdan biriydi.
Efendi, .ikbi\1 yil!arm1 luzla yukar1 dcgru tlrman!rl<en. Haydar'da-
26
k.i ba-ba konag:,ru buak1p, ehrin bu l:Ok. se!;kin ve merkezl semtine

yerlemeye ]<arar verroiti.
!te hem keyfine, hem de mevkiinin ihtiamma uygun olarak yaptlrdlg:, bu U!; katl! yayvan bina, ger~ekten de imparatorluk. maliyesinin
.Ohretli reisine yak1~1r C>l~ilde idi. Kona~n iki harem bir selamllk
\)!... bah9esi ve zemin k.atmda bir d! bir de il: tallg:,, ahlrlan, mutbaklan,
-~- kiler!eri, !;amaIrhaneleri vard1. Harem taraimda olan ;~ tallk.tan, hem
buyiik hem de kii~k. bah9eye ge>!lirdi. Biiyiik. bah!;e, meyve ve siis
aga~ariyle lolanu dart k.oe bliyiik. bir yerdi. Ku~k. bah9ede ise,
d1varlann hlzasma kadar hamam Jditukleri istif edilmiti ki gene buradan kiilhana bir ta merdivenle !;lk.Jl!r ve hamam1n ;-anacagl giinJer.
u~lar i9eri desturla girerel< k.iitiikleri kiilhana 91k.anp ocag1 atelerlerdi.
Konag:,n birinci katmda ik.i mabeyn 'kap!SI ile aynlan harem ve
selamlll':Jn on bir misafir salonu mevcu ttu.
tl"st k.ata gelince, tamamen yatak. odalariyle sand1k odalarma ayrllm! alan bu kata, ev halkmdan baka k.imse 9lk.mazd1. Hele sand1k.
odalanna girmek. evin yasaklan arasmdaydJ.
Cemiyette olsun, aile i!;inde olsun, mevk.ileri ve salahiyet hudutc
cariyelerden ancak bir k.ademe yiiksek clan odallklann, evin ba~
lam!, menfaati tertibi ve temiz!igl ile alakall hususlarda gosterdikleri
dikkat, ihtimam ve nizamlar tesisi, beli<i de kendilerini gosterebildikleri, emir ve k.umanda zevkmi tatmin eyledikleri tek saba idi. lbrahim
Efendi'nin k1uan da,' babalar1mn odal1klan tarafmdan allnan bu tiirlii kararlan mernnuniyetle kabUl ederlerdi. 0yle ya, koesi bucag1 tlkhm tlkhm k1ymetli OYalarla dolu olan bu ~.o.dalanm kern gozlerden saklamak elbette onlarm da ilerine geJirdi. Her birine merdivei:lle ~k.1lan yatak anbarlan ve her birinin il:inde imparatorlug.un
dort koesinden-gclili:i'":bu muzelik eyalarla dolu sandlk.lar ve bu
sandlklann indeki top top kumalar; cim:fesler, dlbalar, ipek seccadeler, gfunu{ taklmlan; Saksonyala:c, <;:in -mamUlleri, as1rhk. ilemeler, ~evreler, yagllklar, hahlar, kilirnler ve bin y1llik bir medeniyetten
s\izilliip gelmi~ bir tarih tortusu, .incelmi bir miras vard! ki elbette
rastgele herkesin go:oii oniine serileme;.dL
!brabim :Etendi'nin, hamrnllktan ziirMe naiay1khga da:ha yakm
olan Azmidil ve Neveser isirnli odah'klarma, evin yiu-iitiillnesinde diima. pasif fak.at ~eitli vazife ve -haklar \rerilmekle, hem bir mes'uliyetin tatmin edici gurtiru ta.t1Jmnl hem de btt yoldan bir deari im-
kfun saglannn~tt. Mesela l<onag:,n gedikli miidavimleri olan dalkavuk.
bohgac1;.terzi; ilemeci, .yoksill.; fakir ve "ricacr :tertibi misati.rierin ida-
27
resi tamamiyle onlarm hiikmiind~ydi.. Kalfalann odasmda ag:,I'Janan

ya da bir muddet oyalamp batan savulan bu misafirler, ancak yukat;dan ~agnldlklar1 zarnan hamrnlarm yanlanna ~1kabilir!erdi. Uzun
uzun kalacak kimseler ise. konaktaki ikarnet rniiddetlerini daima aag1
katta
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l~onagm bu yan Slgll)tl. ;~an Ya.J:Jama misafirleri, ya tatll dilleri

kwrak zekalan, ya el hiinerleri ~- !;itli rnarifetleriy!e hlmlmlann
g5ziine g:irmeye adeta mecburdular. Kimi ahc;:xdan giizel dolma sarar,
kirni ~erkestavugu, ldrni hamur ileriyle aml.lrdl. Oya yapanlar; naki
i~leyenler; ev ila!;lannda mahareti olanlar; giilsuyu, kekiksuyu l;lkaranlar; k1rk tiirlii bahan sepetler <lolusu gelincikle giinler giinii savurup k.Jrmiz ~urubu kaynatanlar; el 93tlagina, bogaz agnsma yedi
dagm otundan ila~_yapanlar; nazara l<arl tiitsii hazirlayanlar, kurun
<lokenler, aagl kat1 hemen de hi~ bo b1rakmaz!ardl. Emegine kar1
caizesini allp hall!mlarl etekliyen, kalfalan. da. giiler yiiz!eri ve igUzarhklariyle hoUut eden bu misafirlerin biri giderken yerine bir 'bakasl veya bakalan gelir; -her gelen de kendisine bu biiyiik kapmm
eigini atlatan kii9iik hiinerinin siperi arkasma s1gmarak aag:, kattaki yerine, bazan bir saatligine bazan bir giinliigiine bazan da bir aylll':Jna ge9ip otururdu.
Cok defa kornuluk imtiyazmdan faydalanarak bU odadan hi~

~>kmlyanlar da vard1 ki bunlarm arasmda Suyolcunun S1d1ka Hamrn,
ihtiyai;" bir j;mar gibi. minderin ustiinde yarl devrik oturur, kalfalara
i btiyurmaktan, h:i.tta romatizmah dizlerini ugdurmaktan ~ek.inmezdi.
Oclar da bu battai, bu ~i~n;an ve gev~k :ki>mu kad!na hizmet etmek-.
ten _yiiksiinmezler ve Sl-dlka Hamm da yuz bulduk93 yaslan1r, hatta
ah~>bag?a haper gonderip htedilii yemekleri 1smarlarnakda dahi tereddilt etmezdi. . . . . .
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!in ho~ taraf1, yul<an kat, bu odada cereyan eden giinliik hayatt;, teferru~ttndan asia haberdar edillnezdi. Yoksa "fakire fukara~a
y(iz vermek" 1brahim Efendi konag:,mn t.Oresinde. pek .yoktu. Ama
efendinin odaJ)gl N eveser Kalfa miiStesna, diger gen~ ve orta ya~h
halaylklar, ''fa1.-iri fuk.arayl gozetmekte, hatlr. kollaylp .gonill abad
etmekte" ad eta 'Yan eden. tatu dilli giiler yiizlU geni elli kimselerdi.
lte .bir kalb hastas1 olan SJdJka Hamm da boyle mtinis ve 'hatJ.rinas
insanlarla ~evrili oldugimu bildiginden, morluktan siyahhga donmii
kalm dudaklar1 arasm<lari. agzmda kalml iki' on ditni gostererek giiler ve:.
-'-' ResanCJ.gim, ka,; giindur. i!;im samsa !;ekiyor, ahl:JbalYa soyle
de ....
ij
29
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8,,
Diyerek baklava ile sanlSa arasmdaki lezzet ve yaplli farkm1

an1a tmaya balar.. boyle uzun uzun konlltugu Siralarda da arka dilerinin oJrnamasi yilziinden yanaklan kah bir yelken gibi ~il'er, k~'t
i~eri ~okerek yi.iziine acayib bir 9irkinlik verirdi.
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Asl!na bakll!rsa bu konak, devrin yardmllama anla}'ll ol!;iislinde

vergili degildi. Buraya hemen hi> kimse cebi bo gelip dclu >lkmazdt.
Ama cerni}'etin ihtiya>h zumresi, kibara dokun ge!; .. meseline uyarak,
gene de !brahim Efendi'nin kcnagrna akm etmekte kusur etmezdi.
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Pencereleri harem bah>esine bakan kalfalarm
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cdast, aaeta giinluk hayatm haz!!'lantp diizenlendigi bir labcratuvardt. !nee kilerin, erzak kilerinin eksikleri, art!klan; ,arna.lr. iitii, kola, temizlik, ycrgan kaplama; me;simine gore
re>el, turU salamura ileri; eYalarm tfuniri; eskiyen ve klnlanlann
yerine yenilerinin kcnulmas1; hanunlarm oda ihtiya!;lan; ah!;1larm,
Uaklarm. seyislerin, yamaklarm, ayvazm, haremagalarmm elbiseleri,
!;atna;:o.rlan; kla girerken yaza >Ikarken elden ge,ecek hiirk sandlklarmm, sepet sand1klann, anbanlann, dclaplarm, kcnscllann tertiblenme i~leri, iltelerin yastlklann atbnlmas1 hep c odada kcnuUlarak ycJuna konur, karara baglamrdt.
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!!;lerine ancak merdiven dayanarak uzamlabilen yatak anbarlarm1 altt aydan alt1 aya olsun gozden ge!;irmeden nastl olurdu? Zira
her birinin i>inde anavata, kasnak ve strma .ilemeli ycrganlar, birer
!;i!;ek bah>esi gibi zarif temiz, gill, ycnca ve lavanta >i>egi torbac.tklariyle, ger!;ekten bahar bahar ve ktr k!r kokard1. Fakat kapaklan
a!;lhr .a~lmaz, genizde .gidien bu ince, bu baygm koku, ~i9ek t~rba
lanndan zjyade iist iiste y1gil!p tabakala~ml bir temizlik kokllsunun
i!;ten dta S!Zl!Ydt.
Bu her biri birer peyzaj gibi relikli 9i9ekli y6rganlar da gene
kalfalartn odasmda ilenirdi. <:esim bir gergefin bazan diirt bama,
bazan iki lla!Da. ge9en gen9 halay!klar, kullanmaya kly1lanuyacak bu
iirtilleri 'bu yorganlan bu yasttk balanm haftanm muayyen giinlerinde gelen nakt ustalarmm nezaretinde ilerlerdi. !te bu el emekleri de o merdivenle >1ktlan anbarlarda birikirdi. Ne ki nakl ustala-.
nnm bu gen9 kJZlara ogrettigi iler, artik gozden dlimii, mcdas1 ge<;;mi fak3t asl!nda -her bir,i bir servet ve san' at iimegi t~kil eden pekirler, yagl!klar, U!;kurlar, >evreler iistiine i 0lenmi hesap gibi, .su"
zeni gibi eski Tiirk ilemeleri degildi. Zevkte de, teknikte de tamamen Avrupa taklidi ilerdi.
Ylllard~r, haftanm .belirli giinlerinde hem k1zlara ustal!.k eden
hem de bu odada bir misafir gibi ag,rlanan Zaruhl isminde yall bir
sorma ustas1 vard1. Her zaman gozii yah, dertli ve tasal! idi. Geng
halayJklarm emektar kalfalann hatta hamnllarm, senelerdir bu kederli kadmm ikayetleriyle kulaklan dolmUtu. Oglu hasta idi, kendi fakirdi; a~dan sabaha yiyecek ekmekleri yoktu.
Konak, her muhtaca kesesinin agz1m a9an vergili bir ev olmamakla beraber, kalialar, aralannda adeta bir yardlm sand!gl kurmular
kendi har,hklanm seve seve verdikten baka, hanunlar1 bile yumuatII!llar fakat astl akrabalarla konagm hattrh misafirleri bu ihtiyar
Ermeni kadmmm biitlin ge<;;im yiikiinii iistlerine a!Wllardi.
Boyle boyle seneler ge,ti, giiniin birinde ehir, periyodik bir Ermeni ayaklanmasmm kanh giirliltlisiiyle yataklanndan ftrladl. Tanaksiityon komitac1lan Osman!! Bankast'm basmtlar ve ele ge!;irdikleri binanm pencerelerinden ve dammdan halka ate a9II!llar; bir
sil~'t ve cephane deposu haline .gelen Kumkap1 Ermeni Kilisesi de,
kcnrite erkan-1 .harbiyesinin merkezi clarak isya!la fiilen katllml ve
giin!crce siiren 9arp1ID2lar scnunda olen olmii, kalan kaliiU ve nihayet isyan da .bastinhmtl. Oxtahk yat!Ip kcrku ve heyecan ckunu atlatan 0ehir, hfuiisenin tahlil, tefsir ve dedikodusunu yapar hale
geldigi zam.an, pek tabil ki !brahim Efendi konagr da vak'aYI konuuyordu.
Bir rivayete gore, yer yer ve zaman zaman depreen bu kii9lik
isyanlar:n Buyuk Ermenistan hiilyasiyle tam bir iliigi vard1. Bir
baks. rivayete gore, Sivas'da, Erzurum'da, Kayseri'de, Kars'da Adana ve Zeytun'da durmakstztn tekrarlanan bu kanll ayaklanmalar, Ermeni istiklali fikri etrafmda memleket igi ve memleket d11 kcmitac1
faaliyetlerinin bir neticesi idi. Diger bir riv:!iyete gore ise biitiin bu
huzursuzluklar. Tiirkiye Er1penilerini Avrupa'ya kar~1 gadre ugra-nn~
bir tcpluluk clarak gostermenin ve yabanc1 miidahalesini iistlerine
!;ekmenin bir taktiginden ba;;ka bir ey deg;Jdi. Baka bir goriie nazaran da bu, Rus tab'ast clan Ermeni cemaatine, Rus politikas1mn,.
kendi tcpraklarmda gozleri olmam.asm, B!;Ikca ihtar ederek, Ermeni
i~tihastru Tiirk hudutlarma dcl:ru itmi olmasmm bir neticesi idi.
Avrupa'ya ge!ince, bir Klikya. Devleti, Turk vatamnda Garb menfaatlerine bir kopriiba~' her hangi bir muharebe hengamesinde yardtm goriip soluk alaca~n bir iis, bir ikmal merkezi demekti. Asl!nda ne Rusya ne de Avrupa i~in miihim clan, Ermeni istikHili degil, bu
30
istiklal fikrini, kendi lehlerine oldu~ kadar Tilrkler aleyhine kullnnmak keyfiyetinin bir neticesinden ibaretti.
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31
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lbrahim E:Cen_di konaglnlll. cmc.kdar _sarma ustas1na gelince, bu
giizu y~h ihtiyar1 kanak halk1 nierakla bekliyordu. Gerr;i zavalli kadm, artahkta olup .biten ve donup dola~anlan bilmektim ve bilhassa
hiidisenin siyast tahlilini yapmaktan uzak bulunuyorsa da," bildigi tek
~eyin, ekmek yedigi ve nimetine g(jmUldiigii kap1ya sadakat ve Enneni cemaatine ustiin imkiinlarla refah sagiaim olan devlete bagii11k
olacag1 tabii idi. Bu duygusunu da, kanaga ilk geli~inde yana yakua
anlatacak, 0 her Zaman ya~h alan gozJeriyJe bir kere de, mensupoJdu-_
gu 1rk niiimna agla)np esef ve iiziintUlerini soyliyecekti.
Lakin haft:mm muayyen nak1~ giinii geldigi halde, sarma ustas1
gelmedi. Bunu diger giinler ve hafta1ar takip ettigi halde de gene ihtiyar kadm bir tiirlii goriinmedi. Kanak bir kere daha endi~eye dii~
mii~tu. Acaba ihtiyarc1k kederden ve utanr;dan nu gelemiyardu, yaksa
hastalanml ya da olmii~ miiydii?
Merak ir;inde alan kanak, nihayet Zaruhi'nin pe~ine dii~erek ~in
is: yiiziinii ogrendi. Sarma ustas1 hasta degildi. Olffiemi~ti de. Keder ve
utanr;tan ise hiisbiitiin uzakll. Gerr;i gene gozleriride y~ vard1; ama
~imdi kendini acmdlrarak para toplamak ~r;in a_gliuruyar, vuru~urken
olen ag!u ir;in gozya~1 dokiiyor; onun yanda kalail idealine aghyordu.
Meger YJllard~r ilar; paras1, hekim paras1 diyip durarak doldurdugu
kesesi, komitanm ele basalanndan clan aglu vas1tasiyle Kumkap1 kilisesi'ndeki :ihtiHil merkezine tesllin edilmi~ boylece de, yum~k yii~
rekli kadmlarm topladll':J paralar, ayaklanmada Tiirkler aleyhine i
gOrmii~ti.i.

Kanak, uzun za-man h<i.diseni.l1 dedikodusunu yapt1._ K1zd1, k1nad1_,.

~a:;1a, hatta biraz da korkt\L Fakat asia ibret almadr, asia uyarup kendine gelmedi. Zira toparlamp silkinniek ve ~uurlanmak da .gene bir
killti.ir ve seviye meselesiydL Konak -halkmda ise hala diimani kiij;iik
gormek, d~manr mii:himsememek g:ibi zafer ve fiitUhat'.devirlerinden
arta kalmr~ bir zihniyetin iortu ve bakiyesi hiiJ,.-tiiri suriiyordu.
Yalruz !brahim Efendi, dirayetli bir po!itikac1 tutumu ile butiiri
bu olup bitenleri, mutalaa. ve muhakenie yiiriitmeden sessiz sedilslz
t!kip etti. Ve !;atlsmm altmdaki konu~ra itirfik etmedi. 'Esasen
haremde, bu tiirlii -ciddi ve bilhassa siyasi Mdise!eri .hirer tarafmdan
kacy.hkh tutup elleecegi kimse de yoktu. Kadln klsmml liniine allp'
esash meselelerin muhatah1 k1lmak onu ~martmak ve haddini bilmez
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etmek demekti. Bu, konagm idliresi k1zlanrun ve odahklarmrn ,giyim,

miicevher, gezmek eg!erunek yol!u talepleri deg;!di ki kulak kabart1p
sozlerini dikkate alsmdl.
Tarihte "Ermeni Pallr1Is1" diye arulacak alan bu 1:110 ayak!anmasini, ibr:Th.im Efendi seHimlikta ds. konu~ad1. !~inde ha;::1r ne;>ir olmu bulundu~ k!asik t_erbiye, bir devlet adamma bu tiirlii siyasi meselelere, ancak vazlfeli bulundu~ meclislerde e! siirmek hakk1m tamnutl.
Gerr;i Osmanh !mparatorlugu Avrupa siyasi ~evrei,rinde art1k
bir varl!k degi!, neresinden. ne suretle )'enilip yutulacag, miinaka~ ve
didil;me mevzuu olmu yaglr bir.!okmadan ibarettL Onun i~in de degil
diinya siyasetinde, kendi mukadderatl ilstiinde dahl sozii gegmez, duiince ve temayiillerine kulak as1lmazd1. Bununla beraber onun da, hi~
degi!se kendi kendine karl siiyliyecek bir sozii, hayat ve bekasmr tehdit eden tehlikelere kar~ bir korunma ve mukavemet giicii vard1.
Bahusus klasik eko!e :bagh siyaset adanllan, d1~ tehlikeler kadar hatta
belki onlardan da fazla, dar ve k1sa .gor.iilii, tecriibeleri bilgi!eri mahdut, turedi siyaset madrabazlanrun hesaps1z, hizas1z cesaretlerinin
meydana getirdigi i~ tehlikeden karkuyorlardl. Bu karkanlardan biri
de ibrarum Efendi'ydi. Efendi, politika felsefesine ve mukayeseli devlets:ilik Uuruna liina olarak yetimemiti. Gar.b hiiltiiriinde bir i!im
olarak tedvin edilen siyasetle o, pratik ve \faro yollardan temasa ge~erek derin bir sezi~ ve devlet adaim vasfma yakr~1r basiretli bir gorii0
kazanmrtl. He!e mali mesele!erdeki ihatah, siiratli, isabetli ve kiyasetli idareciligi, if!as ha!indeki lmparatorluk maliyesinin ba~nda tlZUn
>llar kalmasmm tek sebebi olmUtu.
lte efendi, her ne l<adar Garb olgUlerine gore yetiip hazlrlanmamJ bir kimse idiyse de, 9arkl1 ve k!asik bir devlet adam1 gOziiyle
kendi ufkundan garb! seyrettigi kadar huylan1r; _hayretlere diil;er ve
Avrupah devlet adamlarmm bobogazhglnl asia begerunezdi. Zira
Avrupa'da devlet srrn diye bir ;;ey kalmamlll. Biitiin siyasi top!anblann. kangrelerin -miizakere!eri, miina~alan, kararlan ve gorii~ aynl!klan bir teblig ile diinyaya iliin ediliyar, bu mu~terek deklarasyonlann sonunda da dost dosttmu, dii;;man dii;;manm1 taruyarak ona
gore tedbir al!yor hatta silll.ha sarrhyordu.
Kendisi bir sarma ustasmm entrikacr faaliyeti hakkmda dahl miilahaza ve miitelaa beyan etmekten ~ekinirken, ad1 demokrasi mi ne
ise o dii!;iik ~eneli rejim, -al!p verdigi soluklara kadar i~ yiiziinii ortaya dlikiiyordu. Gerr;i Avrupa, Osmanl1 !mparatorh1gu'nu efendinin
bu begenmedigi idareye kavu;;tuktan sonra yenm~ti. Fakat Turklerin
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dize gelmesi.nde sadece bu reiimi gormek ~ok yanl!tl. Bir kere Garb,
daha San Selim zamamnda kat'i karar1ru vermiti: Hlristiyan A vrupa, Miisliiman Tiirkleri ne yap!p yap1p el birligi ile yenmeliydi. Nitekim oyle de oldu. Birleti, anlal!, yaklatl ve ~1glar gibi biiyiimii
Jmvveti ile he1 f1rsatta !mparatorlugun iistii.ne yiiklendi ve ezebildigi kadar ezdi. 0 diinya.Jara meydan okumu !mparatorluk ise ba~ma gelecekleri evvelden goremedi. Gorcruklerini de hep kiigiimseyip
hafiften a!d1. Giiniin biri.nde ihtiyarlay1p girkinleecegini iistii.ne kondurmayan bil: diinya giizeli gibi, hig aynaya bakmad1. Kendine giiveni sonsuzdu; onun i~in de yava yava solup sarard!gJru fark etmedi.
Ve karISmda cih:in1 hayran buakZDI eski giizellig;nin gw:Uru igi.ne
sikiIP kalarak etrafmda yeni dog up serpilen rakiplerini farkedemedi.
Onlarla boy olgiiecel< tedbiri telii ve basireti gosteremedi. Tek tiik
i.in vahametini .goriip sezenler olsa bile, umfuni gafleti.n karIsmda
bu ~erden ~opten seddin dayanamiyacagJ iiikard1. Bizans son giinlerine kadar bUyUk adamlardan mahrum deg;!di. N e ki organik biitiinliigu ve l:>iiyiikliigu kalmamJtJ. !mparator, oliimii istihkar edip er
meydarunda can verecek bir kahramand1. Grand Diik Notaras, rah.ib
Yenadiyos hep birinci simf diplomat veya riihii.ni ,biiyiiklerdi. Fakat
bu tek tek adamlar, siyasi, cografi, i>timal ve iktisadi orkestrasyonunu
kaybedip surlanrun i~inde kapab knlxm Bizans !mparatorlugu'nun
batmasmi on.leyemediler. !te aym cografya iistiinde manzara, dort
bucuk as1r evvelkinden pek furkl! deg;!di. imdi Osmanh Devleti'nin
ba;nda Kostantin Dragazez'lere meydan okuyan bir hiikfundar vardx.
Aran1rsa akh bamda ii> be devlet adanu bulmak da miimkiindii.
Lakin devlet arabasmm tekerlegine durmadan la koyan gizli dii
manlarm elinden memleketi kurtarmak gene de muhal bulunuyordu.
Kudretli bir maUyeci olan !brahim. Efendi, artlk iktis3di ve marl
kaynaklarina hakim olmaktan >Ikmi memleketinin kurtulu yollariru kavrayanuyordu. Zira dert, onun eskiye bagl.J gorii sahaslm kat kat
arni bir azamet arzediyordu. Karxncanm gozii bir fili gorebilir miydi? Hatta batm kaldmp o filin ayag1ru bile gormesi miimkiin degildi.
Maddeyi kudrete tahvil eden Garb teknolojisi, d2.ima ~rkh devlet adai!llnxn zihin duvanna ~arparak geri piiskii:rmlltii. Zira kendi
medeniyetinin maki.ne medeniyetinden i.nce ve iistiin oldugunda. iiphesi yoktu. Fakat bu rafine ve asil medeniyetin, makinelerin ayaklart altmda tm ttfak olacagma ~iiphE> etmemesi de gok garipti..
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Kiirek vo yelken devrinden buhar ve makine devrine ge~mek, el

,,e tezgah iinden fabrikasyona atlamak, Osmanh Devleti'nin psikoloiik kanaatinde bir nevi haysiyetsizlik kabul edilegelmej,:ie idi. Cii.nkU o, b.zusunun ve kaliramanhglrun gUcil ile cihangir olmu~ mant::tkh
bir i~ muvazenesini dl~ di.iny.3.ya tercilme ve aksettirirken de co~un
ve ~E>vkli yaratrciiij!lm tiirlii ~E>kil tiirlii >it ve tiirlii unsurlarda
tecrUbe ede ede kemal duragma varmi~!t. Oyle ki mimarl!kta Sinan'lar, Ayas'lar, Kasim'lar, Mehmed'ler vermi; mfisik!de Itrl'ler, H!fxz
Post'lar, Dede'ler yeti~tirmi; iirde FuZ1ll:i'ler, Bak!'ler, Naili'ler,
Nedim'ler ~i>eklendirihi~; hat'da Yakut'lar, Hamduilah'lar, HafiZ Osman'larla .eri~ilmez zirvelere ulami~; mermeri konuturan, tahtayl
dile getiren, ipeklerden, ipliklerden, renklerden, ~i~eklerden elvan
elvan mUstamereler, miistemlekeler kuran, hulasa riihu madde a.Jeminde suretle~tiren buyiik san'atkarlar gelmi~ti.
Bu diizen, bu verim, bu bereket ve b1.1 dort baI mamur medeniyet, gene dart yam mamur bir organik ii.hen,oin mahsulii idi. !1;1e memleket, imdi bu vahdeti bu yekparelig; kay.betmi, siyasi i~timai, hukuki ve iktisiidi organizmayi birbirine lehimleyen devletin ana prensipleri ~riimiitu.
!nsanoglu, biyoloiik ve psikolojik istiklaline ragmen ~oziilmiyen
bir bilmece idi. Fakat yaradili boyunca da kendi mahdut idrakiyle,
kendi bilmecesini >Ozmeye ugramaktan geri durmamltt. Kollektif
bir varl!k olan bu insanut uzviyeti.ne, bir sosyal hiiceyreler ko!onisi
denebilirdi. Fakat organik hayatJmizm bu alnllara durgunluk veren
.nizanum idare eden kumanda makinesini, kimin nas.II idare ettigi
keyfiyeti, i1;le insanoglunun biitiin tecessiisiine ragmen ebedi bilm.ecesi, ebecrt me>hiilii bu idi.
Osinanl! !mparatorlugu'nun bUnyesi de, ttpkl insan uzviyeti gibi
bir vakitler oyle ince oyle saglam esaslara ve hesaplara dayanarak
idare edilmekte bulunuyordu ki artlk bir girift ve ~ozU!mesi mii,>kiilden mii~kiil olan bu bilmece, bir me>htli olarak tarihin bagrma gizlenip kal.m.ttt .
Bir zamanlar cehlilet ve karanl1gm pen9esinde dertten derde yuvarlanan garb ise; derebeylik- kralhk ve kllise mUcadelesini nelicelendirirken selameti, vahdetli bir tekilii.t esasmda aramJ.li. Onun i>in
de, astrlar siiren bir kavgarun sonunda organize bir cemiyet, organize bir teoloji ve organize bir asaret Simf~run barajt arkasmda kendi.ni
istikrar ve emniyete almi~tt.
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11;le boylece garb alemi kendini toplarken ~ark da, alaca, keyfi,
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ba1-bozuk bir vasat ustiine kayarak eski devirlerinin metod ve
tern uurundan uzaklara duffiU bulunuyordu.
sis-
atlp kalm1 bir mantalite, irfan, siyaset ve cemiyet hayat1m1za pen~e

sini gec;irmi bulunuyordu. .Bir vakitler k1l kadar aksaldlk gostermiyen c nizamh ve ahenkli devlet, ~mdi ilimden de, ihHisdan da, te~ebbus ve gayretten de mahrum ziimrelerin elinde idi. Bu uykulu ve
korkulu gidiin tek ~aresi, cehiiletle guremek ve onu yenmekti. Lakin
Avrupa, Osmanh J:mparatorlugu'nun oliim fermanm1 yazm1t1. Onun
i>in. de padiahm her iyi i~ine kotii diyen, her isabeUi hareketini yanhhkla damgalayan ve her ad1mm1 kostekleyen bii yaygarac1 sm1f
hazlrlanlp piyasaya suriillniitii. Altm keseleriyle gaflet biile~ince, elbetteki bu kampanyay1 yiiriitecek ziimreler de eksik olmazd1, nitekim
olmuyordu da.
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lbrahim Efendi'nin refahll bir hayat1 vard1. Memlekette, kendisi

gibi bolluk ve tokluk i~inde bir ziimrenin bulundugu da bii ger~ekti.
Fakat efendinin hesap ve ol~u fikrine al!Slk kafas1, bu refahm sun'i
ve muvakkat oldugunu da pek ala bilmekte idi. Vaktiyle ~arln ~eviren
~eviimi~i. Hala donmekte devam ediyorsa, o eski rozm bereketiyle
donuyordu. Ama bunu bilen, bil~e de tcdbii ve tedarih"i tarafma giden kim vardl?
lbrahim Efendi, bu ~ivileri, vidalar1 yerinden oynaml~ ve en kotiisu, istimi kesilmi devlet makinesini, eski takat1 ve nizil.ml ile yeriiden harekete getirecek bir kuvvet tasavvur edemiyordu. Hatta buyuk
debas1na ve sonsuz gayretine ragmen, bu battallaffil pasll ve hurda
makineyi, art1k devrin padiiihl da eski halinde iletemezdi. Zira
aslrlarm gerisinden gelen bczukluk, nasu ki bii kiinin batii.sl degil
idiyse, onu tashih etmek de gene bir kiinin elinde degildi. Ama eger
c bii kii, UUrlu ve kaliteli bii miinevver zumre tarafmdan yardlm gorup desteklenmi olsaydl, memleketin kurumu .damarlarma yeniden
kan ve can gelebiliidi. Zira padiah, bii gosteri ve inkuap bastas1
. degildi. As1rlar boyunca tekrarlana gelen kanll ihtilil.l ve mesnetsiz
inlnlablardan nefret ediyor ve onun i~in de ~areyi maarif politikaslna hizmette gorerek durmadan yii.ksek ve orta mektepler a<;1ycr; muhendishii.neler, san'at h-urslan, t1bbiye, millkiye gibi sivil ve askeri
talim ve tedris muesseseleri kurarak gen~ istidatlara imkii.nlar saghyordu.
!kinci Sultan Abdillhamid, hemen her teebbusiinii baltalayan ya
da c;iiruge <;lkaran gizli diimanlanna ragmen, bir memleketin kalkmmasmda insan gucunu degerlendirmenin ve ceh3letle giireII!enin hemen tek selfunet <;aresi clduguna inanml buylik devlet adannydl. tbriihim Efendi bunu belki herkesten iyi biliyor fakat kendisinin de nimetlendigi o mevcut fakat sun'i refiiln zedeliyecek bii harekete itiiakten duydugu iirkiintii, onu padiahm killtiir ve iktisat politikasma
fiilen Yanamaktan uzak tutuyordu.
Gene biliyordu ki !mparatorluk, diinyaya parmak 1s1rtan haII!et.li devirlerine, askerlik, siyaset, idare ve cemiyet sahalarma lazlm clan
ehliyetli zumreleri, bilgi ve ihtisas s1ruflan yetistiren bii kapall smlf
disiplini i<;inde haZ1rlay1p, her birini yerli yerine oturtmak suretiyle,
eri~ ,;;imd\ ise, degisen diinyaya karl degi~miyen usullere demii
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1brahim Efendi'nin derinden derine bir sezgisi vard1. Bu, belki

de onun i~in bir ne;i teselli de oluyordu. ,;;oyle ki efendinin kanaatine
gore garb, bu g'iin bir kudret zirvesinde bulunuycrsa da, ufukta kara
k.ira bulutlar, kesif ve tehlikeli karartllar hil.linde bekle~iyordu.
Efendinin, bu korh-ulu alfunetleri doguran sebeplere uzayacak iimi kifiiyeti yoksa da, neticel~ri sezebilecek pratik ve klasik bir devlet~ilik feraseti vard1. Maamafih arkada].an arasmda, garbm U ondoktizuncu as1rda sapttgr maddecilik mezhebi i~, diinyaya yeni bir
nizam vereyim derken beeriyeti hataJ.1 ve hatarh bir istikamete sevkeden; halka ineyim derken, halkt ba,.tan <;1karan bir dalalet yclu diyenler de vard1.
Ger>eJ,:ten de bu- hatil.lann biiyii.~ii, Garbm devletle balk! yiizgoz etmi ollnas1 idi lti ite, A Vt-upa siy:l.si >evreleri bundan dolay1.
kdevlet s1rn" teamiiliinu kaybetlni~tL Onun it;.in de bu dedikoducu
rejimin sonu olamazdl. Bulundugu zirveden b~aag,. diimek zaman1
ise pek uzak goriinmiiyordu. Kiin 'ne derse desin, Avrupa'nm, kendine, kendinden biiyiik diLsmam yoktu. Demokrasi dedikleri bu idare
t2TZ1, kedi gibi dogurdugunu yersc affiamahydl.
Garbta, idare edilenler idarecilerinin her iine kar1abiliyor ve boyIeee de bilgisiz, yersiz bazan da kotu niyetli mudahaleleriyle siyaset
deresinin yatag,m bozuyorlardl. Halkm nabZ! bii kere politikanm ag,r"
hk merkezi oldu mu; herkes de kendini siy:l.sete karlII!akla vazifeli
sanzyor, a<;1ga vurulan devlet s1rlan, halk1 hiiklimete baglamak isteyen meydan nutuklar1, vazife ve mes"uliyetleri politika hudutlarmm
dllllda clan bUyiik halk kutlelerini ~'mart!p' devletine alan sayglSlm
silmi oluyor.du. Garbda halk, kendi iti'gil.li sahasuun dlma ~1 ve
siyasi .beyecanm zevkini alarak tiryakisi c;>)mu~tu. Hele pusuda bekli"
36
yen bir matbuat, dev!et idarecilerini yayl!m ate~inde tutuyor; ~ine

gelmiyen ve menfaatine dokunan meselelerde, kendinin bir amme hizmeti orgam o!dugunu unutarak ktikremeye ba~hyordu. Bu defa da
devletler, pararun, menfaatin ve ttirlti ideolojilerin kurup ~ettigi o
yapma aslandan korkar oluyorlar, gozlerinin ontinde cereyan eden
meselelere kanaat etmeyip daha daha ... diyen o zehirli kalemlere fazla fa.zla .beyanlarda bulunarak susturma yoluna gidiyorlar, boylelikle
de derli toplu ve sessiz sedas1z i~ gorme imkanlan felce .ugranu~ oluyordu.
Garb, milli hilimiyet es2sma korii kortine bagl!hk ve es2retten
htirriyete g~i~ parolasmm pe~ndeki ~ocukca ~abalay:I~l ile b~ma
daha neler getirecekti, bilinemez. Amma bu dti~tik >eneli politikacllarm bu geveze ilim adamlarmm diyan olan Garb, kendi haliyle halleip kalsa gene bir ~ey degi!di. N e >;he ki ayni zihniyet hayranlijp., hudutlarimlZI gep !mparatorluga da atlam1~ bulunuyordu. Garb, sanayide, ticarette, iktisatta, ilim ve :fendeki inkar gotii.rmez U.sttinltigune
rallmen hesaps1zca halka kayan politikasmm cezas1ru ~ekecege benzerken, tutar tara:f1 kalmam1~ Osmanl1 imparatorlujp.l, eni enine boyu boyuna uymayan bir macerli, bir heves .ugruna, yerle~ ve oturm~
devlet mefhumunu y1karsa h:!ili ne olw-du?
!br2him Efendi, memleket sathmda bu istikamette haz1rlamp hizlilanan kalabahk. bir ztimre oldugunu biliyordu. l~te korktujp.l ic; tehlike de buydu. !mparatorlugun tlirihi ger>ekle1111i ve an'anevi siyasetini bihne3en, devlet ve cemiyet biinyesinin iciib ve zaruretlerine vaklf olm1yan bir alay sivri akllh turedi ve aldatllnn~ adam, bir hiirriyet W!d!r tutturmu~ar, bu ujp.lrda yapmad1k hata blrakrruyorlarru. Htirriyetin, her ~eyden evvel, cehlilet ve ga:fletten kurtulmak oldugunu bilmeden, aktardan, bakkaldan satm alm1r bir nesne imi~ gibi,
terter tepinerek istiyorlard!. Adlanna "Jon Tiirk" dedirten bu hayalperest macerac!lara, zehri panzehirden aYJrt ettirmek demtimkiin. degildi. Zirii boyle bir klyas ve se>me yapabilmek ic;in, ya derin bir
1-..iiltilr, ya uzun bir tecrilbe. ya da ~urlu bir imanm feraseti lli.zrmru:
Daha dogrusu bunlann hepsinin bir arada, hepsini!l aym yerde bir1~~. olmas1 gerekti.
1~te gizli cemiyetlerin ve yabanc1 menfaatlerin ajp.na d~il~ bir
alay masum :fakat gafil vatan evlad1, hep bu. mevhum htirriyet heyeciiniyle arkalanndan itilerek, tutmu~, evvelii Sultan Abdiilmecid'i 61diirmek istemi; onu becerem.eyince, gelmi~ Sultan. Abdiilaziz'in tahtm> bama y1kml~; ~di-deOsmanl!!mparatorlugu kadar Avrupa siyasi l,;evrelerini --d.e panna~mda 0ynatan . !kinci Sultan Abdillhamid
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gibi bir politika cambaz:iy!e ugralllaya ba.lam'~'- Halbuki zamanm

padiiihl, devlete ve hiikiimdara ka:fa tutan bu calli! kalabal1ga: Size
bu giln istediginizi vermek, siit >ocuiluna baklava borek yedirmek gibidir. Dayanamazstniz, ka!d,ramazslmz, etmeyin eylemeyin... hiin-iyetten evve! hiir olniamn yollarlm arayal1m, mektepler a~ahm, cehaletle boJP.!alim, o bizi yenmeden biz onu yenelim .. yollu sozler ediyordu.
Ne yaz1k ki padi~ahm, derdini kimselere anlatmas1 miimkiin deilildi. 0, 1mparatorltijp.m -mirasm1 b61iimek giiniinii bekliyenlerin alltan alta kiklrtmalan, siyasi te~bbilsleri, iftira ve isnadlar1 altmda
her giin biraz da.':!a milletin goziinden dii~iirilluyor, sevimsiz, korkun>
bir zebani hali:1e getiriliyordu.
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!briihim Efendi, devletin bekas1 i~inde gereken yolu !:\Yin edebilen himmetlinin, hemen de vaktin padiahmdan ibiiret oldugunu ac1
ac1 bilmekteydi. Ya kendisi? Evet be!ki de kendisi, memleketin selametine hizmet edecek devlet adam1 evsafma en fazla Yaklanlardan
biriydi_ Bir Grand Diik Notaras degilse bile, bir Kapado:h.-yal, Yani
idi. !stese, devlet hazinesine ~k daha faydal1 olabilirdi. Fakat gene
in in kabul ettigi bir ger~ek vardJ: ,;;allsi menfaatine diikilnliigu,
kW'ulu diizen, ihti~ml1 ve debdebeli hayatma zarar gelmesi endiesi,
onu aktif ve serdenge~ti bir siyaset adanu o!maktan, ucunda tehlike
sezdig;. hamle ve hareketlerden daima uzak tutmu~tu. Oyle ya ... siyaset demek, bir nevi kumar demekti. Kazan9 anSI kadar kaybetme
ihtimali de vard1. .;;u halde konajp. kokii, all arabasiyle, c;ubujp.mu
ya!np keyfine bakarken ne diye her ~eyini birden kaybedebilecegi
macera!ara atllmal, idi? 0, kalabi!digi kadar Mec!is-i Maliye Reisi
olarak kalacak, hattii maliye nazm dahl olmayacakl!. Bu kuytu e
gozlerden 1rak korfezde az nu av yakalaml, aglarma oltalarma az m1
varhk, az nu dirlik takllm1l1? Getc;i Sultan Abdiilhamid'in YalniZhjp.na, yo:-gunlu~una ezim ezim eziliine aCl,}ordu. Ama ac1mak, her
halde yard!m etmekten daha kolayd1.
!briihim Efendi'nin zihni bu noktaya gelince kendi kendini daha
fazla su~land.!rmaktan korkarak durakladJ ve gamm1 dag1tmak iizere
mabeyin kap1s1ndan hareme ge!;erel> odaSJna girdi.
Sarma ustasmm oyunima sene!erce aldannu olan !brahim Efendi

konag,, zamanla tasfiyeye ugrayan her hiidise gibi, bunu 9,a unuttu.
na,et!er, ziyiifetler, dilgunler, ?iyiiretler ve konajp.n mutad iht~am,.
bu tarihi vak'anm tistiinden bir siinger gibi ge~ti. .Niliiiyet dedikodu-
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nun da bir omrii vardi. En cazibi ve en heyecanb.Sl dahi eskiyip lezzet
ahnmaz hale geldi mi, b1kllarak bir koeye atllmast mukadderdi. Hele bir yenisi ortaya ~1karak giinliik hayatm i~inden ba!;)m kaldinnca,
biitiin i~halar ve alakalar derhal o tarafa kay1p eskiyi unutturuverirdi. :Ibrahim Efendi konag,. ise, istanbul aristokrasisinin h-ulis hikayelerine kulag,. delik merkezlerden biri oldugu i>in, cemiyet hayabnm
~e~itli havadisleri hep oradan gelir ge,erdi.
Hele kalfalann odasmm latzen, dedigi. dedik temellilerinden oldugu kadar, yukan katm da terifats1z misatirlerinden alan Nadire Han= isminde bir gedikli vardi ki, sivri zek:i.s1, insafs1z alayc1hg1, ~ok
bilmi~gi., !;Ok gezmi~igi., mizah ve hiciv taan karakteri ile tipik bir
dalkavuktu. Dedikodu kiipiine her elini daldrr1mda, renk renk ~e;;it
~e;;it haberler ~1kar1r, girdi~i meclisi, tav1 ge~emi, ~i~egi burnunda
havadislerle agzma bakt1r1rdi. Kime ho gorunmek i!;in, kimi parmal!;Jna dolayacag,.ni !;Ok iyi bilen N adire Han1m, muhakkak ki bir
san'atkardi. Her ne kadar hGneri makbul bir hiiner degi.l idiyse de,
bir artist kudretine sahip oldugu ve herkesten ayn herkesten. fazla
bazl yaradill huslisiyetlerine malik bulundugu da inkar edilemezdi.
onun i~in de N adire Harum'1 yalmz konak halkl degi.l, tekmil muhit
arar ve adeta paylaamadJ.g,. bir diikiinliikle bekleyip isterdi.
Aslma bah,hrsa han1mlar meclisinin tuzu biberi sayllan Nadire
Han>m'a gosterilen bu ragbetin, mullabbet1e pek alakas1 yoktu. Zira
ona gosterilen bu diikiinliik. bir meziyet ve faziletin bedeli degi.l, siifli
bir zevkin kar!;)hgl idi. N adire Harum o kimselerdendi ki hoa gittikleri, ie yarad1klar1 miidde~e itibar ve alaka gorii.r; baglantl sebebi
ortadan kalktl rru yalmz terked.ilmekle kalmaz, hatta menfur bir yiik
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K.alfalann odas1, evin alt kat sakinlerinin de bir nevi i~ima mahalli idi. iini bitiren herkes bir boy oraya ugrar diruenir, eglenir,
konu~ur, akalalr ve gene vazifesi bama donerdL Bu oda, aym
zarnanda evin kahve ocag1 mahiyetindeydi. Yerli dolaplarm j~inde,
akraba ve aile dostlarllidan her birinin ahlslarina mallsus fincanlan,
bardaklan bu dolaplarda s1ra s1ra dururdu.
Bunla1a pek de fincan deyip ge~ek dogru olmasa gerek. Yeil
yapraktan bir tabak i~ine oturan pcmbe bir gill; ~enberleri talarla
iJenmi mini mini bir varil; gece mavisi ustii.ne altm dantel ge~mi
bir kii~ii.ciik hokka; ~. Japon san'at nefiselerL yayvanlar, kannl!Jar, ince belliler, uzun boylular; h-ulplul_ar, kulpsuzlar, yiiksiih-ten az
bii.yiik. kaseden az kii.siik olanlar ... ite dolabm ka'l!$ amca, bir
~igel< bahgesi etaretiyle iS asan bu fincan sergisi goze Mardl Zarl-
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h fincanlar da gene bu dolaplarda dururdu. Tugralliar, tugraslZlar, som

gumuler savafular, porseleruer, elmashlar, mineliler, yaldizlllar ...
Sonra dolabm alt katlnda gumii, maden, Hint ii, J apon Jakesi
renk renk boy boy pan! par1l tepsiler ve dolabm yah tarafmda, boy
s1rasma gore tabur olmu pirin~ cezveler dururdu.
Bu ~eit ~eit fincanlann her biri akrabadan veya e~den dosttan
birine aitti. Faraza yan1l1p da, 1brahim Paa'nm han1mma Sami Paa'mn hanmunm fincaniyle kahve ikram etmek bii.yiik sayg!Slzllk
addedilirdi.
Her gelene kahve pien bu odada, yalmz kalfalarm kahve ismeleri adet degi.ldL Ancak gens halaytklann kalfalanna belli etmeden,
cezvenin dibindeki kalmti0'1 gizlice i~tikleri olurdu. Bu da herhalde,
cezve ile kahve i~enin kocas1 zengin olurmu, diye halk arasmd& yaygm bir ata soziiniin tevikiyle olmal1yd1.
Konag,.n daimi kadrosu isinde bulunan terzi Fani ile Olga da,
ileri olmad.Jg,. zamanlar diki!i odasmdan buraya gelirlerdi. Bu kadJ.nlar, evin giindelik diki~eriyle megul olan hafif terzilerdi. Bir de esash dikiler i9in gelen ~el Aciman vard1. Kl.V!rcrk siyah saslari, uzun boyu, kavisli s1rtt, esmer teni ile gevezeligi, vakit vakit ters,
aksi hatta miitecaviz bir hal alan bu kaprisli kadm ev halkma pek
sevimli gelmemekle beraber harih"ulade dikii yiiziinden harumlarm
makbillii. idi. Kalfalar kendi aralarmda: <Aman gene deli Rael geldi.~ diyerek yiizlerini asarlarsa da, sayg1da kusur etmez ve hanimlarmm hatm da olmasa, <misafir misafirdil'> diye kah az ekerli kah
!;Ok ekerli, kah kopiiklu, kah kopii.ksii.z diye her g~inde bir ka~
defa geri sevirdigi. kahv.Sini sabrrla gotiirup getirirlerdi.
Esasmda bu cidden san'atkar kadm. Derya Kaptaru Hasan Paanm k1z1 Hamide Hanm\efeli.di'nin ayhkll terzisiydi. Kaptan Paa'mn,
ikbal meydanmda ozengi parlatmi ve her zaman soz bal olmaya
al!Dll bu bal havada klZl, ahsi terzisinin dlarlya saliDlasim ;;iddet1e men ettigi. halde, Rael, :Ibrahim Efendi'nin k1zlarma ka~ak
i yapard1. Onun isin de bu huysuz ve rmank terzi, arada bir geldi~i
zamanlar, hizmetine konagm en gen~ ve en sakin halaytg,. alan Mecbur verilirdi. Karanl1k gecelerden daha siyah olan bu taze zenci klZl-
nm, ;;imek gibi sak1p sonen tebessiimleri arasmdan bembeyaz dilerinin g6riinmesiy!e, kalm dudaklan altmda kaybolmas1 bir olurdu.
Orta boyu, diimdiiz sirti, muntazam kal~alar1, hafif ~1kmtll1 hlnu:un
iistiinden kabaran k1V1rcrk sa!;)an, devamh bir hazrr ol kumandas1
altmda imi gibi, clddi tetik fakat se,-imli yii.zii. ile bir insandan ziyade bir heykeli andJ.ran bu tath ve gevrek Sudan'h, tam Rael'in na-
40
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<;ekecek insand1. Ho~ onun nazm1 yalmz kalfalar degil, harumlar

da >ekerlerdi. Hem >ekrnege mecbur hatta mahkiimdular. Zira Ra~el, Avrupa gi:irmu~, Paris'dc ya~amJ bir kadmd1. Kendi dikiini "haute
couture" diye adlandmr "ben dilti dib:miyorum, kreasyon yapzyorum;
bunlar beaux arts kategorisino girer" diyc kana}: halkmm yar1 anlaYIP, yan anlamadJgJ lilflar eder ve her f1rsatta Avrupa'dan, Avrupa
. hayatmm tiirlii zevk vo eglencelerinden si:iz a<;arak dinleyenleri hayran brrakrrd!.
Acaba !brahlm Efendi, bu Olga'larm bu Fani'lerin, bu RaePlerin
garb a a<;1lan birer arka kap1 olduklanm biliyor rnuydu? Biliyorsa,
evin!n i>ine, Beyoglu ile Paris'in bu kapuardan girmesi houna gidiyor
muydu? N e ki, gitse de gitmese de yapacak baka bir ey yoktu. Zira
hem-seviye bulundugu ailelerin hepsinde bu Olga'lar, Fani'ler, Rael'ler vard!. Ve Garb, Tiirk aristokrasisinin kap1lar1m bu Avrupall
taslaklarmm eli, dill ve zevkiyle zorluyordu.
Fakat zorlanan, sadece cemiyetin satlh iistii degerleri, muaeret
usul ve erkam olsa bir ey deJ!ildi. Ne >are lti Garb, milli biinyenin
kale becleni gibi en saglam en metin olan burcunu, barusunu ydmll,
bin YJ.llik tarihinden ak1p gelmi hayat suyunu kurutmu, en fenas1
kendi kendine diiman edip bir filtir ve duygu l>ararsizl!E!mn akml!EJ i>inde bJrah'1I!I\l. i}imdi bu, yolunu sapltmi, bildigini unutmu,
bilecegini kestiremez olmu cemiyetin ha.Ji neye varacaktl? Eski istlla
Ve ihtifun as1rJanna bakmca tempOSU yav~anu, feri sonm\i taka!!
kesilmi ollnasma ragmen gene de; maziden getirdigi siir'at ve bereket kalmtlSI ile cemiyet gal'ln, iyi ki:itii di:iniiyorsa da giiniin birinde
mevcut ve siiregelen h:tz tiikenir olunca, birdenbire duracak ve ite
o zaman imparatorluk tarihirlin kxyameti kopacaktx. Heniiz atlx arabah, ayvazh Uak11 lwnaklar, eski varhk ve dirliklerden, i<;lerinde bir
ka> bin kap1 halk1 alan vezir ve paa saraylarmdan bir .nebze olsun
ornek veriyorsa da, bu, varhk gi:isteren yoklugun ta kendisiydi. !mparatorlugun YJ.ldJZI si:ineli asrrlar olmu~a da aldatJCI avkx hala gi:izleri oyalxyordu.
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1g1 yerd.1. rb ra"him Efendi'nin tam kadrolu selamhk dairesi de bunlardan biri idi. Dt agas1,
gidi~ agasx, haremagalarx, seyisler, u~aklar, ah!;Jlar, bah!;!Vanlar, yamaklar ve mahalle bek~ilerinin de inzimamx ile daimi bir gid~-geli
halinde olati selfunlik, konag1n dortte birini igal eden bir kxstmd!.
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Harem gibi buraya da biiyiik ta~IIga a~1lan ciimle kap1smdan girilir ve binek taI ilc aynlmi bir kii<;iik mermer tahktan ge!;ilip, Uak
odas1yle kogu~larm arasma diien geni~ merclivenden seHimhk clairesine ~xkxhrdJ.
Konaga gelen hemen hi, bir ziyaretr,iye, l'apxmn pirin<; halkasm1
<;almaya f1rsat olmazdi. Zira fcrmeneli alvan, Slrmal! saltas1 gene Sirmali takkesi Ve aJ kUagi iJe bir heykeJ azameti i<;inde kapi oniindc
bekleyen ayvaz, ya gcleni gi:iriir, ya araba veya ayak sesini duyarak
derhal kap1y1 a<;ar ve geleniere buyur ederdi. Misafir, kadmsa da erkekse de ayvazm vazifesi hiirmetle kardamaktan i:ite ge<;mez, derhal
~i devralan bir haremagas1, ge!en hanxmlann veya beylerin kollarma
girerek arabadan indirir, kadmsa harem kap1sma gi:itiiriip kalfalara
teslim eder; erkekse sel:lmhga <;Jkararak birbirinden terbiyeli agalara
bxrakJrdJ.
lVIisafir, giindiiz ve belir!i ziyaret saati diInda gelmi isc ve efendi de evde degil ya da haremdc bulunuyorsa, her biri s6zii sohbeti
yerinde, adeta birer beyefendi tutumlu olan bu agalara hayli i diierdi. Kal1ph fesleri balarmda vc dftima onleri ilikli setreleri slrtlarmda.
bir n6bet>i dil>katiyle uyanxl< bekliyen bu agalar, yerlere kadar egilip
temenna iistiine temenna ederek misafiri kartlar mevkine, vaziyetine, haline ve icabma gore istirahat odalarmdan birine ahr; efendinin
cvde olmad!EJru hemen si:iylemez, misafir oturduktan sonra kendi de
gider kap1 yanmda el baglay1p dhan durur; ancak sua! sorulursa cevap verir, bir baka aga kahvc getirinceye kadar da \'aziyetini hi> degitirmezdi.
Kahveden sonra efendi haremden selamhga ~IkmJ ya da sokaktan gelmi~e haberci aga i!;eri . girerek evve!a rnisilfiri etekler sonra
da terifatla alip efendinin yaruna gi:itiiriirdii. Ama agalar, her hangi
bir sebep!c efendiltin gecikecegini biliyorlarsa l<ahveden sonra ei"bet
gelir, o zaman misafir, cfendiyi sorar, agalar da 2det5 Ozi.ir dUer bir
eda ile beklemenin bouna oldui'tunu hissettirir!crdi.
Gelen misafirin de <;ok defa yanmda bir gidi agas1 bulundugun~
dan, o da Uaklarm odasma ahmp kahvesini, erbetini i>mi ,.e en hou, efendinin evde olmadtgxm Ul;aklardan duymu~ oldugu haldc, yu-
kan ~xkxp kendi efendisine: BoUna'beklemiyelim, cvin efendisi yokmu.. diye haber veremezdi. Zira bu; misafir gelinen evin1 rnisafirperverlik an'anesine bir sayg!SlzlxktJ. Gelen o;iyaret~i bir eyyam oturmah.
dinlenmeli, hatta yiyip i~meli, boylelikle de ev, ikram ve izzet mevzuunda vazifesini tamamladxktan sonra. misafirini ancak o zaman gondermeliydi.
43
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de astl belirli ziyaret giin ve geceleri vardJ. ki, o zamari her
~o"""uca efendinin yanma ahmr ve kahve erbet, mevsimine gi5ge1en a "'kurll yernl
b''t''
u un s al on h alkma b'1rd en ikram e dili r d'1.
b
re oz. ' f'rJerle berab er !b ra"him Efendi' ye de kendi agas1 ayn b'1r t epM
1sa 1
.. d'
si i i.nde :kahve geb~r _1. Ama bu, ur.mma ikram edilenden ayn bir
9
kahve dibek kahveslydl.
s.8.amhkta kahve stoku azald1 m.t, vazifeli aga donme dolabl vurur
len klza: l(alfaclgtm, kahvemiz tiikeniyor.. der, k1z da kilerci kalve
kil
..
f ge haber ..,.ererek, ~~ er a~11ir ve yar1m ~uval ~ig kahve se1"am11ga
ayail' di seJamllkta kahve kavurmak, vazife oldugu kadar ze..,.k de
ver 1ri Jerden
.
. 11.
..,, "'" ya. K ah ve dolab1 mangalm iistiine yerle,~:....p,
bir 1
1
0 an !v< dondiirillmege balaymca, agalar da birer ikier mangalm
vaY-s
d1.Tatl1 konumalar, tur
"!"u aba na toplanarak yar.~ nli'k
ge oyulurlar
k
malar arasmda donen dolaptan, once ~ig ve kiifiimsii bir koku l<I~ afak 1 daneler iyiden iyiye klzarmaya yiiz tutunca da taze ve keski~' bir :avruk kahve kokusu dumaniyle beraber etraf1 tutard1. Bir ara
.'"r k vamiDl anlamak i~in herkes kavrulmu t:i.nelerden avud o1ap a~= ' 1
alarak leblebt. g1'b'1 yemege b alar, ayet hep bir ajglzdan "o1mu',
~una
lkarsa. dolap boal\Il.tp yenlden ~ig kahve ile doldurularak
1
arar k "nurdu. Yok eger, kahve t:i.neciklerini hala beyaz dileri arasmadt ee.......0t eye devam eden tecru"b e1'1 a 6""''
o;u.ar: 0 lmam1~, az d aha 1ster

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a gu mdolabm agz1 tekrar l<aparup ate~n iistiinde son bir ka<; daki_ .. d"
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d er1erse,
ka daha dand~u: ~
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!( vruJma iI bttt1kten sonra, oturarak degtrrnende <;ekme 11 ba;;1 d ~ oteki kadar ko1ay say!lmazdt. Zira yanm ~uval kahveyi bil.zu
ar l.et'ul,e un ufak etmek hzyl!-yorucu bir ameliye idL Ne ki, yorulan
.
J::cuvv l.Y
aga, degirtnenin oturak ~tasmd~ kal~~ bir ba;;.k~s1 o~un yenne
suretiJle gene de dinlene eglene lI sona erdir1rlerdi.
ge,mFekk efendiye
p~en
kah ve, bu, evd e k avrulup evde <;ekilenden
1
degil~. ~nun kahvesi :;lehzadeba~!'nm maruf bakkah HafiZ Efendi'ye
rl rdt. ;:ehzadeba;;t Caddesi'nin o zamanlar Birinci Daireye dog~~0= gibi girerek bir meydanc1k yapl!gt yerde.diikk:i.nl alan bu
, 1, i~man adam, kend\nden evvel giden karrunm iistiinde ~al
ta ya,..
or
' sar1g1,
- : al van, setresl. 1'1e semtin
1'tibar11 esnaf k
... basl.Ilda a'b an1
u~agi, ndaydt. Pek giilmez, si5ylemez miiteriye dll-dokiip hat1r kol1
l~_:ra;~kin maim temizini, iyisini, hiylesizini sataral< iini yiiriitiirdii.
'hzadeba$~nm bu namll bakl<aliye .diikk:i.ntrun bir hus1isiyeti de
. t ~~ eye ~1kan arka avluda, iki ustamn, bildikleri gibi kavurduk{ e kah~eyr gene bildikleri gibi kar~Il.!lth ge~erek. dibekde dogmeleriy~~De~rmen ne l<adar ince <;ekerse <;eksin, tokmaklarm altmda adetii
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macwJ.la;;arak ezilen dibek kahvesi kadar yagm1 ve kokusunu veremezdi. Onun i~in de, kalwenin dibel<te dogiileni de~rmende ~ekilenin
den her zaman daha makbul, tizyaki ii ve i<;imi Ohretliydi.
Haremde de kahve sarfiyatt pek fazla o1dugandan, kalfalann kai:urduklan kah . .~enin ~ekilmesine agalarm yardm1 etrnesi usUldendi.
Kanul.mu kahve)i ~eki!mek uzere dtartya vermek i~in bir kalfa,
donme dolab1 vurur ve sesi duyan aga da koarak do1abm online ge1irdi.
Konaklardaki bu donme dolaplar, harem tahi:I ile selamitk ta;;hg,n,m arasmdaki duvara gomiilmii, bir taraftan obiir tarafa ~evrile
bilen rafh ve yuvarlak bir dolapt1. Bir taraftan oteki tarafa verilecek
eYa bu raflara konur v.e dolap ~evrilince de aksi istikamete donmek
suretiyle haremie selaml!k arast bir muamele yaptlmt olurdu. Kalfalarla agalar arasmdaki zariiri i miinasebetinde donme dolaplann
h"Uilarulmast, hal"emden selaml!ga bir haber verir veya bir eyay1 naklederken, iki tarafm birbi!ini gormeden vazifesini yapmasi esasma dayan1rdJ..
Amma donme dolaplarm daha baka ilere yaradJ.gm1 istanbul
aristokrasisi tarihinin kl\>rtmlan arasmda bulmak miimkiindiir. Kad!nm erkekten s1k1 stktya ka),ttl!I devirlerde, donrne dolap muil.akalart olagan ilerden biri sa)'lhrdt. Aga]ar, yiizlerini gormedikleri ktzlara seslerinden alk olarak, donme d6lap arkasmdan akala;;lr, cilvel"ir hattil. sozle~rlerd,i. Sevdarun ucuz olmad1i:I o devirlerde, birbirinden ayr!lmamak and1m eze1 giiniinde i~mi gen~lik ve giizellik, bu
masum bu ka<;amakh fakat o nisbette de heyecanl1 ve tehlikeli ak
oyunlarm1 oynardJ.. 0 kadar ki bu dolap1arm ~ok biiyiikleri bazan goziipek ve am cesur ktzlart dolabm rafma biiziiliip girmi olarak selamhga ka~1ran gizli bir yol da o1urdu..
Fakat Ibrahim Efendi'nin se1amhg,. ile haremi arasmda bu tiirlii
gelenek .iistii vUk"Uat duyu1mam.tII. Efendinin iki odal!i:l Azmidil Kalfa ile N eveser Kalfa, etraflarma goz a9\trma}an sert, titiz ve inzil;>a\~1
kadJ.nlardt. Hiilet Hantmefendi'nin eksik olrnayan murakabesi de konagm biitiiniine ~amil, i<;eriyi ve d!ariYl birden kucaklaytp tarayan bir
sessiz muvazene unsuru idiydi ki hemen de a;;m kuvvet sarfetmeden,
konai:Jn mekanik diizenini tanzim ve idare cderdi.
!brahirn Efen.di'nin konagmda kalfalarm odas1 nas11 bir a;; kazaru gibi kaynar durur ve be1irli .bir sli\tfa ugrakhk ederse, agalarm Od.as1 da gene mahalle
Agalann Odast '
... .,.
45
44
yarammn dolup baaldlgJ bir yer sayilirdJ. Kona~n agalan, i!eri imkan verdik>e bu geni odada toplamr, dinlenir, eglenir ve
misatirlerini kabul ederlerdi. Efendinin mii!iyede bulundugu saatler, uaklann en fazla dinlenip yarenlik ettikleri zamanlardJ. Mutbagm yanmdaki biiyiik l<oguta yemeklerinc yedckten sanra adalarma
ge<;erler, mangaldan eksilmiyen cezvelerin bcri boahrken oteki atee
sii~illiir ve tiryaki ii kulpsuz fincanlarla gelene gidene kahve ikram
edilirdi.
Buras! mahalle bek>ilerinin de ugrag, oldugundan, bu ada, onlarm aa bir nevi kararga!u, ziyaret ve istirahat mahalli say1hrd1. ~eh
zadebal bek>i!eri arasmda kibarhg,, ag,rb3lilig, ile mehur Biiseyin
Aga; zevzekligi. kadar ~ler yiizii ve sadakatiyle mehur Bayram Aga,
Ramazan davulu biitiin Istanbul'ca Ohretli Clmer Aga bunlarm bamda gelirdi.
Bayram Aga iri k>y:Jm, ya).1 ve ta_t!l bir adamdl. Tiirkgeyi muba!agah bir Bitlis aksam ile konuurken, kendisini dinleyenler, onun
kiirt taklidi yapt!g,m zannederlerdi. Yemek-ten sonra agalann odastna
girer ve kah veci agaya :
_ Vura Usman aga, bir ukkah yap! derke_n, bir yandan dilerinin arasmda kalml yemek arttk!anm ahadet parmajpm avu;dunda
kurek gibi dalatlrarak bir kenara toplayrp yutar; sonra da bu kahn
parmag, emer gibi yalzyarak agzmdan ~II<anp patmuna surterdi.
Bek~er igin giinduz, <;alima saati saylimazd1. Batta ehri:n her
hangi bir yerinde yangm dahi olsa, sokaklan dolalP ucu demirli sopalarnu kaldlflm ta.larma "-urarak; bir mahalleden bir mahalleye ula3n giir sesleriyle: Yangm vart diye bag,rmazlardt. Zira bu alarm il
dahl gecelere mahsus vazlfelerdendi.
Geceler ... 0 karl1, f1rtmah, yag,;>h, ayaz istanbul geceleri.... Bu
kaya paq;as1 gibi heybetli, saglam ve gayretli adamlar, iffetleri, imanlarl ocaklarmm haysiyet ve erefiyle tepeden hrnaga dopdalu adamJar, adeta ehrin emniyet ve asiiyii iistiine kanat germi pederoa!li birer efsane mabluk-u gibi etraflar1na nasll goz kulak olur, nas1l da can
feda ederlerdi? Onun i~in de, mahalle demek biraz da bekgi demek
degil miydi? Irza, niimusa, mala, cana, canlanm siper etmi tak gozlu,
toz sozlu ka"hramanlar ...
U-5ak adasmm belli bah simillarmdan biri de ayvaz SerJ..;s'di.
. Odanm ~ga bakan penceresinden ciirnle kap!Sl gBrilldfrgu halde,
gene de o kaptdan uzun miiddet ayr1lamazdJ. Bu yiizden de kahvesini
;""" ;gmez iinin b3ma inerdi. Hem Serkis'in ~am iistlerl b3ka ileri
de olurdu. Mutbaktan. yemek tal;>la!anru alarak hareme ve.-selfunhga
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Harem Aga&!
gotlirmel<, !~mba i~elerini temizleyip

gazlarm1 kay:mak, k6miirii ocakta ya. karak, mangallara taksi:m etmek hep
onun yapacag, ve yaphracag, ~er
dendi. Dagrusu 1brahi:m Efendi'nin
kranta ayvazJ Serkis'e de tam jinin
ehli denirdi. Sanki hatiften emir allyormu gibi sessiz sedas1z ve big aksatmadan giinliik hizmetlerini .gorur
ne kapJ yaldalanndan bir kimseye
satatr, ne. de bir kinlsenin kendisine
ililnesine meydan verirdi. Hele vine
giir.u~u guhadan fermeneli alvariyle
. saltasm1, bama smnah ta"kkesini ve
ayaklarma da gilllil yemenilerini giyip
al kua~nl da beline sard1 llll, kend.i
bile kendini begenirdi.
Bu adanm, daha dagrusu bu kaen ele avuca s1gmaz slmas1 ise,

iiphe yak kl haremagalarmdan Yaver Aga idi. Hareme de selaml!ga
oldugu kadar -destursuz girip g1kar, Uaklarla habe ederken, kalkar
i>eri. giclip kalfalarla akalaJr; ktzlarm dizleri dibinde atururdu. Yaver, canh ve neeli adamdL Fakat bazt baz1, kimselere hatta kendl gibi
bir haremagas1 olan Be!;ir'e dahi a>mactJg,, hi> bir kap1 yaldalYla paylamad!g, bir derdi olmahyd1 ki, durulur, diiii.niir, gamlan1r ama tath
mizac1 gene de imd:idma yetierek gabuk ag1llrd1. Kiminle dertleebilir, halini kime anlatabilirdi ki, bu koskoca gatt altmda kendisiyle
hem dert olan yalmz bir kii vardl. 0 da, kuyuya du;er gibi, kendi
igine kapanini orada stk1~1p kaltnl bir dertliydi. Halbuki Yaver,
ne'eliydi. Fakat kadmla kadln olmak ister olamaz; erkekle erkek olaylm der, gene olamazdL Daha kilgucill< bir >acukken, yurdundan yuvasmdan >allp dilsiz dudaks1z bir eya gibi sata savura, tundan ttma,
gurbetten gurbete ala tuta siiriikleyen bir el, nihayet tabiatma da. milda"hale edip ona, 'erkek yaralllml .olmak hakkuu da >ok gormii ve
elinden bunu da gekip alnutl. Bamdaki kJrmJZl fese, s1rtmdaki setre
pantalana rag,nen, U konagm i!;inde bir sogut dal1 gibi dal"an sa!mhlJ ve narin yap)sma, harem halkl tarafmdan da, selamhk halk! tarafmdan da erkek goziiyle bakllrnazdl. Agalar, kalfalarla donme dalaplarm ya da kapllann al]maz manileri. arkasmdan kanuurken a, elini
kolunu sallaya sallaya gen> cariyelerin tnahremiyetle:ri arasma kan~ana~m
47
46
bilirdi. Ama bu imtiyaz, cinsiyetine hakaretten baka bir ey degildL
Keke o da diger kap1 yoldalan gibi harem ehlini, kal'a bedenleri
gibi fethedilmez mukiillerin arkasmdan gozlemeye ya da hayhl etmege ~ahsa, onlarla kendi arasmda daglar dereler olsa da, sa~mdan
sakalmdan, sesinden solugundan tapn mahrumiyeti ile, kadmm da
erkegin de goziinde bu turlu ku~uk du~meseydi.
Yaver, zaman zaman kendisi gibilere revii goriilen zuhnun muhasebesini yapar olunca, mes'ul olarak karlSma erkek k1skan!;hgmm
gaddar menfaat~iligi 91kard1. Erkek gibi selamhkta boy g6steren, kadm gibi haremde dolaabilen bir ak ve siyah harem agalar sm1f1 meydana getirmi vahi ve zhlim erkek k1skanshg1 ...
Uak odasmm gedikli <;ehrelerinden biri de emektar arabac1 Faik
Aga idi. Efendiyi veyii harumlan goturup getirdikten sonra, s1rtmdaki
seyis uniformasmm parlak diigmelerini <;Bzerek i<;eri girer ve rahat
koltuklardan birine kendini atard1. Hilmi Bey'in kli<;lik .torunu ise,
konag,n kCiesinde bucag1nda dola0abilen en ya.km akraba <;OC\lgu olarak, bu Uak odasmt da gelip ge<;erl<en gozler ve agalann, tiitlinlerini
kahvelerini i!;ine gomiiliip keyifli ke)ifli i<;tikleri bu koltuklann keneli oturma odalar1ndaki san kadife koltuklann e~ oldugunu gorlirdu.
!ki ailenin hayat standardm1 gosteren bu canli tabla, <;ocuk i<;in ne
o zaman ne de ileriki zamanlarda bir mesele olmaml, siidece bir mukayeseye zemin teltil etmiti. Gergek olan, kendi anas1, babas1 ve biitiin a.iJ.e, amca efendinin Uaklariy)e ayni cins mefrUall kullanmakta
idiler. Fakat Hilmi Bey de evladlart ve torunlan da bu mutevazi eyanm listlinde ne kadar diizenli, ne kadar huzurlu ve ne kadar ahenkli
bir hayat YaIyorlardl. Ne ki, ku<;lik k1z, husi\si bir sebeple bu koltuklan sevmez hattii. onlara k1zard1. Zirii arkaltklarmm tahta k1smmdaki
bronz siisler, bo bulunup da dayandigm zaman sa!;lrn yakalar ve biri
gelip yard1m etmedik<;e de baml, bu tuzaktan lmrtara.mazdi. :
!brahim Efendi konagm1n dl goriinii:;Undeki orkestrasyona ragmen i<;ten bir kopukluk bir baglaritistzhk bir vahdetsizlik vardi. Bu
~at1 altmda, il.ileyi toplay1p, birbirlerine per<;inliyecek bir ey eksikti.
Birle\irici, tamamlaYICI bir ~ey, mesela sevgi ... Evet bu evde her ~ey
boldu,. her ~ey vard1; yalmz sevgi noksand1, hatl;a yoktu. Konagm i~in
de evin efendi'i son derece sa)'lhr hatta korkulur; fakat acaba sevilir
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Ashna bakllacak olursa, bu aktlh tedbirli ve magrur ada.mui da
gerek i~ gerek aile ve dost ~evreleri aras1nda muhabbetle sinesine basacaltl kimsesi yoktu. Eger sevilmek ihtiyacuu duysa, sevmesini bilmesi Hiztmdl. Halbuki ona saytlmak, korku ve menfaat yiizunden: de
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elsa, muhitinin ihtiram yarll or\q.s1nda azametle yaamak, sevilmekten ~ok daha zevkli gelirdi.
Yalmz, biiyi.\k k1z1 $evkiye Hammefendi'yle arasmda ger<;ek bir
yak1nl1k ve muhabbet vardi. Bu da, belki sevgiden ziyade baba-ktzm
mii~erek mizac hususiyetlerinin dii~UnU~ ve duy~larmm bir ortakhk mlinasebetine daha benzerdi.
lbrlibim Efendi'nin kii~uk k1z1 ise gerek babast gerek kocast ve
gerek konak halh"l nazannda merhamete ayan bir bi~arenin tii. kendisiydi.
Damatlarma gelince, onlar i~in kaympederleri sadece "olmU armut" idi. Her an, g5zlerini kapa.y1p, biiyi.\k servetini klzlarma birakacak bir ihtiyar, oliimii bir zaman meselesi hil.line gelmi, dalmdan
koptu kopacak "olmu~ bir armut'r dan ibil.retti.
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Hilmi Bey'in evi, refahla servetin el birligi 'ile tanzim ve tefri

ettigi bir san'at ve ihtiam galerisi degildi. Ne markot6n dolaplar, ne
Viktoryen koltuklar, ne Luikenz salonlar vardi. Ne de altm, glinlii,
fagfur Bohem ve Saksonya avil.ninin tehir mahalli idL Yazdan kla,
kltan yaza. ge<;erken sandiklar a~1hp da temizlik ya.ptllrken, kah-um,
servi, samur, va0ak, nil.fe, feyyum kiirkler; atlaslar, dibalar, ~am,
Hama ipeklileri, Lahur ve Guriin allan, billtlf ve giimii eYa ortaya
dokiilmiiyor; diigiinlerde taktlacak mucevherler, harem agalanmn h-ucaklarmdaki sepetlerle tammtyordu, Fakat Hilmi Bey'in evinde, degil birbirinin ollinllinii beklemek, en buyi.\g\inden en kii<;ligline aile bir
yumak gibi birbirine stmstlo. sanlml, vahdetli :ve yekyiire bir manzara arzediyordu. Hatta bu <;atl altmdan taan sevgi, efkat ve ihlas, zaman zaman !brahim Efendi'nin konagma kadar uzayarak oramn sert
ve kuru havasm1 yumuatmaya. gayret .eder bil.zen de muyaffak olurdu.
!brahim Efendi konag,mn atl vardi, arabas1 vardt, sal1 vardi saltanatr vardi. Lakin Hilmi Bey gibi klh k.1rk yaran duriist, fazlletli ve
hu=lu bir efendisi ve Halet H;uumefendi gibi haYlr .ehli insafh insane!! bir haruliU yoktu.
.
Yalmz Hilmi Bey'in de bir insan olarak. fazlahklan ve eksikleri

olmas1 tab.iidi. Devrine gore iyi tahsil gormiitii. Bilhassa musik!
kiiltiirii ile a~ilig,run ilerde olUU, evinde saz il.lemleri yap!lmasm1
adeta zanlri lalard1. Fakat bu alemler esn4roda i<;kiyi fazla ka~>rd1ii;1
clur, bu da, zaman zaman slhhatini tehdi.t. eden bjr tehlike tekil eder~
di.
.,
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48
Hilmi Bey'le H.alet Hantm'm ktztna ve ogluna gelince, ana ve baba i11 bu diinya giizeli evlildlar, ~liphesiz ki birer iftihar vesilesiydiler. Fakat ana da baba da guniin birinde onlann yet~p hirer insanhk
abidesi olacaklarmdan habersiz bulunuyorlardl..
Ger~ekten de Hilmi Be;>in gen~ oglu Server Bey guniin birinde
parlak bir hekim oldu. Fakat onun hayat kaderi, yalmz beden artzalarmt !1ifaJ.andtrmakta kalmtyacah-tt. Bu gen~ ve ilahi bir giizellikle giizel clan adam, diinya i~indeki dtinyay1 ke~fedip bu aJ.emin kanunlarm1
yardunma ~ag,racak, kendi kendisinin efendisi, hilkimi, emiri olacak;
sonra da h1rslarmm, kinlerinin, gurur!armm tamablaruun eslri olan
klitleleri, ellerinden tutup, ruh dertlerini onaracak, merhemleyip saghga selamete eri~recekti.
Hilmi Bey'in dli.nya giizeli J..."IZ1 ise, igi ezelden annm1~ insanlar1n
saffetiyle yaradihtan ihliish ve daim~ a.ilenin en gozde en nazl1 evladi
olarak ba~ iistiinde gezdirilecekti.
!~te !brahim Efendi'nin ruhca fakir kona~, Hilmi Bey'in manaca
diizenli ve zengin kadrolu evinden s1zan aliika ve dostlukla nafakalanmakta bulunuyor, bilse de bilmese de bu miitevazl karde~ evinin
manev! bereketiy!e bes!enlyor ISliUyOrdU.
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!br3him Efendi'nin hademe kadrosu cidden iyi se~~ ve ~ok

1y:1 organize edilmi~ bir kap1 halkt idi. E~yanm insana hizmet ettigi
kadar insanm da eyaya hizmet ve itina gostermesi gerektiginden, haremin ve seliimhg,n siidtk, dirayetli, becerikli ve elleri yatkm hizmetkarlarl, konag,n ~vrilmesinde, laymetli mefru~at1n ve avfulinin bakun
ve muhafazasmda son derece ltinlih dikkatli hareket ederek, bu saray
yavrusunu ylirutilrlerdi.
Selaml!.kta, hareme nazaran ince i~ daha hafif idiyse de, ayak i~i
bitip tilkenir degildi. Zlra efendiden b~ka, iki de damat bey vard1 .ki,
onlarm da kendi rnisatirleri, kendi ag'alan tarafmdan ba~ka b~ka odalarda ag,rlamr, boylece de daire hi~ bo~ kalmazd!. Ayru zamanda selaml!k, iki damat arasmdaki giz!i rekabet ve niiffu bolgesine ayrum~ bir sava~ meydam gibiydi.
Biiylik damat doktol' SaJ.ih Bey, l<endisini efendinin makbtil ve
mutlak veh-ili kabul eder, bu. zanna dayanarak kudret sahasuu geni~etmemiicadelesine hxz verir, netice itibliriyle de kendilerinin oldugu kadar evin de huzurunu bozard!. Kil~iik damad Yusuf Bey ise, ugrad!g, tecaviizlere ~ogu zaman ald!n~ etmez fakat,.-i~kili oldugu vakitler pek susamaz ve ~e o zaman selaml!k dairesi kalkar kopard1.
Dii\inillecek olursa, damat beylerin bu niifuz ~at1~malarmm netlcesiz bir miicadele oldugunu sezmemek miimkiin degi.ldi. 1brahim
Efendi gibi kurnai, vesveseli ve umur gormii~ bir adam, nas1l olur da
kendisine "olmu~ armut" gi:izilyle bakan damatlarma teslim olur, itimat eder, bilhassa birini otekinden Ust[in tutardt. Damat beylerin ahsl dostlart ve etraflan bu ham hayale ba~ sallay:1p inarur goriinseler de,
btina degil efendiyi tamyanlar, konag,n kedi!eri ki:ipekleri bile giller,
inanmazd!.
51
II
Bir Salon
iBRAHiM EFENDi'NiN KIZLARI, DAMATLARI

VE TORUNU
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lbrahim Efendi seksenine yakla~tlg,. zaman ktzlar1 evkiye ve

iikriye hanmuar da olgunluk ya~ma yakla~m1~ bulunuyorlardl. 'Efendinin biiyiik k1Z1 evk:iye Han~mefendi, babasmm zeka, dirayet ve
gurU.runun bir kadm ahsiyetinde kazandlg,. terbiye, gorgii ve hammefendiligin de ilavesiyle di~ bir lbrahim Efendi'ydi. Esasen babas=
tedirgin etmiyen tek kuvvetli ~ah1s, belki de bunun i~in klz1 evkiye Harum'd1. Onunla iftihar eder, tatmin bulur, gururlarur ve klZlmn akhyla zeka ve iradesiyle a!;1kca ogiiniirdii.
evk:iye Han~mefendi giizel bir kadlndl da. K1sa ve yuvarlak endamma ragmen beyaz teni sar1 sa!;lan, tath !<aklr bakt1yla kendine
giizel dedirten bir insandl. Y almz babas1 gibi ol!;iiyii endazeyi elden
b1rakmayan hakim tav1r!an, kendisiyle akraba ve dostlan arasma
devamh bir mesafe koyar, en yakmlariyle dahi bir resmiyet perdesi
arkas1ndan temas ederdi.
evkiye Han1mefendi, harem ktsmmm mutlal< h3.kimi idi. Dalla
!;Dcuk yamda iken yengesi Hli.Jet Hammefendi onun niifiizunu lor-
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mam1; bilakis diizene koyup, yolunca tekli.mill etmesine yard1m etmiti. Lakin Halet Hammefendi'ninbu ailede diizenliyemedigi bir tara! vardl. 0 da, gerek kaymbiraderinin gerek k1zlannm his cephelerini uyandJramamJ olmas1 idi. Biitiin gayretlerine ve ahsi hayatiyJe gosterdigi misa!e ragmen onlan k1rag ve sarp bir hesap ve menfaat
mmt1kasmdan, verim!i ve yumuak bir. duygu bolgesine atlatamamJtJ. Bu yiizden de, his ve hisse bal:h hasletleri kor ve klslr kalml ve
ailede efkat, merhamet, rikkat hatt::i. bir bak1ma zarafet ve san'at zemini inkiaf edemerniti ..Onun igin de konag,.n kudret ve kuvvet kaynag,, maddeye ve madde ile alaka!J davramlara istinad ederdi. Gene
bunun i!;in, lbrli.him Efendi'nin !;abs1 altmda d.ima miihim alan para
ve paranm getirdigi saadet ve refaht1.
Gergeh'ten de efendinin biiyiik serveti, evini refahm son kademesine !;lkarmJtl. Buna ragmen, parmal:mdaki yetmi kirathk p1rlanta
yiiziigii elini 33g:~ya 9eken, boynu h-uJag,., eli kolu, inci, elmas, yakut
ve ziimriitlerle naktl gibi donanml bulunan evkiye Hanrmefendi,
mes'ut olmu kadm degildi.
Jtiraf etmemesine, akllll bile guriirunun golgesinde b~rah-masl
na rag,.nen, kocas1 doktor Sa!ih Bey'i !;Ok severdi. Fakat karlSlmn
ifadeSine gore, gen9 doktorun ger9ek sevgilisi kendisi degil, kaympederinin biiyiik serveti idi.
Salih Bey yakllkh adamd1 ve iyi bir ailenin de oglu idi. Lakin
o, kendisinden dirlikten baka bir ey isterniyen bu refahl1 evin, U
tek talebini dahi yerine getirmedikten baka," huysuzluklan, ge!;imsizlikleri, densizlikleriyle kansma rahat soluk aldlrnuyor; ne bahasma
olursa olsun magliibiyeti kabul etmiyen evk:iye Hammefendi ise balm egip susmawg,. i9in uzun izdiva~ YJllan cehenneme d6nmii~ bulunuyordu.
Tatslzl1k ve diizensizlik yalmz kar1-koca arasmda kalsayd1 gene
de bir ~ey degildi. Bu SIT pekiiHi da muhteem dilielerinin di:irt du. van arasmda kalabilirdi. Fakat Salih Bey, ev i!;inde yalnJZ evkiye
Han~m'a karl aksi, yalmz onunla miinazli.a!J degildi. Bir.er han9er
ucu. gibi iki tarafa gerilmi~ siyah bJYJklannm altmdaki ince ve asabi
dudaklarmdan f~rlayan her soz, ger9ekten de bir han9er gibi karJsmdakine batmak iizere tasarlanm~ san.W.rdl. Sert ifiideli esmer yiizii, dli.ima emniyetsiz ve hUZllrSUZ nazarlar!a etrafml tarayan simsiyah goz!eri, bu lur9m ve 9etin adamJ, gerek harernin gerek selamllg,.n miicessem bir goz-da,liJ hii.line sokmutu. Qnun i!;in Salih Bey,
hem igerisi hem de dlarJSl nazarmda "idare-i maslahat" politikaSlyla yabtmhnas1 gereken problem bir J!;giivegisiydi.
.52
63
Maamafih, ev halk1, SaJ.ih Bey'i ktzchrmamak, SaJ.ih Bey'le ho~

Siilih Bey'in nabzma gore ~erbet verm.ek i~in, yaz!Slz ~izi
siz bir. anla;>maya varm1~ olduklan halde, gene de zaman zaman patlak veren 'biiylik ve kii~iik ofke krizlerine mani olunamazd1. Gene
~evkiye Hammefendi'nin beyanma gore bunun gizli sebebini bilen ai,
bilrniyen ~oktu. ~6yle ki Salih Bey; adeta etrafmdan hm~ al!r bir
yatJ;>maz hiddete kaphran ami!, kaympederinin uzun omrii ldi.
'Ostelik, izdiva~ hayatlan onbe~ seneyi. ge~tigi. halde, karl kocanm
~ocuklan da olmam1~tl. Onun i~in de, klasik ~are, ch~ardan bir ~~
cuk, bir evlatl!k edinmekti. Nihayet 'UZun d~iinceler ve ar~t=a
lardan so.nra eve, bir bu9uk ya~1nda bir ~erkes k1z1 almd1. <:ocuga
Mebrure i.srnini koydular. Sar1~m, goste~i ve zekiydi. Lakin bir bebek o!masma ragmen gerek bakJ~armda, gerek kavisli burnun= yiiziine verdigi. .ifadede gaddarca inki~at edecek bir hayat J;aderini,n. ya.
Z!Sl okunuyordu. hJZ, 9Qk ne'eli, sok hareketli, ~ok cazibeliydi. Ona
konagm is\nde herkes Mebru diyordu. Sfilih Bey de ~ocugu sevdi.
Seneler ge9ip, 9ocuk bir kelebek gibi evin i9inde oradan oraya kon,,duk9a, sun'! de .elsa, bir oyalanmaya bir ne~'eye veslle oluyordu.
Mebru'nun bak1m ve terbiye killfeti, efendinin odal1g, Neveser
Kalfa'nm iistiinde; hBZira konup eglenmek oyalanmak zevki de ~ev
kiye Hantmefendi ile Sil.l.ih Bey'de idL Fakat seneler ge~tik~e Mebru,
bir bak1ma evin dernirb~lar1 sJrasma d~meye ba~a)'lp, bebekligi.
devrinin tabU alliiJlru kaybeder ya~ gelince, konagm i~inde de .bir
evlathk edinmi~ ohnanm .ilk luz1 yav:l yav:l tavsach. Ve biiyiimekte alan ~ocuk, fevkalade olmaktan lilelade olmak seviyesinde .karar
klld1. Maamafih gene ~eviliyor, gene itina ve alaka goriiyordu.
Boylece, yillar Yillan koval1ya dursun, giiniin birinde artlk Y:ll
k1rkl bulm~ olan ~evkiye Harumefendi hastalanch. Yemek yiyemiyor,
hazim cihaz1 zay1flanu~ oldugundan ald1g, gtdaYI geri atiYor ve b:lJ
yastlktan kalkli!Iyordu. Pek . tabU olarak, b~ta yenge hamm, babas1,
amcas1. biitiin akraba hatta ~ dost ve hatta sa.lih Bey tel~a d~tiic
ler. Konag,n i9i, k!sa zamanda endi~eli, kasvetli bir sessizlikle arleta
huy de~tirdi. Akm akm hat.;r sormaya gelip .gidenlere yalruz kal!ve
ikram ediliyor, ~rup 91kanlouyor, doktorlar1n. ag.zmcjan dokillecek
bir ~fa miijdesini bekl;yen konak, agzmm tadini'ka~lracak tehiike
ihtimallerini .defetmek ister gibi, ciddi bir en~eden z\yade 90gu
"sormazsak ay1p olur" korkusundan kap1y1 a~nchran yapmac1kh misafirleri "bu giin <;iaha iyi, biraz ~orba i~tL" diye a\-utup idar.e edi~
YOrdU.
Derhal.vaziyete el koyan Hfilet Hammefendi ise, hastahtm m-
yetini ke~eder gibi olmasma ra8men, hekimlerin kestirip. atmalarm1

bekliyerek kimselere bir ~y sOylerniyor ve konag,n idaresini aksatacak kadar tel;a~lanan J.::ap1 halkm1 tath tat!I siikiinete davet ederek i~
lerinin b~ma sevkediyordu.
Bu gen~ ve ya~h halay1k kadrosu, ahmp a~mnakta pek te hakS!Z sa)'llmazdJ. Zira bu ~at! altmda hayat 0 kadar ol~ill!i, 0 kadar belirli bir 9er~eve i9ffide cereyan etmekte idi ki, bir hastal,g,n, hele
hasta ~evkiye Harumefendi olursa, orada biiyiik dalgal{Ull~ara sebep
olmasJ tabildi. Her an1 giinliik giine~Jik ge9en bir hayatm, arada bir
riizgara yagmura ihtiya(; gostermesi, burada derhal yadirganJrch.
!brahim Efendi'nin konagma ikier ii(;er gelen hekimler nihayet
hastal!g,n adm1 koydular: ~evkiye _Harumefendi h3mile idi.
Yirmi iki sene sonra ai!eye bir 90CU!;'Uil gelecegi. miijdesi, !brahitn
Efendi'nin bile yiiziinde tebessiim ve sevin~ be!irtileri uyandirdJ. KonatJ.n iistiine ~ok"Tllii alan kara bulutlar dagJlmJ, habere tam inanmamakla beraber, bu mu~tulu hava, akm ve daldan dala l<onan 1hk
bir meltem gibi esiyor ve buz tutmu gehreleri yumua!Jyor ve gevetiyordu.
D> ay sonra ~evkiye Hammefendi'nin b:ll yasttktan kalkl!. A
yermesi hafiflerni~. goz!i a>JlrnJ~t,. Fakat as1l goziinii asan, ge~ de olsa,
!:OC1lksuzluk tohr.iJ.etinin altmdan muzaffer !;lkmas1 keyfiyeti idi.
Hls1m akraba ~ .dost ve tekmil. kap1 halk1, haberi bir hayli zaman
il<tiyatla ka~!lad!lar. Fakat $evkiye Hawmefendi'nin gun giinden biiyiiyen karm, mese!eyi dotJ.-ularnJ bu!unuy0 rdu.
H3milelik yedi aya basJnca . <;ocuk tak1miannm hazuhg1 b~ad1.

Ve lohUsa. i~n yeniden yatak tak1mlari hazlrlanch. Fakat as1l miihim.
haz~rllk, konag,rt lodos . cephesinde b<!bege aynlan diiire ,e kalfalar
i<;inde akh, dirayeti, sadiikat ve nezaketi dillere destan alan habe
giizeli l\1flil'in dad1 se9ilmesiydi.
. fbrahim Efendi konagm1 dokuz ay b<>;;'ram yerine <;eviren bu bekl.enmedik hadise, SaJ.ih Bey'e bile bir mutareke havasm1 kabul ettirrniti. Nih~yet he>ecanla beklenen .degum, ilk alametlerini verince,
doktor Besim Orner P:la'yi getilen araba, konagm ciimle l<apiSmdan
i9.eri girerek, binek t~tnm oniindc. clurdu VC kOU~n aga!ar, doktoru
arab~dan. indirip, harem kap!Smdan i9eri tes!im etti!er.
ge~inmek,
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Dogan ~ocuk bir bebel< degil, sanki bil: melekti. Ona, ~evkiye Han,:mefendi'nin" gen~.. YaJ;.ta .olen. annesi. Ratibe Haruin'm :isrnim ;cerdil.,1'1
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ler. Kundag1 her eline alan, bu minicik bugday tenli kibar )i1z1 b1rak"
mak. istemiyordu. Etrafm bu sevgi .gOsterisi, ne yirmi il-d sene sonra
anne alan ~evkiye Harum'a yaranm.ak, ne de bir adeti, bir nezaket
kaldesini yerine getirmel<ti. Daha dii.nyaya gozii.nii asan bir bebejie
bu muhabbet ve alaka ne i~indi?
Pek tabii ki bunu bilen hattii. d~iinen dahi yoktu. Fakat ogren"
mekte de gecikmiyecekleri muhakkakh. Oyle ki kusuk Ratibe, -!brahim Efendi ailesinin his bir ferdinde bulunmayan mustesna bir cevherin, asil bir rilhun, bir duygu iffetinin, kemilli ve zengin bir yarad1"
h~m biitiin saltanatma sii.hib olacakt1. Bu, dogutan zarlf, mutevaz1,
mii~fik ve gani socuk, sanki semii.lardan inmi bir gokt~1 gibi, bu
ananm bu babanm bu dedenin hattii. bu kiirenin mal1 deliildL Tabii,
sade ;;e ral1at bir gonlii., ince bir terbiye kabulii.ne miisald zengin bir
ruh malzemesi olacakb. Fakat en kiisiik yamda bunun 1strrabm1 >kecek, derinliklerine inemiyen,' duygularinm ze11beregini asam1yan
muhiti, bu yiizden ona, bilerek bilmiyerek, ezii. sektirecekti.
Oyle ki nefesine kurban kesen, arzulanru emir sayan bir kalab.ahi:ln artasmda yapyalruz aldug,mu hissetmeye b~layacak, kendisine
arzedilen debdebenin azabml sel;erek varjlktan da dirlikten de bir nevi utan> duyacak, lakin en kotiis(!,' bu duygus\lnu. ctrafJ,ndalillere an-.
latai!llyacakdl.

Kusiik Ratibe'de ilk uyanan duygu, merhamet hissi alaciud1. Bu,
gmip!ere, yoksullara aClmak ve kendinde olandan ilq:am etmek ~ek~
Iinde tecelll ettigi. zaman ise, etrafm1 adeta isyan ettlrecekti. Zira ibrii.him Efendi konagmm prensipleri isin bu, bir. ihtilii.l demekti. Derh31
onlenmeliydi. <;:ocuk pay i!;itecek, hafiften. a!aya almacak ve" nlhayet
susacakl!. Lakin diliyle beraber isini de susturabilecekler'miydi?.Ne
garib ki, bu koca konak isinde onu anlayan tek iilsan oliriadii:l ..-halde;
biiyiik amcas1 Hilmi Bey'in evi, ite a ayr1 bir 'muhitti. V e kendisine
kendi evinden sok daha yakmd1. Hele yengesiHii.le't'Hamm'ia itdeta
bir halda; bir s>rdi>. olacakb. Kanak ise, yedisinden yetrnible,- onu
sevmek yar1~mda ilej'i. gittik~e, bu sikiCl alii.ka
ihtimam, 90cu!\1.!
biisbutiin bunaltlp eza verecek, ne an'as1, ne babas1, bu korpe ve hisli
klZin yii.regi.ne bir goz at1p telalaniD!yacak, bu berrak suyim yilziinu
kapl!yan encii~e ve Isb.raplari asla goremiyecekler; zainan zaman' alevlenen kar1-koca kavgalar1 da bu socuk rithumin ayn bir ac1si -'ala-
cakll.
ve
1brahini Efendi'ni.li kii<;!i.k klz1 iikriye Hari.Imef~di,. -pratez bir
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uzuv gibi, adeta konaga sonrad;m taklirm~ canSlz ve anzi bir parsa
idi..Ondan kibarca bahsedenler "kend.i hiilinde, safderim." SifatlarliU
kUuan1rlard1. Halbuki bu safhgm hamuru i~inde bal bel bonliik, oniinii
sonunu gormez bir aki1sizhk vard1. liiikriye Hamm isin, ablas1 gibi
bir otorite bir ~ahsiyet olmak ~oyle dursun, Juzumsuz hareketleri, patavatsiz konurnalari, etrafmi k1s k1s gilldii.rii.r; bazan onlarla beraber
kendi de giilerek bir kat daha miinasebetsiz o!mu~ alurdu.
Kanakta iikriye Han1mefendi'ye sadece Kii<;iik Hamm derlerdi.
Eviri. bu biiyiimiyen Kiisuk Hamm'I yukardan ziyade kalfalarm odasmda vakit ge>'rir, onlarla oturup kalkar, ~akala~Ir, kahve ve sigara
isercii.. Bilhassa bu odanm mudavimi olan !tonu komll ve hafif misafirlerle pek eg!enirdi. Onlar da, gerek efendinin k1Z1 olmasmdan
ve gerek de~irlerinin terbiye. ve sayg1 an'anesinden ge!en bir tenbih
ile, soyledil:i yersiz sozleri kah du;Yrnazllktan ge!ir, kah liitifeye sevirerek idiire ederlerdl. Yalmz, Kusiik Hamm'm bu sog,!l< ve yave
halleri bir alay mevzuu o!amazsa da, onunla limbii.li ve arkada~a muamele, herkes
tabil ve mubah Say:thrdi.
.
Kusiik Han1m, k1sa boyuna ve bir omuzunwi otekinden hafif<;e
yiiksek almasma ragmen, simaca <;irkin kadm degildi. Dolgun bir viicudu,' giir dalgal1 kuinral sa<;lari, koyu tahrirli mavi gozleri, kiisii.k
ve rerikli ai:zl ile ana giizel dahi denebilirdi. Yiliuz bu muntazam
yii:zii manasizl~lran, bah"llarmdaki boluk ve ifadesizlikti.
iikriye Hamm'1, 6nii<; yamda iken, serasker Hiiseyin Avni Pa;;a'run og!u ile evlendirerek, paanm Kuzguncuk'daki m~hur yal1sma
gelin vernulerdi. Fakat bu kli~iik gelin; keridi gibi saf bir gen.; alan
pa~ oglwiu begenmemi;. derhal karariru vererek yalmm bir odasma:' s1~~ ve kapiYJ. i<;eriden kilitliyerek tam bir ay burada hayh'll'lp bagmru~, <;acuk gJ.ci terter tepinerek kimseyi yanma yaklatn'ma!Ill, arada bir cli~an <;Iktigi zamanlarda da Jtimseyle konuffiainiU.
Bu arada,' ba,.<ta' Hii.let Hammefendi, ibrahim Efendi tarafmdan tak1m
tah"Un nasihat<;Ilar gelip gitmise de, tecbbiislerin netice vermiyecegi
anlall!nca, huysuz gelin, baba '"ine geri getirilmi!i.
N e de a!sa Kii>iik Hanim, arttk duvak diih"iinii say!lrrd1. Bu yiiz-.
deri de efendi; k1zmm' ihinci izdivac1 isin goziinu yii.kseklerden .ta en
alt kademelere indirmidi. Sakalmt eline al1p mese!eyi dii!fiindiigii
zarnan, bu yanm al<tlh evladm yabanc1 bir aile i~inde kendini idiire
edemiyecegrne karar vermi,.<ti. Ne yap1p edip kanakta bir darre hazrrllyarak ikinci damad1 da i<; giiveyisi alarak buraya buyur etxnek
>iiresizdi. Ger~:i ayru evde iki damat zor i~ti. Fakat boyle. oziirlii bir
mz1 o.lana da:,. pa111a gelecekle)e katlantnak dii,<erdi.
ism

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!~te Ibrahim Efencli, kii~Uk k>zmni nikah1 fesholup aradan da
iki sene ge~tikten sonra bosit bir ailenin basit bir memur clan gen>
ve yak>lkll og!unu ~ekip alarak loz1 ile nikahladl.
Kii>iik Han1m'm ikinci kocas1 Yusuf Bey, muhit ve yetiJne ~art

larJ bak1mmdan miitevaz> bir ~cvrenin adam1 icliyse de zekas1, inceligi, zerateti, niiktedanhgo ve bilhassa miisiki kiiltiirii ile, bir anda
alakayr iistiinde top!ayan miistesna bir kimseydi. Eger Kii~iil< Harum
sevmesini bilen bir kadm olsayd1, bu ate par>aS> gibi yanan ve yal<an
adama o!esiye a~rk olabilirdi. Ger!;i Ibrahim Efencli'nin bu saf .k>Zl,
kendini, daha ilk giinden, kocasma tapan bir kadm zannetmise de,
duygu diinyas> bir kiispe, bir ciiriif y1grm ha!inde oldugu isin i~ene
memi, ekillenememi ve bu malze:neden saglam ve ie .yarar' bir
his dogaman:u~J. Dogamazdr da.
Ibrahim Efendi daire amiri vas1tasiy!e l<1zmr teklif etmi oldugundan, Yusuf Bey evini haberdar ettigi zaman, annesiyle ktzkardei, boyle bir devlet kui;unu kas>rmamasl hususunda gen> adaml sok
zorlaoulardl. 0 da soz dinlemi ve Meclis~i Mii!iye Reisinin araciS!na
miisbet cevap vermiti.
. . .
Lakin Yusuf Bey bu zengin konaga damat olup da }j:arlsmdaki
gens kadlnm korkims bir akii faldri, zavalli bir insan taslag1 o!dugunu goriince, tuzaga .diiJOU bir asian gibi. sarpm1p su-Pmmaya . bahiru. Olan ohnu;;, kurtuluu bulunmayan bir gayyaya yuvar!anri:u~tl:
Ger!;i, gelcligi gibi, bastonunu ahp kap1dan ~1kabilir ve arkadan gijn~
dereceg( bir bo;; kiig1d1 ile de bu b&clireden kurtulabilircli. Eakat gen!i
adam, vicdan muhasebesinde kii> k1rk yaian. duygulu bir in~d1.
Yave ve manas1z da elsa, kendisine a;;rr1 diikiinliil< gosteren bir gen<i
kadlru tamamen hissi ve tek tarafh bir sebep!e nasll silkip atabilircli?
Ger!;i annesi "cliini slk oglum_, ohnu:; arrnut...'' cliyorsa da, ka;rm~
derin oliimii neyi halledebilirdi? Annesini ktrmamak isin bu sevimsiz
nasihata ses slkarmryordu. Fakat bu temenni dolu kotii bekleyij;, kansma alul ve clirayet mi getirecekti 1.-i ihtiyar adainm oliirniinii beklemekte bir fiiide bulunsundu?
Mama:flh bu s>ktnhli hayata dayanmak ve yaamak isin bir eyler lfrZlm .oldugu da muhakkaktJ.. Miiliyeden. konaga, konaktan mali-.
yeye gidip g~ekten ibaret bir omiir, Yusuf Bey gibi evk Vf' ak
dolu bir insana oliim demekti.
Miibiirek bir adan1 chin dedesi, 'vaJrtiyle .ailenin deJikanhlariyle
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konuUrken, siiz il:'et rncselesine gelecek olursa "iimmii'l-hiibais" diye

yiiziinii ikrahla buru;tururdu: Yiini i~ki i9in kotiiliik!erin anas1 ... cliyordu. Dogru idi de. Dedesinin dedigi. gibi, i 0ret, ger9ekten de kotiiliiklerin hem anas1, hem de alas1 idi. Arna Yusuf Bey i~in baka ~are
yoJ..-tu. I9ecek, boylelikle de bn alhn kafes i>inde siirdugii bir ne;-i
esir hayat1nm zehrini a!acak, gamm1 derdini dag1tacak ve kar1siyle
bir odada kaldlk:I zaman onu, puslu, uzak ~ok uzak ufuklarda gorecek,
ya da hi9 goremiyecekti.
Bu kararla Yusuf Bey a!kole sarlld.t ve boylece de selamhkta, ges
vakitlere kadar 9al1p soy!iyen, i9ip eglenen bir kalabal1k teekhiil ecliverdi.
Fakat Yusuf Bey btirada da istedigi ol!;iide huzurlu ve istikla!li
degildi. Zira bacanati doktor Salih Bey, selaml.Ikta kenclinden baka
bir rnihrakm hem de boyle zevkli, evkli ve birletirip top!ayicl bir
rnihrakm gelimesine 0iddetle titizleniyordu. Dogrusu, Yusuf Bey de
ne'esi, ciizibesi, sohbeti .ve muhabbetiyle kJskanilacak adam&. Huysuz
ve ge9imsiz bir ldmse.olan Salih Bey, huzur bozmakta hi> kusur etmiyor ve her f1rsatta bacanagm1 h1rpal!yor, igneliyor, hatta a91k9a tecaviiz ve hakaretleriyle hem onu hem de ctraf!lu k1rana ge~iriyordu.
Lahin kavgadan ve tatsrzl!ktan ho~anouyan Yusuf Be~. kencli diiire-.
sinde ve kendi aleminin zevki i>inde. >Ok defa gzyabmda tasarlanan
ve cereyan eden dedikodu!ara pek l<ulak as1p keyfini ka9rrmamaya
clikkat .ecliyorsa da bazan da i !;Igrmdan 91karak \'e '"ii~mii'!-hab:ils'
de iin isine kariarak, ~ak1r ke:;if damatla, Jursh ve k!skanc; do.mat,
miiterek bir taht ve saltanat rakibi dchetiyle birbirlerine giriyorlardi. :l3u arada, eski ve terbiyeli agalar sanki kulaklan sagtr, gozleri
de ko.rm~ gibi, o!up biien!eri gormezlih-ten ve duymaz!Jktan gelerek,
uyur-gezerlerrruiesine sessiz sedasrz. dolaJrlardi.
Ibrahim Efencli'ye gelince, selamhl<ta cereyan eden hadiseleri giinii giiniine, hatta saati saatine ogrenir fakat ev halkmdan hi> bir fert.
bu habet alma servisinin nas1l iledigini, kimler tarafmda11 yiiriitiildiigunii, efenclinin casusunun kim veya kimler oldugunu bilemezdi.
Hatta Salih Bey, tecessiis ve zekasmm biitiin vas1talarma ba vurdugu halde, o dahi iin i9inden ~1km1~ degildi. Yalmz meselenin tal<dire
deMr taraf1, haberlerin son derece isabe:Ji, miibiilagaya, ilave veya
lezvire sapmami o!mas1 keyfiyetiydi. Ba0lan onlerindc olan bu daire
halk! arasmda, boyle tahlilli mukayeseli ve 9izgisi !;izgisine dogru haberler aksettirecek kudrette kimse yol..-tu. Tuhaf1 U ki, Efendinin .arabas.t biiyiik bir giiriiltii ile cfunle kap1smdan ta;;bga girip de; daha
gidi. agaSI inniesir<e .yard1m 'ederken,. Efencli, :bir sihi.rbaz gibi o .giin
olup bitenlere vak1f bu!unurdu. Bunu da herhalde; kendisinin dumen

bamda avlanacak bir kaptan olmad1g,.m gostermek maksadiyle, bir
imal1 soz, bir iaret ya da manah bir sualle derhal belli ederdi. Fakat
bu her ~eye vak1f idareci, asla damatlarmt yiizlemez ve daima meseleleri ortbas ederek za::nflatmak, kuvvetten diioiirmek politikasml h""Ullanm:ll. BOylece de kavgal1 damatJar .gene kaympederlerinin sofrasmda ve buyiik bir ka!abal1ltm ortasmda beraberce yemek yerler, Efendi
her ikisine de hitab ve iltifat etmekten geri kalmaz hatta kabahatli
oldug,.ma karar verdigi. tarafa tavizi de ona gore ayarlard1.
Se!amllgm, heykel tutumlu siikutuna ragmen gene de bu miinaka~alar ge9msizlik!er ve kavgalar konag,.n ru~ma Slzar; Efendinin
dostlarmm da dii~anlannm da mcclislerinde tiirlii tefsirlere ve dedikodulara mevzu te~kil ederdi.
Bu f1rtmalarm serpintisi, harem ~evresinde de bir yandan teesstir uyandmrken evin tadmr ka~rrmah-tan da geri kalmazd1. ()yle ki
Efendinin bUyiik odal!g,. Azmidil Kalfa, olau olas1 -Kii~uk Hamnu tutar; belhi. ac1d1gmdan belki de ~evkiye Han1mefendi'nin rakipsiz saltanatiyle tedirgin oldultundan, en dogrusu Neveser Kalfa'nm kar~1
cephede olu,<llildan, bu birleik ku\"Vete, bir mukabil cephe ile durmal< ihtiyacm1 duyard1.
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!hi.nci odal1k Ne,eser Kalfa ise ~evkiye Hamm'm tarafhs1 oldu-

g,.mu a~1kca soylemekten ne korkar ne de ~ekinirdi. D:funa en zorlu
en ~etin niesele!erde birleirler hatta s1rasmda insafstzca kararlarm
al!nmasJnda birbirlerini desteklerler ve goz!erini k1rpmad<in tatbik
mevkine koyarlard!.
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4te, Sal.ih Bey'le Yusut Bey'in arast. ;1.911& rm hadise, iki karde
arasmda pek kendini gostenn~zs!' d~, Azmidil. Kalfa ile N eveser ~a
rekabeti, hamm!ann1 miidafaa ad1 aitmda, bir ortakhk gayretinin de
inZimamiyle, giinlerce 'ctevam eden dedikodulara, tats1zhklara ve dargmhklara malolurdu.
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evkiye Hammefendi'nin yirmi iki sene sonra bir k1z1 olmutu.

Acaba Yusuf Bey de kansmm bir ~ocuk. sahibi olmasr i9in .daha yillai
yrllbekliyecek ni.iydi? !,.<rte seneler ge9-iyor ,,.., pembe dudakh bir yav-.
ru, bu kekre bu buruk aile ~enisine bir tad getiremiyordu.
Yusuf Bey, eve g!ilip de dairesine .~rkmca kar1smda bulacag,. manzara hi~ degimezdi. ~culctan. ~ocuk taVIrlar1, yiive s6z!eri ile gi.iniin
llitv:adislerini .. veren; gok defa . da; soylenmemesi gereken, ha,dise!eri
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anlatan iikriye Han1m, lakirdlSinl bitirince de, kocasm1 ne derece

kJzdlrrug,.nm asia farkmda olmlyarak, adeta, vazifesini yapml~ bir
insan ferahhjl1 ile, dogruca kalfalann odasma camm aiard1.
Yusuf Bey de, ekserisi kendi aleyhine ~1kan bu dedikodulan zihninin bir koesine yerletirerek muhafaza ederdi. Ne ~are ki ~og,.,
Salih Bey'den Neveser Kalfa'ya athyan bu yalan yanll dedikodular.
uzun zaman zihninde misafir kalmaz, iret sofras1 kurulup kafalar dumanlanmca, selaml1kta ac1kll sahneler h:ilinde bir pat1rdmm mevzuu
olurdu.
Ku~uk Han1m ise barut fl~ISIDI ateledigi.nden habersiz, mutad
keyfini surerken, kocasma baz1 ey!er ima ettillini de !;1tlatarak, ak~
lmca S:ilih Bey. - Neveser Kalfa cephesine gozdag,. vermek isterdi.
Oldu olas1 onun bu patavats1z konu~alariDl bir duzene sokmak
ve uygunsuz hareketlerini onlemek yo!unda gayret sarfetmi clan
H:ilet Hantmefendi :
- Krztm her olam nigin kocana soyliyorsun? Sonra onu neden
odada yalruz b1rak1p hemen aag,.ya iniyorsun? diye itiraz eder olunca.:
-Soylemiyeyim de gathyaylm m1 yenge? Odada da yalmz birakmzyorum, Edadil var. Baba-k1z gergef iliyecekler.. der ve Lahavle okuyan bakllarla g5zleri yiiziinde kalan yengesinin endiesinden
habersiz, konumasma devam ederdi.
Edactil, kii~iik han1mm yan kalfas1ydt. Pek giizel degi.lse bile,
pek ah"Illi ve cinsinin biitiln sihrine malik geng bir k1zd1. Yusuf Bey
veya .iih"riye Hamm sokaktan geldikleri zaman elbiseleri ve oday1
toplamak, kalwelerini sigaralar1m vermek bahca vazifesiydi. Bo zamanlannda iledigi. gergefi' kii~Uk hantmm dairesinde durur ve gergekten de ma:hatetle zevkin mahsillii. olan fevkalacte nalnlar yaparru. Yusuf Bey'e gelince, bir yaiad!ll imtiyaz1 olarak 6, bu hiinerde
belki de konagm butiin kalfalarma ustahk edecek kadar niaharet sahibiydi. i:nce adam; zarif adam, san'atkar adam, nihayet :i.1k adamd1
ite ... ark! sayler, saz galar, iir oh"Ur, bu arada nakl da ilerdi. 0,
elinden gelen gelmiyen her eyi yapacak kimseydi. Bir h"Uyudan su
~ekercesine, kovasun gonliine her dalrurita, giizel san'atlarm bir ko-
lundan nasip bulrnu ve akm takm mizacr da, bu 7-engin yaradll.Jt,
bir yanardag gibi etrafma piiskiirtmiitii. Kans1 anlam1yorsa, karlSl
ona ne i:ilgude !Strrap verdigini farketmiyorsa, eyda gonliinii mutlaka birisi anlamah idi. Ite bir anlayan, sevgisine sevgileri a,<artrr
bir iddetle cevap veren bir kadm varru. On!ar, safdil Kugiik Harum~m zannettigi gibi, gergef bamda bir baba-kiz degil, Adem'i cen"
60
netteJ;L ~1karan memnti. meyvenin biiJTlisiine tutulm~ birer yanlk alk
idiler...
Kii>iik Hamm, konu koiil$Uyla a~ag, katta vakit ge,ire dursun,

kona)lm bir list kat odasmda bu iki sevdah dcrt!e~iyor, soyleiyor,
Siili.i~tiyoi,
aglatyorlardx.
~air:
~eme ...
derniyor muydu? Bir insan giizeli clan Yusuf Bey'in hayati selfunhkla
gergef ba:;mda ge~er olah gen~ adam da heyecanlanna, evkine ve
zevkine .bir istikiimet bir talP dokillecek mecra bulmu:;tu.
Seliimhk alemleri de hani, dostun dtiffianm turlii g1bta, hayranhk ve hasedine hedef tekil edecek bir ahenge sahne olmaktayd1. Devrin belli bah mti.Sikl erbab1 i>in !brahim Efendi'nin konag1 artlk gozlerin ve goniillerin alaka ve tecessUs rnihrak! demekti. imdl seliimIIk, Udl Cemil'ler Kanuni Andon, Kemil.n1 Tatyos, hiinende Vi~en ;e
Karaka gibi san'atkiirlarJ top!ay1p giizel sesin, guzel sozun, niikte,
ve ne~'enin coUp ta~tlg1 bir dtinya idl. Bu meclisler, ger~ekten de
Yusuf Bey'e, konagm duygusuz, yabancr, soguk kalabaltgmdan ve bilhassa kansmm yavan, sade-suya ve stk!Cl yakmhi;lndan ka>tP stgmacak bir melee, bir Iatif dtinya olmutu. Fakat: !brahim Efendi'nin konagmda Yusuf Bey'in >izip haztrladJg:J bu diiny;inm dilini ve havaSim hemen de hi~ anhyan yoktu. Bilhassa evkiye Hammefendl - Neveser Kalfa. k!igi i>in onun i!:li san: at muhiti, devamh bir kiic;iimseme,
bir istihza mevzuu idi. Ne olacaktl, ufacrk bir Inahalle evinden ~~
ktP, bastonunu sallaya sallaya U saray yavrusu konaga gelen bu gormemi:;. damat, bolluga kav~unca ne oldum de!isine donerek i:;te :ba:;ma bir alay adam toplayrp ~enk ve ~agana ile kaympederinin. konag!ru ~alg!II ktraathane)ere !<evinniti.. Yiiz bulsa, her halde Galata ba-
!ozlan gibi kadm da oynatu rezatetj biisbutiin ayyuka ~1l<anrd1.
Bazan ulu orta bazan da kulaktan kulaga soylenen bu !<Oit ithamlarl ekseriya Kii~iik Han1m da duy;ar ve l<ocasiyle hemen de hi~ bir
mli:;terek mevzuu olmadigl halde, bu kulis haberlerini, bal dumanl!
Yusuf Bey'e stcag1 s1cagma anlatmakla, hem kendini. sad1k bir zevcc
pozunda goriir hem de mahrem saatleri i~n konu,_<;acak bi.r mcVZl.l.
bulmu~ olmakla tatlnin .olurdu.
l:faysiyetli. bir adam olan Ytisuf Bey, zengin evin i~gli,eyi.Si. ol- 0
mak""tan esasen muztaribti: Bir de kiu'ISlnln' t"ldlg, bu 9i~egi bumunda ..dedik,odtilarla Jst!riibma lil.idd<>t .ve, nefret de. kattlml~ olurdu: NeJO..
\1
:\
<,
Kadm gibi erkek de aglar m1, aglardl. Koca

Leyli i:;i, ive vii girime
Mecnun gozu y:i.1 ~eme
61
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dertlerini kederlerini slinger gibi silen ay:; u ilet, saz ''e soz meclis!eriyle, gene .ve Uh Edadil'in .ciizibesi or;asmda bir mestlikten bir
b"ka mestlige ge~erek kendisiyle konak arasma ak!ndan :;evkinden
haz ve iptiliismdan bir perde gekip, bu ortiiniin arkasmdaki diinyaSlnda avunur ve Ote taraf1 gOrmemek i;in l.::endi tarafmrn zevklerine dalwk~a dalardt.
Fakat, bu dalwk~a dald1/tt, baglandrk~ baf;JandJgJ biiyill< iptilaSI, giiniin birinde top gibi glir!iyerek konai;ln i~ini alt iist etti. oy'le ki, Kiiciik Harum, kocasiyle halay1gm1 her zamanki gibi gergef balllda b1rakarak, akam kahvesini: icmek uzere kalfalann odasma inmiti. Tam !incant dudaklarma gotururken Yusuf Bey'e soy!emeye
unuttugu mutad havadislerden biri hatmna gelerek yerinden f1rladl.
Kalfalar:
- Kii~lik Hamm, bir ey mi. isti.yorsunuz? Biz getire!im, biz yapahin! diye arkasmdan kautularsa da. o, merdiveni.n list basamagma
~1knutl bile. !kinci kat1 da aym siir'atle t1rmanan gene kadm, odasmm. kap1suu a<;.~p da halay1i;lm kocasuun kollarmda goriince, kurgusu bo:;ahveren bir dtiduk sesiyle, c1ghklar ata ata ters yii.ziine dondii
ve ayru slir"atle merdivenleri inerek kendini kalfalarm odasmda buldl.l.
Hay:\!1 boyunca diiima ihtiyat fikrinden, kontrol ve teennl UUrundan mahrum y~ain1~ clan bu di.imehsiz ve frensiz .kachncagu,
ahit oldugu hadiseyi ortaya vurmak nu, yoksa gormez!ikten ge!ip
saklamak m1 !az1m ge!digini bir an bile dtiiinmerniti. Muhataral1 ihti.Jatlar haZirlayan bl.l patavats1zhg1 ise gerek kendisi.ni. gerek kocasmt
ne .kadar mii~kill mevkie dliiirmlise, Yusuf Bey'e karI clan guruhim eline de, harcamakla tlikenmez bir s.ermaye verrniti.
Kuclik Harum kendini yerden
. .
. yere atarak. bagmp aghyor, ihanete ugraiiU bir zavall1 ve mazlum kadm tela! i~inde, kendine acmdlrmak i~in sesine ve gozyalanna iz.in verdikce veriyordu.
ibriihim .Efendi'den gayr1, hemen biitiin h"':em halk1 kalfalarm
odasma topl.anm:!t1. ~evkiy.e Han1mefendi yere oturmu~, kardeine
su i~irmeye ugr"Jyor, N eveser Kalfa ise:
- Tuh, tuh.. yaz1klar olsun o soysuza.. cigeri be para .etmez bir
halay1k par~asiyle Efendi'nin k!zma bu oyunu oynadt.ha .. diye hem
seyleniyor hem. de Kii~lik. Hamm'm: ko!lanm, ~akaklanru. kolonya
ile uguyordu.
H:il!l yerde ~1rpman ukriye. Hamm'm .l:JaInda, yliz!erini ekitip
bir tacianm ~tleri pozunda: giirtU,tii ederek- genl; kadlmn teess.'iirlinii
kortikliyenleru;_ hepsi, salih Bey gurubuydu. Diger tarafta, Efendinin
62
63
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buyiik odahg1 Azmidil Kalfa ile ona sad1k ve tabi olanlarm sesleri
Oldu olas1 Ku~k Hamm'a bir zaval11 alil goziiyle baktiklanndan, adeta Yusuf Bey'e i~ten i~e hak verir gibi hadisenin tefsirini yapmaktan uzak kalarak, endi~eyle birbirlerinin yiizii.ne bakiyoriardt. Tezine vak'adan haberdar edilen Halet Hammefendi de susanJar arasmdayd1. Bu mevzuda Kii!;iik Hamm'm ka> defa kulag:Im biikm~: K!Zlm, Edadil ~ok al1mh bir cariye.. ~u kocanla ba b~a
btrakma!> demise de, ~iikriye Hamm mutad bO bogazhgt ile bu dostane ikaZdan da Yusuf Bey'i haberdar ederek, "yenge hantm" diye
yere goge koymad1gr Halet Hantmefendi'yle arasma bir sogukluk sokmutu.
~1b.-mzyordu.
Hadisenin iisti\nden yirmidort saat ge!;meden Sa.Jih Bey kligi,

ayaklanna gelen bu intikam ftrsabm !;Ok iyi kullanarak, Edadil'i bir
MlSlrhya satmak suretiyle Yusuf Bey'e en agrr darbeyi vurmutu.
Fakat bu tedbirle yatt~rr gibi olan Kii>iik Harum, ne ~are ki gene
siikuna varamach, susmastyla yeniden feryada ba!;lamas1 bir oldu.
Zira sevgilisini elden ka!;tran Yusuf Bey, akam konaga donmemi,
bata annesinin evi, kalabilecegi her tarafda arandtgr halde bulunamaIIU ve bu ilk geceyi baka geceler takip etmel<te devam ederken, gen!;
adamm annesi de dii~up bayllanlar arasma katudJ.g,ndan !brahim
Efendi'nin konagr bu defa da bir matemhaneye donmiitii.
!mparatorlugun biitiin vilayetlerinde defterdarlar, muhase])eciler,
mal miidiirleri gibi maliye nezaretine bagh daireler, se!;kin bir kadro
ile zab1taya yardtm ettigi halde, !brahim Efendi'nin damach bulimamtyor, bu defa da kocasmm yoklugu ile !;tlgma donen Kii>iik Hannn,
sanki bir miiddet evvel ihanet actsiyle terter tepinen kendisi degilmi
gibi: Ah gelse, bir gelse, kiminle isterse onunla eglense ... diye agh. yordu.
Kii>iik Ranum yakmdan tamyanlar, onun bu atrl teessiirUn(in
bir sevgiden ileri gelmediglni gok iyi biliyorlarch. 9iinkii Ukriye Hamm sevmeyi bilmezdi. Eger muhabbete ~ina ve musait bir yarachl!t
olsaydt, muhakkak ki ilk sevecegi adam Yusuf Bey olurdu. Fakat o,
bu iistu.n hilkat imtiyazmdan mahrUm bir eksik insand1. Onun i>in de,
goklere ~kan feryach, bir sevgiden degil, mazlum ve gadre ugta1IU
bir insan pozundl!. olmak zevk ve ihtiyacmdanch.
Atein, feragatl!; necib bir ak, insan duygularm1n en asillerinden biriydi. Seven, strasmda alacak iken 'verecek, soyliyecek iken susacak, giilecek iken. agl!yacak; mihnetleri minnet bilecek; agulara e-
I
..
,'~
ker diyecek; olecek, her nefes bin kere aliip bin kere diri)ecekdi. ite
bunun i!;in a~k, kolayma soylenen; giicii.ne i!;lenen bir kardt.
Sevgide mi.ihi.m olan, almak degil vermekti. Kii~iik Han1m'm ise,
istese de verilecek bir sermayesi yoktu. Onun i>in de slidece talep ediyordu. Ka.deri.. kar~1s1na g<m~. guzel, z:ekl, ce...._..,.al ve san'atk.r bir Yusuf Bey ~karm1li. Mademki eline bu tiirlu o!gun dolgun bir koca ge!;miti; U halde son darolasma kadar o vermeli kendisi de almal!ydt.
Zira Yusuf Bey, sermayeli adamch. Glizel sesi, giizel yiizu ve giizel bir
akh vard1. Dstelik gen9 adam, hisce de fikirce de, malik oldug, imkanlan seve seve verecek bir insandi. F.akat kartst, onun verebilecegi
hangi ktymeti anltyabilir ve alabilirdi?
!brabim Efendi'ye damat olmakla blitiin duygu ve d~iinceleri
tezgahta kahveren Yusuf Bey, bir eyyam, girdigi saltanath muhitin
a.Jll.yii ile avunmaya ~ali1Illh. Fakat igi cevherden bo~, bu tUy kabas1
!;evrenin kanunlann mecburiyetleri, merasim.i ve ~e~itli cereyanlan
ortasmda, kendisini klskruwhklan ve hasedleriyle bogrnak istiyen bir
rakib zumreyi farkediverince, teke tek dagumeh1:en kasan bu
kaypak ve sinsi d~manlarla ba~ edemiyecegini anlamlli. Yusuf Bey,
mert ve a!;lk adamdt. KarI t.>.rafm m1illk oldugu. silahlan deniyemezdi.
Yalntzllg:Inm ve ~resizliginin en kestirme devlis1, saglir yiiriitmekti.
0 da oyle yapt1. Ama dudaklariyle elleri arasmda gidip ge!en kadehler, yatalak b1rakttg:I hislerini ayaga kaldtnnca, bu defa gen9 adam
i9in iret aleroleri, saz ve s5z meclisleri de yeter olmamaya bal.adt. V e
nihayet, kumral orgiileri belini doj\en, kiVIlcilnlt goz!eri kor gibi yakan, al!mh aktlh, bir ktzcagrzm gonlu, h1rstz gibi, casli.s gibi, gonliinu
9altverince Yusuf Bey'in de hayat1 renklendi, bezendi, manalarup onu
bir eydli ~lk ktl.ch.
Arhk katismm hafif aklt da,. alttan alta ileyen Sa.J.ih Bey gurubunun fesat ve tezvirleri de birden hiikiimden d~ii~ ve tahammiil
etmesi kolaylaIVermiti. Demek ki, bu konak i~inde kendisi gibi bir
garib kii olan U kii~iik b.,z, bunca zehrin panzehiri olabiliyordu. Ve
demek ki ak, olmazlan olduran, bir buyrugu ile mukiilleri asan eden
tek ve esiz ehiUah idi. Ama bu korpecik klZ!n goniildal!gr, ahlann fermanmdan, yasadan, toreden, daba ileri, daha mebrUk ise de, kendisi bir kii!;iiciik garib ki~iydi .. Han gibi kiilhan gibi, bag bostan, inci
mucevher gibi, al1n1p sablan bir eYadan farkstzch. Nitekim !brahim
Eifendi'nin, esirciye saydth iki yiiz altma bedel bu konaga cariye olmUtu. 4te .imdi de ayru konak s.b.i.bi, tasarrufunda olan bu malt,
alchgr gibi sabvermitL Halbuki !brahim Efendi aktl.h adamch. Etraftrun tezvirlerine uyarak, damachna bu oyunu oynamamal1ydL Zira kl-
.64
zmm ne i:ll>iide bir >ekimsiz mahluk oldugunu. !;Ok iyi bilen ihtiyar
maliyeci, damadma bir y"ama pay1, bir tahammill giicii tammanm
liizumuna ciddiyetle inan!Xll~ bir kimseydi. Onun i>in, degil karl tarafm fesadma :llet olmak, bu i~i uyutup goz yummak tek yapaca&l i
iken, rakib cephe e!ini >abuk tutarak Efendi'yi boguntuya getirmiti.
Fakat oyuna geldigini derhal anltyan !brahim Efendi, k1z evden
!;lkar !;Ikma:<, verdigi karara ev,el:l. at1 sonra da hayreti, idd.et!i bir
hiddete donerek, bata, fesat kazanmr ateleyen odall&l Neveser Kalfa olmak iizere, l<onak i>inde gazebinden kurtulan hemen kimse kalmach. Yusuf Bey'in ka!;ma hadisesiyle, zevklerinden siirurlarmdan,
sagrlm1~ bir yumak gibi geveyip yayilmiS ohm Salih Bey gurubu ~a
lrtru, Efendi'nin bu ciddi tutumu, ihtiyats1zca kendilerini ele veren
kafadarlim yenideri derleriip. toparlanarak bir ko~eye sindi.rmiti.
Bu ide, Kii>lik Hanun taraftarl!g1 a!;1kga bilinen Azmidil Kalfa
ile etrafmdakiler, Neveser Kalfa'nm miitedi.viz, gaddar ve ~ hiicumlarmdan ilk defa :l.man buluyorlard1. Sanki eksik yarachlm1~ bir
kadm ol;an likriye Hamm'1 ve dola)'lsiyle Yusuf Bey'i tutmamn .bir
su> bir ay1p olmad1gm1 gene ilk defa hissederek, glinahdan temizl~n~
mi~ kimseler gibi ba~an 1inlerinden kalkm~h. Ah U Yll.uf Bey de
i~i tachnda b1rak1p bir gelseydi ... Biitlin ara!Irmalara.ragmen, -seiamhktari i>eri s1zacak -habere kulak kesilrni harem, bir iiirlii bekledi~
miijdeyi alam1yordu. Sanki gen> adam gage !;ekilmicesine yok olup
gitmi~ti.
"
Yusuf. Bey'in annesi, bir hay1r haber almak uzre hemen her giin
konaga geliyor fakat daha kap1dan girerken halay1klarm dtiiinceli ve
gam!! yiizlerinde bekledigi cevab1 bulam1yarak orac1ga d!i~iip l:>a)'lhyordu. Arhk ev. hallp bu sahneye a!Jmr~ gibiydi. Derhal bir tel:l.tll'
bal1yor, sular, kolonyalar, kordiyaller, ugup ugu,turmalar... nihayet
esneye gerine ay!lma ve aglarna ile son bulan bu giinliik ziyaretin bitmesi, Yusuf Bey ka>t,g,ndan beri tekrarlanan bir tablo olm~tu.
!htiyar annenin tek endiesi, oglunun canma ki)'lnl~ .olmas1 ihtimaliydi. Fakat bu kotli talunin isabetli ~1kmad1. Zira giiniin birind<"
l_lile mal miidtiriinden ge)en bir telgraf meseleyi aychnlattr_
Yu0uf Bey, giinlerdir bu ktisiik kasabaya swmru~, ganu ile b"b"a YaIYOrdu. Fakat mi2a~gir bir adam .olan mal miidiirii, kasabada"
h"i. b.uyaqanci misafirin Maliye Reisinin ka)'lp damaq, oldugunu anlaymca, .. ona kiih i.sret zamanmda. kah sohbet arasmda sokulup yold"
olarak hullil etrni~. ve evine donmesi yolunda ne yapmak. miimkiinse
yaparak kand!rml~l.
I!
65
1brahim Efendi bu haberle geni~ bir nefes alch, Ve konak halklna yeniden ve daha iddetli . b4' goz .da!l verere1<, .daJ:fla!. bey geldigi
zaman sanki hi> bir ~ey olmatlll~ gibi muamele edilme~i;u, hadiseyi hat,rlatacak veya ima edecek her hangi bir soz sarfedilmemesini ~iddl;t
le tenbih etti.
Efendi'nin, bu kotii giinle;:in ustiine bir siinger sekmek kastiyle
tasarladJ&l bir plam daha vardt. Ya,z geliyordu. Derhal uzal<ca bir
sayfiye yerinde;. mesela .Sar1ye~'de .bir ko~k veya :.Yah tutup k1z1 ile
damadmr bir. ka~ ay olsl,2Ilkoi)ak. muhitinden .uzak)a~l!racak, boylece
tie hem damadma bir dinienme imkiinr verecek hem de S:llih Bey Yusuf Bey ihtillifmi uzunca bir mesafe ile ortasmdan bolecekti.
Kiisiik Han1m'la Yusuf Bey, dJiireleri halkiyle beraber Sar1yer'e

sonra, konak da Efendi'nin korkusundan hadiseyi unutur
goriindii. Bilhassa babasmm muhabbet ve tevecciih.iine son derece
ehemmiyet veren evkiye Harumefendi, sanki bu rekabette esas olan
kendisi degilmi~ gibi, hemen !brahim Efendi'nin safma ge,ti. Boylece
de, avenesini yalmz b1rakmal< suretiyle babas1na cemile yap1p ii
tafuya bag!ad1.
!br:l.hinl Efendi de biiyiik klZJru kll'maktan hatta iizmekten son

derece sekinirdi. evkiye H = bir meselede ister hakh ister .haks1z
olsun, babas1 hisleriyle daima onun tarafmdaych. Lakin l<onagm ig
politikasl asayi ve muviizenesi namma Slrf bir jest olarak, ktisiik
krzm1 tutmasr da manl!g,run kasm!lmaz emi.rleri arasmdayd1.
!brahim Efendi'yle btiyiik klz1, dtiiincede ve duyguda, soyle!neden anla~an insanlard1. Bu meselede de mii~erek hareketleri ister samimi ister taktik iciib1 olsun, davamn esasma tesir edebilecek miydi?
Yiini S:llih Bey - Yusuf Bey cephelerinin ililderine ilemi~ kJskaD.>]Ik
ve nefret atei, acaba Efendi'nin doktiigii bu bir bardak tehdit suyu
ile sonebilecek rniydi?
Fal<at hadise konal< i!;inde esasen eskirni~ ve harem olsun selamhk
olsun, Yusuf Bey - Edadil dedikodusuna ka,llks~. Onun i!;in bu
doyduklarr hikiiye, zaten alevi ge,rni bir kor gibi, ocaga yeni yeni
macera h"iitiikleri. siirilliinceye kadar kiillenmeye mahkfundu.
Zii,ten ~u giinlerde hiine halkma sok da i~ diiiiyordu. Zira gelen
kolllu dugiinii degil, Ramazan'ch. lstanbul, bu orus aYllll karllamak,
sonra da bayram hazll'h!lna girimek isin y!1m geri kalan onbir a)'lnda rastlanm1yan bir faaliyet ve.. hareket zemini. iistiinde tatll, zevkli,
!im.i,tli ve n.e~'eli yorgunluk!anna b~ardt..
ta~mchktan
'1
l
l
iBRAHiM EFENDi KONAGINDA BAYRAM
HAZIRLIGI
};,
~;
Ramazanm onbe~inden sonra konakta diki i~leri lnzlarur ve kal~

falarm bayramhklarmm evvela almmas1 sonra da dikilmesi, gen~ halay!klar i~in belki de y1lm en miibim ve heyecanh hadisesi olurdu.
0 devirde ~ar~1ya gidip al,~:veri~ etmek, istedigi, begendigi kum~l se~mek diye bir Met olmad!g,ndan, bu ~ k:l.hya kadmlar yaparlard!. !brabim Efendi konag, ile ~ar~1 pazar arasmdaki baglant!YJ. biiyiik bir tecriibe ve. ah~kanhkla idare edenlerin b~1nda da Hac1 Sahire Han1m gelirdi. Bu orta y~h, becerikli ve ~m kon~kan kadm,
kendisine verilen sipari~~re gore top top renk renk b.-uma~lar1 dantelleri, fistolan, kurdelalan, ~oraplar1, mendilleri arabaya doldurara)!:
getirip, denk yavrusu paketler kalfalarm odasma yib.-lld! rm, kendisi
de yapmac1kdan bir yorgunlukla nazlanmaya ba~ard1.
- Aman lo.zlar, istediklerinizi bulmak i~in geze geze tabanlar1m
!>l~ti. Gene bu gece yatt,gun yeri bilmiyeceg;m ...
Diye adeti iizre soylenmeye ba~aYJ.nca, gen~ cariyeler kendile-rine her istediklerini getiren kahya kad!na bizmet etmekte adeta yari~
ederek kimi kahvesini pi.irir, kimi dizlerini ovar, b."irni arkasmdan
terli tiilbentini ~ekerek yerine kurusunu sokar ve Hac! Sabire Hanrm
da eli de~en gerildik~e gerilir, soylendik~e soylenirdi.
- A klZ Resan, kilise mumu gibi ne duruyorsnn k~da, gel de
~u kal~ama bir bas.
Resan, su kald!ran M1s1r pirinci gibi, konag,n en fazla naz ~eken
halaYJ.klarmdand!. Hele Sabiie Harum gibi mer dedigi zaman mer
alan, sari dedigi zaman sari getiren, ald!g,m begendiremezse ayagrna
iienmek nedir bilmeden, giinde bir ka~ defa !;arIYJ. boylayan bir kad!mn gonlii ho~ edilmez de kimin edilirdi?
Ama kahya kadmm bir kere ~enesi ~Bziilmeye gorsiin... birini
~!I'
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b!raklp oteb.ine sata~madan yapamaz .. ne ki sitemleri de emirleri de

kimseye batmaz:
- Haydi, haydi ~ekil yammdan.. sanki seninki de ugmak m1?
Akmt1 >aganozu gibi yan yan bas1p ge>iyorsun. Sen gel Mecbur, dizlerimi ~Oyle iyice bir ug ...
Mecbur giilerek Sabire Hamm'm yaruna yakla1rken kahya ka
d!mn 9ar1dan d6ndiigiinii haber alan Neveser Kalfa, kuma toplanrun i.istiine ahhrcas1na iiiiiip keyiflenen k1zlar1 rahat b:Lral.o;;Ir m1
bi~? Hiddetle kap!YJ. iterek i9eri girer, her zamanki gibi ~a~1k, aksi ve
parlamaya haZlrd!r:
- Sabire Han1m, Sabire Hamm.. ne hacet >ar~IYJ. kokiinden s6kiip
getirseydin, diye !;lklarak, giine!>l orten kara bulutcasma k!Zlarm
ne'elerini gOlgelendiriverir.
Fakat Sabire Hamm da yaman diimencilerdendir. Hem gen~ halayil<lar--..n tavsayan ne0'elerini yerine getirmek, hem de b~ma at:ll.an
tal anlamaz goriinmek yolunu tutarak, kalfaya hiirmeten yatt1g, yerden dogrulur. Edeb edip sayg:t sayd!g,m gostererek bir yandan da giiliimser:
- Kalfa hanJmc!g,rn, bak bakal1m .. istedigin gezi;i getirdim, birinin ~ubuklari kalm, oteki ince .. hangisini begenirsen onu al .. diyerek
kalfay1 tavlama yolUila gider. Gider ama pesperdeden de:
- ~u kariya bir deve t1mari laz~m ki akl1 ba,tna gelsin.. diye homurdanmaktan kendini alamaz.
Sabire Hantm'm Neveser Kalfa'YJ. sevmemekte hakl<1 da var saYJ.hr. Zira U garib 1.-lzcatlzlann istediklerini ald1rmamak i~in elinden
geleni yapmas1 ve almanlar1 begenmemesi, mutlaka pahah bulmaSl,
kendisi gibi ayak i.lerip.de yorulmak bilmeyen bir kad!m bile, bir
igne bir diigme i~ iist iiste ve hi~ ac1madan !;arlya gotiiriip getirtmesi, bu konatln kahya kaam1 olduguna olacag,na pi0man ederdi.
Kilianm kulailna gitmesinden korkmal<la beraber, Sir 9lkm1yacag,na inand1i:l kimselerle dertle0irken:
- Soylemesem orta yerimden boliineceg;m.. kim ne derse desin
bu nekes kar1 konagrn betL'li bereketini ka~rracak. Ben ne konaklar
bilirim, hastaya lohusaya, yetime dula, b.iife kiife erzak, boh9a bah~ eYa yollarlar. Bunlarm kuzum partallar1 bile k1ymetli .. ben erkek o1sam., U cehennemlik kany~ dob."UZ okka balla yutamam. Ilabi
!brahim Efendi, bula bula bunu bulmu, da odas1na alnu.. diye haYJ.flamr dururdu.
86
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Yalruz bayram hazrrhklarr srrasmda degi.!, her zaman ve her meselede kona~m en ters ve en ll!larrk ferdi, evlciye Harumefendi'nin
evlatlrg,. Mebrure; en uysal, en nazik, en hatrr-inas 90cu~ da, gene
evkiye Hanrmefendi':rlln oz krzr Ratibe idi.
Mebrure'ye en kii~i.ik yamdan beri her hangi bir ey begendirmek, kabul ettirmek ve daha da koti.isi.i, bu dik bah krzr mernnun
etmek kabil degi.ldi. Drum. huysuz, dailrui honutsuz ve son derece
harisdi.
Bir bu~Uk yamda bir ~ocuk olarak bu kona~a evladlrk geldiJ.:ten
en az on sene sonra do~an ki.i~iik Ril.tibe ise, bamdan aan sevgi ve
alil.ka dalgalarr arasrnda, muvil.zeneli zekasr, mantrgr, rouhakemesi ve
bilhassa hislerindeki olgunlukla adetil. evin uguru, ti!srror, bereketi
idi.
Amma ne de olsa ~ocuk socuJ.:tu. u bayram gi.inleri, o da bayram
yerine koan akranlariyle beraber olmayr ne kadar ister, fakat soyliyemezdi. Ho soylese de onu bu toplu enliklere his gonderirler de
donmedolaplara, athkanncalara, sahncaklara bindirirler miydi?
Farz-1 mulral, aile vize verip r:1zr olmu elsa dahl, konak arabasiyle Uak, dad.t ve matmazel refakatinde bayram yerine gidilir miydi? Onlarsrz ise kaprdan bir ad.tm atmasr g6riilmii ilerden degi.ldi.
Maamafih kendisinin her hangi bir arzusuna aiJenin ''peki" demesi de
fazla bir OY ifade etmezdi. Zira kmmzr sa<;lr, !;illi yiizlii mi.irebbiyesi <:era, biitiin milli ve mahalli gelenek ve giirenekleri kiisiimser, hatta alaya alarak artrk bunlarm terkedilmesi gereken kiihne ve bayag,.
adetler oldugunu soyler ve devamlr olarak onu, bilmedigi iilemlerin
cazibesine dogru arkasmdan iterdi. fterdi de kii~uk Ratibe'yi istedigi
istikamete yoneltebilir miydi?
Halbuki evkiye Harumefendi':rlln gozde evlatlrgr Mebru, konaga
girip 9Ikan, kah franslzca ders veren kah piyano ogreten hocaJar sayesinde bir lovanten olup 9rk:m.rtr. Onun i~in de Beyoglu, adetil. Mebru'nun kabesi idi. Faik Aga arabayr bii koeye ~eker, o da, ya terzi
Fani ya da evin kendine uydurdugu gediklilerinden biriy!e, girilmesi
veya girilmemesi icab eden her tarafmda dolalrdr. ~ocuk diye, bir
ey anlamaz diye de kiisiik Ratibe'yi hi~e sayarak yarunda olur olmaz her eyi konuurlardl. !stedi.klerini yapsmlar . ve siiylesinlerdi
ama, hi~ degilse seneden seneye olsun Beyoglu gezmeleri yerine bayram yerlerine gitselerdi. <:ok defa Ratibe, S!ibire Hanrm'rn karrsrna
ge~:erek bu eglence yerlerini ve eski ildetleri anlattrnp dinler boy!ece
de sanki konag,.n i!;ine, daha dogrusu auenin i.istiine ~okmii 0 tatlr-su
frengi kokusundan kurtulmu gibi olur, i!;i a!,!lhp keyiflenirdi.
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<:ocuk i!;in bayram demek, aue, cemiyet ve din nizfunlannm el

birligi ile ~izdigi bir toplu zevk ve eglence demekti. Beraber Yaa!Dak
iizre yaratrlllll~ insanoglu i!;in, belki ~ok miihim iht!Ya<;lardan biri de,
beraber egi.enmekti. Eski Tiirk cemiyetinde ise bu kallektif meserret, koklU bir teamiildii. !~te kii9i.ik krzm hasret oldugu da bu idi.
Ger!;i onun da her gocuk gibi bayramlrk elbiseleri, ~oraplarr, ayakkabtlan, kurdelalan bayram gecesi kanepenin iistline serilirdi. Gene
o da her 9cicuk gibi, bayram sabalu biiyill<lerinin elini. opiip, biitiin
bane halkr bir arada bayramlarr, hediyeler, bahiler ahntp verilirdi. Akraba ziyaretlerinde ise, cebine keten ve ipekli mendiller konur, fakat U Sabire Harum'm anlattrgr Fatih Camiinin avlusundaki
bayram yerine gidemez, ihtiyar kadmcagtzm kab Cinci, kab Cundi
meydanr dedigi bayrarn yerlerindeki hokkabazlarr, kuklalan, panoramalan, pandomimalarr goremez; hele dolmacr araplardan ku lokumculardan, ekerci, ftstrkcr, piyazcr, kofteci, simit!;i, erbet9i, turUcu
ve hele macuncudan asia alr-veri edemezdi. Eege binmek, at si.irmek z!iten oglan ~:ocuklarmm karr idi. Ama U tenteli arabalara olswt
bir kere binip tiirkii soylemek herhalde ~ok zevkli olmalrydl. N e ki
boyle bir ey yapmak ~Byle dursun, istegini ve hatta begendigini ima
edecek elsa, kim bilir miirebbiyesinin goxiinde ne zavallr ne adl bir
,ocuk o!uveri:rdi.
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1894 zelzelesinden evvel Kapah<;arl ebrin en iistiin pazan, en

ve nadir kadm eyaSmm bulundugu bir piyasa yeri idi. Antikanm en kcymetlisi, miicevherin miistesnasr, kuma!n en ag,.n, hu!asa eskinin de yeninin de en zarif ve degerlisini burada bulmak miimkiindii.
Ger!;i alr-veri~i, ekseri kadlnlara kocalarr veya babalan yapar;
cariye!er ise kahya kadmlar eliyle istediklerini aldmrlardi. Fakat
arada bir harumlarrn da bazr belirli diikk!inlardan al!-veri etmeleri
yadrrganmazdl.
:tbrabiro Efendi'nin krzlarx da ~ok defa giyeceklerini kendileri se~:enler arastndaydllar. Bayranun yaklamasr, onlar isin de tel2 ve
hazrrlrk gi.inleri demekti. Evin drumi terzileri Olga ile Fani, kalfalarm bayramlrklarmx dikedursunlar, ~:ok defa Rael'in zevkine havale
edilen fistanlarr cidden bir. san'at eseri olar.lk Onlerine gelirdi. Ama
bazan da dra veya fotr i.istline boncuk i!e~ !utr mantolar, pe!erinler ve agrr tuvaletler i<;in Mir Kotero terzihAnesinin zevkine milracaat edildigi de olurdu. Srrasmda yiiz, yiizelli altma malolan bu
mulrte,.<:em kryafetler, diigiinler ve bayram muayedeleri gibi merasimse~me
89
Jerde goz kamatinr, e-dost arasmda kah g1bta kah hased kah hayranlik uyandmrdi.
Hammlann adeta bir kahvehaneye bir dost ziyaretine gider gibi
birbirleriyle kar.,la1aklan, birbirleriyle uzun uzun kcnurnak f1rsati
bulduklan baz1 rnuayyen magazalar da vard1 ki bunlar arasmda Hacopulo, ~iman Yanko ve !pek9i Kani bata gelirdi.
1894 zelzelesi Kapah>arI'YI harap etmeden evvel Kani, bu piyasanm en itibarh tacirleri arasmda bulunuyordu. YakiIkll idi. Alimli,
nazik ve miiltefitti. Han1mlar meyanmda ragbeti o dereceyi bulmU!u
lti "Kani'den ald1m" diyebilmek, oranm miiterisi cldugunu belirtmek,
bile, ondokuzuncu as1r sonu !stanbul cemiyetinin as!llerince bir eref saYJhrd!.
Kani'nin !;a!Immm ahmmm gonilller fetb etmekten de geri kalmad!go, ancak bunlarm arasmda, flort ve heves hududunu aarak,
!pek9i giizeline olesiye sevdalanan bir gen9 kmn ak hikayesi, Kani'den fazla etrafma dehet salmakta gecik:memiti. Kani, DOrdiincii
Sultan Mehmed zamanmda klh9 korkusuyla miisliiman olmu Sabalay Sevi taifesine mensubtu. Halk arasmda "avdeti veya Selamk donmesi" denen bu ziimre, her nedense o zaman bu zaman, ibadet, orf
ve ii.detlerini biiyiik bir taassubla muhafaza etmi bulunuycrlard!.
Bu 1rk91 ve eriatci taifenin fanatik ge!eneklerinde ise bir miisliiman
ki>.Iyla evlenmek yasakti. Binaenaleyh gen9 ve gilzel Kani'nin ugruna
bir kadm olebilir, lakin 0 kad!n, kendi kanlarma kariainaz, soylanna
giremezdi.
Halbuki, her eyden evvel biyo!ojik bir zaruret clan kan IStifasma aykm diien bu zihniyet, bu soyda tipik yaradxll hata!ari vermi
ve bozuk!uk, art1k gizlenemez alametler gosterrulti. Buna ragmen en
kiic;ilk bir taviz dahl kabul .etmeden miicadelelerinde clevam etmekteydiler. 6y!e ki, iki gencin evlerimeleri yclunda vakl clan biltiin rica
ve minnetler Sabatay Sevi saflarmda bir geverne yapmadi. Ve Kani'ye gonliinil kaptiran kiZ da nihayet oliim doegme serildi.
Kizm babas1, art1k bu hazin ah"'D. O!iimle biteceginl anlami bulunuyordu. Hatirh ve mevklli adamd!c EvJadinm yiizijnil, hi<; degilse
U son demlerinde olsun, giildiirmeye a.Zm.etmiti. li, devlet zoru kullanmak suretiyle hallederek, bir nikahla giizel taciri hastanm baucuna gonderebi!di.
Her yeni ak hikayesiyle itibar1 biraz daha artan Kani'nin iihreti giingiinden clillere destan oluyorsa da, Hac:tBabire Hamm, i<;in i<;in
klz&go bu adamm diikkanma asia adrm atmazd!. Zira 93r'iJ, her kovas= dald!rana istedigi kadar su veren bir dezya gibiydi.
Kahya kadm, harem tarafmm ah-veriini bitirdikten sonra selamhktaki kapi halkmm bayramltklariyle de me.,gul olurdu. Agalarm,
ahc;Ilarm, kavaslarm, bah~tvanlarm, seyislerin, yamaklarm tepeden
trmaga ~amaIrlarim tedarik eder, bayram bah.,ileri .kcnacal< sirmalt
keselerini, c;arnatr boh\;alartm alarak getlrirdi. Ama icabmda agalar
da onun bir sOziinU iki etm.ez, nereye gOnderirse koarlar ne isterse:
yaparlardi.
Bayram gecesi gelip !<atmca bahiler keselere, !<amaIrlar bch<;alara konarak donme dolaba yerletirilip selamllga verilirdi. Fakat harem tarafmdan selamhga donen do!ap, bayram hediyelerini o tarafa
boall!Tken, seliimli&ln da ikrammi hareme gonderirdi. Bu, ah91 baImn yaptigi un kurabiyesiydi. Kalfalarm tepsi tepsi dclaptan aldiklar1
kurabiyeler, sanki ilk defa boyle bir tat!I g5rtiyorlarmt., gibi, onlari
sevindirir ve tabaklara koyup yukan !;tl<ard!klan zaman da, hammlardan bahi altrlard!.
BAYRAM NAMAZI
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Tarih, devletlerin ve millet!erin maddi yaptsmm ernatik ,atisim kurarken, siyiisl, askeri ve i!;tima! faaliyetlerini kxl1 h-,rk yararcaS!na eip inceliyerek tayin etmeye ugraIr, hatta etnclojik ve arkeolojik tabakalarma iner de, de\irler bcyu tiirlii met ve cezirlere tii.bi
olmu bulunan derimi haztrhklanna, psikolcjik talep, istidat ve oluJanna cmuz silker ya da hi;; kulak asmaz.
. Ne tuhaftu, beeriyet sanki bir yaylkta dogiiliircesine, asirlar
boyu haddelerden gec;tikten ve ~eitli tecriibelerin IStiraplariyle <;alkandiktan sonradu ki ad!m adun olgunlaan istidad!mn aynasmda
ger!;ek talebini goriir. ()nun ic;in de, bilerek bilmiyerek teka.miile
namzet alan insanoglunun, her tarih .;agmda bir baka tecelli g5steren bu derimi. talebi ve netlce itibariyle elde ettigi ger!;ek, cnun tekamillil' seviyesiyle miitenasib olur. Zlra kiltleler, ancak devirlerin <;arkmdan gegtikleri kadar, taleplerini wzuhla t.yin etmek olgunluguna ererler.
Faraza uzun as~rlar amanizmde, maniheizmde, .mazdeizmde, budizmde me<:usilll."'e tatmin bulan beeriyet, giin clmu, Uur alb istidat ve talebi ile, Mlisa'yi 9~Ir. Fakat gene giin clmU, 'nice
devirler bekledigi bu nimet de az gelmi ve talebinde bir ad!m daha
ileri giderek, yeniden dilliigu karanhklar ve dal1iletler ortasmda, bu
defa da kar.,sm2., iki elinde iki sevgi kadehi ile !sa !;Ikmitlr. Fakat
2 ORALITY AND LITERACY
INTRODUCTION
In recent years certain basic differences have been discovered
between the ways of managing knowledge and verbalization in

primary oral cultures (cultures with no knowledge at all of
writing) and in cultures deeply affected by rhe use of writing. The
implications of the new discoveries have been starding. Many of
the features we have taken for granted in thought and expression
in literature, philosophy and science, and even in oral discourse
will undertake to treat a reasonable number of those aspects.

Exhaustive treatment would demand many volumes.
It is useful to approach orality and literacy synchronically, by
comparing oral cultures and chirographic (i.e., writing) cultures
that coexist at a given period of time. But it is absolutely essential
to approach them also diachronically or historically, by comparing
successive periods with one another. Human society first formed
itself with the aid of oral speech, becoming literate very late in its
history, and at first only in certain groups. Homo sapiens has been
in existence for between 30,000 and 50,000 years. The earliest
script dates from only 6000 years ago. Diachronic study of orality
and literacy and of the various stages in the evolution from one to
the other sers up a frame of reference in which it is possible to
understand better not only pristine oral culture and subsequent
writing culture, but also the print culture that brings writing to a
new peak and the electronic culture which builds on both writing
and print. In this diachronic framework, past and present, Homer
and television, can illuminate one another.
but have come into being because of the resources which the
technology of writing makes available ro human consciousness.
We have had to revise our understanding of human identity.
The subject of this book is the differences between orality and
literacy. Or, rather, since readers of this or any book by definition
But the illumination does not come easily. Understanding the

relations of orality and literacy and the implications of the
relations is not a matter of instant psychohistory or instant
phenomenology. It calls for wide, even vast, learning, painstaking
thought and careful statement. Not only are the issues deep and
complex, but they also engage our own biases. We-readers of
books such as this-are so literate that it is very difficnlt for us to
are acquainted with literate culture from the inside, the subject is,
first, thought and its verbal expression in oral culture, which is
as a variant of a literate universe. This book will attempt to
among literates, are not directly native to human existence as such
strange and at rimes bizarre to us, and, second, literate thought

and expression in terms of their emergence from and relation to
orality.
The subject of this book is nor any 'school' of interpretation.
There is no 'school' of orality and literacy, nothing that would be
the equivalent of Formalism or New Criticism or Structuralism or
Deconstructionism, although awareness of rhe interrelationship of
orality and literacy can affect what is done in these as well as
various other 'schools' or 'movements' all through the humanities
and social sciences. Knowledge of orality-literacy contrasts and
relationships does not normally generate impassioned allegiances to
theories but rather encourages reflection on aspects of the human
condition far too numerous ever robe fully enumerated. This book
conceive of an oral universe of communication or thought except

overcome our biases in some degree and to open new ways to
understanding.
It focuses on the relations between orality and writing. Literacy
began with writing bur, at a later stage of course, also involves
print. 1bis. book thus attends somewhat ro print as well as ro
writing. It also makes some passing mention of the electronic
processing of the word and of thought, as on radio and television
and via satellite. Our understanding of the differences between
orality and literacy developed only in the electronic age, nor earlier.
Contrasts between electronic media and print have sensitized us to
the earlier contrast between writing and orality. The electronic age
is also an age of 'secondary orality', the orality of telephones,
radio, and television, which depends on writing and print for its
existence.
!NTROD UCTION 3
The shift from orality to literacy and on to electronic processing

engages social, economk, political, religious and other structures.
These, however, are only indirect concerns of the present book,
which treats rather the differences in 'mentality' between oral and
writing cultures.
Almost all the work thus far contrasting oral cultures and
chirographic cultures has contrasted orality with alphabetic
writing rather than with other writing systems (cuneiform, Chinese
characters, the Japanese syllabary, May an script and so on) and
has been concerned with the alphabet as used in the West (the
alphabet is also at home in the East; as in India, Southeast Asia or
Korea). Here discussion will follow the major lines of extant
scholarship, although some attention will also be given, at relevant
points, to scripts other than the alphabet and to cultures other than
just those of the West.
W.].O.
Saint Louis Universiry
6 ORAUTY AND LITERACY
THE ORALITY OF LANGUAGE
THE LITERATE MIND AND THE ORAL PAST

In the past few decades the scholarly world has newly awakened to
the oral character of language and to some of the deeper
implications of the contrasts between orality and writing.
Anthropologists and sociologists and psychologists have reported
on fieldwork in oral societies. Cultural historians have delved more
and more into prehistory, that is, human existence before Miting
made verbalized records possible. Ferdinand de Saussure (18571913 ), the father of modern linguistics, had called attention to the
primacy of oral speech, which underpins all verbal
communication, as well as to the persistent tendency, even among
scholars, to think of writing as the basic form of language. Writing,
he noted, has simultaneously 'usefulness, shortcomings and
dangers' (1959, pp. 23-4). Still he thought of writing as a kind of
complement to oral speech, not as a transformer of verbalization
(Saussure 1959, pp. 23-4).
Since Saussure, linguistics has developed highly sophisticated
studies of phonemics, the way language is nested in sound.
Saussure's contemporary, the Englishman Henry Sweet (18451912), had early insisted that words are made up not of letters but
of functional sound units or phonemes. But, for all their attention
to the sounds of speech, modern schools of linguistics until very
recently have attended only incidentally, if at all, to ways in which
primary oraliry, the orality of cultures untouched by literacy,
contrasts with literacy (Sampson 1980). Structuralists have
analyzed oral tradition in detail, but for the most part without
explicitly contrasting it with written compositions (Maranda and
Maranda 1971). There is a sizable literature on differences

between written and spoken language which compares the written
and spoken language of persons who can read and write
(Gumperz, Kaltmann and O'Connor 1982 or 1983, bibliography).
These are not the differences that the present study is centrally
concerned with. The orality centrally treated here is primary
orality, that of persons totally unfamiliar with writing.
Recently, however, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics have
been comparing more and more the dynamics of primary oral
verbalization and those of written verbalization. Jack Goody's
book, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (1977), and his
earlier collection of his own and others' work, Literacy in
Traditional Societies (1968), still provide invaluable descriptions
and analyses of changes in mental and social structures incident to
the use of writing. Chayror very early (1945), Ong (1958b,
1967b), McLuhan (1962), Haugen (1966), Chafe (1982), Tannen
(1980a) and others provide further linguistic and cultural data and
analyses. Foley's expertly focused survey (1980b) includes an
e""tensive bibliography.
The greatest awakening to the contrast ben.veen oral modes of
thought and expression and written modes took place not in

linguistics, descriptive or cultural, but in literary studies, beginning
clearly with the work of Milman Parry (1902-35) on the text of
the Iliad and the Odyssey, brought to completion after Parry's
untimely death by Albert B.Lord, and supplemented by later work
of Eric A.Havelock and others. Publications in applied linguistics
and sociolinguistics dealing with orality literacy contrasts,
theoretically or in fieldwork, regularly cite these and related works

(Parry 1971; Lord 1960; Havelock 1963; McLuhan 1962;
Okpewho 1979; etc.).
Before taking up Parry's discoveries in detail, it will be well to set
the stage here by asking why the scholarly world had to reawaken
to the oral character of language. It would seem inescapably
obvious that language is an oral phenomenon. Human beings
communicate in countless ways, making use of all their senses,
touch, taste, smel~ and especially sight, as well as hearing (Ong
1967b, pp. 1-9). Some nonoral communication is exceedingly rich
-gesture, for example. Yet in a deep sense language, articulated
sound, is paramount. Not only communication, but thought itself
relates in an altogether special way to sound. We have all heard it
said that one picture is worth a thousand words. Yet, if this
THE ORAliTY OF LANGUAGE 7
statement is true, why does it have to be a saying? Because a

picture is won:h a thousand words only under special conditionswhich commonly include a context of words in which the picture
is set.
Wherever human beings exist they have a language, and in every
instance a language that exist> basically as spoken and heard, in
the world of sound (Sien:sema 1955). Despite the richness of
gesture, elaborated sign languages are substitutes for speech and
dependent on oral speech systems, even when used by the
congenitally deaf (Kroeber 1972; Mallery 1972; Srokoe 1972).
Indeed, language is so overwhelmingly oral that of all the many
thousands of languages-possibly tens of thousands-spoken in
the course of human history only around 106 have ever been
committed to writing to a degree sufficient to have produced
literature, and most have never been written at all. Of the some
3000 languages spoken that exist today only some 78 have a
literature (Edmonson 1971, pp. 323, 332). There is as yet no way
to calculate how many languages have disappeared or been
transmuted into other languages before writing came along. Even
now hundreds of languages in active use are never wrinen at all:
no one has worked out an effective way to write them. The basic
orality of language is permanent.
We are not here concerned with so-called computer 'languages',
which resemble human languages (English, Sanskrit, Malayalam,
Mandarin Chinese, Twi or Shoshone etc.) in some ways but are
forever totally unlike human languages in that they do not grow
out of the unconscious but directly out of consciousness.
Computer language rules ('grammar') are stated .first and
thereafter used. The 'rules' of grammar in natural human
languages are used first and can be abstracted from usage and
stated explicitly in words only with difficulty and never completely.
Writing, commitment of the word to space, enlarges the
potentiality of language almost beyond measure, restructures
thought, and in the process converts a certain few dialeCt> into
'grapbo1ects' (Haugen 1966; Hirsh 19n, pp. 43-8). A grapho1ect
is a transdialectallanguage formed by deep commitment to writing.
Writing gives a grapholect a power far exceeding that of any
purely oral dialect. The grapholect known as standard English has
accessible for use a recorded vocabulary of at least a million and a
half words, of which not only the present meanings but also
hundreds of thousands of past meanings are known. A simply otal
S ORALITY AND LITERACY
dialect will commonly have resources of only a few thousand

words, and its users will have virtually no know ledge of the real
semantic history of any of these words.
But, in all the wonderful worlds that writing opens, the spoken
word still resides and Jives. Written texts all have to be related
somehow, directly or indirectly, to the world of sound, the natural
habitat of language, to yield their meanings. 'Reading' a text
means converting it to sound, aloud or in the imagination, sy1Iab1eby-syllable in slow reading or sketchily in the rapid reading
common to high-technology cultures. Writing can never dispense
with orality. Adapting a term used for slightly different putposes
by Jurij Lotman (1977, pp. 21, 48-61; see also Champagne 19n8), we can style writing a 'secondary modeling system', dependent
on a prior primary system, spoken language. Oral expression can
exist and mostly has existed without any writing at all, writing
never without orality.
Yet, despite the oral roots of ali verbalization, the scientific and
literary srudy of language and literature has for centuries, until
quite recent years, shied away from orality. Texts have clamored
for attention so peremptorily that oral creations have tended to be
regarded generally as variant> of written productions or, if not
this, as beneath serious scholarly attention. Only relatively recently
have we become impatient with our obtuseness here (Finnegan
1977, pp. 1-7).
Language study in all but recent decades has focused on written
texts rather than on orality for a readily assignable reason: the
relationship of study itself to writing. All thought, including that in
primary otal cultures, is to some degree analytic: it breaks it>
materials into various components. But abstracdy sequential,
classi.ficatory, explanatory examination of phenomena or of stated
truths is impossible without writing and reading. Human beings in
primary oral cultures, those untouched by writing in any form,
learn a great deal and possess and practice great wisdom, but they
do not 'study'.
They Jeam by apprenticeship-hunting with experienced
hunters, for example-by discipleship, which is a kind of
apprenticeship, by listening, by repeating what they hear, by
mastering proverbs and ways of combining and recombining them,
by assimilating other formulary materials, by participation in a
kind of corporate retrospection-not by study in the strict sense.
THE ORAI11Y OF LANGUAGE 9
When srudy in the strict sense of e>:tended sequential analysis

becomes possible with the interiorization of writing, one of the
first things that literates often srudy is language itself and its uses.
Speech is inseparable from our consciousness and it has fascinated
human beings, elicited serious reflection about itself, from the very
early stages of consciousness, long: before writing came into
written compositions enforced attention to texts even more, for

truly written compositions came into being as texts only, even
though many of them were commonly listened to rather than

silently read, from Livy's histories to Dante's Comedkl and beyond
(Nelson 1976-7; Bauml 1980; Goldin 1973; Cormier 1974; Ahern
1982).
existence. Proverbs from all over the world are rich with
observations about this overwhelmingly human phenomenon of
speech in its native oral form., about its powers, its beauties, its
dangers. The same fascination with oral speech continues unabated
The scholarly focus on textS had ideological consequences. With
for centuries after writing comes into use.
thell- attention directed to texts, scholars often went on to assume,
In the West among the ancient Greeks the fascination showed in

the elaboration of the vast, meticulously worked-out art of
rhetoric, the most comprehensive academic subject in all western
culrure for two thousand years. In its Greek original, techn
rh torik ,'speech an' (commonly abridged to just rh torik )
referred essentially to oral speaking, even though as a reflecrive,
organized 'art' or science-for example, in Aristotle's Art of
Rhetoric-rhetoric was and had to be a product of writing.
Rh torik , or rhetoric, basically meant public speaking or oratory,
which for centuries even in literate and typographic culrures
remained unreflexively pretty much the paradigm of all discourse,
including that of writing (Ong 1967b, pp. 58-63; Ong 1971, pp.
27- 8). Thus writing from the beginning did not reduce orality but
enhanced it, making it possible to organize the 'principles' or
often without reflection, that oral verbalization was essentially the
constituents of oratory into a scientific 'art', a sequentially ordered
body of e>:planation that showed how and why oratory achieved

and could be made to achieve its various specific effects.
But the speeches--<>r any other oral performances-that were
srudied as part of rhetoric could hardly be speeches as these were
being orally delivered. After the speech was delivered, nothing of it
remained to work over. What you used for 'srudy' had to be the
te.'Ct of speeches that had been written down-commonly after
delivery and often long after (in antiquity it was not common
practice for any but disgracefully incompetent orators to speak
from a text prepared verbatim in advance-Ong 1967b, pp. 56-8).
In this way, even orally composed speeches were studied not as
DID YOU SAY 'ORAL LITERATURE'?
same as the written verbalization they normally dealt with, and
that oral art forms were to all in tents and purposes simply texts,
except for the fact that they were not written down. The
impression grew that, apart from the oration (governed by written
rhetorical rules), oral an forms were essentially unskillful and not
worth serious study.
Not all, however, lived by these assumptions. From the midsixteenth century on, a sense of the complex relationships of
writing and speech grew stronger (Cohen 1977). But the relentless
dominance of textuality in the scholarly mind is shown by the fact
that to this day no concepts have yet been formed for effectively,
let alone gracefully, conceiving of oral art as such without
reference, conscious or unconscious, to writing. This is so even
though the oral an forms which developed during the tens of
thousands of years before writing obviously had no connection
with writing at all. We have the term ~literature', which essentially
means 'writings' (Latin literatura, from litera, letter of the
alphabet), to cover a given body of writren materials-English
literature, children's literature-but no comparably satisfactory
term or concept t_o refer to a purely oral heritage, such as the

traditional oral stories, proverbs, prayers, formulaic expressions
speeches but as written texts.

Moreover, besides transcription of oral performances such as
orations, writing eventually produced stricdy written compositions,
(Chadwick 1932-40, passim), or other oral productions of, say,

the Lakota Sioux in North America or the Mande in West Africa or
of the Homeric Greeks.
As noted above, I style the orality of a culture totally untouched
by any knowledge of writing or print, 'primary orality'. It is
'primary> by contrast with the 'secondary orality' of present-day
high-technology culture, in which a new orality is sustained by
designed for assimilation directly from the written surface. Such
telephone, radio, television, and other electronic devices that
THE ORALITY OF LANGUAGE 11
depend for their existence and functioning on writing and print.

Today primary oral culture in rhe strict sense hardly exists, since
every culture knows of writing and has some experience of its
effects. Still, to varying degrees many culrures and subcultures,
even in a high-technology ambiance, preserve much of the mindset of primary orality.
The purely oral tradition or primary orality is not easy to
conceive of accurately and meaningfully. Writing makes 'words'
appear similar to things because we think of words as the visible
marks signaling words to decoders: we can see and touch such
inscribed 'words' in texts and books. Written words are residue.
Oral tradition has no such residue or deposit. When an of ten-told
oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the
potential in certain human beings to tell it. We (those who read
texts such as this) are for the most part so resolutely literate that we
seldom feel comfortable with a situation in which verbalization is
so little thing-like as it is in oral tradition. As a result-though at a
slightly reduced frequency now-scholarship in the past has
generated such monstrous concepts as 'oral literature'. This stricti y
preposterous term remains in circulation today even among
scholars now more and more acutely aware how embarrassingly it
reveals our inability to represent to our ovro minds a heritage of
verbally organized materials except as some variant of writing,
even when they have nothing to do with writing at all. The title of
the great Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature at Harvard
University monumentalizes the state of awareness of an earlier
generation of scholars rather than that of irs recent curators.
One might argue (as does Finnegan 19n, p. 16) that the
term 'literature', though devised primarily for works in writing, has
simply been extended to include related phenomena such as
traditional oral narrative in rultures untouched by writing. Many
originally specific terms have been so generalized in this way. But
concepts have a way of carrying their etymologies with them
forever. The elements out of which a term is originally built
usually, and probably always, linger somehow in subsequent
meanings, perhaps obscurely but often powerfully and even
irreducibly. Writing, moreover, as will be seen later in detail, is a
particularly pre-emptive and imperialist activity that tends to
assimilate other things to itself even without the aid of etymologies.
Though words are grounded in oral speech, writing tyrannically
locks them into a visual field forever. A literate person, asked to
think of the word 'nevertheless', will normally (and I strongly

suspect always) have some im:~ge, at least vague, of the spelled-out
word and be quite unable ever to think of the word 'nevertheless'
for, let us say, 60 seconds without adverting to any lettering but
only to the sound. This is to say, a literate person cannot fully
recover a sense of what the word is to purely oral people. In view
of this pre~ptiveness of literacy, it appears quite impossible to
use the term 'literature' to include oral tradition and performance
without subtly but irremediably reducing these somehow to
variants of writing.
Thinking of oral tradition or a heritage of oral performance,
genres and sryles as 'oral literature' is rather like thinking of horses
as automobiles without wheels. You can, of course, undertake to
do this. Imagine writing a treatise on horses (for people who have
never seen a horse) which starts with the concept not of horse but
of 'automobile', built on the readers' direct experience of
automobiles. It proceeds to discourse on horses by always referring
to them as 'wheelless automobiles', explaining to highly
automobilized readers who have never seen a horse all the points of
difference in an effort to excise all idea of 'automobile' out of the
concept 'wheelless automobile' so as to invest the term with a
purely equine meaning. Instead of wheels, the wheelless
automobiles have enlarged toenails called hooves; instead of
headlights or perhaps rear-vision mirrors, eyes; instead of a coat of
lacquer, something called hair; instead of gasoline for fuel, hay,
and so on. In the end, horses are only what they are not. No
matter how accurate and thorough such apophatic description,
automobile-driving readers who have never seen a horse and who
bear only of 'wheelless automobiles' would be sure to come away
with a strange concept of a horse. The same is true of those who
deal in terms of 'oral literature', that is, 'oral writing'. You cannot
without serious and disabling distortion describe a primary
phenomenon by staning with a subsequent secondary phenomenon
and paring away the differences. Icdeed, starting backwards in this
way-putting the car before the horse-you can never become
aware of the real differences at all.
Although the term 'preliterate' itself is useful and at times
necessary, if used unreflectively it also presents problems which are
the same as those presented by the term 'oral literature', if not
quite so assertive. ~Preliterate' presents orality-the 'primary
THE ORALITY OF LANGUAGE 13
14 ORAUTY AND LITERACY
modeling system'-as an anachronistic deviant from the

'secondary modeling system' that followed it.
wntmg is psychologically threatening, for literates' sense of

control over language is closely tied to the visual transformations
In concen "??ith the terms (oral literature' and 'preliterate', we

hear mention also of the 'text' of an oral utterance. 'Text~, from a
root meaning 'to weave', is, in absolute terms, more compatible
of language: without dictionaries, written grammar rules,
erymologically with oral utterance than is 'literature', which refers

to letters etymologically/(literae) of the alphabet. Oral discourse
has commonly been thought of even in oral milieus as weaving or
stitching--rhaps idein, to 'rhapsodize?, basically means in Greek
'to stitch songs together'. But in fact, when literates today use the
term 'text' to refer to oral performance, they are thinking of it by
analogy with writing. In the literate's vocabulary, the 'text' of a
narrative
by a person from a primary oral culture represents a
back-formation: the horse as an automobile without wheels again.

Given the vast difference between speech and writing, what can
be done to devise an alternative for the anachronistic and self..
contradictory term 'oral literature'? Adapting a proposal made by
Northrop Frye for epic poetry in The Anatomy of Criticism (1957,
pp. 248-50, 293-303), we might refer to all purely oral art as
'epos', which has the sa.me
Proto~IndoEuropean
root,
wekw-~
as
the Latin word vox and its English equivalent 'voice', and thus is
grounded firmly in the vocal, the oral. Oral performances would
thus be felt as 'voicings', which is what they are. But the more
usual meaning of the term epos, (oral) epic poetry (see Bynum
1967), would somewhat interfere with an assigned generic meaning
referring to all oral creations. 'Voicings' seems to have too many
competing associations, though if anyone thinks the tenn buoyant
punctuation, and all the rest of the apparatus that makes words
into something you can 'look' up, how can literates live? Literate
users of a grapholect such as standard English have access to
vocabularies hundreds of times larger than any oral language can
manage. In such a linguistic world dictionaries are essentiaL It is
demoralizing to remind oneself that there is no dictionary in the
mind, that lexicographical apparatus is a very late accretion to
language as language, that all languages have elaborate grammars
and have developed their elaborations with no help from writing
at all, and that outside of relatively hightechnology cultures most
users of languages have always got along pretty well without any
visual transformations whatsoever of vocal sound.
Oral cultures indeed produce powerful and beautiful verbal

performances of high artistic and human worth, which are no
longer even possible once writing has taken possession of the
psyche. Nevertheless, without writing, human consciousness
cannot achieve its fuller potentials, cannot produce other beautiful
and powerful creations. In this sense, orality needs to produce and
is destined to produce writing. Literacy, as will be seen, is
absolutely necessary for the development not only of science but
also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature
and of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language
(including oral speech) itself There is hardly an oral culture or a
predominantly oral culture left in the world today that is not
enough to launch, I will certainly aid efforts to keep it afloat. But

we would still be without a more generic term to include both
somehow aware of the vast complex of powers forever inaccessible
purely oral art and literature. Here I shall continue a practice

common among informed persons and resort, as necessary, to self-
primary orality, who want 1iteracy passionately but who also know
explanatory circumlocutions-'purely oral art forms', Verbal att

forms' (which would include both oral forms and those composed
in writing, and everything in between), and the like.
At present the term ~oral literature' is, fortunately, losing ground,
but it may well be that any battle to eliminate it totally will never
be completely won. For most literates, to think of words as totally
dissociated from writing is simply too arduous a task to
undertake, even when specialized linguistic or anthropological
work may demand it. The words keep coming to you in writing,
no matter what you do. Moreover, to dissociate words from
without literacy. This awareness is agony for persons rooted in

very well that moving into the exciting world of literacy means
leaving behind much that is exciting and deeply loved in the earlier
oral world. We have to die to continue living.
Fortunately, literacy, though it consumes
its own oral
antecedents and, unless it is carefully monitored, even destroys

their memory, is also infinitely adaptable. It can restore their
memory, too. Literacy can be used to reconstruct for ourselves the
pristine human consciousness which was not literate at all-at
least to reconstruct this consciousness pretty well, though not
perfectly (we can never forget enough of our familiar present to

reconstitute in our minds any past in its full integriry). Such
THE OI\ALIT'i OF LANGUAGE !S
reconstruction can bring a better undemanding of what literacy

itself has meant in shaping man,s consciousness toward and in
high-technology cultures. Such undersraoding of both orality and
literacy is what this book, which is of necessity a literate work and
not an oral performance, attempts in some degree to achieve.
138 ORAL MEMORY, THESTORYlli'IEAND CHARACTERIZATION
6
ORAL MEMORY, THE STORY
LINE AND CHARACTERIZATION
in a science laboratory have ro 'write up' experiments, which is to

say, they have to narrate what they did and what happened when
they did it. From the narration, certain generalizations or abstract
conclusions can be formulated. Behind proverbs and aphorisms
and philosophical speculation and religious ritual lies the memory
of human experience strung out in time and subject to narrative
treattnent. Lyric poetry implies a series of events in which the voice
in the lytic is embedded or to which it is related. All of this is to
say that knowledge and discourse come out of human experience
and that the elemental way to process human experience verbally
is to give an account of it more or less as it really comes into being
and exists, embedded in the flow of rime. Developing a story line is
a way of dealing with this flow.
1HE PRIMACY OF 1HE STORY LINE

The shift from orality to literacy registers in many genres of verbal
art-lyric, narrative, descriptive discourse, oratory (purely oral
through chirographically organized oratory to television-styled
public address), drama, philosophical and scientific works,
historiography, and biography, to mention only a few. Ofthese, the
genre most studied in terms of the oraliry-literacy shift has heen
narrative. It will be of use here to consider some of the work done
on narrative to suggest some newer insights offered by oralityliteracy studies. To narrative we can for present purposes
assimilate drama, which, while it presents action with no narrative
voice,
still has a story line, as narrative does.
Obviously, other developments in society besides the oralityliteracy shift help determine the development of narrative over the
ages--<:hanging political organization, religious development,
intercultural exchanges, and much else, including developments in
the other verbal genres. This trearmen t of narrative is not intended
to reduce all causality to the orality-literacy shift but only to show
some of the effects which this shift produces.
Narrative is everywhere a major genre of verbal art, occurring
all the way from primary oral cultures into high literacy and
electronic information processing. In a sense narrative is
paramount among all verbal art forms because of the way it
underlies so many other art forms, often even the most abstract.
Human knowledge comes out of time. Behind even the
abstractions of science, there lies narrative of the observations on
the basis of which the abstractions have been formulated. Students
NARRATIVE AND ORAL CULTURES

Although it is found in all cultures, narrative is in certain ways
more widely functional in primary oral cultures than in others.

First, in a primary oral culture, as Havelock pointed out (1978a;
cf. 1963), knowledge cannot be managed in elaborate, more or less
scientifically abstract categories. Oral cultures cannot generate
such categories, and so they use stories of hwnan action to star~
organize, and communicate mueh of what they know. Most, if not
all, oral cultures generate quite substantial narratives or series of
narratives, such as the stories of the Trojan wars among the ancient
Greeks, the coyote stories among various Native American
populations, the Anansi (spider) stories in Belize and other
Caribbean cultures with some African heritage, the Sunjata stories
of old Mali, the Mwindo stories among the Nyanga, and so on.
Because of their size and complexity of scenes and actions,
narratives of this sort are often the roomiest repositories of an oral
culture's lore.
Second, narrative is particularly important in primary oral
cultures because it can bond a great deal of lore in relatively
substantial, lengthy forms that are reasonably durable-whieh in
an oral culture means forms subject to repetition. Maxims, riddles,
proverbs, and the like are of course also durable, but they are
usually brief. Ritual formulas, which may be lengrhy, have most
often specialized content. Genealogies, which can be relatively
long, present only highly specialized information. Other lengthy
verbal performance in a primary oral culture tends to he topical, a
ORAL!Tf AND LITERACY 139
nonce occurrence. Thus an oration might be as substantial and

lengthy as a major narrative, or a part of a narrative that would be
delivered at one sitting, bur an oration is not durable: it is not
normally repeated, Ir addresses itself ro a particular situation and,
in the coral absence of writing, disappears from the human scene
for good with the situation itself. Lyric rends to be either brief or
topical or both. And so with other forms.
In a writing or print culture, rhe text physically bonds whatever
ir contains and makes ir possible to retrieve any kind of
organization of thought as a whole. In primary oral cultures,
where there is no text, the narrative serves to bond thought more
massively and permanently chan ocher genres.
ORAL MEMORY AND THE STORY LINE
Narrative itself has a history. Scholes and Kellogg (1966) surveyed
and schematized some of the ways in which narrative in rhe West
has developed from some of its ancient oral origins into the
present, with full attention to complex social, psychological,
aesthetic, and ocher factors. Acknowledging the complexities of the
full history of narrative, the present account will simply call
attention to some salient differences that set off narrative in a
totally oral cultural setting from literate narrative, with particular
attention to the functioning of memory.
The retention and recall of knowledge in primary oral culture,
described in Chapter 3, calls for poetic structures and procedures of
a sort quire unfamiliar to us and often enough scorned by us. One
of rhe places where oral mnemonic structures and procedures
manifest themselves most spectacularly is in their effect on
narrative plot, which in an oral culture is nor quire what we rake
plot typically to be. Persons from today's literate and typographic
cultures are likely to think of consciously contrived narrative as
typically designed in a climactic linear plot often diagramed as the
well-known 'Freytag's pyramid' (i.e. an upward slope, followed by
a downward slope): an ascending action builds tension, rising ro a
climactic point, which consists often of a recognition or other
incident bringing about a peripeteia or reversal of action, and
which is followed by a denouement or untying-for chis standard
climactic linear plot has been likened to the tying and untying of a
knot. This is the kind of plor Aristotle fmds in the drama {Poetics
1451 b-1452b)-a significant locale for such plot, since Greek
140 ORAL MEMORY, THE STORY UNE AND CHARACTElUZATION
drama, though orally performed, was composed as a written text

and in the West was the first verbal genre, and for centuries was the
only verbal genre, to be controlled completely by writing.
Ancient Greek oral na.crative, the epic, was nor plotted rbis way.
In his Ars Poetica:~ Horace wrlres that the epic poet 'hastens into
the action and precipitates the hearer into the middle of things'
(lines 148-9). Horace has chiefly in mind the epic poet's disregard
for temporal sequence. The poet will report a situation and only
much later explain, often in detail, how it came to be. He probably
has also in mind Homer's conciseness and vigor (Brink 1971, pp.
221-2): Homer wants to get immediately to 'where the action is'.
However this may be, literate poets eventually interpreted
Horace's in medias res as making hysteron proteron obligatory in
the epic. Thus John Milton explains in the 'Argument' to Book I of
Paradise Lost that, after proposing 'in brief the whole subject' of
the poem and touching upon 'the prime cause' of Adam's fall 'the
Poem hasts into the midst of things.'
Milton's words here show that he had from the start a control
of his subject and of the causes powering irs action that no oral
poet could command. Milton has in mind a highly organized plot,
with a beginning, middle and end (Aristotle, Poetics 1450b) in a
sequence corresponding temporally to that of the events he was
reporting. This plot he deliberately dismembered in order to
reassemble its parts in a consciously contrived anachronistic
pattern.
Exegesis of oral epic by literates in the past has commonly seen
oral epic poets as doing this same thing, imputing to them
conscious deviation from an organization which was in fact
unavailable without writing. Such exegesis smacks of the same
chirographic bias evident in the term 'oral literature'. As oral
performance is thought of as a variant of writing, so rhe oral epic
plot is thought of as a varianr of the plot worked our in writing for
drama. Aristotle was already thinking this way in his Poetics
(1447-144Sa, 1451a, and elsewhere), which for obvious reasons
shows a better understanding of the drama, written and acted in
his own chirographic culture, than of the epic, rhe product of a
primary oral culture long vanished.
In face, an oral culture has no experience of a lengthy, epic-size
or novel-size climactic linear plot. It cannot organize even shorter
narrative in the studious, relentless climactic way that readers of
literature for the past 200 years have learned more and more to
ORALITY AND LITERACY 141
expect-and, in recent decades, self~cousciously to depreciate. It
hardly does justice to oral composition to describe it as varying

from an organization it does not know, and cannot conceive of.
The 'things' that the action is supposed to start in the middle of
have never, except for brief passages, been ranged in a
chronological order to establish a 'plot'. Horace's res is a construct
of literacy. You do not find climactic linear plots ready-formed in
people's lives, although real lives may provide material out of
which such a plot may be constructed by ruthless elimination of all
but a few carefully highlighted incidents. The full story of all the
events in Othello's whole life would be a complete bore.
Oral poets characteristically experience difficulty in getting a
song under way: Hesiod's Theogony, on the borderline between
oral performance and written composition, makes three tries at the
same material to get going (Peabody 1975, pp. 432-3). Oral poets
commonly plunged the reader in medias res not because of any
grand design, but perforce. They had no choice, no alternative.
Having heard perhaps scores of singers singing hundreds of songs
of variable lengths about the Trojan War, Homer had a huge
repertoire of episodes to string together but, without writing,
absolutely no way to organize them in strict chronological order.
There was no list of the episodes nor, in the absence of writing, was
there any possibility even of conceiving of such a list. If he were to
try to proceed in strict chronological order, the oral poet would on
any given occasion be sure to leave out one or another episode at
the point where it should fit chronologically and would have to
put ir. in later on. If, on the next occasion, he remembered to put
the episode in at the right chronological order, he would be sure to
leave out other episodes or get them in the wrong chronological
order.
Moreover, the material in an epic is not the sort of thing that
would of itself readily yield a climactic linear plot. If the episodes
in the Iliad or the Odyssey are rearranged in strict chronological
order, the whole has a progression, but it does not have the tight
climactic structure of the typical drama. Whitman's chart of the
organization of the Iliad (1965) suggests boxes within boxes
created by thematic recurrences, not Freytag's pyramid.
What made a good epic poet was not mastery of a climactic
linear plot which he deconstructed by dint of a sophisticated trick
called plunging his hearer in medias res. What made a good epic
poet was, among other things of course, first, tacit acceptance of
142 ORAL MEMORY, THESTORYLINEAND CHARACTERIZATION
the fact that episodic structure was the only way and the totally
natural way of imagining and handling lengthy narrative, and,
second, possession of supreme skill in managing flashbacks and
other episodic techniques. Starting in 'the middle of things' is not a
consciously contrived ploy but the original, natural, inevitable way
to proceed for an oral poet approaching a lengthy narrative (very
short accounts are perhaps another thing). If we take the climactic
linear plot as the paradigm of plot, the epic has no plot. Strict plot
for lengthy narrative comes with writing.
Why is it that lengthy climactic plot comes into being only with
writing, comes into being first in the drama, where there is no
narrator, and does not make its way into lengthy narrative until
more than 2000 years later with the novels of the age of Jane
Austen? Earlier so-<:alled 'novels' were all more or less episodic,
although Mme de Ia Fayette's La Princesse de Cleves (1678) and a
few others are less so than most. The climactic linear plot reaches a
plenary form in the detective story-relentlessly rising tension,
exquisitely tidy discovery and reversa~ perfectly resolved
denouement. The detective story is generally considered to have
begun in 1841 with Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue
Morgue. Why was all lengthy narrative before the early 1800s
more or less episodic, so far as we know, all over the world (even
Lady Murasaki Shikibu's otherwise precocious The Tale of Genji)?
Why had no one written a tidy detective story before 1841? Some
answers to these questions-though of course not all the answerscan be found in a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the
oraliry-literacy shift.
Berkley Peabody opened new insights into the relationship of
memory and plot in his lengthy work, The Winged Word: A Study
in the Technique of Ancient Greek Oral Composition as Seen
Principally through Hesiod's Works and Days (1975). Peabody
builds not only on the work of Parry, Lord and Havelock, and
related work, but also on work of earlier Europeans such as
Antoine Meillet, Theodor Bergk, Hermann Usener, and Ulrich von
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, and upon some cybernetic and
structuralist literature. He situates the psychodynamics of Greek
epos in the Indo-European tradition, showing intimate connections
between Greek metrics and Avestan and Indian Vedic and other
Sanskrit merrics and the connections between the evolution of the
hexameter line and noetic processes. This larger ambience in which

Peabody situates his conclusions suggests still wider horizons
ORAUIY AND LITERACY 143
beyond. Very likely, what he has to say about the place of plot and
about related matters in ancient Greek narrative song will be found
to apply in various ways ro oral narrative in cultures around the
entire world. And indeed, in his abundant notes, Peabody makes
reference from time to time to Native American and other non-
Indo-European traditions and practices.

In parr explicitly and in parr by implication, Peabody brings out
a certain incompatibiliry between linear plot (Freytag's pyramid)
and oral memory, as earlier works were unable to do. He makes it
clear that the true 'thought' or content of ancient Greek oral epos
dwells in the remembered traditional formulaic and stanzaic
patterns rather than in the conscious intentions of the singer to
organize or 'plot' narrative in a certain remembered way (1975, pp.
172-9). 'A singer effects, not a transfer of his own intentions, but a
conventional realization of traditional thought for his listeners,
including himself (1975, p. 176). The singer is not conveying
'information' in our ordinary sense of 'a pipeline transfer' of data
from singer to listener. Basically, the singer is remembering in a
curiously public way-remembering not a memorized text, for

there is no such thing, nor any verbatim succession of words, but
the themes and formulas that he has heard other singers sing. He
remembers these always differently, as rhapsodized or stitched
together in his own way on this particular occasion for this
particular audience. 'Song is the remembrance of songs sung'
(1975, p. 216).
The oral epic (and by hypothetical extension other forms of
narrative in oral cultures) has nothing to do with creative
imagination in the modem sense of this term, as applied to written
composition. 'Our own pleasure in deliberately forming new
concepts, abstractions and patterns of fancy must not be attributed
to the traditional singer' (1975, p. 216). When a bard adds new
materia~ he processes it in the traditional way. The bard is always
caught in a situation not entirely under his control: these people on
this occasion want him to sing (1975, p. 174). (We know from
present-day experience how a performer, unexpectedly pressed by
a group to perform, will normally at first demur, thereby
provoking renewed invitations until finally he has established a
workable relationship with his audience: 'All right. If you
insist.. .'.) The oral song (or other narrative) is the result of
inreracrion between the singer, the present audience, and the
singer's memories of songs sung. In working with this interaction,
144 ORAL MEMORY, TilE STORY IlNEAND CHARACTERIZATION
the bard is original and creative on rather different grounds from

those of the writer.
Since no one had ever sung the songs of the Trojan wars, for
example, in full chronological sequence, no Homer could even
think of singing them that way. Bardic objectives are not framed in
terms of a tight over-all plot. In modem Za!re (then the
Democratic Republic of the Congo), Candi Rureke, when asked to
narrate all the stories of the Nyanga hero Mwindo, was astonished
(Biebuyck and Mateene 1971, p. 14): never, he protested, had
anyone performed all the Mwindo episodes in sequence. We know
how this performance was elicited from Rureke. As the result of
previous negotiations with Biebuyck and Mateene, he narrated all
the Mwindo stories, now in prose, now in verse, with occasional
choral accompaniment, before a (somewhat fluid) audience, for
twelve days, as three scribes, two Nyanga and one Belgian, rook
down his words. This is not much like writing a novel or a poem.
Each day's performance tired Rureke both psychologically and
physically, and after the twelve days he was totally exhausted.
Peabody's profound treatment of memory throws bright new
light on many of the characteristics of orally based thought and
expression earlier discussed here in Chapter 3, notably on its
additive, aggregative character, its conservatism, its redundancy or
copia, and its participatory economy.
Of course, narrative has to do with the temporal sequence of
events, and thus in all narrative there is some kind of story line. As
the result of a sequence of events, the situation at the end is
subsequent to what it was at the beginning. Nevertheless, memory,
as it guides the oral poet, often has little to do with strict linear
presentation of events in temporal sequence. The poet will get
caught up with the description of the hero's shield and completely
lose the narrative track. In our typographic and electronic culture,
we fmd ourselves today delighted by exact correspondence
between the linear order of elements in discourse and the
referential order, the chronological order in the world to which the
discourse refers. We like sequence in verbal reports to parallel
exactly what we experience or can arrange to experience. When
today narrative abandons or distons this parallelism, as in RobbeGriller's Marienbad or julio Corrazar's Rayuela, the effect is
clearly self-conscious: one is aware of the absence of the normally
expected parallelism.
ORAUTY !U'ID UTERACY 145
Oral narrative is not greatly concerned with exact sequential

parallelism between the sequence in the narrative and the sequence
in extra-narrative referents. Such a parallelism becomes a major
objective only when the mind interiorizes literacy. It was
precociously exploited, Peabody points out, by Sappho, and it
gives her poems their curious modernity as reports on temporally
lived personal experience (1975, p. 221). Of course by Sappho's

time (fl. c. 600 BC) writing was already structuring the Greek
psyche.
CLOSURE OF PLOT: TRAVELOGUE TO
DETECTNE STORY
The effects of literacy and later of print on the plotting of narrative
are too vast to treat here in full detail. But some of the more
generic effects are illuminated by considering the transit to literacy
from orality. As the experience of working with text as text
146 ORAL MEMORY, THESTORYUNEAND CHARACTERIZATION
normally and naturally operated in episodic patterning, and the

elimination of narrative voice appears to have been essential at
first to rid the story line of such patterning. We must not forget
that episodic structure was the natural way to talk out a lengthy
story line i only because the experience of real life is more like a
string of episodes than it is like a Freytag pyramid. Careful
selectivity produces the tight pyramidal plot, and this selectivity is
implemented as never before by the distance that writing
establishes between expression and real life.
Outside drama, in narrative as such, the original voice of the oral
narrator took on various new forms when it became the silent
voice of the writer, as the distancing effected by writing invited
various fictionalizations of the decontexrualized reader and writer
(Ong 19n, pp. 53-81). But, until print appeared and eventually
presentation lacks a narrative voice. The narrator has buried
had its fuller effects, the voice's allegiance to episode always

remained firm.
Print, as has been seen, mechanically as well as psychologically
locked words into space and thereby established a firmer sense of
closure than writing could. The print world gave birth to the
novel, which eventually made the definitive break with episodic
structure, though the novel may not always have been so tightly
organized in climactic form as many plays. The novelist was
engaged more specifically with a text and less with auditors,
imagined or real (for printed prose romances were often written to
be read aloud). But his or her position was a bit unsettled still. The
nineteenthcentury novelist,s recurrent 'dear reader' reveals the
problem of adjustment: the author still tends to feel an audience,
listeners, somewhere, and must frequently recall that the story is
not for listeners but for readers, each one alone in his or her own
world. The addiction of Dickens and other nineteenth-century
novelists to declamatory reading of selections from their novels
also reveals the lingering feeling for the old oral narrator's world.
An especially persistent ghost from this world was the itinerant
hero, whose travels served to string episodes together and who
survived through medieval romances and even through Cervantes'
otherwise unbelievably precocious Don Quixote into Defoe
(Robinson Crusoe was a stranded itinerant) and into Fielding's
Tom jones, Smolletr's episodic narratives, and even some of
Dickens, such as The Pickwick Papers.
himself completely in the text, disappeared beneath the voices of

his characters. A narrator in an oral culture, as has been seen,
its peak in the detective story, beginning with Poe's The Murders in
matures, the maker of the text, now properly an 'author', acquires
a feeling for expression and organization notably different from

that of the oral performer before a live audience. The 'author' can
read the stories of others in solitude, can work from notes, can
even outline a story in advance of writing it. Though inspiration
continues ro derive from unconscious sources, the writer can
subject the unconscious inspiration to far greater conscious control
than the oral narrator. The writer finds his written words
accessible for reconsideration, revision, and other manipularion
until they are finally released to do their work. Under the author's
eyes the text lays out the beginning, the middle and the end, so
that the writer is encouraged to think of his work as a selfcontained, discrete unit, defined by closure.
Because of increased conscious control, the story line develops
tighter and tighter climactic structures in place of the old oral
episodic plot. The ancient Greek drama, as has earlier been noted,
was the first western verbal arr form to be fully controlled by
writing. It was the first-and for centuries the only-genre to have
typically a tight, Freytag-pyrarnid structure. Paradoxically,
although the drama was presented orally, it had been composed
before presentation as a written roct. It is significant that dramatic
The pyramidally structured narrative, as has been seen, reaches
ORAUTY AND LITERACY 147
the Rue Morgue, published in 1841. In the ideal detective story,

ascending action builds relentlessly to all but unbearable tension,
the climactic recognition and reversal releases the tension with
explosive suddenness, and the denouement disentangles everything
totally-every single detail in the story turns out to have been
crucial-and, until the climax and denouement, effectively
misleading. Chinese 'detective novels', which began in the
seventeenth century and matured in the eighteenth and nineteenth,
share narrative materials with Poe, but never achieved Poe's
climactic concision, interlarding their texts with 'lengthy poems,

philosophical digressions, and what not' (Gulik 1949, p. iii).
Detective-story plots are deeply interior in that a full closure is
commonly achieved inside the mind of one of the characters first
and then diffused to the reader and the other fictional characters.
Sherlock Holmes had it all figUred out in his head before anyone
else did, including especially the reader. This is typical of the
detective story as against the simple 'mystery' story, which does not
have so tidy a closed organization. The 'inward turn of narrative',
in Kahler's term (1973), is strikingly illustrated here by contrast

with the old oral narrative. The oral narrator's protagonist,
distinguished typically for his external exploits, has been replaced
by the interior consciousness of the typographic protagonist.
Not infrequently the detective story shows some direct
connection berween plot and textualiry. In The Gold-Bug (1843),
Edgar Allan Poe not only places the key to the action inside
Legrand's mind but also presents as its external equivalent a text,
the written code that interprets the map locating the hidden
treasure. The immediate problem that Legrand directly solves is not
an existential problem (Where is the treasure?) but a textual one
(How is this writing to be interpreted?). Once the textual problem
is solved, everyrhing else falls into place. And, as Thomas ].Farrell
once pointed out to me, although the text is handwritten, the code
in the text is largely typographic, made up not simply of letters of
the alphabet but also of punctUation marks, which are minimal or
nonexistent in manuscript but abundant in print. These marks are
even farther from the oral world than letters of the alphabet are:
though part of a text, they are unpronounceable, nonphonemic.
The effect of prim in maximizing the sense of isolation and closure
is evident. What is inside the text and rhe mind is a complete unit,
self-contained in its silent inner logic. Later, varying this same
theme in a kind of quasi-<ietective story, Henry James creates in
148 ORAL MEMORY, THE STORY l.L'ffi AND CHARACTERIZATION
The A.spern Papers (1888) a mysterious central character whose

entire identity is bound up in a cache of his unpublished letters,
which at the end of the story are incinerated, unread by the man
who had dedicated his life to pursuing them to discover what sort
of person Jeffrey Aspern really was. With the papers, the mystery
of Aspem's person in his pursuivant's mind goes up in smoke.
Textuality is incarnated in this haunting story. 'The letter kills; the
spirit gives life' (2 Corinthians 3:6).
The very reflectiveness of writing-enforced by the slowness of
the writing process as compared to oral delivery as well as by the
isolation of the writer as compared to the oral performerencourages growth of consciousness out of the unconscious. A
detective-story writer is exqucsitely more reflectively conscious
than one of Peabody's epic narrators, as Edgar Allan Poe's own
theorizing makes evident.

Writing, as has been seen, is essentially a consciousness-raising
activity. The tightly organized, classically plotted story both results
from and encourages heightened consciousness, and this fact
expresses itself symbolically when, with the arrival of the perfeccly
pyramidal plot in the detective story, the action is seen to be
focused within the consciousness of the protagonist-the detective.
In recent decades, as typographic culture has been transmuted into
electronic culture, the tightly plotted story has fallen out of favor
as too 'easy' (that is, too fully controlled by consciousness) for
author and reader. Avantgarde literature is now obliged to deplot
its narratives or to obscure their plots. But deplotted stories of the
electronic age are not episodic narratives. They are impressionistic
and imagistic variations on the plotted stories that preceded them.

Narrative plot now permanently bears the mark of writing and
typography. When it structures itself in memories and echoes,
suggestive of early primary oral narrat[ve with its heavy reliance on
the unconscious (Peabody 1975), it does so inevitably in a selfconscious, characteristically literate way, as in Alain RobbeGrillet's La Jalousie or James Joyce's Ulysses.
THE 'ROUND' CHARACTER, WRITING AND
PRINT
The
modem
~characterization'
reader
has
typically
understood
effective
in narrative or drama as the production of the
'round' character, to use E.M.Forster's term (1974, pp. 46-54), the
character that 'has the incalculability of life about it'. Opposed to
!SO ORAL ME.'V!ORY, TI-lE STORY UJ>."E Al'.'D CHARACTERIZATION
that never surprises the reader but, rather, delights by fulfilling

expectations copiously. We know now that the type 'heavy' (or
'flat') character derives originally from primary oral narrative,
which can provide chara=s of no other kind. The type character
serves both to organize the stoty line itself and to manage the nonnarrative elements that occur in narrative. Around Odysseus (or, in
other cultures, Brer Rabbit or the spider Anansi) the lore
concerning cleverness can be made use o~ around Nestor the lore
about wisdom, and so on.
novel, but Sophocles' Oedipus and, even more, Pentheus and

Agave and lphigenia and Orestes in Euripides' tragedies are
incomparably more complex and interiorly anguished than any of
Horner's characters. In orality-literacy perspectives, what we are
dealing with here is the increasing interiorization of the world
opened up by writing. Watt (1967, p. 75) calls attention to the
'internalization of conscience' and the introspective habits that
produced the feeling for human character found already in Defoe,
and traces this to Defoe's Calvinist Puritan background. There is
something distinctively Calvinistic in the way Defoe's introspective
characters relate to the secular world. But introspection and
As discourse moves from primary orality to greater and greater
greater and greater internalization of conscience mark the entire
the 'round~ character is the 'flat' character, the type of character
chirographic and typographic control, the flat, 'heavy' or type

character yields to characters that grow more and more cround',
that is, that perform in ways at first blush unpredictable but
ultimately consistent in terms of the complex character structure
and complex motivation with which the round character is
endowed. Complexity of motivation and internal psychological
growth with the passage of time make the round character like a
'real person'. The round character that emerged out of the novel
depended for its appearance upon a great many developmentS.
Scholes and Kellogg (1966, pp. 165-77) suggest such influences as
the interiorizing drive in the Old Testament and its intensification
in Christianity, the Greek dramatic tradition, the Ovidian and
Augustinian traditions of introspection, and the inwardness
fostered by the medieval Celtic romances and the courtly-love

tradition. But they also point out that the ramification of personal
character traitS was not perfected until the novel appeared with its
sense of time not simply as a framework but as a constituent of
history of Christian asceticism, where their intensification is clearly

connected with writing, from St Augustine's Confessions to the
Autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux (1873-97). Miller and
Johnson (1938, p. 461), quoted by Watt, note that 'almost every
literate Puritan kept some sort of journal'. The advent of print
intensified the inwardness fostered by script. The age of print was
immediately marked in Protestant circles by advocacy of private,
individual interpretation of the Bible, and in Catholic circles was
marked by the growth of frequent private confession of sins, and
concomitantly a stress on the examination of conscience. The
influence of writing and print on Christian asceticism cries for
study.
Writing and reading, as has been seen, are solo activities (though
reading at first was often enough done communally). They engage
the psyche in strenuous, interiorized, individualized thought of a
sort inaccessible to oral folk. In the private worlds that they
generate, the feeling for the 'round' human character is born-
human action.
deeply interiorized in motivation, powered mysteriously, but
All these developments are inconceivable in primary oral

cultures and in fact emerge in a world dominated by writing with
its drive toward carefully itemized introspection and elaborately
worked out analyses of inner states of soul and of their inwardly
structured sequential relationships. Fuller explanation of the
consistently, from within. First emerging in chirographically

controlled ancient Greek drama, the 'round' character is further
developed in Shakespeare's age after the coming of print, and
comes to its peak with the novel, when, after the advent of the Age
of Romanticism, print is more fully interiorized (Ongl971).
Writing and print do not entirely do away with the flat
character. In accordance with the principle that a new technology
of the word reinforces the old while at the same time transforming
emergence of the 'round' character must include an awareness of
what writing, and later prim, did to the old noetic economy. The
first approximations we have of the round character are in the
Greek tragedies, the first verbal genre controlled entirely by
writing. These deal still with essentially public leaders rather than
with the ordinary, domestic characters that can flourish in the
it, writing cultures may in fact generate at certain points the

epitOme of type characters, that is, abstract characters. These
occur in the morality plays of the late Middle Ages, which employ
abstract virtues and vices as characters-type characters intensified
as only writing can intensify them-and in the drama of the

humors in the seventeenth century, which, as in Ben Jonson's
Every Man in His Humor or Volpone, introduce slightly fleshed
our virtues and vices as characters in more complex plots. Defoe,
Richardson, Fielding, and other early novelists (Wart 1967, pp. 1921), and even at times Jane Austen, give characters names that type
them; Lovelace, Heart-free, Allworthy, or Square. Late hightechnology, electronic cultures still produce type characters in
regressive genres such as Westerns or in contexts of self-conscious
humor (in the modern sense of this word). The Jolly Green Giant
works well enough in advertising script because the anti-heroic
epithet 'jolly' advertises to adults that they are not to take this
latterday fertility god seriously. The story of type characters and
the complex ways they relate written fiction to oral tradition has
not yet been told.
Just as the deplorted story of the late-print or electronic age
builds on classical plot and achieves its effect because of a sense
that the plot is masked or missing, so in the same age the bizarrely
hollowed characters that represent extreme states of consciousness,
as in Kafka, Samuel Beckert or Thomas Pynchon, achleve their

effects because of the contrast felt with their antecedents, the
'round' characters of the classical novel. Such electronic-age
characters would be inconceivable had narrative not gone through
a 'round' character stage.
The development of the round character registers changes in
consciousness that range far beyond the world of lirerature. Since
Freud, the psychological and especially the psychoanalytic
understanding of all personality structure has taken as its model
something like the 'round' character of fiction. Freud understands
real human beings as psychologically structured like the dramatic
character Oedipus, not like Achilles, and indeed like an Oedipus
interpreted out of the world of nineteenrh-cenrury novels, more
'round' than anything in ancient Greek literature. It would appear
that rhe development of modern depth psychology parallels the
development of the character in drama and the novel, both
depending on the inward turning of the psyche produced by
writing and intensified by print. Indeed, just as depth psychology
looks for some obscure but highly significant deeper meaning
hidden beneath the surface of ordinary life, so novelists from Jane
Austen to Thackeray and Flaubert invite the reader to sense some
!52 ORAL MEMORY, THE STORY UNEAND CHARACURJZATION
truer meaning beneath the flawed or fraudulent surface they

pcrtray. The insights of 'depth' psychology were impossible earlier
for the same reasons that the fully 'round' character of the
nineteenth-century novel was not possible before its time. In both
cases, textual organization of consciousness was required, though
of course other forces were also in play-the movement away from
the holist therapy of the 'old' (pre-Pasteur) medicine and the need
for a new holis~ the democratization and privatization of culture
(itself an effect of writing and, later, print), the rise of the so-called
'nuclear' family or 'family of affection' in place of the extended
family organized ro preserve the 'line' of descent, advanced
technology relating larger groups of persons more intimately to
one another, and so on.
But whatever these other forces behind the development of depth

psychology, one major force was the new feeling for the human
lifeworld and the human person occasioned by writing and print.
Epithetically delineated characters do not yield well to
psychoanalytic criticism, nor do characters delineated in a faculty
psychology of competing 'vinues' and 'vices'. Insofar as modern
psychology and the 'round' character of fiction represent to
present-day consciousness what human existence is like, the feeling
for human existence has been processed through writing and print.
This is by no means to fault the present-day feeling for human
existence. Quite the contrary. The present-day phenomenological
sense of existence is richer in its conscious and articulate reflection
than anything that preceded it. Bur it is salutary to recognize that

this sense depends on the technologies of writing and print, deeply
interiorized, made a part of our own psychic resources. The
tremendous store of historical, psychological and other knowledge
which can go into sophisticated narrative and characterization
today could be accumulated only through the use of writing and
print (and now electronics). But these technologies of the word do
not merely store what we know. They style what we know in ways
which made it quire inaccessible and indeed unthinkable in an oral
culture.

FOLKLORE,
CULTURAL
PERFORMANCES,
AND POPULAR
ENTERTAINMENTS
A Communications-centered Handbook
Edited by
RICHARD BAUMAN
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Bogazici University Library

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1111 II IIIII II 11111111 11111111111111 II

. 39001100079964
New York
II ~
Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1992
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University Press
New York Toronto

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and associated compan..ies in

Berlin Ibadan
Copyright 1992 by The Trustees

of the University of Pennsylvania.
le('
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
61<.
35
.F64
\ ~B2
Published by Oxford University Press, fie. .

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying.. recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Iibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Folklore, cultural performances, and popular entertainments :
a communications-centered handbook I Richard Bauman, editor.
p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN Q-19-506919-6.-ISBN 0-19-506920-X (pbk.)
1. Folklore--Encyclopedias.
2. Folklore-Performance--Encyclopedias.
3. Communication in folklore--Encyclopedias.
4. Folk-drama-Encyclopedias.
5. Popular culture-Encyclopedias.
I. Bauman, Richard.
GR35.F64 1992 398'.03-dc20 91-16496
The critical insight and editorial skill of Lee Ann Draud were
invaluable in the complex process of assembling and editing
the essays in this collection for their original publication in the
International Encyclopedia of Communications, and I am pleased to
have this opportunity to acknowledge her contribution. Thanks,
too, to Frances Terry for help in preparing the original manuscript. I would also like to express my gratitude to Chris Anderson, Dan Ben-Amos, Charles Briggs, and Beverly J. Stoeltje
for their critical comments on the entries written especially for
this vol=e, George Schoemaker for his assistance in preparing the work for publication, and Donald Braid for preparation
of the. index.
Bloomington, Ind.
August 1991
246897531
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R. B.
CONTENTS
Contributors, i x
Introduction, xi i i
Richard Bauman
I BASIC CONCEPTS AND

ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES
Culture, 3
Genre, 53
Asa Briggs
Richard Bauman
Oral Culture, 12
Play, 60
Jack Goody
Interaction, Face-to-Face, 21
Starkey Duncan, Jr.
Andrew W. Miracle
Humor, 67
Mahadev L. Apte
Ethnography of Speaking, 76
Folklore, 29
Richard Bauman
Performance, 41
Richard Bauman
Entertainment, 50
Erik Barnouw and

Catherine E. Kirkland
II
Joel Sherzer
Ethnopoetics, 81
Dennis Tedlock
Ethnomusicology, 86
John Blacking
Oral History, 92
Trevor Lummis
CO~CATIVE l'vfEDIA AND

EXPRESSIVE GENRES
Folktale, 101
Proverb, 128
Dan Ben-Amos
Galit Hasan-Rokem
Oral Poetry, 119
Riddle, 134
Ruth Finnegan
Thomas A. Green
viii
CONTENTS
Speech Play, 139

John Holmes McDowell
Gesture, 179
Adam Kendon
Insult, 145
Roger D. Abrahams
Mime, 191
Anya Peterson Royce
Gossip, 150
Donald Brenneis
Dance, 196
Adrienne L. Kaeppler
Oratory, 154
Alessandro Duranti
CONTRIBUTORS
Artifact, 204
Barbara A. Babcock
ROGER D. ABRAHAMS
Professor of Folklore and Folklife, University of Pennsylvania
Song, 159
Marcia Herndon
Oothing, 217
Werner Enninger
Music, Folk and Traditional,

167
Jeff Todd Titan
MAHADEV L. APTE
Professor of Anthropology, Duke University
Mask, 225
Elizabeth Tonkin
PETER D. ARNOTT
Professor of Drama, Tufts University
Music Performance, 172

Gerard Henri Behague
Food, 233
Judith Goode
ill
CULTURALPERFO~CES~
POPULARENTERT~NTS
BARBARA A. BABCOCK
Professor of English, University of Arizona
ERIK BARNOUW
Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Arts, Columbia University
Ritual, 249
Roy A. Rappaport
Spectacle, 291
Frank E. Manning
RICHARD BAUMAN
Professor of Folklore and Anthropology, Indiana University
Festival, 261
Beverly J. Stoe/tje
Tourism, 300
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
and Edward M. Bruner
GERARD HENRI BEHAGUE

Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Texas
Drama Performance, 272

Richard Schechner
Puppetry, 282
Peter D. Arnott
Index, 309
DAN BEN-AMOS
Professor of Folklore and Folklife, University of Pennsylvania
JOHN BLACKING
Professor of Social Anthropology, The Queen's University of Belfast
DONALD BRENNEIS
Professor of Anthropology, Pitzer College
ASA BRIGGS
Provost, Worcester College, Oxford University
40
BASIC CONCEPTS AND ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES
compartmentalization as folklore has always been since the first

emergence of the concept more than two centuries ago. While
the forms of folk expression and the discipline devoted to their
study are continuously transformed, the symbolic construction
of folklore remains a significant social force, energized by the
dynamic processes of traditionalization, ideology, social thought,
and the artfulness of everyday life.
PERFORMANCE
Richard Bauman
See also
ETHN'"OMUSICOLOGY; MUSIC, FOLK AND TR.ADmONAL.
Bibliography
William R. Bascom, ed., Frontiers of Folklore, Boulder, Colo., 1977.
Dan Ben-Amos, ed., Folklore Genres, Austin, Tex., 1976.
Dan Ben-Amos and Kenneth 5. Goldstein, eds., Folklore: Performance
and Communication, The Hague, 1975.
Jan Brunvand, The Study of American Folklore, 2d ed., New York, 1978.
Giuseppe Cocclriara, The History of Fo/Jclore in Europe, Philadelphia, 1981.
Richard M. Dorson, The British Folklorists, Chicago and London, 1968.
Richard M. Dorson, ed., Handbook of American Folklore, Bloomington,
Ind., 1983.
Alan Dundes, ed., The Study of Folklore, Englewood Oiffs, N.J., 1965.
Richard Handler and Jocelyn Linnekin, "Tradition, Genuine or Spu- .
rious," Journal of American Folklore 97(1984):273-290.
Michael Herzfeld, Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of
Modern Greece, Austin, Tex., 1982.
Ake Hultkrantz, General Ethnological Concepts, Copenhagen, 1960.
Dell Hymes, ''Folklore's Nature and the Sun's Myth," Journal of American Folklore 88(1975):346-369.
Americo Paredes and Richard Bauman, eds., Toward New Perspectives
in Folklore, Austin, Tex., 1972.
J. Barre Toelken, The Dynamics of Folklore, Boston, 1979.
William A. Wilson, Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland, Bloomington, Ind., 1976.
Rosemary L. Zumwalt, American Folklore Scholarship: A Dialogue of Dissent.
A mode of communicative behavior and a type of communicative event. While the term may be employed in an aesthetically
neutral sense to designate the actual conduct of communication
(as opposed to the potential for communicative action), performance usually suggests an aesthetically marked and heightened mode of communication, framed in a special way and put
on display for an audience. The analysis of performance-indeed, the very conduct of performance-highlights the social,
cultural, and aesthetic dimensions of the communicative process ..
Conceptions of Performance
In one common usage performance is the actual execution of

an action as opposed to capacities, models, or other factors that
represent the potential for such action or an abstraction from
it. In the performing arts this distinction can be seen in the
contrast between composed guidelines or models for artistic
presentations, such as playscripts or musical scores, and the
presentational rendition of those works before an audience. A
form of interserniotic translation is involved here, a shift from
42
BASIC CON:CEPTS AND ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES
Performance
43
the encoding of a message in one sign system (code) to
~'!;;~. thority and creativity, the ready-made and the emergent, must
other. The transformation can go the other way as well,
.o,;.,be determined empirically, in the close study of performance
performed action to transcribed text, as when a DANCE is tran. itself.
scribed into Laban6tation or an orally performed FOLKTALE into
, A similar contrast between the potential for communicative
written form. The approach to verbal art known as ETHNOPOETaction and the actual conduct of communication is found in
ICS is centrally concerned with the problems of such transcrip-'
. linguistic usage in the opposition between competence and
tion.
performance. This contrast was proposed by U.S. linguist Noam
In this sector of performance studies, theater people, for ex-.,
. Chomsky and is central to the theory of generative grammar.
ample, have long been interested in the relationship between,
. In generative grammar competence is tacit grammatical know!playscript and performance and the process of moving from '
.. edge, the formal structure of language as an abstract, idealized,
the former to the latter. Folklorists, to take another example,
cognitive system of rules for the production and comprehencontrast text-centered perspectives, which focus on disembodsion of grammatically appropriate sentences. Performance, by
ied, abstract FOLKLORE items, with performance-centered
contrast, is "natural speech," what the speaker actually does
spectives, which are concemed with the actual use of folklore
in using language. For Chomsky and other generative gramforms.
. marians, competence is the primary concem of linguistic theThe focus of debate on these issues centers upon how
: ory; a grammar is no more or less than a theory of competence
and in what ways the script or score or folkloric tradition
.for a given language. Performance tends to be seen as deviant,
termines performance as against how much flexibility, interpreimperfect, encumbered by such "grammatically irrelevant" factive choice, or creative opportunity rests with the performer.
tors as distractions, memory restrictions, errors, shifts of attencorollary concem, in the fine arts especially, is how accuratE
tion and interest, and the like.
a given version of a playscript or musical score represents
Other students of language, however, especially psycholointentions of the playwright or composer. We do not, for
gists, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists, are cenample, have Macbeth written in Shakespeare's hand. Can
trally concemed with performance. For example, Dell Hymes,
reconstruct what he intended, and, if so, how are we bound
a U.S. anthropologist, argues that a socially constituted linguisby that understanding in performance? As a general tendency,.
. tics demands an altemative conception of competence and percritics and scholars tend to vest authority in the musical or draformance and their relative importance to linguistic theory. In
matic text and through it in the author of the artistic work.
this view, social function gives shape to linguistic form, lanwhereas performing artists tend to provide the strongest
guage has social as well as referential meaning, and the comments for their own creative contribution to the artistic process~I
municative function of language in the constitution of social life
It is also clear that a neutral performance of a received
is fundamental to its essence. Hymes emphasizes "communicaauthoritative text is an idealist fiction; performance alwavs.'l
tive competence," encompassing the whole range of knowlmanifests an emergent dimension, as no two performances
edge and abilities that enable one to speak in socially approever exactly the same. Beyond this, there is too much varia
priate and interpretable ways. It involves not only grammatical
across the range of performing arts, cultures, and historical
knowledge but also the knowledge and ability to greet, tell a
riods (and within each of these) to make a conclusive ar~,.,.
story, pray, or promise. In this view, what transformational
ment. Ultimately, the relative proportion and interplay of
grammar would relegate to performance and thus exclude from
44
Perfonnance
the purview of linguistic theory assumes at least parity with .

gran:unar at the center of a theory of language. Performance
here is an accomplishment.
In contrast to notions of performance as any doing of an act
of communication are conceptions of performance as a specially marked mode of action, one that sets up or represents a
special interpretive frame within which the act of communication is to be understood. In this sense of performance, the act_
of communication is put on display, objectified, lifted out to a
degree from its contextual surroundings, and opened up to
scrutiny by an audience. Performance thus calls forth special
attention to and heightened awareness of the act of communication and gives license to the audience to regard it and the '
performer with special intensity. Performance makes one communicatively accountable; it assigns to an audience the responsibility of evaluating the relative skill and effectiveness of the
performer's accomplishment.
To the extent that the skill and effectiveness of expression
may become the focus of attention in any act of communication
(some would argue that to some extent it is always so), the
potential for performance is always present. In these terms, then,
performance is a variable quality, relatively more or less salient
among the multiple functions served by a communicative act.
Accordingly, performance may be dominant in the hierarchy of
functions or subordinate to other functions--informational,
rhetorical, phatic, or any other. Thus, for example, a sea chantey sung on board ship primarily to coordinate a work task
may be secondarily presented to and appreciated by the sailors
for the skill of the chanteyman's performance; on the other hand,
performance may become paramount if the same singer is fea-
tured onstage at a maritime folk FESTIVAL. The relative dominance of performance, then, will depend on the degree to which
the performer assumes responsibility to an audience for a display of communicative skill and effectiveness as against other
communicative functions. It may range along a continuum from
sustained, full performance, as when an operatic diva sings at
La Scala, to a fleeting breakthrough into performance, as when
45
child employs a new and esoteric word in conversation with
-, _.;.o,... as a gesture of linguistic virtuosity. Situated somewhere

the two might be hedged performance, as when
presents an off-color joke and claims it was picked up
-from someone else in case it is not well received by the audi. ence, but tells it as well as possible in the hope that the skill
and effectiveness of the presentation may be evaluated positively.
Integral to the conception of performance as a frame that puts
on display the intrinsic qualities of the act of communication
itself is the way in which this framing is accomplished, or in
the Canadian sociologist Erving Goffrnan' s term, how performance is keyed. Every act of communication includes a range
of explicit or implicit framing messages that convey instructions on how to interpret the other messages being conveyed.
This communication about communication was termed metacommunication by Gregory Bateson. In empirical terms this. means
that each community will make use of a structured set of distinctive communicative means to key the performance frame so
that communication within that frame will be understood as
performance within that community. These keys may include
special formulas ("Once upon a time . . . ," "Did you hear
the one about . . . ?"), stylizations of speech or movement (for
example, rhyme, parallelism, figurative language), appeals to
tradition as the standard of reference for the performer's accountability ("The old people say . . . "), even disclaimers of
performance ("Unaccustomed as I am . . . "). The culturespecific constellations of communicative means that key performance may be expected to vary from one culture to another,
although areal and typological pattems and universal tendencies may exist.
-50 meone
Characteristics of P erfonnance
Prominent among.the rues that signal performance may be situational markers: elements of setting, such as a raised stage, a
46
BASIC CONCEPTS AND ANALYTICAL PERSPECTlVES
Perfonnance
47
proscenium arch, or an attar; special paraphernalia, such

:1;'~-sigru.tication to become an object to itself and to refer to itself,
costumes or masks (see MASK); occasioning principles, such as
'~---thus opening up to view the organizing and patterning princiby which the system is constituted.
seasonal festivals or holy days. All performance, like all
First of all, performance is formally reflexive--signification
munication, is situated, enacted, and rendered meaningful witl:tin
socially defined situational contexts. The comparative study
about signification-insofar as it calls attention to and involves
performance, however, has tended to emphasize those events
self-conscious manipulation of the formal features of the comfor which performance is a criteria! attribute, what the U.S.
. municative system (physical movement in dance, language and
thropologist Milton Singer has called "cultural performances.
tone in song, and so on), making one at least conscious of its
Cultural performances tend to be the most prominent perfor_ devices. At its most encompassing, performance may be seen
mance contexts within a community and to share a set of char- :'
as broadly metacultural, a cultural means of objectifying and
laying open to scrutiny culture itself, for culture is a system of
acteristic features.
First of all, such events tend to be scheduled, set up and
systems of signification. Thus, Singer, in his efforts to underpared for in advance. In addition, they are temporally bounded,
- stand the complex culture of India, concentrated his attention
with a defined beginning and end; they are also spatially bounded, .
on such cultural forms as plays, concerts, lectures, ritual readthat is, enacted in a space that is symbolically marked off, tern- _
ings and recitations, rites, ceremonies, and festivals, because
porarily or permanently, such as a theater, a festival ground,
his "Indian friends thought of their culture as encapsulated in
or a saqed grove. Within these boundaries of time and space,
_these discrete performances, which they could exhibit to visicultural performances are programmed, with a structured scetors and to themselves."
nario or program of activity, as in the five acts of an ElizabeReflexive is a more potent term here than the still widely curthan drama or the liturgical structure of an Iroquois condolence
rent reflective, which treats performances and other artistic forms
ceremony. These four features are in the service of an addias reflections, mirror images (though perhaps distorted ones,
tional one, which is part of the essence of cultural perforas in a fun house) of some primary cultural realities such as
mances, namely, that they are coordinated public occasions, open
values, pattems of action, structures of social relations, and the
to view by an audience and to collective participation; they are
like--an "art follows life" perspective. Recent performance
occasions for people to come together. Moreover, involving as
studies in anthropology, as in the work of Roger Abrahams,
they do the most highly formalized and aesthetically elaborated
Clifford Geertz, Richard Schechner, and Victor Tumer, demperformance forms and the most accomplished performers of
onstrate that cultural performances may be primary modes of
the community, such performance events are heightened occadiscourse in their own right, casting in sensuous images and
sions, available for the enhancement of experience through the
performative action rather than in ordered sets of explicit, verpresent enjoyment of the intrinsic qualities of the performative
bally articulated values or beliefs, people's understandings of
ultimate realities and the implications of those realities for acdisplay.
Perhaps the principal attraction of cultural performances for
tion. Geertz's analysis of the court rituals of what he calls "the
the study of society lies in their nature as ref(exive instruments
theater.. state in nineteenth-century Bali" are especially revealof cultural expression. U.S. scholar Barbara Babcock has sug-
ing in this regard.
gested that the term reflexive identifies two related capacities
In addition to formal reflexivity, performance is reflexive in
of performance, both rooted in the capacity of any system of
a social-psychological sense. Insofar as the display mode of
48
performance constitutes the performing self (the actor onstage,'!

the storyteller before the fire, the festival dancer in the village:
plaza) as an object for itself as well as for others, performan
is an especially potent and heightened means of taking the role
of the other and of looking back at oneself from that perspec"
tive, in the process that social philosopher and social psychologist George Herbert Mead and others like him have identified ,
as constitutive of the self. Indeed, Mead himself cites the effi.- :,
cacy of drama in reporting situations through which one can.
enter into the attitudes and experiences of other persons. Such 1
dimensions of consciousness of consciousness are not, of course,
confined to cultural performances but may illuminate identity
in any social context; a sense of being "on" or doing something
"for the camera" in the course of ongoing social actions does
constitute performance in the general sense developed here.
However, when the attribution of a performance quality to social interaction carries with it a range of metaphorical meanings
drawn more narrowly from theatrical performance in variations
on the venerable '1ife as theater" trope, the analogy is best
explored in terms of the conventions of theater or drama that
are pressed into the service of the metaphor.
See also
Bibliography
MUSIC PERFORMANCE.
Roger D. Abrahams, The Man of Words in the West Indies, Baltimore,

Md., 1983.
Barbara Babcock, ed., Signs about Signs: The Semiotics of Self-Reference
(special issue), Semiotica 30, nos. 1-2, 1980.
Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance, Rowley, Mass., 1977, reprint Prospect Heights, ill., 1984.
Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs, "Poetics and Performance as
Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life," Annual Review of Anthropology 19(1990):59-88.
Charles Briggs, Competence in Performance, Philadelphia, 1988.
Noam Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Synta:c, Cambridge, Mass.,
1965.
Johannes Fabian, Power and Performance, Madison, Wise., 1990.
Performance
49
Geertz, Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth-Century Bali,

Princeton, N.J., 1980.
+ E,rving Goffman, Fra'!'e Analysis, Cambridge, _Mass., 1974.
, Richard Homby, Scrrpt znto Performance, Austin, Tex., 1977.
.bell Hymes, Foundations in Sociolinguistics, Philadelphia, 1974.
Dell Hymes, "Breakthrough into Performance," in Folklore: Performance
and Communication, ed. by Dan Ben-Amos and Kenneth 5.
Goldstein, The Hague, 1975.
Joel Kuipers, Power in Performance, Philadelphia, 1990.
George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, ed. by Charles W. Morris, Chicago, 1962.
Richard Schechner, Essays on Performance Theory, New York, 1977.
Milton Singer, When a Great Tradition Modernizes, New York, 1972.
Beverly J. Stoeltje and Richard Bauman, "The Semiotics of Folkloric
Performance," in The Semiotic Web 1987, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok and Jean Umiker-Sebeok, Berlin, 1988.
Victor Tumer, From Ritual to Theater, New York, 1982.
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h_~.l.oD.oio.!llio.~"~Q!!!LIQ!LJ:lp_q?,_Q
Arzu OztUrkmen
Published online: 07 Dec Z009.
Arzu
Epic Tales, Hagiographies, and Chronicles. Text and Performance Q.uarterlyr 2.9:4, 327345, DOl:
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To cite this article: Arzu CztUrkmen (2009) Orality and Performance in Late Medieval Turkish Texts:
.,.r.~
Orality and Performance in Late

Medieval Turkish Texts: Epic Tales,
Hagiographies, and Chronicles
Publication details, including instructions for authors and

subscription information~
Orality and Performance in Late

Medieval Turkish Texts: Epic Tales,
Hagiographies, and Chronicles
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The purpo$e of this essay is to look in depth at a selected part of that corpus produced
within the particularly chaotic political context of late medieval Asia Minar (Anatolia},
where different languages, scripts, and genres competed with one another. In scardJ. of
signs of orality and rcfere/zccs to oral performances in writrc:n tOO$, the essay m1l
particularly focw on three mMuscripts, all reflecting the world of the Turkish-5pcaki1ig
communities of rhe lau medicval.Ana.tolia.: the Book ofDcdc Korkut,. the. Vllayctnamc-i
Hao. Bckt~-1 Vcli, and the Tarih-i Al-i Osman of ~rkptlfazade. Thc.sc manuscripts can
be situated within the franWNork of a literary-historical genre ~ "epic," "hagiography,"'
and "chronicle," rcspeaivciy. In the late medieval Anatolian conr.cx; th~ three
manusaipts shared linguistic. stylistic. and discursiYc commonalities, while, however,
fulfilling differc:nl fimctiotts for different audienccs, an i.s.sue t1tat calls attention to the
pitfalls of genre analysis in hisrarical co,m:xt. A.s examples of the un.se.trlcd-Dr even, at
rimes, chaotic-historical-ethnographic sari.ng of late medieval Anarolia,. these three
texts nand as "genres-in-progress," to crystaUizc only in the late sixteenth century into
more srruaurcd forms. Put into the same cultural-historical framework. these tc::xts, 'With
tlu:ir signs oforality. reflect the diverse ways in which three types ofcommunitie.s---tribal.
religious, and political-coristructcd and expressed their pwt.
Ke;rwords: Turkish; Anatoliaj Epic; Hagiography; Qurmiclc
Medieval manuscripts written in Turkish have long attracted the interest of scholars
from different fields, including history, literature, and folklore. The study of this
corpus requires a .comparative look at diffctcnt communities and a wide range of
different literary and bistoric:U. genres. The puxposc of this essay is to look in depth at
a :sclectcd pan of that corpus produced within the particularly chaotic political
Arm Ozttlrkmen (PhD) is Profcs:sorofH"~ry l1l1d Folldorc ll.l BoS:a:Utfi llniV1!1"Sity.l~bul, Correspondmo:: to;
An:u ~!lrkmC'I'I, De~rtmcnt of History, Bo~:ltio;:i Univmity, Bcbck, b~nbul, ~342 1\lrkey. Em~n:
ozturkmdllbo\ln.c:du.tr
ISSN J046-l51J7 (priZ~t)IISSN 1479-5760 (online) (CJ 200? N~tiOikll Commul:liCDiion f,Moci~tion
DOl; 10.10S0/1046293090324:ZS7l
328 A.
Orality and Pafomum~ in Late Medi&al Turkish Texts
Ozrarkmen
context of late medieval Asia Minor (Anatolia), where different b.ngll:lges, saipts,
and genres competed with one another. 1 In search of signs of orality and references to
oral performances in written texts, the essay will particularly focus on three
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manuscripts, all reflecting the world of the Turkish~speaking communities of the

late medieval Anatoli:t: the Book ofDet:k Korba, the Vitayaname-i Bact Bektar~ Veli.
and the Tan1t-i Al-i Osma.n of AJ;Ikp~de.. These manuscripts ca.n be situated
within the framework of a literazy-historic:al. genre as "epic," "hagiography," and
"chronicle:' respectively. Although scholars date them to the fifteenth to seventeenth
centuries, thq- give us valuable hints of oral traditions in Anatolla during earlier
centuries.
Written texts that can give us insights into the origins of Turkish settlement in
.Anatolia are not abunda.nt. Under the effects ofv.rar and migrn.tioo, written texts may
ha.ve survived oniy in limited quantities or not .at aU. The existing primuy source
texts have so far been approached by different disciplines in Turkey, including
folklore, literary history and the history of drama, and an history. In the e:Ltly years of
the Turkish Republic, the- boundaries between these disciplines were fuirly permeable.
Scholars like fuad l<6prUIU (189Q-1966), Abdillbaki G6lpmar~ (!900-l!2), ond Pcrtev
Naill Boratav (1907-98), 3ll coDling from different d.isciplin;lt)' backgrounds,
produced tbe first fruitful attempts to analyze m.ediev.:ll textS produced in the
Turkish language within the Anatolian context. In later decades, the study of the
written and or.U traditions of late medleva.l Turkish-speaking Anatolia grc:w to be a
more ideologicU roane.t. As the earliest examples of mediev:tl An:~.tolian texts written
in Turkish, these texts becaz:ne attractive sources for nationalist literary and historical
circks, a trend best revealed in the Turkist revi~ of the l94.0s. 2 They also drew the
scholarly anention of Ottoman historians as early samples of the lr.l.dition of
Ottoman historical writing. In the course of thefr investigations, however, a number
of these historians have acknowledged the interplay between orality and literacy in
these manuscripts, noting wit:hic them e:amples of stylistic differences between
colloquial and popular speech, conversational dialogues and references to instances of
storytdling. while pointing out how oral communic:ative processes are revealed in
these written texts.
To better unde~d the nature of orality and the shift to literacy in the three
Ill:!nusaipts ex:unined here, a brief ovavi.ew of the cultutal-historical milieu in which
they were produced is in order. Anatolia in the Middle Ages lacked a strong political
unity, -as the weakening Byzantine Empire was. cballi!D.ged by the rising power of the
Tu.rl<ic Seljukids.' Following the Seljukid victory over the Byzantine Empire at the
Battle of Manzikert in 1071, nomadic Oghuz tribes poured into Anatolia where th~
found a safe settlement under Seljukid rule. The Seljuki.ds drove these new settlers
west to-ward the frontiers of tbc:ir empire in their seuch for fresh pasturage. Many of
these nomadic tribes h;td recently converted to Islam., and when the Anatolian
Selju.kid order declined in the wake of the Mongol inV3Sions of the mid~thirteentb
century, they were organized in small principilities called beyliks.4 Governed by
rlifferent beys. th~ compantively recently settled Turcom.an communities shared a
more or less similar religious, c:u1tuW. and linguistic domai.n. One should therefore
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329
examine the Book ofDede Kcrkut. the Vilayername~i Hacz Bekrel~z Vel~ and the Tarh-i
Al-i Osma.n of A$kP<t!iazade within the historical-ethnographic context of medieval
Anatol.ia. ruled by numerous beyliks and the neighboring Byzantine and llkhanid
(Mongol) orders until the fourteenth centtlry'. This was a rathc:r fluid cultural
domain, where spokeo. Iangu.:lges, scripts, and belief systems were exposed to and
borrowed elements from one another.
In the l:tte medie-r.U Anatolian context, these three tiWiuscripts shared linguistic,
stylistic., and d.isCW'Sive commonalities, while, however, fulfilling different functions
for different audiences, an issue tOOt draws anen.tion to the pitfalls of genre analysis in
historical context. As o:amples of the unsettled-or even, at times, ch:lotichistoriaU-eth.aographic setting of late medieval Anatoli~ these three tects stand as
"'genres-in-progress," to crystall.ize only in the late sbcteentb century into rnore
structured forms. 5 Put into the same cultural-historical framework, they reflect the
diverse ways in which three types of communities-tribal, religious, and politicalconstructed and expressed their past. Following Richard Bauman's critical review of
genre analysis, one should appro.u:h these three texts "not solely as dlssificato:y
Qtegories for the organization of cultur.ll objects but also orienting frameworks for
org;utization of 'W:lys of producing and interpreting d.iscourse."e. The contemporary
conceptualizations of genres, &uman argues, have emphasized .dimensions of
interrelationship tbat organize communicative production and reception. This new
and more open-ecded approach views genres as fl.CXl"ble and negotiable orienting
frameworks, and focuses on discursive: practice in the conduct of social life. The
importallce of the Book of Dale Korkut, the Vilayecname-i Ha.ct Bekta.f-z Vel~ and
Tarih-i Al-i Osman of ~lkp~de lies in the fact that they ;ue among the rare texts
that have survived from :tnd thus rcllec:t the historical ethnography of late medieval
An:l.tolia, where orality and literacy had an interactive relationship. While the Book of
Delle Korkut primarily reflects the language and social life of a nomadic tribal
community. the hagiographic form of Vilayername-i Haa Bektaf-t Veli displays how
the newly settled communities were becoming integrated into the emerging system of
Su orders. The figure of the tribal leader known as Dede ("Gandfather") or Ata
("Father..), which we see in the Book ofDede Korkut, is now rep.l:!.ced by the figure of
tbe Shdkh, who is no longer an isolated figure but a powerful religious leader
connected to his counterparts in ne:uby settlements. In Tarih-i Al-i Osmani of
~~de. the text tlkes on o. more mWld3.De focus, with a more direct discourse
commenting on the rise of the Ottoman beylik. A:; one of the rue surviving authored
texts on early Ottomaa. sb.te form:ttion. Tan"h-i Al-i Osmani comments on the
establishment of a w.ider and more cent:ralized political unity.
Tracing the material sources that can giVe us a hint whether--a.nd how-th~e
three texts interacted in the late medieval.Am.rolian context is another problematic
issue. An in-depth analysis of each te..\:t points to linguistic, stylistic, :md discursive
commorutlities and differences, and gives clues about the historical ethnography of
communities in which they were produced. The different reasons why these three
te:tts were put in writing may perhaps be what distinguishes them most clearly from
one another. lt seems that each manuscript was prepared for a particular type of
330 A OztUrJ..mcn
Orality and Pcr[ori11Q.ncc in lAte Medieval Turkish
audience and with a panicula.r 5ense of historicizing the past. The epic tales of the
.Book of Dede Korkur were probably put into writing when the chief storytellers of the
nomadic: communities aged and passed away. The Book of Dcdc KDrkut is in a sc:nsc a
memory book for the new settlers to preserve the stories of their rem. etc homelands, a
source for the new generations born in Anatolia. The case is more complicated for the
Vilaydna.mc.i Haa B~-r Veli and ~a~:IZadc's Tarih-i Al-i Osman. It is known
that hagiographies, like the Vilaycma.me-i Haa Belctaf-s Vcli served as textbooks in the
dervish lodges, so that the incoming followers became acquainted with the doctrines
of the lodge,. read aloud, memorized, and used as a source for meditation. In the
frontier communities of mcdlcval Anatolia, however, religious and military leaders
operated hand in lund. Ghaza, war to spread Is~ was a concept adoptl:d by both
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Sufi sheikhs and political lead~ and the bey.; who conquered new lands in that spirit
were seen as g1tazis, or holy warriors. In that respect, as Halil !nalctk bas pointed out,
hagiographies could be read aloud in military gatherings or in the marketplace, where
merchants outfitted soldiers for gha~a.? :Early chronicles like ~lkp~dc's Tarih-i
Al-i Osman were also written in that spirit, paying tribute to political leaders and
tbcir rising power. In Colin Imber's words, ~~~e was writing as a gha::i for
ghazis."~ The fact that he begins his chronicle by addressing the ghazi community and
S"'.atcs that he compiled it at the request of his friends, who valued his ~crience and
perspective on the rise of Ottoman rule in the region, confirms Imber's interpretation.',. The fact that later chroniclers cite A$k,p~azade in their own works brings
another dimension to this text. In later centuries. with the transition to more statecentric Ottoman rule, historical writing consolidated itsclf as a more standardized
and coun-ccntcred genre and rrocb.ed a growing literate audience. 10
Although Turkish was the predominant language of the newly settled populations
in Anatolia, the impact of Persim among the elite of the bcylih cannot be ignored. As
Sara Nur Ylld!z: has ably demonstrated, Persi. modcls of historical writing
profoundly .in!l.uco.ced early Ottoman historiography. YUd1z states that "it would
be more aCcurate to characterize Ottoman historiography of the early and classical
periods as an amalgamation of both Perso-Islamic fonns and stylistic clcrncnts with
Turkish narrative and epic clements:' 11 In an earlier work, Mecdut Mansuroglu bas
called attention to the importance of mccliev:ll .Anatolia as a rising center of Islamic
culture, wbm many Arabic and Persim. texts circulated. He also cites several scholars
who complain about the insufficiency of the Turkish language in fine artistic
apressivity. Mensuro@.u points out the way the Turkish language bad changed,
stating that "there arc great diffcrc:nccs between works wrincn in Anatolian Turkish
belonging to the fifteenth century and later, and those belonging to the earlier
period.."~ 2 This linguistic change is also apparent in the tbtec manuscripts examined
here. While, for instance, the Book of Dede Korku.t bears traces of OghU% dialect, A' the
Vilayetname-i Haa. B~-r. Veli contains many Arabic and Persian words, displaying
exposure to other cultures. Compared to later chronicles, the language of
A~J.kp~de's Tarih-i Ali Osmani is written in "simple {Turkish] prose...
The study of oral pcrformaoce in written manuscripts has several different
dimensions. First and foremost, orality was the essence of the daily communicative
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processes in the medieval world. It was the dominant form of communication in :ill
arenas, extending from economic transactions to social and artistic encounters.
Therefore, a pcrson"s rcbtion to a ..written tcx:t"' and to those who produced and
consumed it depended in critical ways on class, welfare, and gcndc:r. In the chaotic
medieval Anatolian conte.'tt, access to the written text had panicular political
meanings for c:liff'crent soci:tl communi.ti.c:s, like the religious orders or the courts of
the ruling bCj"t. A second dimension of exploring or.U pcrl'onnances in written
manuscripts concerns instances of oral performance mentioned in tbc text.
Descriptions of storytelling sessions offer clues to the times and loc.alitics in which
these narratives were pc:rfonncd... A third dimension involves the fonns of colloquial
language used in the written texts and its similarities to the language of other
contemporaneous folkloric forms. And ~y, the various possible uses of the written
text-notably reading it aloud-present another instance in which transition between
orality and literacy takes a dialogic course.
We should therefore ask how our three manuscripts were: received as written
documents in the prcdominandy oral culture of Anatolia, where the social understanding of ~d response to a written work w~ itnportant relations to be discussed..
To begin with, the relation to "the book" in a Muslim society had its own
signffi.canec:. ln his analysis of early Islamic education, Seyyed Hosscin Nasr observes
that oral transmission has always complemented the written text, as the spoken word
made possible the full un.derstanding and correct "reading" of the written tcxt. 1"" In
the case of the Book of Dede Korkut, it seems that transition to a literate form wru;
needed to preserve the memory of a long-shared oral tradition, and the manuscript
itself served as the material repository of a cultural rcpe:noire. ~lkpa~azade's Tari1t-i
Al-i Osman rcflects an interest in consolidating a particular historical nmative as a
written form and displays a respectful attitude towards the act of writing down
memory. In the case of the Vilayctnamc-i Ha" Bclctat-: Vcli,. however~ Sufi leaders
challenge the notion of ~'the book," refc.rring to the ulcma, the educated class of
Muslim scholars known to be close to the court. The lc:vcl of literacy in the
communities where these texts were produced is, of course, another matter one
should consider. ln her analysis of culture in Ottoman Egypt, Nelly Ha:lna draws
ancntion to a constant interplay between 'Written and oral cultures: "Popular culture:
Hanna insists, "'was not the realm of popular classes alone, and ... learned culture
was not the possession only of scholars and intcllcctuols." The style ;md language of
popular t.Ues could be detected "in learned forms of writing such as history, a.nd in
the development of linguistic studies that messed colloquial and dialcct." 1 ~
Many scholars have also dr.rwn attention to the role of copyists in the
contcxt.ualization of historical texts in medieval and early modern Anatolia. Suraiya
Faroqhl, for instance, points out that "If we can compare variant versions ... we may
find out in which pans of their works the relevant chroniclers, or the authors of later
revisions, refashioned their tor:ts according to the demands of the tir.ncs." 16 In his
analysis of the various m::muscripts of the fifteenth-century Ottoman chronicler
Urujs History, V.L. MCnage argues that early Onoman chronicles {as opposed to later
ones composed by profcss.ional historians) were like storybooks "written for the
332 A.
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Orality and Paforman.ce in Late Medieval Tw-ki.sh Tcas 3JJ
edification and enterui.nmem of the ordinary .m.m, so that z:nany a 'copyist' was in
effect a reda~;tor or even an author, freely paraphr.t.sing his model, adding new stories
or :J.ltetnative ve:sions of old ones, and occasionally stitching together two
rescensions to make a new ::J...Qd fuller ve:rsion." 17 If enough manuscripts survive, we
can also trace the circ:u.msunces in which some manuscripts may be copied more
than others. In his compwtive :malysis of early modem Ottoman bistoriogr.aphy,
Baki Tezcan shows how the Ottom.an state tried to control the development of
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his!:oriOSl':lphical expression by commissioning court histori:tDS, 18 Te:zc:an provides a

series of e."'::unples to show how the qw.ntity of copies made reflected the reception of
different works by the intcllectu:U elite. 19 For the three manuscrip~ analyzed in this
essay, the number of surviving copies is insufficient to make strong arguments related
to the politics lying behind their production. However, the: comparison with the new
historiographical trcmds of the centrali:z.cd Ottoman court underlines the unllSllally
~le, unscnled cultural domaill of late med.i~ Anatolia, where copies were
probably less ;:,buncU.nt than they were in the e:arly modern en and where conditions
were not conducive to their survivaL
We have tried to give an impression of the multicultural milieu of the late medieval
Anatolian world and the multidimensional nature of oral performance in written texts.
We now turn to the signs of ornl.ity embedded in the Book of Dcde Korkut, the
Vilayetname-i Haa Bekt~1 \!eli. and the Tarih-i Al-i Osman of Atlkp~de. ln the
following page$, we will explore their particularities and commonalities in comparison
with one ao.other.
We will begin with the Book of Dcde Karkut, a collection of twelve stories. all
narrated by a tribal. chieftain named Dede ("Grandfather..) Korkut, first discovered by
V. Diez in 1815 in the Royal. Library of D:resd.m. A second manuscript, containing
only siJc: stories, was found in 1950 in the Library of the Vatic:t.n bylta.li:a.n Orienru.ist
Enore Rossi.. According to Geoffrey Le.wis., who translated the manuscript into
English .in 1974, the two manuscripts were not copies of one original, as divergences
betWeen the two were great. Lewis explains. "This is precisely what one would expect
if a cycle of stories that hOld long been transmitted orally with much time-honored
phraseolasy but ~ with variations introduced by different narrators. happened to
be twice recorded in wciting ...20
Based upon a reference to Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan (reigned 1453-78) in the
text, Turkish folklorist Pertev Naili Borat:l.v d::t.ted the manuscript to the late fifteenth
century. while Geoffrey .t.cwis concluded th:!.t the date of compilation could be fairly
early in the fifteenth century. As for the liter:uy tradition to whic:h the Dede Korkut
ruur.uives belonged,Abdo.lbaki GOlpliW'h situntes them at the beginning of a series of
literary te:cts. including the Banalnamt: and tbe Dani.frnerulname. which reflect the
encounters of newly Is.lamized communities with the settled Christian communities
of Asia Minor.:1
The written text of the Book of Dede Korkut includes sevenl signs of orality and
references to or:r.l per(onnanc:es. The most aplicit sign is perllaps the tact that many
of the stories begin by reintroducing the main ch';J.l'acters to the audience before
passing on to the m:Un story. Such repetition usually ind.iC:J.tes that the individual
stories were recited separately, most probably during different storytell..i.ng sessions. In
other words, every story in the manuscript seems to be the outcome of a sepat:~.te
"narr.~.tive event..l!
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Or~ $aile GOkyay. who reeval.U3.tcd the manuscript in 1976, pr.rises the language
of the text as one "having no useless literary embellishment"; his remark is typical of
Republican Turkish criticism of the flowery style of Ottom3.n court literature. u
Although the text of the Book of Dede Korkut consists mainly of prose :oatr3.tive, it
includes numerous rhyming elements called soylarnos.. which G. Lewis defines as
"rhythmic, alliterative, and assooant o.r rhyming passages."24 The fact that the text
itself refers to musi~ performances suggests that these soylamas could have been
sung as well as r~cited. According to Gl!lky:ly. the soylamas also marked shifts in
emotional. tone within the na.rrative. The fact that the prose gives way to poetry in the
soylamas is interpreted by G&kyay as an instance of "the pouring out of excess
excitemenr:~S
The Book of Dede Kurkut :dso reve:Us other techniques of or.:U storytelling. The
mLmttor. ostensibly Dede I<orkut himscl.t; often intenupts his story with :1n address to
his ruler. "Harmn" ("My Kh:l.n") or "Su.Itan:m" ("My Sultan"). This break in the
nam~tive seems to acknowledge the presence of the ruler as :m audience member, and
usually occ.U(S when there is a need to increase the level of excitement, as in "'When b.e
s:tid so, my Khan. twenty more unmanly scound....eJs appeared!"~ 6 At times, the
address creates anticipation for the continuation of the story: "Following this, my
Khan, let us see who ame ne:a:!'.2 7 In the flow of tbe or~ storytelling session,
questions :Jlso appear as a technique of o:citement, to animate tb.e text: "Away went
.&mSI Beyrek after one of them. He clu.sed it to a place and what do you think they
saw? My Sultan, they saw a red tent pitched on the green grass."::s
The language of the Book of Dede Korkut includes many words from the dialects of
divc::rse mi~t Turkic communities, .Azeri. I<ipchak.. and also Mongolian. The text
also reflects colloqulal usage, including elero.ents of daily conversation, suc.b. as
greetings :md proverbial expressions, among which "I send you God"s blessings''29
ru:J.d "You th~ Infidel, there is no doubt of God's u.n.iquenessnl<l occur frequently.
There are curses like: "You,. the son of the one who went aslr.ly.'"' 1 and much longer
formulaic compositions to end the stories, in the form of prayers: "May your native
mountains never full down! May your shade tree Dever be cut down! Ma.y your white~
bearded father's place be flying in the skies! May your white~h:tired mother's place be
in the heavens! Ma.y the son never break with ltis brother! May those who pray now
with me see God's face! May God collect and correct your sins and forgive them in the
n:une of the renowned [Prophet] Muhammet Mustl.fu.!" 3 : Another important sign of
or.U. perforn:lailce is the large nwnber of dialogues that occur in the stories narrated in
the Book of Dedc KDrkut. The story of the plundering of Salur ~s home, for
instance, quotes dialogues between the main ch:u-actcrs of different scenes of the
story.33 The story of !(am Bo.rc:.s So:n B:J.Ill.SI Beyrek is replete with conversations
:unong Bay Bilte, his wife, his son Bams1 Beyrek, and BarnsJ.'s lover Ba.ru.~):Ck.34
Historian Fuad :EWprUHl. was among the first scholars to draw anention to the
heterodox cultunl dom::Un of late medieval Anatolia in which. medieval texts like the
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OrQlity Qnd Pcrformrmcc in Lare Mcd.ir:val Turkish TCCTJ

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Book of Dede l<Drkut were produccd. s KBpr11lO. underlines in particular the role of
Turkish language in this cultutally complic.1ted dolrulin. There, he reminds us,
Turkish had to compete with two other bnguages, Arabic and PersUn. both used in
the court circles of late mecficval Anatoli.a. Kl:>prUlil also points out how the old Uygw:
alphabet v.ras gtadu:l.Jly replaced by the Ar.abic alphabet among the settling Turkic
communities, dating the development of a wrincn literature in Turkish to the
thirteenth century. Although many late medieval texts :1rc mentioned in Ottoman
sources, few of these survived the w;ufarc and migrations that characterized late
medieval Anatolia. Kt>prUlU argues that this state of chaos was one reason that Sufism
took root in Anatolia, drawing on the Ahmed Yesevi tradition founded io Turkistan.36
To appeal to larger audiences, Sufi leaders who had long operated in a P~ milieu
fclt the need to adopt Turkish in their teaching. Besides mcmy other Turcopbone Sufi
sheikhs, we can mention thirteenth-century Sufi poet Yunw. .Emrc. whose hymns
survive until today in the simple colloquial Turkish in which they wen: originally
c:omposcd.37
The presence of the Sufi orders is no doubt of great importance in the analysis of
orality and literacy :in late medieval Anatolia. During this period, as different social
and political institutions were taking shape, Islam competed with Orthodox
Christianity, and the various principalities were in constant negotiation with the
social networks established through the rc:l..igious orders. In his book Between Two
Worlds. Cemal Kafadar observes that while the cultural life of the frontiers was clearly
dominated by oral traditions, many beys in need of prestige :md leverage vis-3.-vis the
growing network of Sufi institutions com..m.issioned written works to be produced for
the courts of their principalities. 38
This brings us to the second genre of source this essay will analyze, namely the
mcnak:t'lmamc, or hagiography of Muslim, usually Sufi, saints. It is important to note
that although primarily associated with the Suti. orders, the menak1bn.amc as a literary
gcm-e also has an epic: component, reflecting aspects of social life in the war and chaos
of late medieval Anatolia.
In his :ma.lysis of the genre of mcnakr.bname, Ahmet Y~ Ocak suggests that
mcn.ak.r.bn.a.mes were tocts primarily written for educational purposes,. to rcioforce the
unity of a given Sufi order, but also to propagate that order.39 Another major
motivation was to impress the ulcm'4 the religious clite within the state apparatus. To
win tbc support of the state elite was naturally important in the establishment of new
Sufi orders. Ock notes that the text of a mcnalabna11lC' w:.s usually compiled by a
m(Jrid, a follower of the Sufi .saint in question. The compiler would base his grand
narrative upon oral accounts of the life of the religious leader, referring to accounts of
h.is miracles as well. Newcomen to the Sufi order would then continuously and
repeatedly recite the compiled manusc:ript. roiling this recitation a ritual of the Sufi
order. Ocak also argues that if a men.alobnamc vr.tS put into writing right after the
death of the saint, its hlstoric:al reliability would be higher than one written many
years later. In the latter case~ stories could have been changed in the transmission
processes of Sufi c:ollcctivc memory.
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The mcnak:bnanu: that will be analyzed in this essay is the V:layctname, Menalob-J
Hii.nka.r Hacr. Bckro,~-~ Veli, whose oldest manuscript dates to t11e early seventeenth
century. In his periodiz.ation of the late medieval Turkish literary tradition, GOlpmarh
situates HaCl. .Bcl..~l Vcli's YUay.c:tna.me within a series of late 1nedieval texts. The
series begins with 11u:: Book of Dede Kcrkut, a text that primarily addresses the daily
struggles of a community, and continues with the frontier narratives of the Gazi
period. like the .earlier~mentioned Battalnamc and Dan~~mcndna.me, which had more
of a her'oic~rcligious charactcr.40 Finally came the more rcllgi.ously focused
hagiographies like the Vilayctnames of the Sufi leaders Hacz Bekta,N Veli, Hac1m
Sultan, and AbdaZ Musa..41
Vilayetnamc~i Hao Bckta,~-z Vcli consists of the life story of the tblneenth-century
saintly figure HaCl. Bekta$, the namesake of the Bekt3$i Sufi order, which c:ame to be
o."Uemcly influential among the Ottom.:m }anissarie$. The life-story includes tales
related to Hac Bckt~'s family genealogy, his affection for Ahmed Ycsevi, his journey
from Horasan to Anatolia, his scttl.ing in Sulucakarab.6yilk, and his miraclcs.'12: The
text contains more than ft:y stories, each an independent unit. like the Book of Dedc
l<orkut., the Vilaycr:namc contains many repetitions, which usually consist of
references to historical contexts already mentioned in previous stories. T.llls suggests
that each episode may be an outcome of a storytelling session belonging to a diffcn:nt
niU'l'ative event. For example. many stories open with the statement that "tbe fame of
HaCl Bekt~1 Vcli had spread around everywhere.4J The nam.tive of the stories is
often broken with oral formulas such as "Lct us come to our telling." "Let us come to
tbe other side:' or "No time will suffice to tcll," each hlnting at an oral pctformance, a
storytdling session.44
Besides the references to storytelling sessions, the text of the VUayctname also
contains references to a number of instances ofKorani<: recitation. In one such scene,
Hact Bekt~-1 Vc:l..i's teacher, Lokman. has a vision of the prophet Mohammed and his
companion Ali teaching the Koran to a pupil45 Another sc:cnc dcsc:ribcs how a
particular <:ommunity would c:o.rnc together to collectively recite the Koran so that
their sultan would have a son. oJ.<o At times, rcfercnc:cs arc made to the nefcr, a Sufi
musical performance..~ 7 In one such episode, Mella Sadeddin, following forty days of
mediation (secde), .sings in ccsto.sy a series of n.cfcr that would later form his rlivrzn, the
anthology of his poc:ns.48
In addition to the divan of Sadeddin., the Vilayema.mt: refers to written
manuscripts, such 3s the mcnak:t.lma.me of Ahi Evrcn,49 and the collection of Yunus
Emrc's hymns.. 50 Here. it is important to ac:knowlcdgc an ambivalcnc:c in this text vis3-vis the 'Written book." In some episodes, written works are acknowledged with
esteem. One of the stories of Hao. Bck~, for in.stallcc, condc:mns a ruler of Baghdad
who throws a valuable astronomy book into the river. 51 But in the world of the Sufis,
references to the written book also clearly invoke the ulana, scholars trained in
Ishu:nic law and theology who h:1d the authority to interpret religious doctrine. The
ulcma. were in close rapport with the state's political order, creating a rivalry with the
Sufi orders for ru.te patronage.. There arc therefore many episodes in the Vilayaname
in which a conflict often revolves around "the book." One suc:h conflict occurs in a
336
Orality and Performance in !Ate Medieval Tldkish Texrs
.A.. 6zn:lrkmen
story rebted to the thirteentb~centu.ry Sufi. poet Mevlan:~. Cd.:rleddin R.u.rn4 names:lke
of the funous Mevlev:i Sufi. ordtt, known in tbe W~t as the 'wbirling dervishes."
Here, the ulema of the town resent the fact that Ru.mi, under the influence of his
mystical guide ~ms-1 Tebrizi. bas distanced himself from them. They complain to the
Sdjuk sultan of RO.m and ask him to intervene. The sultan rejects their request on the
b'lSis that Rumi is a "'lettered man:"
The sult:m s:lid, "He who has re:td so m,;my books, such a knowledseable m::r.n;
someone of saintly wisdom h<lS come. He made him :z. follower who joins their
ordtt: I cumot say now 'Come, come back, do not join them; this would not be:
right. I c:mnot say it."~
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While the sultan respects the "book," Rwni himself esteem.s his own "words" more
than "the book...53 In one story, one of H:LC.l .Bektafs followers named Saru Ismail
volunteers to wash him, who declines his offer and inste:J.d sends b.i.m. to Rumi in
order to collea a book from him. R.un:U tells him that s<Unts like &o. B~ has
many rivers in their service :md do not need to be 'W:l.Sbs:d. When Ismail asks for the=
book, he replies. "My words were the book you were sent for." 54 Tbe conflict between
the lenered scholar and the dervish. symbolized in the "book.. and in the "word,"
likewise appears in a story about Mella Sadeddin. In this tale, S::r.dcddin resenrs the
fact th::r.t be has left all his scholarly work in order to submit to Hac. Be~ and
:mempts to kill him with a stone. Hac:t Bek~ stops him, saying, "I washed you
seventy times with holy water, [yet] I could not get the blac:k of the mk out of the
C3vity of your tooth." 55 In another episode, a kad&, a local judge. comes to "inspect"
the town where lhc1 Bekt04 resides. Hac! Bekta!j comments on this show of power as
follows: "We tried to inspect it for some time, but at the end we were surprised and
unsucces.sfu1! ..56 The kadz comes to his senses, leaves his prestigeus post, and joins
Hac.t ~s Sufi order, a story that undoubtedly reveals an implicit criticism to
St:ltdy power.
Like the Book of Dede Korku:, the Vilayetnanle contains. many elements of
colloquial language. The text gives examples from the diverse rnintcl~ ofHaa Bek~
l Veli, through whose powers a living being can be twned into a stone, a man can give
birth to a child, a de:1d man can be resurrected, or a person can shift from one time
zone to another! In na!t'3.ti.ng these miracles. the Vifayetname makes use of ~
proverbs, rumors, curses, blessings, prayers, and legends. "May it grow and not
diminish" is,. for example. a widely used proverbial sayio.g. 57 One of the besr: examples
of the use of rumor/gossip in this genre relates to a story involving tbe characters
idrls. Saru, and I<::tdmok. Saru. the brother of ldris, tells the peasants, in a very
suggestive manner. how Hac Bekta~ chose to stay in idris's house. The pe1Sant.s begin
to gossip that Hac1 Bek~ is in love with ldris's wife KadmClk and that this is the
reason why be settled in their bouse. 511 The Vila:yetname also includes cursing like
"'Saru,' said the Saint, 'that pimple grows in your :mnpit, your body puffs up and
yellow waters flow from it!'"59 The text also contains roomy blessings. prayers, .:tnd
legends. 60
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Although it is primarily a hagiogmphy, the Vilayetname constitutes an epic

narrative tbt includes historical elements. Nevertheless, despite its epic frame, it
differs from the historical chronicle, the third genre that this essay will explore. The
manuscript to be ex:unined here is ~~de's Tarih-i Al-i Osman, dating from
the fimenth century (the author lived c. 1400-90). 61 The genre of cbronicle in the
Otto.m;m context is a complex source, as early versions differ greatly from later
examples. &rly Ottoman chronicles are often criti.cizc:d for their lack of hlstoricity,
having a "tendentious presentation" and "c:r.valier attitude tow:mi d.ittes.~ They are
very different from the later works of official court historians (singular. vaka.ntiYist),
which bad developed by the late seventeenth century. 6J V. L Mc!nage, who thoroughly
studied the early Onoman chronicles, concludes that ('they :lie basicilly compi.l.ations
from popular tales and calendars:' However elaborate their style. MC:nage argues, they
fuil "to conceal the transitions from a catalogue of names and dates to a story and
back again.'164 Colin Imber, who analyt.cd the sources for the early stages of Onoman
history, also concludes tb:~.t both Ottom:m and non-Ottom:lll sources were based on a
common body of ot31 trnditions.Qs
V. L. MC:nage considers ~tkp~azadc's: Tarih-i Al-i Osman the first work to survive
as a coherent whole that is devoted ~usively to the Onom;ms and signed by a
particubr :1uthor.66 In his semin:ll Wcle "How to Read AshJ.k Pasba-Zade's History;'
Halil InaiClk situates ~~s work within the larger genre of "Menaklb-l.Al-i
Osman."' a series of anonymous chronicles on the foundation of the Ottonun House
during the fifteenth and si'rteenth cenruries.67 Nihal AtSlZ, one of the leading figures
of the Turkist movm1ent of the 1940s, h:td e:u-lier ::malyzed. nwnerous manuscripts of
A~de's Tarih-i Al~i Osman, and commented on the linguistic and stylistic
differences among three different manuscripts (Mord.tmann, Upps:ll'4 and Istanbul). 611 Comparing these three texts, Atslz observes that each copy lacks some words
or sentences, that Turkish words arc at times replaced by Persian or Arabic. synonyms,
and that in some ases additions are inserted by copyiru. 6 ~
In his article '"The Rise of Ottoman Historiography," Ra.lillnalctk compares the
ll:lrl'3tive differences between ~~e's chronicle and the two other manuscripts
of the Tarih-i Al-i Osman, one anonymous and the other by Uru~ Bey. Ina.lak
obser\'eS that ~s text .includes chapters that the others lacked ::tltogether,
showing how the author's additions from oral sources were not included in the two
other texts. 70 In preparing :1. recent edition of the Tarih-i Al-i Osman, Kemal Yavuz
and Yekt:L Sara~ discovered two different copies of AJi~e's chroniclc.71
Acknowledging the fluid style of the n01rrative, they argue tlu.t ~~s work
an be said to be more a. series of historical stories based on actual events than OJ..
chronicle or a specimen of the "menktbe" genre. 72
Born at the turn of the fifteenth century, ~kp04a7.ade was a dervish in tbe anny of
73
<;elebi Mebmed and a descencbnt of the mystical poet 4Lk Pasha. He took part in
raids on Christian tenitories with the e.ll'ly Ottoman gh:J.Zi leaders through the reign
of Murat ll (1404-51) and in the first yC'lrs of the reign of Mehmet U 0432-81).74
Ha1i1 Inalak ha.s observed that the historical context and the sociopolitical dynamics
within which ~e wrote his Tarih-j Ali Osman fe:J.tured violent conflicts
333 A..
O::arkmcn
Orality and Performance in Late Mcdil:va.I Turkish Texts 339
between the clitc and the state. The fact that ~~de is critical of Mebmet II's
taxation and landholding policies while praising hls fote:fu.thcrs. lnalck argues,
reflects. the fact that these contemporary policies challenged his comroun.ity of ghazidc.rvishcs. Inalak asserts that it was a number of dervishes from the Wafaiyya order
who asked ~~e to put into writing his broad knowledge of Ottoman
history?5
ln his book Between Two World.t, Ccmal Kafudar distinguishes J14lkp~azadc from
other contemporaneous chroniclers, such as N~~ who came from an ulem.a
background. In Kafadai's words, A:;~azadc used images and nuances that clearly
reflects an "insider's understanding of ghazi mcntality."76 At the beginning of his
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chronicle, ~1kpa~azade gives information on his own genealogy and credits a vn:ittcn
source by Y~~i Fakih, a manuscript that has not survived to the present day. 71 As V.L.
MCrulgc puts it, after along and active Ufc, ~U...-pa~dc was "wcll qualified to write
of what he had se<:n and heard."' What nukes his book lively and vigorous, MCnage
asseru, is the coupllng of his o..-pcricnccs with his gift for na.mLtion:
[As!lcp~de's chroni~le] is
evidently composed to be tc:~.d :&loud: much of it is

Q.St in direct speech, and m:my of the short chapters have at the end~ c:xch;mge of
question illld answer, when we ~e to im:~.ginc one of the circle of listeners
interposing :1. question or :~.n objection :~.nd the author cle;uing it up before re:~ding
on. It is very much a popul:~.r history; the :~.uthor, no respcctor of pc:rsons, DUking
no attempt to hide his. prejudices; the sultans are usually above reproach, but
stltesmcn and gcnecls recc::ive SC:~.thing critidsm when he thinks they deserve it.
The second ~r of As1kpash:J.Z:1..de's history DlllSC dcrive from his own experiences
or from firstha.nd actounts that he had received from his comrndesin-arms.18
Situating ~~de's wot"k within the broader genre of Menalc.b-i Al-j Osman,
Halil Inalclk asserts that tbcsc historical narratives were designed to be read and
listened to by groups during milit:li'y campaigns, in boza..bouscs79 or in other
meeting places."110 This tradition, as Imlo.k notes in an earlier work, went back to the
courts of the Scljukid sultans and Anatolian beys, .where there existed professional
tarih-hans, history-readers, and folk poets -..;ho recited stories from the rncnaklbna.mcs. It seems," Inalclc. points out, .. that historical works in the form of
ghazava.tna.mcs were written to be read .aloud to the Sultan in his retreat to satisfy his.
pride and lite~ry taste." 31
A.flkp~de's Ta.rih-i Al-i Omum. includes direct address to an audience consisting
of the fighting ghazis: "0 ghazis," A~1kp~az.acle writes, "all these men.aldbs which I
composed arc based, I swear to God, on the knowledge and sources wb.ich I
personally reached, do not think I have written from nothing.'.s 2 He adds that he has
examined and s~d other such books or reported events that he personally
observed or heard. Such statements undoubtedly show ~~s rcspcct for the
written sources.83 His goal in writing this text, he says, is as follows: '"When people
read or listen to the deeds of the Ottoman sultans, they make their prayers to their
souls.''~~~
In comparison with the Book of Dcdc Korkut and the Vilayetna.mc of Hac1 Bekt3il
Vcli1 A~~dc.'s Tarihi Al-i Osman carries a more deterministic tone in its
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narrative technique. The historical data is given directly, as in the following sentence:
"The grandfather of Osman Gha.z:i [the founder and namesake of the Ottoman
dynasty} is SW.cyrnan~! He is the first one to come to the land of the Rum....s~ It also
has a didactic tone, citing filets.. peoples, and places. As mentioned earlier, there are
dialogues between the characters, which introduce a dramatic component into the
.reading/reciting of the nam.tive,86 and questions and answers clarifying curious
instances, giving reasons. for what happened or explaining consequences..81 There are
also reponed events and quotations of dialogues between statesmen and sheikhs. The
narrative is in prose, often interspersed v.rith poetry of a sometimes moralizing
89
n.aturc 88 but which at times serves to complete the factual narrative.
To conclude, it is important to draw attention once again to the complexities of
studying late medieval texts produced in Anatolia. This corpus of manuscipts
consists of both literary and historical works. In most cases, the epic,. hagi.ograpbical.
and chronicle chamcteristi.cs of the narratives merge with one another. Although
these tccts were written in Turkish, one: should be :rware of non- Turkish influences on
them. To start with, medieval Anatolla was a complex cultural domain, cha.ractcrizcd
by mobile populations; a wide variety of rulers; and various degrees of cultural
assimilation, bon-owing, and negotiation. In this regard, it is helpful to remember
that "Anatolia" (Anadolu) was a European construct adopted by the intellectuals of
early Republican Turkcy. 9 t~ Therefore, these late medicval texts need to be compared
with other epics, hagiographies, and chronicles produced in the eastern Meditcrra
nean region. Regrettably, the comparative study of the culturally Iayc.rcd. civilization
of late mediCY.ll Anatolia has been ncgl.ccted. Scholars ordinarily focus on one
panicular culture, overlooking contacts and borrowings among diverse cultural,
religious, and lingual communities. Situated at the crossroads of the Caucasian,
Aegean, and Mesopotamian cultural domains, Anatolla h~ always been multicthnic
and multilingual; in the later Middle Ages, its population included not only Turkic
but also Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, and Laz communities. Although
many scholars. have described how late medieval Anatolian society in constant tho::
and negotiation, so that these communities constantly challenged one another,
negotiated, an.d rcddi.ned their political sb:nccs, the question of mutual influences
among these communities has usually been ignored. One is therefore ~urious as to
the similarities and divergences of these Turkish tc:-cts with their non~Turkish
counterpans, like the Byzantine epic of Digencs Alaitas, the Armenian Vardan
Mamikonyan, or the Arab epic of the Bani Hilal.91 The comparative perspective can
be extended to include medieval European texts, which have been the subject of a
much wider literature in the analysis of pcrfomuncc in literate forms.9:
Another problematic aspect of studying late medieval texts produced in Anatolia is
ideologic.al Interest in late medieval Turkish epics, hagiographies, and early
chronicles bas long been politically motivated. The Turldst movement, which was
revived during the Second World War, created severe Icft-right dashes over how to
approach national culture in the early 1950s. During this period, the study of
thcs.c texts became popular in nationalist and right-wing circles, which began to
93
dominate national education., forcing out the so-called "leftist academicians." This
340
Orality and
A. Ozrarkmen
represented :t. .divergence from the scholarship of the e::Lrly Republican em, which
ironically offered a more broadminded inte:fpretation of late medieval te.'\:ts. As
children of the Ottoman Empire, scholars llke Fuad Kllpnllil (1890-1966), Al>daJbalci
GBlpmarh (l90D-82), Pertev N. Borntav (1907~8), :md Orban jail< G~kyay (190294) acknowledged the demographi~: complexities and intercultural borrowings
among the diverse social. political, regiooal, religious, and ethnic communities of
the Ottoman world. The fact that they belonged to a generation that was familiar with
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culture.
Finally, an analysis of the existing scholarly littt.:tture on the Book of Dede KDrkut,
the Vilayername of Haei Bekta.,-t Veli, :md Tarr"h-i Al-i Osman revenls a
methodological conservaili:m, in addition to ideological discrepancies. Methodolo.
gically speaking, it is intaesting to see how literary aJJ.d historical studies of late
medieval Turkish narratives have often neglected the relationship between text and
petformance. The fact that the manuscripts under study are the e:u-liest CX3IUples of
the literary-historical genres of epic., hagiography, and chronicle usually means that
their written aspect is emph:Lsized to the detriment of the performative,
ethnographic context withiJl which they were produced. From a folklorlses point
of view, however, it would be most useful to historically imagine the performance
fr.mles in which such texts must have reached their audiences. Paul Zumthor long
ago pointed out how "vocal" medieval society W:LS. 9s In his analysis of medieval
French poetry, Zumthor used the concept of mouvance to describe the textual
mobility of the late Middle Ages. when texts circ:ulated substantially in time and
phce. with significant rewriting or rearrangement as anonymous works. 96 By the
same token, the study of the late medieval te."Cts produced in .Anatolia can perhaps
benefit from the injtttion of the teclmiques of folklore studies into historical
resl!"::ll'ch long dominated by :1. toctual and arch.ive-a:o.tered approach.. Awareness of
the historical ethnography of late medieval Anatollil will open more opportunities
for the pursuit of oral performance in this culturally layered milieu. This
undertaking requires a multifaceted approach to the written texts, which may
contain references to or.ll perfonnances and significant signs of orality. The
historical~ethnographica! context within which these works were produced undoubtedly offers important implic:ltions for historically imagining the perfonnance
frames while the study of mataial relics and other folkloric forms may likewise
contribute to our understanding of the written texts.
34t
I would especi:illy like to thank Tane Hathawo.y, Sophia Mc:mche. Oya Panc:aro~u.
and the anonymous reviewers for their comr.tlcnts on the earlier dnfts of this essay. I
am also indebted to my colleagues at the History Department of Bogazi Oniversiry,
Suraiya Fo..roqbi and Ash Niy:LZioglu, whom I consulted on ~ous questions during
the writing process. I am grateful to a series of jouml!es d'etude organized under the
HOMO LEGENS Project, where Svetlaru. Loutchitsky, Sophia Menache, MarieChristine Varol, and Tivadar Pal:igyi inspired me in how to frame rny research. The
Project was conducted under the generous grant of the Programme Inte:rnational
d'Etudes Avano!es of the M:lison des Sciences de !'Homme, during April-June. 2006.
the old A.rnbic script allowed them to become skilled researcllei-s in the field.
iM Lau Mc:dieval Turkish Tats
Aclatowledgements
However, these early Republican scholars also wrote primarily for a newly emersing
national audience. Therefore, their works reflected to a great ccnt an effort to
constitute the "pillus" of Turkish literature by writing its history and laying out its
genres.94 Their pjonee::ring attOllpts to shed light on the late medieval texts produced
in Turkish in An:l.toli;1 was followed by a more conspicuously nationalist trend in the
l940s, .J'!:UU'ked by the works ofTurkist Writers like Nibal Atstz. Ooly in the 1990s did
the works of scholars like Suraiya Fa.roqhi, Cemal Kafadar, and ~erif Mardin begin to
U"allSCee.d the politi.cal determinism of earlier scholarship on late medieval Anatolian
Pciform~Znce
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Notes
Ill Among the different

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[7)
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.hngu:~g~ spokn in hl.tc- mediev!Ll An:~tolia. one Cln include Greek.

Persian. Turkish. :lnd Ar3.bic; among the- scripts. Greek, Anncnian, Uygur. and A:r.~bic.
For :m no3lysis of the Turkl."tt moVement, see GUn:r.y Goksu 0zd$n. TJu; Case of RI3CismTuranism: Titr!Wm d11ring the SinglcwParty Pciod. 193!-1944. PhD dissert:rtion. ~~
Univmity, 1990.
The Sel}ukid.s wc:re a Tutkic Mw:llin dyll;lSty whose rule stretched from Punj~ to Anatolia
between the devcnth :::llld fou.rrn-n.th centuri~ Follow:ing their journey from Cenm.l Asi:l to
Persi::t, they developed :1 Turko-Pm:i.an tr:ldition. :tdopting Persi:tn b.ngu:~gc and culture.
For an .,n;Uysis of eui.yTurkoman $ettlement i:n~toli~ seeM. Fwd KOprflla. 1k Origins
of the Ottoman Empire. Ed. Gnry Leiser. Albany: SlJNY Press, 1992; V.). Parry, H. In.o.lci'k,
A.N. Kwut, and J.S. Bromley, cd$. A HUtotyofthc Om man Empire to 1730: CMptcrs from :he
Cc.mbrid~ History of Ish:m and rhc New Camlmdge Motkm History. ~mbridg:e :md Nc=ow
York: ~bridge 1JP. 1976; Rucfi Po.ul Lindner. Nomads 11nd OtJmam in Ma!iewzl An11tolia.
Bloomington.: Res~ch Institute for Inner Asio.n Studies., 1983; Colin Imber. 17u: Ottaman
Empire, 1300-148. lstanbul: lsi.s Prw. 1990; H:Uilln.l!cik. The Ottomarr Empire T11e Clanic.al
Age. 1~1600. London: Phoenix. 1994: Potu! Wittek. The Rise of the Ottcman Empire.
London: The ~ Asi;ttic Society, 1938.: Oktty Ozd ;md Mehm.et Oz. ed.:o. ~'ilt'W!
/sranltula: Osmtllllr Dcvkri'n/11 hrrulufU li:u:rim: Ul.rll?nalar. Ank:t.ra: L"nge Kit:lbevi. 2000.
For 3 review of the Ottom3!1 historic:U genres ftom the ~'ixtcenth century onw.u-ds., see
Sut:ti:Y=!. Fuoqhl. Approaching Ottoman Hjjtory: An !ntroduerion to t}re Soured. C.lm.bridge
o.nd New York: ~bridge UP, 1999; &l.yyed Hussein N.:l:ir, ..Or.ll Tnl.rumlssion .lnd the Book
in Islatn.ic Eduction: The Spoken and the Written Word.. /OUfTIIII ofIslam it: Studies 3 (1992):
l-14; T:me H::~.tb:t'W:\y. A Talc of Two Factiom: Myth, Memory, ami Idc!:ity in Ottoman Egypt
and Yemen. Albo.rry: St.lte Univch'ity of New York, 2003; Gabricl Pitcrberg. A11 Ottoman
Tragedy. History and Historios.raphy al Play. Berkdcy: U of Dliforrti3 P. 2003; Dousl.3s A.
HO'Wllrd. UGcntc ;md. Myth in the Ottoman Advice for Kings WtC'r.lture"' The Early Modem
Ottomans: Remapping the Empire. .Eds. VirginiD. H. A.ks:m ~ D:u1iel Goffm::.n. C:unbridge
and New Yo ric Cmnbridgc: UP, 2007: Baki TezCJ.n. "The Politics of Wly Modem Onoman
Historiogr:~phy'' ThcEar/yModmr OrrOf!'ltll!~ Ri!mapping the Empire. Eds. Virgini.:1 H. 1\ksan
:and D:mid Goffman.. Umbridge .lnd New York: C.lmbridge U.P. 2007,
See Richo.rd lb.um:Dl. "Genre.. Folklo~ Cultural Pt:rfo/"''tWt.ces and Popular Enterra.inmcn.rs.
Ed. R. Bo.Ul'l\:l:\.. New York :md Oxford: Oxford UP. 1992.. 57.
See Halil In.l.!CJ.k. "The Rise of Ottom:m Historiography"' Historians of the MidJlc East. Eds.
B. Lewis :md P.M. Holt. London: Oxford 1JP, 1962. 15.2-67.
Sec Colinlmber. "'The Otto~ 0yn.3.Stic Myth" Turcica 19 (1987): 15.
342
A. Ozta.rkmen
Orality and Performance in LAte Mcdicva./ Turkish !ext:~
One should also remember that the ~tatc:m~t that "friends. :LSk to tcll a story'" is a trope
found in numerous othc:r chrouiclcr. ::l.~ wc:U. t\Sikp;lf!ZOl.dc:'s text !MY very well be nn or:U
~dress,. ~ v.uious copie5 of the: manuscript rcvol.
[10] For the, oitic.al ~lyses of p~r.sixtcenth-century Onorn:m historiol writing. .see Sur.liy.1
F:u-oqhi (1999), Nasr (1992), Hathnmy (2003), Y1ldtz (1998), Pitcrbag (2003), Howard
(2007), and Tczcan (2007).
[11] 5 S:l.."::. Nur Y1ldl%. "Hi..~toriogr;lphy: The: Ottoman Empire" Tl1c Encyclopaedia lrrmic.a. Ed.
E. Y~~. NCW'Yorlt: Columbia University Center for lr:~.ni.lo. Studies.. 2004. vol. 12.. ~ 4,
p. 403.
[12] Sec: Me<:dut M:msuro~1u. "The Ri.<~e and Development ofWritten Turki~h in AnatoM." Oricns
7 (1954):
25~4.
For quotation,
~cc
p. 252.
The Oghuz (or 0~) rckr:. to nom.::J.dic Turkic peoples. who moV<:d from the Aral stcppc:s
~ the: West beginning in the: ninth ccnrury. For a p:orticuW- hi.storicU-ethnographic
pursuit of a Turkic verb used in Dcd.c Korlo.J.t. ~o: Ali Akar...Dcdc Korkut KitoUll'nd.a turFiili" journal of Turkish StudU:s 3 (2008): 2-5.
[14] So:~ N11$r So.yycd Hussein, "Or;~! Tr:msmi.ssion ;:md. the Book in isbmic Eduction: The
Spoken ;md the Wri~cn Word" Tl1e &ok in t/7~ Islamic World: The Written Word and
Commu.nicJltion in the Middfc East. Alb:my:. St:ttc U of New York P, 1995. 57-70. For
quotation. sec pp. 65-66.
[15 J Nelly H'3Ma. "Culture in Ottoman Egypt"' 71~ CAmbridge lzistory of Egypt. Ed. M. W. Daly.
Cambridge nnd New York: C3mbridge UP, 1998. 87-112. For quot:ltion, s~e p. 100. On the
sill'Ubrity of cultur:LI forms. shared across cia...,.., one should 3\so remember Mo:n.~uroi;lu's
statement that "The existence of specimens of folk litcr:~ture :1nd simple rdigious-mystio:al
works side by side with bistoric:d works and books writtc:n to appeal to the upper cl:lsses
demonstr.l.te th:l.t the .)CSthc:tic needs of c:very cli1SS of the com..-nunity were .:101tisfio:d by
literary works in both ver:~e and prose" (1954, 261).
[16] See Sumi!-1 fllroqhi. (1999), p. 147.
[17] See V.L M~g.c. "011 the Recc:ns:ions of Uruj'~ History of the Ottoman.~" B~Ucrin of the
{13]
i':
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:;;
[lSI
[19]
-:':
-:<0
[20]
(21]
[22]
[23)
1241
125!
[26]
[27]
Sdzool ofOricn:aliUid Afr'kan Studies 30 (1967): 314-22. For quot:r.tion, seep. 314,
Sec, for insbnce. the com}XIrison he mak:s bawecn Seyyid Lokm:l.n's QuinfQ$Cru:c of
Hisrorics :and Mustafa Ali's KD.1lllft/-ahbar. Sec Baki Tcz:can (2007), pp. 175-75.
The development of tho: historic.! genre; from ~L\tccnth century Ol'l\'f.ltds prc.~eots rich dat:a
to work. on. which this e:=y will le:~.vc :!Side, For o.n om.ly:o.is on the emerging genres, ~
Dou.gl:lS A.. How:!I"d (2007),
See Tl1c Book of Dcdc Kbrkut. Ed. Geoffrey Lewis. London: Pensui.n O:lS!Iics, 1974. 19-20.
See Manak.s.b-1 Hacr. Bck.uif-1 Vch~ Vikiyaname. Ed. Abdo.lb:a.ki G3lpmarl!.lstanbul: lo.kl\ap
Kitll~, c. 1995. This e.~ wilJ]C:I.VC :l$ldc the Brmalnamc :1nd Dan~~mcndnamc go:nrc.s. bllt
for :1 cktniled o.n:Uysi.o;: of these tcru. one en refer to Baruzfname. Ed. Yorgos Ikdc,
C:r.mbridge: H:uvard UP. 1996> omd La SC$te tk Md.ik D#ni.,WJcnd: Cnuk ai.tiquc du
Dani$m!!lld71arnc. Ed. Iril:nc Melikoff. P:aris: Adricn Maisonneuve, 1960.
In hls study of or:~] narr:~tivcs and paforma11tc:;. Ridi.:ll'd B:auman underlines the different
layers in or:U :otorytelling. distin~ing betWeen "narrated c:vc:nts" (the cvm~ recounted in
the n:1rrativcs) v=us "n=tivt: C"Vt':nt:i" (the situ:~.tions in which the ~tivts are told). See
Ricl1:ll'd B:..unun. Story. Pcrformtuur:, atzd Event ContcaJml St~~dic:s of Oral Namtivc.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.
For 3 critique of the Ottoman Divan tr:1dition, ~cc Victoria. Rowe Holbrook. The Unrcadablc
Shores of Love: Turkish Modcmiry ar-.d Mystic Love. Austin: U of Tow P. l 994.
G<offrey !..oW (1974), pp. 19-20.
Sec Dcdc Korkllt hikdycL:rL Ed. Orh;~.n .:pik Q\1"}-:J.Y. 1st:~n.bul: ~h Y:l)'U1l:..n, 1976, 14.
"Bijy/c dcyincc Ho.ntm, o namcrrlcrin yirmisi dahn. pka gcldi." Sec GO!cyay (1976), p. 35.
"B1.1mm ardmca. Juuum, glirdirn kim/cr yct4ri?' Sec G:lky.ly (1976), pp. 52-53.
343
"BatriSt Bt:yrck birinin ardmdtm kovarak gitti. Kovarkc:n bir yen: gddi. Nc ~a? Gllrdi. lci
Sultiuzzm, giJk faytnn ll;criru.: bir klrmr:t. oW dikilm~." s~ Goky:ly (1976), p. sa.
\29] "Sizi HQkka tsmarilldzm." See G6ky.ly (1976), p. 61.
[30] "Brc Kafir amM, Tannnm birlitinc yoktw g!Jmo.rt!' Sec GOkyay (1976), p. 50.
[>I) "Kayaraglu kavat." Sec Gl;lky::Ly (1976), p. 51.
132) "Ycrli kanuk~UI.nn yt1a1nuuvt! Glllgdi 1wba o.S,aan ksilmcsin! Akakalh baban ycri upno.k
olsun! Akplltfd:li 4ll!an ycri Genna o/su.rd ~lz.d ik ~n ayzrma.Jm! Am.in rkyz:nkr.
Tanrmm yll..~nll $drsllfjf Dcrksin tapb:sm., stJrt~~hUumt:~. adt~ g/Jrklli Muhammcr Musro.fa yil:::Jl
suyuna bagJ~kt.mr!' S Goky::l.y (1976), p. Sl.
[33) Sec Goky::ty (1976), pp. 42-43.
[54) Sec ~1)-ay (1976), pp. 55-81. One should abo mention that in the Rcpubiic:Ln litcr.ary
:.ppro.ach, the Book o[Dcde .Korkur has also been presented ;u a document that bc:r.rs signs of
Ccntr:ll Asi:ln Turkic culture merging with the newly .adopted lsl:unic belief. The tcl~tivcly
more visible .and powerful pl.aec of women ~mong the newly settled Turkic Oguz tn"bes lu$
been praised in the Republican :~.pproac.h towurd the Book of Dcdc Korkut.
[35) Sec Mchmet Fuat Kl:lprUIO. Anadoluda TUrk di/ YC cdcbiyatmm tckD.mllliJne !Jir lJaki~ lstunbul:
A~ M~tb:WI, 1930.
[36] Ahmed YC!C'Ii was the influential Sufi Ic.ldcr in the: t'Nclfth century, whose: tc1Ching W:1S
eomp<ned in Turkish in poetry form ~nd was put into writing in the fi.ftttntb century :lS
DivarH Hikrnct. Yescvi's us3ge of Turki.~h language w:~s very hlfiUCllticl in spre:~ding his
teaching throughout Turkish-spcnking communities,
\37) For an 3n:UyN. of Yunus. Emrc's mysticism, see TAI.i.t S. H:1lmon. cd. YumlS Emrc a11d his
Mystical Poctl')( Bloomington: lndi:uu. University, 1981
[38] Sec Cem:ll K:lf:ld:lr .Between 11vo Worlds. Berkeley: U of Californi:l P, 1995.
[39] Sec Ahmct Y.IJ.flr Oak. KlllNJr ta.riJzi ka)'TU2~t olamk mcmi).abnUmclcr.mctodo/ojik bir yakla.,mn.
Ankara: To.rk Tarih Kurwnu Bnsunevi, 1992.
[40] For Battalnamc, see Dcdcs {1996). For Dan~cndnamc. see MC:likoff (1%0).
[41] For :m 3nalys:is of &am Sultm, sec Mustafa. .Erbay, ed. Dcrvif Burhan. Vclayctnamti Kolu
Afk Haam Sultan. A.nk7.r.2: Ayytld!z YilylfWn. 1993; for AbdDl Mu.-.a. see Abdu~an
Gt:Lzel, ed. Abdo.I Musa Yclayctnam~i. Ank:iru: TO.rk Thn'b Kurumu, 1999.
142] SuJuc.a.l!:ataheyok is currently located in the city of N~chir i11 Turkey.
143] Sec Golpmuh 1958: pp. 48, 49, 79.
\44] "Biz gcu sQ:i/mfJ::c s,cklirrf' GOlptn;rrh (1958), pp. 46. 84> UBiz gcldim bu y;m.a"' Golpan.arl1
(1958) p. ~ or "Anl.atrn:iya Vllklt k.almcz., ~lpm3rh (1958), p. SO.
[45] Sec G:llpznarb ( 1958), p. 5.
146] Sec Golp1narh 095S), p. 3.
[47] See G.llpm:~rh (195S), pp. 60-62.
\48] Mo&. Satkddin. ~ known :1S Said Emrc. ~ :. follower of H.aa ~-~ Veli who lived :1t
tho: tum of the thirteenth century. for the story, sec GC.lp1narh (19SS), p. 63.
[49) A followcr of the Yc:ic:Vi m.dition. Ahi Evren was 3 Sufi artisan who lived .at the tum of the
twelfth century. For .:1. more detailed ~:llysi.s of Ahi Evren, see MikOil Bayr.un. Ahi EYren YC
Ahi tq]cilti:J'mn kuru.Uqu. I<onya: Konya D:lm1A M:.tb=obk vc Tiarct. 1991.
ISO I Sec Gblpm:.rh (1958) pp. 51 :.nd 48, respectively.
[51) Sec Gl;llpmarh (1958), P 38.
[52] ...Ptul~<.ah. o JW, ~ kitap oktrmu,~ bunca bilgili bir cr; crrnlcrrkn biri gclm4, onu. tkr'Yi~
[28)
[9]
s
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-~
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.,:
.,
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u
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yaprrn,c.
da
~kn: katJlm~ ~mdi
bc:n sci. diln, tmhl.ra ka.ttlma diycmcm. bu dq,oru bir ~cy
dcgil ben diycmcm." Sec ~lplil:Ltll (1958), p. SO

[53) See G8lp1narh (1958), p. 48.
154) Sec Golp1narh (1958). p. 48.
\55) "Scti 70 kJ:rc rahmct su.yuyla yudum, di#nin kov"'l.'"r.mdan mO.rcklp kD.numt pkaramadzrn.. Sec
Golpuurh (1958). p. 60. FoUowing this confrontltion. the J;~.:~.tr&ive continues with s..dcddio
344
Orality and PcifonnaMCI! irl Late Mi!dicval Turkish Texts
A. 6zrarkmcn
tumi:og b;Jck !O the service: of H:1C! ~ OLnd Llter tr.tnsl:~.ting his work Mllkafat into
Turkish.
[56] "'Hu"'nkar, biz dr:di bunca Zllmand1r tlifrif tiklim dedi};, bu t!Dflinayi gattiik. fakDJ sonucunda
F,qn/Jk kaldlk, k11nhUTI<! crcm~ girt!' Xe G()Jpmuh (1958), p. 52.
[57] .A.rmn r:ksilmcsin. Sec G6lptn:1rh (1958), pp. 23, 21, 35.
[58] ldrU'in Saru adl1 bir kardqi van. Haa BcktnlmldrU'in nriruk Jamu hUbgmt kijylakrc k/Jtil
:@:lcrlc o.nlattt. K6ylr1 de dervi,~ Ktulmak': :gyjyor da onun ;;in cvindc OfurllyOr diyt daJj..
kDduya ~Sec G8lpmo.rh (l958), p. 28.
(59] Hilnhu;. Saru dali kolwguntkm kabarctk fTksm. gdVd~ #~ip san $Ular a/am! See Golpan:trh
[84]
{85}
[86]
[871
!881
[89}
[90]
{1958), p. 32
[601
[61]
""=:
0
8:;;
:;
~
~
:
o
'"~
el.
.l;'
~
0
]
0
Sec GOlp!rt:~rh (1958), PP 66-67.

The genre of Tarih-iAU Osman i.s in fnct ::t. widdy I'C'produccd teet in :r. cumubti.vc form and
:~,ppe:us in different vcrsions, USLI:llly rd~ted to :IS anonymous chronicles. ~~de's
Tarih-i Ali OmJan is o~ sit;ncd by its ::J.uthor.
[62]
Sec Lindner (1993).
[63J
[64]
(65]
Sec Fnroqhi (1999),

V.L. M61agc (1962), p. 174.
Colin Imber (1990, 1994).
{66] V.L. Mem.gc: {1962}, p. 174.

[67] The genre of mcrW.1pnamc: 1:1 different from wb:&t one: mny c:dl a hi.l."toric:II chroDicle. It is
more like a legendary :md historic!.! prose, telling the h~:roic de~ of religious ligures.
[68] Although he hiln$d{ uses AtsJ.Z's edition of Af!.kp~de',s Tarih~i Ali (),rnGtl, HllliliiUlClk
.:..dmits th.:..t .:. new aitic:U edition is ~ J.ih. in the two former editions in old script
(by A\l.:..nd by F. Gi~e), AtsL.X's edition too h:u misr~dings :md skipped phrnscs. Sec ln:alcak
(1994}, p. 139. For.:... new edition of ~pafra!de's work. see also OsmanDtullcm'nm tarihi.
:Ed$. Kcmal Yavuz :tnd. M.A. Yekt; Suul;. lsbnbul: K Kit:1pl$. (2003 ). Bc:c.usc this bst
edition is written in ~implificd Turkish, the c:ss:r.y wi.ll foUow Atsaz's o!ition for quotations.
See Nih.:!l Au.u:. Osm1211l1 ZD.rihlt:7i. Istanbul: Tilrk.iye Y.:..ymcvi, 1949.
(691 In the Upsolb copy, forinstan~. the fact that there is a reference to Prince Korkut, the son of
Bcp.ztt U who never reigned. led Atm to think th.:&t thU: copy Ill.:&.)' h:lvc bn particul:lr!y
written for l<orkut.
!70J See Ino.lck (1962).
(71) See Yavuz .::IJ]d~ {2003), p. 24.
[721 See Y:~vu:z: .:..nd S:lr.:&~ {2003), p. .36.
(73] c;:clebi Mchmet (1389--1421), the son of&ycid l, is known to bring OOck order to :1 ch:~otic
period of e;~.rly Ottoman history in the o.fi:crm:~th of Bo.yezid I's defc::tt in 1402 to Thmerbn~.
{74] ~ MC:ruge {1962) :md ~fud.u {1995).
[75]
&:c Ino.!cLk {1994), p. 144,
(76]
1771
See I<.:&f.:&cLu- (1995), p. 103.

~ F:~.kihisknown to beth~ son of Orban SultD.n's imlllll- Although his mo.nu.saipt did not
:survive. it is believed th:at it could be th~ crl.icst written form of the Tarih~i Ali Osman.
See MEmge 0962), P 174.
&::a-houses woo~ public pl.:..cc::s to drink bCJm, th~ xythwn, m:iltcd min~
See Inalak (1994), p. 143.
See hllllctk {1962), pp. 162-63. DiffC"Cilt from str.l.ight chroc.id~ the gzzavamamc genre
c:onsisted of Ciirnpo.ign na.rrntives written in prose or poetry. focussiDg ou heroes of war,
conquest, and victory.
Quoted in EnrJ.ish in Ina.lak (1994), p. 143 .In Tw-!Wh: "Hey Gazl1cr, bu menahln kim
ytr..dum, 'YGltahi ccmi'it~e i/mQm yai.,'Cflp ya:::dum, sanmantt: kim yabandmr ya:dum." Quoted.
in l.a:Uak. '~p~2:1.de T:l.r[bi NilS!l Okunmah?" SJg_Qtren lstanbuf'a. Eels. Ola:ly Ozd. :mel.
Mchmet Oz. ~ lmge Kibbevi, :woo. 126,
"Billlp ifiuliJtDmkn, ~ htzlkrindr:n vc maktJI1crindc11.'' Quoted in Il'lllle1k (2000), p. 127.
[78]
(79]
f80]
[8l]
(82]
[83}
[91]
[92)
.:!
0
a
~
-~
:!;!
N
B
$
~0
345
Quoted in~ {1994), p. 143. In Turki$b: "lnsanlar, Osma.nb su/ranla.rmUJ ktWa1111l.nlzkla.mu okud11klarz Ycytl dtnlcdiklcri :zt!tnan, onlarm ntlzlarma dua minier." Quoted in lno.kzk
(2000), p. 126.
'
Sec Atstz. (1949), p, 92.
Sec, for iru:tune~. Atstz (1949), p. l39.
Sec: Atstz. (1949), pp, !58, 238, 246, 254.
Sec Alslz. (1949), p. 95,
See At=. (1949), p. 138.
For :1 dct:Wcd an:i!ysis of the EW"Ope:lll. nppro:~ch to :u-cheologicll studies in Anatoli:t, so: .Ash
Ozy.u. "An:ttoli:tn Civili:ctioru:~ Europe:tn Perceptions on Ancient Cultures in Turkey."'
PlaciJJg Turkey an the Map of Europe. Ed. HllklXl Y1lrn::LZ. Istanbul: Bo~~ UP, ZOOS.
See, ~tivcly. C:ltb G:tl:lt:Lriotou. The Making ofa Sai11r. The Life. Times and Sanctifo:atUm
of Neophytos the Rl:c1u$C. C:unbridg~ :md N("W Yotk: C:Lmbridgc UP. 1991: Zhenyn
Khach:tt:yan ...Vudo.n. M:.miko~ Per(o~." Sdo:rci Ptzpcrs on Armeniml12nd Turldsh
Cu.fturc. Ist:lnbul: Bog:J.Zi~ 'Univcrsitcsi M:ttb.:&:tSt, forthcomin{r. Sus:tn Slyomovic:s. Thc
MCJ'dulnt of Art: An Egyptian Hifa!i Oral Epic: Poet in Pcrfarmrwx.. U of C:tlifomi:t
Publictioru: in Modern Philology, 198i.
See, for e"(ml.p]~. Evelyn Birge Vitz. Orality and Pcrformana: in Early French Romance.
C:t.mbridge: D.S. Bl"t'WCT, 1999; Evelyn Birge Vitz. Performing Mcditval NOl'TfltiYe. C:tmb.ridgt.-:
D.S. Bn:wcr, 2005; Sophi::t Men:tche. 111e Vox Dei: Commrmiaztions in: the MUJdlc Ages.
O.:d"ord: Oxford UP, 1990: Svetlo.n:~ Loutchitsky :tnd Mnrie-Ch.ri$tinc V~l. eds. HOMO
LEGENS: Style1 and Praeticcs of Reading. Tumhout nnd New York: Brepols Publishers,
forthcoming.
For :m :tru~lysi!l of the period. sec Ar%.u
Ozta.rkmen. "Folklore on Tri:ll: Pertcv N:tili Bor.ttlv

.:..nd the Dcnation:~,\izo.tion of Turkish Fclklor~." Journal a[Folkkre Rcsa:rrh 42 (2005): 185216,
[94] Through th~ process, once the =in ..gr.~ndn~tive" of Turkish n.:..tiol'Lll h4'toty ~
formed .:..nd genres: of Turkish Tit=ture wen.- consolid.:ued, these 'btc mediev::tl to:ts made:
their w:ty into tatboob of n:~tion.:..l educ:1tion.
[95] See P.:~.ul Zumthor ( 1994) "PcO.ie et VoOJ.lit!S- .:..u moyen ~g.:" Cah,.ers ck fitt&ature role, 36,
pp. 2~34.
[961 See P.:&ul Zumthor.. .&sai de pcCtiCJUC mCdi~c. P:tris: Editions du Seuil, !972.
[93}
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Arzu Oztiirkmen & Joanna Bornat (2009) "Oral History", Encyclopedia of

Women~ Folklore andFolkl!fo,(ftds) L. Locke, P.Greenhill & T. A. Vaughan.
Abingdon,OX: Greenwood Publishing Group, pp.433-435.
Oral History
Oral hlstory is a hlstoriographlc 'approach' as much as a methodology. Its practice
depends on interviewing people for their experiences and memories. In that respect, it
shares- with folklore the domain ofpersonalexperience narratives (Dolby-Stahl 19&9).
The interview technique in oral hlstory, however, differs from folkloristic or
journalistic approach. With in,.depth interviews that use open-ended questions, oral
history !.Ilethodology allows the interviewees to construct their own accounts-; in a
reflexive mode of conuuunication between the researcher and her subject
Folklorists, 'archivists, historians-, media workers, community activists; artists,
teachers, health and social care workers are amongst those who typically explore the
past through memory and for a variety of puq>oses. From the start oral W~tory has
been marked by the inferdisciplinarity of its practitioners and by its engagement in
debate and memorialising which links the past to the present (Thompson, 2000).
Throughout, women's history has played an important role, originating debates about
method as well as determining thfl content of what is investigated.
What is remembered comes in many forms, narratives of experiences may be laced

with comments which suggest that recall of the past has importance for the .
transmission of cultural practices as much as in colnlllunicating a sensfl of difference
and distance in relation to the present. Inevitably folkore plays a part in tbis, with
sayings, myths, poetic repertoires and symbolic references playing a significant part
iin the structuring and illustrating of what is told.
Thfl US oral.historian, Michael Frisch has given us a useful under~tanding of what, he
argues, ort4 historianJl do. He puts forward the twin concepts of 'more history: and
'anti history' and suggests that most oral historians are involved in either one or both
approaches (Frisch, 1990, p 186-7). Oral historians are 'engaged in 'more history'
when they are intent on revealing. hitherto utidocurnented or unrecorded aspects of the
past. So fur example feminist oral historians in the early 1970s drew from oral and
biographical sources to substantiate arguments about marginalised histories
inaccessible through convflntional documentary sources. Topics such as everyday
domestic life, women's in~ustrlallabour, maternity, sexuality and birth control
became fit subjecls for reseiu:ch. However~ given feminism's political drive, tbis was
not simply a question of redressing an imbalance in the mEilcing alid telling of history,
these new agendas for historical research wem also a nieans to establishing
continuities with women's oppression in the present. This meant that understanding
what was meant by the past shlfted as femioists redrew the maps of responsibilities
and power, challenging assumptions with accounts which used women's words,
women's knowledge and women's stories, see for eliample Shemer Berger Gluck's
interviews with &uffragettes, Mary Chamberlain's study of urban women's knowledge
and Gwendol:yn.Etter-Lewis's acco\llltS from professional African American women
(Gluck, 1976; Chamberlain; f9&1; Etter-Lewis, 1993).
P. 253
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'Anti history', Frisch argues, goes further, challenging established understandings of

history by offering a 'bypass to such obstacles, a short cut to a more direct, emotional
sense of" the way it was" (Frisch, 1990, p l 887). Accounts which by:pass inte.tpre!er,s
and speak from the> heart are evident in the Italian oi-al historian, Luisa Passerini's,
explomtion of working class communities in Turin during the Fascist period
(Passerini, 1979). Similarly, Alessandro Portelli, in ills volume of essays, The Battle
of Valle Giulia, p 0ints out how
history '.. tells us less about evenis than about
their meaning' and because it 'forces on the historian ....the speaker's subjectivity'
(Portelli, 1981). Popular forms play a significant part in iliis persolliilisation of the
past he argues. He sees folklom persisting in these remembered accounts, arguing
that:
oral
.. .folklore no longer appears as the residue ofan archaic past, but rather as
contemporary, constantly renewed product ofIIi!! permanent disruption ofthe
culture ofworkingpeople in the encounter with the cultural messages ofthe
eli~e - and of Its remaking In cultural resistance.
Portelli,199l, p.160.
He goes on to show how political slogans, 'Like all true folk forms' have..certain-fixed
features thert;by establishing continuity and creativity in speech and memory. In
Italian the slogan is
... a three-line verse of3/3/7 sylla~{es, based !Jn a rhetorical f!inary

.
opposition, IJSUally with a rhyme and/or repetlfion. 'E' ordl~ orqlpotere a chi
lavora' ('it's time. it's time. Power to the workers) as used by factory
. workers ... 'Tremate/lrematelle slreghe son /ornate' ('Shiver and shake: the
witehesar~ back')fromthe women's movement. .....
Portelli, 1991, pp 177-8.
Frisch identified two fbrms of oral history activity to which we add a third.: 'How
history'. 'How history' exposes the processes of being a historian, acli"l'ifies which
have become very much the basis ofwome!l's oral history writing. An'edito.rjiU in the
UK journal, Oral History, explains:
'How history' enables us to question and IQ u.njlerstc;IJd t}je processes ofbeing

a historian. In its early ddys, oral history was less" interested in process, in
unravelling the W'lJ!S in which accounts were derived, understanding the
relationship between interviewer and Interviewee, reflecting on the
interviewer's changing understanding ofboth history and self. In our view
women and (heir ora/history have put tlze 'how' into history.
This has happenedpartly through the opportunity which reflection on shared
experience brings: it is partly through a need, an urgency, to tell and reveal
hidden accounts, to right wrongs and to stake claims. But it Is also a result of
having to come to .terms with th~ limits ofsharing while we reflect on the
divisions ofclass, race, age, culture, impairment which continue to distinguish
groups ofwomen from each other..It is this tension which has generated the
. 'how' oforal history....
2
P. 254
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Editorial, Oral History, 1993, p. 2

.
The deconstruction of the interview as a social relationship into gendered, racial and
cultural expressions and symbols was taken over as a critical approach by a
publication which was to have a profound influence on oral history making in the
English-speaking world. A collection of essays edited by Shema Berger Gluck and
Daphn.e Patai, Women's words was first published in 1991 to immediate acclaim and
recognition for the directness with which it addressed a nwnber of key issues debated '
by feminists (1991). Perhaps what was most significant, in retrospect, was the
reappropriation ofthese: themes by US feminists from ethnographers, psychologists,
oral historians and sociologists and their application to a shared understanding of what
is meant by the practice of oral history.
The contributors, many of whom wete already widely published oral historians and
ethnograph~i:s, brought to the debate what, for the first time, felt like critical and .
transparent.reflection Oil issues such as the subjectivities of both intervieW and
interviewee, power in an interview relationship where both parties are women,
ownership and control over the interview and its interpretation and an appreciation of
multidisciplinarity. As the editors suggest:
(feminist scholars) have moved beyond celebration of 'Women's experience to
more nuanced understanding of the complexities of doing feminist oral
history. Ironically it is the ferninlst emphasis on the personal, which is
criticised by several of our contributors, that also enables these authors to be
reflexive and analytical of their own practice. By"focllsing on themselves and
their own experiences, they have been able to expose the flavis of 6Xisting
models, including the prevailing feminist ones:
. .
. ) .
'
.
Gluck & Patni, 1991, p. 4
So for example, Katherine Borland's revisiting of an interview with her
grandmother which resulted in a clash of interpretative wills, results not in her
writing off the experience but in concluding that, ' ... it bears repeating that
_important commonalities among women often mask equally important
_, .
4ifferences' (Borland,-1991, p, 72). Katherine Borland's recognition that
. differences, in this case of generation and status, require active reproduotion iii"' ..
the process of interpretation is echoed in other contributors, Judith Stacey for -.
example. She wonders, ' ...whether the appearance of greater respect fur and ,j.
equality with research subjects in the ethnographic approach masks a deeper, ' ~
more dangerous form of exploitation' (Stacey, 1991, p. 113). Daphne Patai
"il.
takes on the essentialist position in a fiercely orgucd atlack on 'the fraud' of
'purported solidarity of female identity' as denying divisions, of race, class,
and ethnicity (Patai, 1991, p.ll44). However she warns against the unending .,.
search for ethical purity, arguing that' ... in an unethical world, we cannot do
truly ethical research (Patai, 1991, p. 150).
While the Gluck and Patai collection opened up a more honest reflection on the
processes of doing oral history implications ofthis for its traditional role as a means
to retrieve and explain the past have also bi:ennoted. Thus, the Canadian feminist and
oral historian, Joan_ Sangster, in her research into women's memories ofa textile
workers' strike in 193 7 points out the 'dangers of emphasising form over context' .
3
P. 255
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She contrasts the ~econstruction of individual narratives' with 'analysis of social

patterns', asserting 'our duty as historians to analyse and interpret women's stones'
(1994, p. 22). She found women who appeared not to be able to remember their part
in the slrikll, who preferred to talk about their weddings and who saw their strike
activity as y"outbfulexpression. However she argues that such personal and iridividual
memories are illustrative of women's position in society, their resistance and evasion
of dominant power structures, and ;ue therefore to be v~ued in themSelves.
The three aspects of oral history which we have identified characterise and .cafligorise
oral history research and practice and perhaps most specificall.y where women's
history is conceme;d. So, for example, Dolores Delgado Bemai, in her account of the
Chicano Movement of the 1960s shows how an event like the East Los Angeles
School Blowouts, when over ten thousand school shidents prot~stcd about poor
educational conditions by walking out of their classrooms, is typically told in Chicano
terms. By talking to women who were inv,o!Ved she shows how Chicanas she
interviewed played leading roles. She argu!ls for a 'reconcephialization of leadership'
as she identifies activities, such as networking, organizing and developing
consciousness which contribute to grass roofs leadership (Bernal, 2002, p. 237-8).
Bernal's research is an example of 'more history', by including women's accounts she
has adder:{ to the historical record, challenging and complementing what was an
established story.
in
Irina Sherbakova's 'The Gulag Memory' with its first-hand accounts of arrC/lt and
dete.qtion in Stalin's Riissia, !.ike the many holocaust memorieS is oral history as 'antihistory'. Thest;: \)~n !lccoun.ts are scarcely mediated and stand on their own !IS dire\lt
personal testi.titony.A woman arrested in 1937 recalls the absurdity of her dress in the
prison. She had been at a party at a Politburo member's dacha; 'They didn't allow us to
tiikiYmanytliiiliFoUisiiiii"iner-si!Kilies-ses and.ii.iiilerweaiwere fom;Sfuck over our ..
shoulders, our stockings were ripped. At the last minutes before oilr prison transfer I
received money from someone ru;td we bought whate:ver there was in the prison chest'
(Sherbakova, 1998: 242-243)
Examples of 'How' oral history _include interpretations which focus on subjective
interactions in the intervieW situatiOll; emphasis on inferpCJSOnaJ processes (YOW,
1994, ch 5; Thompson, 2000, ch 7). However, increasingly, oral hlstorians nave been
looking at ways in which remembering the past can help to inform policy and
practice. Involving participants in the process requires careful thiriking through,
particularly if their sense of ow_nership is to be sustained throughout th!'l process.
Collaborations witli people with learning difficulties in the production oftht;ir
personal histories has led some oral historiap.~ inf!J detailing representational and
ethical issues which provide helpful poll,lteci to some of the issues surrounding the
'how' of oral history.
an
References
Bernal, D. D. (2002) 'Grassroots leadership reconceptualized: Chican:a oral histories
and the 1968 East Los Angeles School Blowouts', inS. H. Annitage, with P. Hart &
K. Weatherman (eds) Women's Oral Hist01y: the Frontiers Reader, Lincoln,
University ofNebraska: 227-257.
P. 256
_____ _
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- - - - - - - - ---- - - - ---------
L~
c-:....
1.
L...
I ...
------------~-
1~:.:..:.:
C::....:
- - - . - -.. - ............
c:::. . . [:...::_::
L ..
____________
L:..::
!'"
.L.........
Borland, Katherine (1991) "'It's not what I said": 'interpretive conflict in oral
narrative research', in Gluck, Shemer, B & Patai, Daphne (eds) Women's Words: the
feminist practice oforal history, London: Routledge: 63-75
Dol by-Stahl, Sandra, 1989. 'The Personal Narrative as An Oral Literary Genre',
???author, Literary Folkloristics and the Personal Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press: 12-28.
Editorial, (1993) Oral History, 21, 2: 2: 2
Etter-Lewis, G. (1981) MY Soul is MY Own: oral narratives ofAfrican American
Women in the Professions, New York, Routledge.
Frisch, M. (990. A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning ofOral and
Public Histoiy. Albany: State University ofNe)V York Press.
"
Gluck, S. Ii. (1976) Parlor to Prison: Five American Suf]iagists Talk about
Their Live.{, New York, Vintage Books.
Gluck, Sheffia B & Patai, Daphne (1991) Women's Words: the feminist practice of
oral histmy, London: Routledge.
Passerini, Luisa, (1979) 'Work Ideology and Consensuil under Italian Fascism',
History Workshop, 8: 82-108.
Patai, Daphne (1991) 'Is ethical research possible?' in Gluck & Patai (eds): 1~7-153.
Portelli, A (1991) The Death ofLuigi Trastulll and other stories: form and meaning in
oral history. Albany, State University ofNew York.
..Portelli, A. (1997) The Battle of Valle Giulia: oral history and the art ofdialogue,
Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
Sangstm; Joan (1994) 'Telling om stories: feminist debates and the use of oral ,
history', Women s Histmy Review, 3: 5-28.
.;
.. :;,
Sherbakova, I, (1998) 'The Gulag in memory' in R. Perks & A. Thomson (eds).-fhe
Oral Histmy Reader, London, Routledge: 235-245.
,,~,
Stacey, Judith (1991) 'Can there be a feminist ethnography?' in Gluck & PataiC~ds):
111-119.
Thompson, P. (2000) The Voice ofthe Past: qral history, Oxford, Oxford UniversitY
Press, 3rd edition.
Yow, V.R. (1994) Recording Oral History: a practical guide for social scientists,
Thousand Oaks, Sage.
p,
257
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. i
Chapter 3
Alessandro Portelli
WHAT MAKES ORAL HISTORY
DIFFERENT
This article, first published in 1979, challenged oral history's critics head-on by
arguing that 'what makes oral history different' - orality, narrative form, subjectIvity, the 'different credibility' of memory, and the relationship between Interviewer
and interviewee - should be considered as strengths rather than as weaknesses, a
resource rather than a problem. Alessandro Portelli holds a Chair in American
Literature at the University of Rome. Reprinted by permission from The Death of
Luigi Trastu/11 and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History by Alessandro
Portelli, the State University of New York Press 1991 State University of New
York. All rights reserved. A first version, 'Sulfa specificita della storia orale',
appeared in Primo Maggio <Milano, Italy), 1979, vol. 13, pp. 54-60, reprinted as
'On the peculiarities of oral history' in History Workshop Journal, 1981, no. 12,
pp. 96-107.
'Yes,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'and tl1en when they come to talk about it a
long time afterwards, they've got the solution for it which they've made
up themselves. That isn't awfully helpful, is it?' 'It is helpful,' said Poirot
... 'It's important to know certain facts which have lingered in people's
memories although they may not know exactly what the fact was, why
it happened or what led to it. Out they might easily know something
that we do not know and that we have no means of learning. So there
have been memmies leading to tl1eories.'
Agatha Christie, Elephants Can Remember
His historical researches, howe,er, did not lie so much among books as
among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics;
whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich
in that legendary lore, so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its
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33
low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it

a~ a little clasped volume of black-letter and studied it with the zeal of
a book-worm.
Washington lning, 'Rip Van Winkle'
Memories leading to theories
SPECTER IS HAUNTING THE HALLS of the academy: the

specter of oral history. The Italian intellectual community, always suspicious
of news from outside and yet so subservient to 'foreign discoveries' -hastened to
cut oral history down to size before even trying to understand what it is and how
to use it. The method used has been tl1at of charging oral history with pretensions
it does not have, in order to set everybody's mind at ease by refuting them. For
instance, La Repubblica, the most intellectually and internationally oriented ofltalian
dailies rushed to dismiss 'descriptions "from below" and the artificial packages
of "oral history" where things arc supposed to move and talk by themselves', without even stopping to notice that it is not rhinos, but people (albeit people often
considered no more than 'things') that oral history expects to 'move and talk by
themselves' . 1
.
There seems to b~ a fear that once the floodgates of orality are opened, writing
(and rationality along with it) '\~ll be swept out as if by a spontaneous uncontrollable mass of fluid, amorphous material. But this attitude blinds us to the f.~ct that
our awe of writing has distorted our perception of language and communication to
the point where we no longer understand either orality or the nature of writing
itself. As a matter of fact, written and oral sources are not mutually exclusive. They
have common as well as autollomous characteristics, and specific functions which
only either one can fill (or which one set of sources fills better than the other).
Therefore, they require different spcci6c interpretative instruments. But the undervaluing and the overvaluing of oral sources end up by cancelling out specific
qualities, turning these sources either into mere support~ for traditional written
sources, or into an illusory cure for all ills. This chapter will attempt to suggest
some of the ways in which oral history is intrinsically different, and therefore
specifically useful.
The orality of oral sources

Oral sources are oral sources, Scholars are willing to admit tl1at the actual document
is the recorded tape; but almost all go on to work on the transr.ript, and it is only
transcripts that are published. 2 Occasionally, tapes arc actually destroyed: a s;~nbolic
case of the destruction of the spoken word.
The transcript turns aural objects into visual ones, which inevitably implies
changes and interpretation. The different efficacy of recordings, as compared to
transcripts- for classroom purposes, for instance- can only be appreciated by direct
experience. This is one reason why I believe it is unnecessary to give excessive
attention to the quest for new and closet methods of transcription. Expecting the transcript to replace the tape for sclent:ilic purposes is equivalent to doing art criticism
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on reproductions, or literary criticism on translations. The most literal translation is

hardly ever the best, and a truly faithful translation always implies a certain amount
of invention. The same may be true for transcription of oral sources.
The disregard of the orality of oral sources has a direct bearing on interpretati,e
theory. The first aspect whkh is usually stressed is origin: oral sources give us
information about illiterate people or social groups whose written history is either
missing or distorted. Another aspect concerns content: the daily life and material
culture of these people and groups. However, these arc not specific to oral sources.
Emigrants' letters, for instance, have the same origin and content, but are written.
On the other hand, many oral history projects have collected interviews with
members of social groups who use writing, and have been concerned with topics
usually covered by the stanclard written archival material. Therefore, origin and
content are not sufficient to distinguish oral sources from the range of sources used
by social history in general; thus, many theories of oral history are, in fact, theories
of social history as a whole. 3
fn the search for a distinguishing factor, we must therefore tum in the first place
to form. We hardly need repeat here that writing represents la'\,uuage almost exclusively by means of segmentary traits (graphemes, syllables, words, and sentences).
But language is also composed of another set of traits, which cannot be contained
within a single segment but which are also bearers ofmeaning. The lof!e and volume
range and the rhythm of popular speech carry implicit meaning and social connotations which an: not reproducible in writing - unless, and then in inadequate and
hardly accessible fonn, as musical notation. The same statement may have quite
contradictory meanings, according to the speaker's intonation, which cannot be
represented objectively in the trans<::ript, but only approximately described in the
transcriber's own words.
In order to make the hanscript readable, it is usually necessary to insert
punctuation mark.~, which are always the more-or-less arbitrary addition of the
transcriber. Punctuation indicates pauses distributed according to grammatical
rules: each mark has a conventional place, meaning, and length. These hardly ever
coincide with the rhythms and pauses of the speaking subject, and therefore end up
by confining speech within grammatical and logical rules which it does not necessarily follow. The exact length and position of the pause has an important function
in the understanding of the meaning of speech. Regular grammatical pauses tend to
organize what is said aroWid a basically expository and referential pattern, wherea>'
pau>eS of irregular length and position accentuate the emotional content, and very
heavy rhythmic pauses recall the style of epic narratives. Many narrators switch from
one type of rhytlm1 to allotl1cr within the same interview, as then nttitude toward
the subjects Wider discussion changes. Of course, tltis can only be perceived by
listening, not hy reading.
A similar point can be made concerning the velocity of speech and its changes
during the interview. There are no fixed interpretative rules: slowing down may
mean greater emphasis as well as greater difficulty, and acceleration may show a
wish to glide over certain points, as well as a greater familiarity or ease. In all cases,
the analysis of changes in velocity must be combined with rhythm analysis. Changes
are, however, the norm in speech, while regularity i the norm in writing (printing
most of all) and the presumed norm of reading: variations are introduced by the
reader, not by the text itself.
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This is not a question of philological purity. Traits which cannot he contained

within segments are the site (not exclusive, but very important) of essential nrrativc
functions: they re1eal the narrators' emotions, their participation in the story, and
the way the story a!Tected them. This often involves attitudes which speakers may
not be able (or willing) to express other,.ise, or elements which are not fully within
their control. By abolishing these traits, we Ratten the emotional content of speech
down to the supposed equanimity and objectivity of the 1nitten document. This is
even more true when folk informants are involved: they may be poor in vocabulary but are often richer in range of tone, volume and intonation than middle-dass
speakers who have learned to imitate in speech the monotone of writing.;
Oral history as narrative

Oral historical sources are narrative sources. Therefore the analysis of oral history
materials must avail itself of some of the general categories developed by narrative
theory in literature and folklore. This is as true of testimony given in free interviews
as of the more formally organized materials of folklore.
For example, some naJTativcs contain substantial shift in the 'velocity' of
narration, that is, in the ratio between the duration of the events described and the
duration of the narration. An informant may recount in a few words experiences
which lasted a long time, or dwell at length on brief episodes. These oscillations
are significant, although we cannot establish a general norm of interpretation:
dwelling on an episode may be a way of stressing its importance, but also a strategy
to distract attentions from other more delicate points. In all cases, there is a
relationship between the velocity of the narrative and the meaning of the narrator.
The same can be said of other . categories among those elaborated by Gerard
Genette, such as 'distance' or 'perspective', which define the position of the narrator
toward the story. 6
Oral sources from nonhegemonic classes arc linked to the tradition of the folk
narrative. In this tradition distinctions between narrative genres are perceived differently than in the written tradition of the educated cla5scs. This is true of the generic
distinction between 'factual' and 'artistic' narratives, between 'events' and feeling
or imagination. While the perception of an account as 'true' is relevant as much to
legend as to personal experience and historical memory, there are no formal oral
genres specifically destined to transmit historical information; historical, poetical,
and legendary narratives oJten become inextricably mixed up. 7 The result is narratives in which the boundary between what takes place outside the na!Tator and what
happens inside, between what concerns the individual and what concerns the group,
may become more elusive than in established written genres, so that personal 'truth'
may coincide with shared 'imagination'.
Each of these !actors can he revealed by formal and stylistic factors. The greater
or lesser presence of formalized materials (proverbs, songs, formulas, and stereotypes) may measure the degree in which a collective viewpoint exists within an
individual's narrative. These shifts between standard language and dialect are often
a sign of the kind of the control which speakers have over the narrative.
A typical recurring structure is that in which standard language is used overall,
while dialect crops up in digression. or single anecdotes, coinciding with a more
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personal involvement of the narrator or (as when the occurrences of dialect

coincide with formalized language) the intrusion of collective memory. On the other
hand, standard language may emerge in a dialect narrative when it deals with
themes more closely connected with the public sphere, such as politics. Again, this
may mean both a more or less conscious degree of estrangement, or a process of
'conquest' of a more 'educated' fonn of expression beginning with participation
in politics. 8 Comcrsely, the dialectization of teclmical tem1s may be a sign of the
vitality of traditional speech and of the way in which speakers endeavor to broaden
the expressive range of their culture.
Events and meaning

The first thing that makes oral history different, therefore, is that it tells us less
about events than about their meaning. This does not imply that oral history has no
factual validity. Inten~ews often reveal unknown events or unknown aspects of
known events; they always cast new light on unexplored areas of the daily life
of the nonhegemonic classes. From this point of view, the only problem posed by
oral sources is that of verification (to which I will retum in the next section).
But the unique and precious element which oral sources force upon the lllstorian
and which no other sources possess in equal measure is the speaker's subjectivity.
If the approach to research is broad and articulated enough, a cross section of the
subjectivity of a group or class may emerge. Oral sources tell us not just what people
did, but what they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing, and what
they now think they did. Oral sources may not add much to what we know, for
instance, of the material cost of a strike to the workers involved, but they tell us a
good deal about its psychological costs. Borrowing a literary category from the
Russian formalists, we might say that oral sources, especially from nonhegemonic
groups, are a very useful integration of other sources as far as tl1eJabula - the logical,
causal sequence of the story - goes; but they become unique and necessary because
of their plot - the way in which the story materials are arranged by narrators in
order to tell the story. 9 The organization of the narrative reveals a great deal of the
speakers' telationships to their history.
Subjectivity is as much the bosiness.ofhistory as are the.more visible 'facts'.
What informants believe is indeed a historicaljact (that is, the fact that they believe '
it), as much as what really happened. When workers in Terni misplace a crucial
event of their history (the killing of Luigi Trastulli) from one date and context to
another, this does not cast doubts on the actual chronology, but it does force us
to arrange our interpretation of an entire phae of the town's history. When an old
rank-and-file leader, also in Temi, dreams up a story about how he almost got the
Communist Party to reverse its strategy after \Vorld War U, we do not revise our
reconstructions of political debates within the Left, but learn the extent of the
actual cost of certain decisions tn those rankand-file activists who had to bury into
their subconscious their needs and desires for revolution. When we discover that
similar stories are told in other parts of the country, we rccogni'l.e the half-formed
legendar)' complex in which the 'senile ramblings' of a disappointed old ma11
reveal much about his party's history that is untold in the lengthy and lucid memoirs
of its official leaders. 10
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Should we believe oral sources?

Oral sources are credible but witll a different credibility. The importance of oral
testimony may lie not in its adherence to fact, lmt ratl!er in its departure from it,
as imagination, symbolism, and desire emerge. Therefore, there are no 'false' ural
sources. Once we have checked tl!eir factual credibility witlJ all tl!e established
criteria of philological criticism and factual verification which are required by all
types of sourcell anyway, tl!e diversity of oral history consists in the fact that 'wrong'
statements are still psychologically 'true' amJ that !his truth may be equally as
important as factually reliable accounts.
Of cour"e, this does not mean that we accept the dominant prejudice which
sees factual credibility as a monopoly of written documents. Very often, written
documents are only tl!e uncontrolled transmission of unidentified oral sources (as
in the case of tlJe report on Trastulli's death, which begins: 'According to verbal
infonnation taken .. .'). The passage from these oral 'ur-sources' to the written
document is often the result of processes which have no scientific credibility and
are frequently heavy with class bias. In trial records (at least in Italy, where no legal
value is accorded to the tape recorder or shorthand transcripts), what goes on record
is not the words actually spoken by the witnesses, but a summary dictated by the
judge to tl1e clerk. The ~tortion inherent in such procedure is beyond assessme11t,
especially when tlJe speakers originally expressed themselves in dialect. Yet, many
historians who turn up tlJe.ir noses at oral sources accept these legal transcripts witlJ
no questions asked. In a lesser measure (thanks to tlJe frequent use of shorthand)
this applies to parliamentary records, minutes of meetings and convenUons, and
interviews reported in newspapers: all sources which are legitimately and widely
used in standard historical research.
A by-product of this prejudice is the insistence that oral sources are distant from
events, and therefore undergo tlle distortion offaulty memory. Indeed, tlJis problem
exists for many written documents, which are usually written some time after
tl!e event to which they refer, and often by nonparticipants. Oral sources might
compensate chronological distance witl1 a much closer personal involvement. While
written memoirs of politicians or labor leaden are usually credited until proven to
be in enor, tbey arc as distant from some aspects of the event which they relate
as are many oral history interviews, and only hide their dependence on time by
assuming tlJe immutable form of a 'text'. On th"' other hand, oral narrators have
within their culture certain aids to memory. Many stories are told over and over,
or discussed with members of the community; formalized nanative, even meter,
may help preserve a textual version of an event.
In fact, one should not forget that oral inlormants may also be uteratc. Tiberio
Ducci, a former leader of the farm workers' league in Genzano, in the Roman hills,
may be atypical: in addition to remembering lais own experience, he had also
researched the local archives. But many informants read books and newspapers,
listen to the radio and TV, hear scrrnoflll and political speeches, and keep diaries,
letters, clippings, and photograph albums. Orality and writing, lor many centuries
now, have not existed separately: if many written sources are based on orality,
modern orality itself is saturated witlJ writing.
But what is really important is that memory is not a passive depository of facts,
but an active process of creation of meanings. Thus, tlJe specific utility of oral
38
CRITrCAL DEVELOPMENTS
sources for the historian lies, not so much in their ability to preserve the past, as
in the very changes wrought by memory. These changes reveal the narrators' eflort
to make sense of the past and to give a form to their lives, aod set the interview
and the narrative in their historical context.
Changes which may ha,e subsequently taken place in the nanators' personal
subjective consciousness or in their socio-economic standing, may affect, if not the
actual recounting of prior events, at least the valuation and the 'coloring' ol' the
story. Several people are reticent, or instance, when it comes to describing illegal
forms of struggle, such as sabotage. This does not mean that they do not remember
them clearly, but that there has been a change in their political opinions, personal
circumstances, or in their party's line. Acts considered legitimate and even nonnal
or necessary in the past may be therefore now viewed as unacceptable and literally
cast out of the tradition. In these cases, the most precious information may lie in
what the informants bide, and in the fact that they do hide it, rather than in what
they tell.
Often, however, narrators are capable of reconstrUcting their past attitudes
even when they no longer coincide with present ones. This is the case with the
Terni factory workers who admit that violent reprisals against the executives
responsible for mass layoffs in 1953 may have been counterproductive, but yet
reconstruct with great lucidity why they seemed useful and sensible at the time. In
one of the most important oral testimonies of our time, Autobioorapo/ ?f Malcolm X,
the narrator describes very vividly how his mind worked before he reached his
present awareness, and then judges his own past self by the standards of his present
political and religious consciousness. If the interview is conducted skillfully and its
purposes are clear to the narrators, It is not impossible tor them to make a distinction between present and pasl self, and to objectify the past self as other than the
present one. In these cases - Malcolm X again is typical- irony is the major narrathe mode: two different ethical (or political, or religious) and narrative standanls
interfere and overlap, and their tension shapes the telling of the story.
On the other hand, we may also come across narrators whose consciousness
seems to have been arrested at climactic moments of their personal experience:
certain Resistance fighters, or war veterans; and perhaps certain student militants
of the 1960s. Often, these individuals are wholly absorbed by the totality of the
historical event of which they were part, and their account assumes the cadences
and wording of epic. The distinction between an ironic or an epic style implies
a distinction between historical perspectives, which ought to be taken into
consideration in our interpretation of the testimony.
Objectivity
Oral sources arc not objective. This of course applies to every source, though the
holiness of writing often leads us to forget it. But the inherent nonobjectivity of
oral sources lies in specific intrinsic characteristics, the most important being that
they are artificial, l'ariable, and partial.
Alex Haley's inttoduction to Autubionraphy if Malcolm X describes how Malcolm
shifted his natTative approach not spontaneously, but because the interviewer's questioning led him away from the exclusively public and official image of himself and
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of the Nation of Islam which he was trying to project. This illustrates the fact that
the documents of oral history are always the result of a relationship, of a shared
project in which both the interviewer and the interviewee are involved together, if
not necessarily in harmony. Written documents are fixed; they exist whether we
arc aware of them or not, and do not change once we have found them. Oral testimony is only a potential resource until the researcher calls it into existence. The
condition for the existence of the written source is emission; for oral sources, transmission: a difference similar to that described by Roman J~kobson and Piotr
Bogatyrev between the creative processes of folklore and those of literature. 11
The content of the written source is independent of the researcher's need and
hypotheses; it is a stable text, which we can only interpret. The content of oral
sources, on the other hand, depends largely on what the interviewer puts into it in
terms of questions, dialogue, and personal relationshipIt is the researcher who decides that there will be an interview in the first place.
Researchers often introduce specific distortions: informants tell them what they
believe they want to be told and thus reveal who they think the researcher is, On
the other hand, rigidly structured interviews may exclude elements whose existence
or relevance were previously unknown to the interviewer and not contemplated in
the question schedule. Such interviews tend to confirm the historian's previous
frame of reference.
The first requirement, tl1erefore, is that the researcher 'accept' the informant,
and give priority to what she or he wishes to tell, rather than what the researcher
wants to hear, saving any unanswered questions for later or for another interview.
Communications always work both ways. The interviewees are always, though perhaps unobtrusively, studying the interviewers who 'study' them. Historians might
as well recognize this fact and make the best of its advantages, rather than try to
eliminate it for the sake of an impossible (and perhaps undesirable) neutrality.
The final result of the interview is the product of both the narrator and the
researcher. When interviews, as is often the case, are arranged for publication omitting entirely the interviewer's voice, a subtle distortion takes place: the text gives
the answers without the questions, giving the impression that a given narrator will
always say the same things, no matter what the circumstances - in other words, the
impression that a speaking person is as stable and repetitive as a written document.
When the researcher's voice is cut out, the narrator's voice is distorted.
Oral testimony, in fact, is never the same twice. This is a characteristic of all
oral communication, but is especially true of relatively unstructured forms, such as
autobiographical or historical statements given in an interview. Even the same interviewer gets different versions from t11e same narrator at dillerent times. As tl>n two
subjects come to know each other better, the narrator's 'vigilance' may be
attenuated. Class subordination - trying to identify with what the narrator thinks
is the interviewer's interest- may he replaced by more independence or by a better
understanding of the purposes of the interview. Or a previous intei:View may have
simply awakened memories which are then told in later meetings.
The fact that interviews with the same person may be continued indefinite! y
leads us to the question of the inherent incompleteness of oral sources. It is
impossible to exhaust the entire memory of a single informant; the data extracted
with each interview are always the result of a selection produced by the mutual
relationship. Historical research with oral sources therefore always has the
qu
(;f<JII(;AL LJtVI:.LUPMtNI::.
unfinished nature of a work in progress. In order to go through all the possible oral
sources for the Temi strikes of 194-9 to 1953, one ought to interview in depth
several thousand people: any sample would only he as reliable as the sampling
methods used, and could never guarantee against leaving out 'quality' narrators
whose testimony alone might be worth ten statistically selected ones.
The unfinlshedness of oral sources affects all other sources. Given that no
rcsr.arch (concerning a historical time for which living memories are available)
is complete unless it has exhausted oral as well as written sources, and that oral
sources are inexhaustible, the ideal goal of going through 'all' possible sources
becomes impossible. Historical work using oral sources is unfinished because of the
nature of the sources; historical work excluding oral sources (where available) is
incomplete by definition.
Who speaks in oral hU.tory?

Oral history is not where the worklng classes speak for themselves. The contrary
statement, of course, would not be entirely unfounded: the recow1ting of a strike
through the words and memories of workers rather than those of the police and the
(often tmfrlcndly) press obviously helps (though not automatically) to balance -a
distortion implicit in those sources. Oral sources are a necessary (not a sufficient)
condition for a history of the nonhegemonic classes; they are less necessary (though
by no means useless) for the history of the ruling classes, who have had control over
writing and. leave behind a much more ahundant written record.
Nevertheless, the control of historical discourse remains firmly in the hands of
the historian. It is the historian who selects the people who will be interviewed;
who contributes to the shaping of the testimony by asking the questions and reacting
to the answers; and who gives the testimony its final published shape and context
(if only in terms of montage and transcription). Even accepting that the working
class speaks through oral history, it is clear that the class does not speak in the
abstract, but speaks to the historian, with the llistorian and, inasmuch as the material
is published, rhrounh the historian.
fndeed, things may also be the other way around. The historian may validate his
or her discourse by 'ventriloquizing' it through the narrator's testimony. So far from
disappearing in the objectivity of the sources, the historian remains important at least
as a partner in dialogue, often as a 'stage director' of the interview, or as an 'organi?.cr'
of the testimony. Jnstead of discovering sources, oral historians partly create them.
Far from becoming mere mouthpieces for the working class, oral historians may be
using other people's words, but are still responsible for the overall discomse.
Mucl1 more than written documents, which lrequently carry the impersonal
aura of the institutions by which they are issued ~ even though, of course, they are
composerl hy individuals, of whom we often know little or nothing - oral sources
involve the "ntire account in their own subjectivity. Alongside the first person narrative of the interviewee stands the first person uf the historian, without whom there
would be no interview. Both the informant's and the historian's discourse are in
narrative form, which is much less freguently the case with archival documents.
Informants are historians, after a fashion; and the historian is, in certain ways, a part
of the source.
WNAI
MAKt~
URAL HISTORY DIFFERENT
41
Traditional writers of history present themselves usually in the role of what

literary theory would describe as an 'omniscient narrator'. They give a third-person
account of events of which they were not a part, and which they dominate entirely
and from above (above the consciousness of the participants themselves). They
appear to be impartial and detached, never entering the nanative except to give
comments aside, after the manner of some nineteenth-century novelisb. Oral
history changes the writing of history much as the modern novel transformed the
writing of literary fiction: the most important change is that the narrator is now
pulled into the narrative and becomes a party of the story.
This is not just a grammatical shift from the third to the first person, but a
whole new narrative attitude. The narrato1 is now one of the characters, and the
rellino of the story is part of the story being told. This irnplicidy indicates a much
deeper political and personal involvement than that of the external narrator. Writing
radical oral history, then, is not a matter of ideology, of subjective sides-taking, or
of choosing one set of sources instead of another. It is, rather, inherent in the
historian's presence in the story, in the assumption of responsibility which inscribes
her or him in the account and reveals historiognphy as an autonomous act of
nanation. Political choices become Jess visibl., and vocal, but more basic.
The myth that the historian as a subject might disappear in the objective truth
of working-class sources was part of a view of political militancy as the annihilation
of all subjective roles into that of the full-time activist, and as absorption into an
abstract working class. This resulted in an ironical similarity to the traditional
attitude which saw historians as not subjectively involved in the history which they
were writing. Oral historians appear to yield to other subjects of discourse, but, in
fact, the historian becomes less and less of a 'go-between' from th" working class
to the reader, and more and mme of a protagonist.
In the writing of history, as in literature, the act of focusing on the function
of the narrator causes this function to be fragmented. In a novel such as Joseph
Conrad's Lordjim, the character/narrator Marlow can recount only what he himself
has seen and heard; in order to tell the 'whole story', he is forced to take several
other 'informants' into his tale. The same thing happens to historians working with
oral sources. On explicitly entering the story, historians must allow the sources
to enter the tale with their autonomous discourse.
Oral history has no unified subject; it is told from a multitude of points of view,
and the impartiality traditionally claimed by historians is replaced by the partiality
of the narrator. 'Partiality' here stands for both 'unfinishedness' and for 'taking
sides': oral history ~'3n never be told without taking sides, since the 'sides' exist
inside the telling. And, no matter what their personal histories and beliels may be,
historians and 'sources' are hardly ever on tl1e same 'side'. The confrontation of
their different partialities- confrontation a. 'conflict', and confrontation as 'search
for unity' -is ouc of the things which make oral history interesting.
Notes
2
B. Placido in La Repubblica, 3 October 1978.

One Tt~lian exception is the lnstituto Ernesto De Martino, an independent radical
research organization based in Milan, which has published 'sound archi\'es' on
42
CRITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
long-playing records since the mid-1960s - without anyone in the cultural

r.<tahlishment noticing: see F. Coggiola, 'L'attiviu\ dcll'lstituo Emesto de Martino',
in D. Carpitclla (ed.), L'etnomwicoloala in ftalia, Palermo: Flaccovio, 1975, pp.
265-270.
.
3
L. Passerini, 'Sull'utilita e il danno delle fonti orali per Ia storia'. Introduction to
Passcrini (ed.), Storia Oro/e. Vila quotiJiana e cullura matetiole delic classi subalrerne,
Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1978, discusses the relationship of oral histor)' and social
history.
4
On musical notation as reproduction of speech sounds, see G. Marini, 'Musica
popolare e parlato popolare urban</, in Circolo Gianni Bosio (ed.), I 9iomi
<antati, Milano: Mazzotta, 1978, pp. 33-34. A. Lomax, Folk Sono SI.Jles and Culture,
Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, 1968,
Publication no. 88, discusses electronic representation of vocal styles.
S See W Labov, 'The logic of non-standard English', in L. Kampf ami P. Lauter (eds),
The Politics'![ Lirerature, New York: Random House, 1970, pp. 194---244, on the
expressive qualities of non-standard speech.
6
In this article, I usc these terms as defined and used by G. Gcnnete, finurcs 1/1, Paris:
Seuil, 1972.
7
On genre distinctions in folk and oral narrathe, see D. Ben-Amos, 'Categories analytiques et gcnrespopulaires', Poet/que, 1974, no. 19, pp. 268-293; and J- Vansina,
Oral Tradition, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, [1961], 1973.
8
For instance, G. Bordoni, Communist activist from Rome, talked about family ami
community mainly in dialect, but shifted briefly to a more standardized form of Italian
whenever he wanted to reaffirm his allegiance to the party. The shift showed that,
although he accepted the party's decisions, they remained other than his direct experience. His recurring idiom was 'There's nothing you can do about it.' See Circolo
Gianni Bosin, I 9iorni cunwtl, pp. 58-66.
9
On fabula and plot see B. Toma~evskij, 'Sjuzetnoe pnstrocnic', in Teorija /It<ratur)'
Poe~ika, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928; Italian trans., 'La costruzione dell'intreccio', in
T. Todorov (ed.), Ijorma/istl russi, Torino: Einaudi, 1968, published as TMorie de Ia
litterature, Paris: Senil, 1965.
I0
These stmies are discussed in chapters I and 6 of A. Portelli, The Death '!}'Luigi
Trastulli, t\lbany: State University of New York .Press, 1991.
ll
R. Jakobson and P. Bogatyrev, 'Le folklore fonne specifique de creation', .in
R. Jakobson, Qyerrions de poitique, Pads: Seuil, 1973, pp. 59-72.
>,
Giri!?
Introduction
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The story behind this book began in 1983 when l

interviewed Pilar Llamazares, an old worker from a
Barcelona metallurgical factory that had been collectivized
during the Spanish civil war. She was illiterate, belonged
to an anarchist trade union and she . used to vote.
Therefore, she did not fulfill the "normal" voting profile; as
a woman, and anarchist and an illiterate, one would
expect her to be a non~voter. This is the reason I decided
to interview her. Pilar changed the way llooked at history
by confronting me with the meaning of my literacy and by
making m<O aware of the limits of my understanding of the
Spanish majority, which until very recently had been
illiterate. For years I had tried to integrate the poorest of
my country into the written historical record, and all of a
sudden I realized the existence of a kind of poverty I never
had imagined. Until then, for me illiteracy .had been a
statistical variable without a qualitative dimension,
without behavioral consequences, without a human fa'Ce.
Pi)ar denied all that I knew through written documents,
especially about her political affiliation. For instance, she
denied that she had belonged to an anarcho-syndicalist
trade union. Her evasion and outright lies and my own
exasperation during the interview annoyed me. And only
after my insistence did she finally tell me: "When one went
to vote, the owners appreciated you more you know;
Written with the help of Linda Shopes.
Bu kitabm arkaSlndaki 6ykii, ispanya ic;: saval straSmda

ac;:1k ortakhk irketine d6nu:,tii.rii.lmii alan
Barcelon,a metal6Iji fabrikasmdan emekli i:,c;:i . Pilar
Llamazares ile 1983 yllmda yapugun miiliikat ile ba:,ladl.
Pilar anar,.ist bir sendika iiyesi ve okur-yazar olmayan bir
kadlnd! ve sec;:imlerde oy kullann:utl. Dola)'lsiyla "normal"
oy kullanan se<;men kimligine uymuyordu; c;:iinkii. bir kadln, bir anar,.ist ve okur-yazar olmayan bir sec;:menin oy
kullanmamaSl gerekiyordu. Bu yiizden onunla miilii.kat
yapmaya karar verdim. Pilar benim okur-yazarhgun ile .
yilzlememi ve son zamanlara kadar okur-yazar olmayan
ispanyol c;:oguruugu ile ilgili varsaytmlartmm smttliliguu
farketmemi saglayarak tarihe bakJ.:, a-;:m:u degi:;,tirdi. Uzun
)'lllar iilkemin en fakir kesimini yazili tarih ka)'ltlarma gec;:irmeye gayret etmi<> ve aniden hi<;; hayal dahl etmedigim
tii.rden bir fakirligin varoldugunu anla= idim. 0 ana
kadar cehalet benim ic;:in niteleyici bir boyutu, davrarn:,sal
sonu<;;lan, insanCll bir yUzii olmayan istatistiksei bir degi:,ken idi. Pilar yazili belgelerden elde. ettigim tUm bilgileri, 6zellikle de kendisinin siyasal yakm ili:;,kilerine ait bildiklerimi redetmeme sebep oidu. Omegin, anarist bir
sendikaya iiye oldugunu inkar etti. MUJ.akat:muz SlraSlndaki kac;:amaklan, apac;:tk yalanlarl ve tUm bu olanlara karl
halka
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14
Introduction
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people with money, some of the people, do not like that the
workers are rebels." From this moment on I thought Pilar
was a militant anarchist, subsequent interviews confirm
this supposition since she explained to me how she had
followed the local leaders or "cabecillas".
I said goodbye to this woman, stunned and on alert
because I knew I had touched the bottom of poverty. In
the bus that brought me back to the city, I realized that for
me written history would never be the same. I felt that the
chasm between her understanding and mine was the
result of Pilar's illiteracy and my literacy. Even though I
had been researching and writing about nonvoting
behavior for years, I was not able to hold a coherent
conversation with an illiterate working woman. On the
other hand, with her experience and common sense, Pilar
had given me essential clue to understanding what
electoral participation meant to the masses, an
interpretation very different from the one given by previous
historians. And by contrast, she also had given me a
completely different interpretation of what nonvoting
meant during the 1930s.
Since early 1970s, I had been studying pattems of
electoral participation and nonvoting behavior. Contrary
to what I had hoped and what historiography had
affirm.ed, I found that it was not the masses in Spain that
were spontaneously revolutionary. I also found that it was
not true that the majority had followed anarchist leaders
who asked them not to vote. After my interview with Pilar,
I began to recognize that it was difficult to be a committed
political person in Spain without the ability to read and
write. Such persons had to _be able to read the worker's
press and pamphlets. Therefore, historians must carefully
scrutinize the evidence for presumably great numbers of
anarchist militants among a highly illeterate population.
With Dominique Will=s, professor of French
linguistics at the University of Ghent in Belgium, I decided
to approach the meaning of illiteracy through a
comparative study of literate and illiterate workers and, in
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kendi tahammiilstizlugum beni k:tzdrrdr. Ancak 1srarl1 dayatmalanm sonunda Unu bana itiraf etti; "Biliyor musun?
Oy ve:.;meye gittiginde patronlar senin degerini daha .;:ok
takdir ediyorlar; parab. kesim, bazt tip insanlar, i'?<;:ilerin isyankar olmasl1ll. begenmiyor." Bu andan itibaren Pilar'm
bir militan anar.,ist oldug;t.mu anlad1m ve miiteakip miiliikatlar bu.onsezimi teyit etti, <;:UnkU o bana "cabecillas" veya
yerelliderlerin pe,mi nasll takip ettigini anlattJ..
Fakirligin en alt duzeyi ile kar'?lia;;tJ.gunm bilincinde
'la;;km ve tetikte bu kadma veda ettim. Kente dondugum
otobuste, yazili tarihin artJk benim 19m ayru 'ley
olarmyacag,ru anladrm. Onun kabulleri ile benimkilerin arasmdaki u.;:urumun Pilar'm cehaleti ile benim okuryazarllgundan kaynakland1guu hissettim. Senelerdir oy
kullanmama konusu fuerinde ara;;t1rma yapmama ve
yazmama ragmen, bu okur-yazar olmayan i'l<;:i kad1nla
tutarll bir ili:;;ki kuramarm.,tJ.m. Buna kar;;ilik, akl-1 selimi
ve tecrtibesi ile Pilar bana geni;; toplum kesimi i.;:in se.;:men ka:b.lunciligmm ne demek oldugunu anlamama yardunCl olacak koklu bir ipucu vermi:;;ti. Bu daha onceki tarih<;ilerin yorumlanndan c;ok daha degiik bir ;;eydi. Ve
tam tersine, ayru anda o bana 1930'larda oy kullanmamarun manas1 ile ilgili tamamiyle ba:;;ka bir yorum sunmutu.
1970'lerin ba.,lanndan itibaren se<;men katilinurun
modell=esini ve oy kullanmama davraiU;;lar= incelemekteydim. Omitlerimin ve tarih Y3Zl.cili!1;unm varsa}'lmlanrun aksine, ispanya'run halk )'lguuan kendiliklerinden .
devrimci degildiler. Aynca ekseriyetin, onlara oy kullanmamalan y6niinde direktif veren anar.,ist liderlerin pe.,m. den gitmedigini farkettim. Pilar ile yaptJ.gun mUlakat sonucunda okuma yazma bilmeden ispanya'da kendini politikaya adamamn zor oldugunu anlamaya ba:;;ladnn. Bu
tip kimseler i:;;c;ilere ait sfueli yayullan ve bro:;;urleri okuyabilmeli idiler. Bu yilzden tarih<;:iler buytik 6l<;:iide cahil
kitleler arasmda mevc:ut oldugu ileri surUlen anar.,ist militanlar ile ilgili ipu<;:lanru. yeniden dikkatle incel=elidirler.
B~<;:ika'daki Ghent Dniversitesi'nde FrimsJZca dil bilim profes6ru Dominique Willems ile birlikte okur-yazar
16
Introduction
j{
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Giri:?
17
.!it.
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1985, we presented a paper on our work at the Vth

International Oral History Conference in Barcelona
entitled "Language and Power in Catalonia during -the
1930s." We concluded that illiterates had difficulty using
abstract concepts, that it was almost impossible for them
to become militants, and that they were difficult to reach
through political slogans. At the conference, it was evident
that our ideas, which emphasized illiteracy and not misery
in understanding workers' lives and their political
participation and social struggle, were not accepted among
the small group of historians and sociologists leading the
European oral history movement at that time.
Despite difficulties in making roy ideas known among
scholars in Europe, since 1983 I have focused on illiteracy
as a major historical theme. Professor Kathryn Kish Sklar
of State University of New York at Binghamton, whom I
have known since the XVth International Congress of
Historical Sciendes held in 1980 in Bucharest, convinced
me to pursue opportunities in the United States, where roy
ideas might get a better reception. For 1989-1990, 1
obtained a fellowship at the Wilson Center in Washington,
D.C .. There I finished my book, Atlas of the Evolution of
Illiteracy in Spain between 1887 and 1981 and the article
~Anarchism,
Political Participation and Illiteracy in
Barcelona between 1934 and 1936."' During the last two
months of roy fellowship, I had the time to interview
several illiterate persons in Baltimore. I know very well
that the two main shortcomings of these interviews are
that the interviewees were not a scientifically chosen
sample and that I myself am not an expert on American
History. Nevertheless the interviews show that oral history
can be a shortcut to regaining our lost co=on sense on
crucial aspects of our lives, such as what it means to be
literate or illiterate in our societies, and that unusual
dialogues open our imagination to new worlds. My
questions, deriving from a study of anarchists, non-voters,
and political and social repression in Spain elicited
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olmamarun anlam1 konusuna, okuma yazma bilen ile bilmeyen i9ilerin kar>laljtrrmall bir c;:al>masml yaparak
yaklamak karan ald1k ve 1985 y1lmda Barcelona'da yap>lan
V.
U!uslararas1
Sozlu
Tarih
Konferans1'na
"19301arda Katalonya'da Dil ve Gu<;:" konulu bir bildiri
sunduk
Bu <;:alu;mada okur-yazar olmayanlarm soyut
kavramlar1 kullanmakta zorluk cektikleri sonucuna vardlk, bir baljka degisle, onlann militan olabilmelermin hemen hemen o!anaks1z oldugunu ve onlara politik sloga.ollar
il<: Ula~m zorlugunu yurgnlasilk. Konferansta belli oldu ki o 6nem Avrupa sozlu tarih hareketinin ba'>= c;:eken
kU<;:uk bir grup tarih<;:i ve sosyolog, ilJ9ilerin yaljamlarm> ve
politik katllunc>hklan ile sosyal mucadelelerini anlayabilmek i9in bizim sefalet yerine okumam>l>J.t vurgulama fikrimizi kabullenmiyorlarru.
Avrupall bilim adamlanna fikirlerimizi kabul ettirebilmenin zorluklarma ragmen 1983'den itibaren ana bir
tarihsel tema olarak okumaml'?hk uzerine odaklandlm.
Bukre,.'te 1980 Y>lmda yapurm alan XV. Uluslararas1 Tarih Bilimleri Kongresi'nden beri tanltlguruz Binghamton'
daki New York State Dniversitesi'nde Prof. Kathryn Kish
Sklar, fikirlerinlin daba olumlu karlJllanabilecegi Amerika
Birleik Devletleri'nde araljtrrma o!anaklarmm peO>inden
gitmeye beni ikna etti. 1989-1990 akademik Y>lmda Washington, D.C.'deki Wilson Center'dan bir burs temin ettim.
Orada 1887 ila 1981 Ytllan Arasm.da jspanya'daki Okumamtltgm Euriminin Atlast isimli kitabum ve "l934 ila
1936 Yillan Arasmda Barcelona'da Anari, Politik Katlluncilik ve Okumam>!jhk" adll makalemi tamamladlm. 1 Burs
siiremin son ik:i aymda ise Baltimore'da okur-yazar olmayan birka9 kimse ile millakat yapmaya vaktim oldu. Bu
mu!akatlarm iki onemli eksikliginin, yani bu kiroselerin
bilimsel denekleme yoluyla se<;:ilmediklerinin ve benim Amerikan tarihi konusunda u=an olmadlgurun bilincindeydim. Bununla birlikte mulakatlar gosterdi ki sozlu tarih yalJa.minuzm can allCl sathalan ile ilgili kaybettijfuruz
akl-1 selimimizi tekrar elde etmem.izin kestirme bir yolu~ ornegin toplum.l.an=da okumu:1luk ve okumam>h-
't;'h''i'l
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18
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Introduction
19
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answers that by (comparison\ help us understand some

aspects of the life inside the American fourth world.
The Baltimore interviews were conducted in 1990,
roughly thirty years after the beginning of the post
industrial era. Mihain Nadin calls this new period The
Civilization of Illiteracy, that is, a post-literate
civilization based on various altematives to alphabetic
literacy
including
artificial
languages
(such
as
prograrmning languages), mathematical symbolism, the
formalisms of new science (genetics, molecular biology,
astrophysics,
etc.),
visualization,
and
multimedia
(computer-based or not).' Thus, if one agrees with Nadin,
whlle traditional literacy is still necessary in our
civilization, it no longer dominates these new dimensions
of human undestanding. Human interactions across time
and space made possible by electronic media, and
especially by networking, lead to more efficient actions and
different types of human "self-constitution." Consequently,
it might soon be impossible to find persons like those I
interviewed in Barcelona and Baltimore, who lived during
an epoch when literacy was most needed (as defined by
pragmatics of the industrial age), but nonetheless has
been able to survive without literacy.
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grn ne anlarna geldigini i'laret eder ve olagand''l' dialoglar

hayal gt1cumuzti. yepyeni dunyalara a<;:ar. 1spanya'daki
politik ve sosyal baslalar ile anar~istler ve oyJao.!lanmayanlar uzerindeki <;:ah!jmalanmdan <;:>kard1grm
so;rulanm, Amerika'mn di:irdii.ncu dunyas1mn ya'jamma ait
baz1 gi:irunumleri kar!jila,tu-mah olarak alg>lamama yardriii.cl olacak cevaplan almanu saglaml'jtlT.
Baltimore mulakatlar1 1990 y:ilinda, endustri sonraSl
donemin ba'jlangJ.cmdan yakla'llk otuz yil sonra yapllrru'ltJ.r.
Mih.ain Nadin bu yeni donemi Okur-Yazar olmayan.lann. Uygarlz{Jt olarak tamrnlamakta, yani okur-yazar uygarllgl sonrasmm alfabetik okumu'lluga <;:e~itli alternatifler sundugu
bir sfue<;: olarak gi:irmektedir, i:imegin suni diller (programlama dilleri), matematiksel semboli=, yeni bilimlerin bi<;:imselligi (genetik, molekiiler biyoloji, astro-fizik., vs.), canland!rma. ve multi-medya (bilgisayar bazh veya degil)? BoyIeee, eger Nadin ile aym fikri payla'lacak isek, geleneksel okur-yazar becerisinin uygarhguruz i<;in halen gerekli o]9.ugunu kabul etmekle birlikte, insan algilamasmm. yeni boyutlanna artJ.k hukm.etmedigini kabullenmeliyiz. Elektronik
ortam ve ozellikle, ag-yapilanmalan zaman ve mekan boyutl.annda kar,wkh insan etkile'limlerini daha etkili
aktiv:itilere ve degi'lik tiirde insani "oz-yap1"lara y6nlendirmektedir. DolaSlyla, lasa bir slire sonra Barcelona'da ve
Baltimore'da mulaka.t yaptlgtm. tii.rde, okur-yazarhgrn .son
derece gerekli oldugu (sanayi ~ sebep-son~/
pragmatik ili'lkilerince tarumknnu, clan) donerode ya'lan:u, ,
fakat yine de okuma-yazma bilmeden ya'lamlanm sii.rdii.rebilmi insanlan. bulmak olanak.SlZ!a,acaktJ.r .
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1. My Work in Barcelona
1. Barcelona'daki
Spain during the years 1931 to 1939 was the most

important center of anarchist activism in the world. Unlike
the United States, Spain had no tradition of compromise
within a framework of democratic institutions. Between
1923 and 1930 Spanish society had endured the Primo de
Rivera dictatorship, but in 1931 the Republican Left won
the municipal elections in all the major Spanish cities.
King Alfonso XIII went into exile and a parliamentary
democratic republic, which some of our interviewees
defined as a "gift from heaven," was established. But two
years later rin 1933 the Right again won the general
election and Spain eXperienced another dramatic shift of
goverment. During these years, the political milieu was
imbued with an exalting moral dimension as left-wing
trade unions and political parties at the extremes of both
Right and Left all fought for their particular social vision of
Spain. The Right maintained that it was going to save
Spain from lebels and reds, and the Left wanted immediate
revolution to end the extreme eXploitation of rural urban
workers. The political tension was extremely high when in
February 1936 all the parties from the Left joined i:he Popular Front and toget):J.er won the last election of the
Second Republic. Four months later the Right and the
army launched the civil war.
The Confederation of National Labor (CNT) was an
anarcho-syndicalist trade union, during the . 1930s the
strongest trade union rin Catalonia, the North East region
of Spain. Traditionally, anarchists have opposed the state
and political parties, and therefore, have opposed electoral
participation. The CNT's "Do Not Vote" campaign from
ispanya 1932 ila 1939 yillan arasmda diinyarun en 5nemli

anariSt eylem merkezi idi. Birleik Devletler'in aksine, ispanya'run demokratik kurumlar t;;ero;:evesi it;;inde bir uzlama gelenegi yoktu. 1923 ila 1930 yillan arasmda ispanyol toplumu Primo de Rivera diktatorliigune katlannutl, fakat 1931 'de Cumhuriyet<;i Sol ispanya'run tUm 5nemli kentlerinde belediye se<;imlerini kazarurutl. Kral
Alfonso XIII siirgiine gitmi ve mUlil.kat yapuguruz baz1 kiilerin "cennetten ge!en 5dUl" diye nitelendirdikleri bir
parlamenter demo)<:ratik cumhuriyet kurulmu'ltu. Fakat
iki yll sonra 1933'de Sag gene! set;;imlerden yeniden zaferle
t;;llam'l ve ispanya bir kez daha dramatik bir hiikiimet degiikligi yaanu'lb- Bu yillarda politik ortam sol kanat i'l<;i
sendikalan ile Sag'm ve Sol'un uo;:lanndaki siyasi partilerin
ispa,;;,ya'ya kendi sosyal vizyonlanru uyglllama saval ver-.
dikleri heyecan dolu bir ahlaksal boyut ile dopdoluyd~.
Sag ispanya'yJ. isyanc.!lardan ve kl.zillardan koruyacagun
iddia ederken Sol ise kentli ve koy!U i'l<;il.errin dayarolrnaz
s5miirillmelerine son v=ek it;;in derhal bir devrim isti-
yordu. Siyasi tansiyon ~ubat 1936'da en yiiksek seviyesine eri'liiJi,:ken soldaki tUm partiler PopUler Cephe'de birle'liP ikinci Cumhuriyet'in son gene! se<;imlerini kazanchlar.
Dort ay sonra Sag ve Ordu birleerek it;; saval ba'llatu.
}:Jlusal i'l<;iler
Konfederasyonu
(CNT)
ihtilalcisendikalist bir i'l<;i 5rg(i.tU olup 1930'larda ispanya'run kuzeydogu b5lgesi clan Katalonya'run en kuwetli i:;<;i sendikas1ydl. Geleneksel olarak anar'listler devlete ve siyasi
partilere kar'll t;;J.krm'l ve dolayrszyla sec;:men katJ.hmciligun
. da redetmilerdir. CNT'nin 1931 'den 1936'ya kadar siir-
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22
My Work in Barcelona
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1931 to 1936 has been understood by many historians

and activists to have had an extremely important influence
on the political fluctuations of the Second Republic, the
Spanish political system between 1931 and 1939.
According to this line of thought, the Right was able to win
the general elections in 1933 because workers acted on
the anarchists' "Do Not Vote" policy. The victories of the
moderate Left in 1931 and in the Popular Front election of
1936 are similarly explained as the result of workers'
refusal to adhere to the anarchist position. Whether or not
the anarchists' policy was successful, as an explanation of
changes in the Spanish parliament, the interpretation has
assumed almost mythic proportions. Like all myths, it has
persisted because it serves ideological purposes; it
magnifies the strenght of the anarchists, while allowing
the Man<i.st Left to rationalize the low level of Communist
participation in 1930s elections by pointing to the
abstention of the great mass of workers. The presumed
power of the anarchists also provided an excuse for the
extreme Right to abolish democratic institutions on the
grounds that anarchist workers were unable to
understand the function of political consensus and
parliamentary government. But this explanation of
electoral behaviour had never been subjected to a close
analysis of actual electoral n;turns.
When I initiated my research, in the early seventies, I
wanted to find out if, as it was generally assumed, workers
reacted spontaneously against the Franco military
upheaval of 1936. An analysis of the membership of the
revolutionary committees in many Catalan villages clearly
showed that in July of 1936-, when Franco started the civil
war, n;1embers were already affiliated with political or trade
union organizations.. In no case had revolutionary
committees formed spontenously. in reaction to the civil
war. This convinced me that political commitment prior to
the war shaped anti-Franco militancy. To further
determine the strength of Catalan militancy, I decided to
durdugu "Oyunu Kullanma" kampanyasmm, bir c;:ok tarihc;:i ve eylemci tarafmdan 1931 ila 1936 arasmdaki ispanyol
siyasal sistemi clan ikinci Cumhuriyet'in d'iizensiz politik
degi,.imleri uzerinde gok onernli etkisi oldugu du,.unUlmu'?tiir. B~ taraftarlanna gore 1933 gene! sec;:ir:Q
Sa-'
asmm arkasmda anar'?istlerin "0yun~t~~as! vard1. Bu:ri"'a
kar'?1llk, 193l'de Sol'un sec;:im zaferinin ve 1936'da Populer
Cephe'nin iktidara gelmesinin arkasmda ise bu kez ic;:ilerin anar,.istlerin konumlanru redetmelerinden kaynaklanc:IJ.i?;l belirtilmektedir. Anar'?istlerin politikas1 bao;;anh olsun
veya olmasm, ispanyol parlomentosundaki degio;;imler bu
o;;ekilde ac;:lklanmaktadrr ve bu yorum giderek hemen hemen efsanevi boyuta ula'ln:u'ltlr- Ancak tUm mitler gibi ideolojik amac;:lara hizmet ettiginden sfueklilik kazanmltlr;
yani, bir yandan anar'listlerin giiciinu aba:rt:Jrken, diger ! l1(-:il'.
_.t-~
yandan 1930'lardaki sec;:irnlerde komonist1erin ba,ans!Zhi?;lnl Markist Sol'un, i'lc;:ilerin buyiik oranda sanc:IJ.ga gitmemesinden kaynaklanc:IJ.g,. saVl ile ac;:lklamasma yo! agn:u:;:tlr. Anaristlerin sahip olduklan varsay:Uan bu giic;:leri
ise diger taraftan en uc;:taki Sag'm, anaristlerin siyasal filcir birligi. kavram:J ile parlamenter hUkfunetin ilevlerini
anlamaktan aciz olduklan mazeretini ileri surerek demokratik kururnlan feshetmelerine yo! a<;:n:utlr. Ancak, se9.menler!R.l;>;u:!avr~.J;;J.kirn.i..J:liLQir_zaman .sanc:IJ.k_say:>.m
sonuc;:!_~ ~ynn1:l!J,!1ir!\A<llizi..ik.;<;;manm.=:;;1:!r.
1970'lerin balannda aratJ.rmalaruna ba,.lac:IJ.g,mda,

gene! karuya uygun olarak, i'lcilerin kendiliklerinden
1936'daki Franko askeri ayaklanmasma karl glktp <;lkmadlklanru belirlemek istedim. Birc;:ok Katalunya koyU.ndeki devrimci komitelere 'ait uyelik kaYJ,tlan '(izerinde yapJ.ln:u clan bir inceleme, Te=uz 1936'da Franko ic;: sava'll ba JattJ.- da, Uyelerin zaten Slyasal veya sendikal orgiitler]e ilikisj xcm e o ugunu gostermisti. Devrimci ko:diltelerin sivil sava.,a tepki sonucu kendiliklerinden olutuklanna dair hic;:bir kan1t yoktu. Bu durum Franko karItl militanhjb.n sava., oncesindeki siyasal baglanti soptu;.u
'lekillenmi:;; olduguna beni ikna etti. Katalunya militanb.gi-
24
B:ucelona'daki
<;ab~alanm
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investigate the relationship between the CNT anarchist

leaders and the great masses affliated with the CNT by
calculating the degree of popular acceptance of the
anarchist slogan, "Do not vote." My hypothesis at this time
was still based on the traditional historiography, which
asserted either that the anarcho-syndicalists refusal to
vote was responsible for the parliamentary shifts that
ultimately led to Franco military coup or that the
spontaneism, millennarism, and utopianism of these sam.e
masses led to their defeat in the civil war.>
I and my team. of researchers did field work in a
number of Catalan villages including l'Escala and Sant
Feliu de Guixols, strongholds of the Left with a long
anarchist tradition, and Beuda, stronghold of .the Right
with a long nationalist tradition. We analyzed electoral
returns between 1931 and 1936, which, amazingly enough
in Catalonia, are almost complete for a majority of
elections. Through statistical analysis we were able to
identify constant non voters; we proceeded to interview
those still alive and those whom we could locate, a total of
45 people. Our research demonstrated that the great
majority of those belonging to the CNT did not adhere to
the "Do Not Vote" policy and that the small number of
consistent non voters, about 2% of the registered voters,
included two groups: the higly politicized and the
marginalized-including the old, immigrants, day workers,
and the illiterate.' I then tested my hypothesis further in
the city of Barcelona where I could find data only for the
last three elections held during the Second Republic: the
local elections of 1934 to elect the mayor and council:men;
the legislative election for the Spanish parliament, that is
the Popular Front election of February 1936; and the
Compromisarios of April 1936, an election to chose
delegates who, together with the parliamentary deputies,
then chose the president of the Republic. Our research
group stUdied patte=s of electoral behaviour .through a
run gti.<:Unu daha ger~;ek<;;i olarak belirlemek am.aC! ile Ulusal i:;;~;iler Konfederasyonu (CNT) 'nin anarist liderleri ile
CNT'ye bag!an1JJJ buyil.k kitleler arasmdaki ili:;;kilerin "oyunu kullanma" sloganmm populer kabul goru,.o.nu hesaplayarak incelemeye karar verdim. Bu donemde hala varsaYlmrm, ya anar'list-sendikalistlerin oy kul.laJ:una:ma eylemleri- l
nfu parlam.enter kaymalara yo! a<;:J.p neticede Franko askeri
darbesini getirdi@).e, ya da bu kitlelerin kendi ba,.lanna hareket etrneleri ve ban ~nu gjrp.iiiJ,lYl-y; de jjtawac,hkJan 'sonucu i9 savata yenilmelerine y~,ng,m ileri sfuen
gel:eneksel tarih ~' tezlerin~ da,y<i.l1wo;rdu.3
Ben ve ara,.trrma ekibim, aralannda uzun bir anarist
gelenegi alan solun kalelerinden l'Escala ve Sant Feliu de
Guixols ile yine uzun bir ti:l.tt>.cu gelenegi alan sagm kalesi
Beuda'run da dahil oldugu bir ka<;: Katalunya koy(inde sa. ha aratlrmaS1 yaptlk. 1931 ile 1936 yillan arasmdaki sec;imlerin ~;ogu i<;:in Katalunya a<;:1smdan inarulmaz bir ekilde hemen hemen eksiksiz korunmu alan se9men kiitUklerini inceledik. istatistiki incelemeler sonucu surekli
oy kullanmayanlan belirleme imkfuumlz oldu. Halen
hayatda alan ve ula:;;abildigi.D;riz toplam. 45 ki:;;i ile mUlakat
yaptlk. iricelememiz gostermitir ki CNT'ye uye olanlann
<;:ogu "oyunu kullanm~olitikasma uymaiml,ardrr ve de
kaYlth se<;:menlerin %2 ine tekabill eden ve siirekli oy
kullanmayan kU<;:Uk bir bolfunu ise aralannda ya<;;hlar ve
go<;:menler ile gti.nluk i<;:iler v~kuma-ya=a bi~eyenleri
kapsam.akta ve yogun politize'tlimular ile maxjin~er diye
iki gruba aynlmaktaydJ..4 Hipotezimi daha a:ynnt:ili olarak
smamak amacryla bu kez Barcelona kentinde ikinci Cumhuriyet donemindeki se<;:imlerden verilerine ulaabildigim
yalmzca son u<;: se<;;im sonuc;:l= inceledim. Bu sec;imler
1934 yilindaki belediye bakaru ve meclis uyeleri se<;:imi,
ispanyol Parlamentosu i<;:in yapLlan milletvekili sec;:imleri,
yani 1936 ~ubat'mdaki Popiller Cephenin sec;:ilmesi, ve
1936 Nisan'mdaki "Compromisarios"uri, yani parlamentodaki milletvekilleri ile birlilkte Cu.mhurba,.kan1'ru. se<;:en
delegelerin sec;:imi idi. ahma ekibimiz Barcelona sec;imlerinin suuflandlnln:u 6meklemesi uzerinden se<;:men dav-
~ Booazici Oniversitesi Kutuphanesi ~-
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26
.,
Barcetona'daki Call!?malanm
stratified sample of the Barcelona electorate. For the

municipal election of 1934, we sampled 12 electoral
sections or districts with a total of 7,034 electors, of whom
1,154 were illiterate. For the two 1936 elections, among a
total electorate of about 600,000 we sampled 24,798
electors from 41 sections including 4,510 illiterates.
By tracking individuals across data sets, we
uncovered relationships between voting pattems over time
and such variables as gender, age, wealth, party
membership, literacy, and position in the work force. In
addition we developed electoral trajectories for our sample
electorate, that is a record of each person's participation or
abstention in the three elections under study. For
example, we were able to determine that a specific
individual voted in the municipal election, abstained in the
Popular Front election, and . voted again in the
Compromisarios. For the analysis of anarchist behaviour,
these electoral trajectories are the only way to find out who
the non-voters really were. We then determined their
occupation profiles and the motivations for voting or not
through other written and oral sources.
Key factors in non-voting behaviour, in both the
villages and in Barcelona were age and gender. As in other
parts of the world, voters younger than thirty abstained
more than mature voters. And, also as in other parts of the
world, women taken as a group tended to vote ten percent
less than men. But the most nnportant explanatory facto~:.
turned out to be illiteracy. Illiterate men tended to vote
less than literate women do, and illiterate women
abStained from voting much more than illiterate men.
Almost 50 percent of illiterate women and more than 30
per=t of illiterate men in Barcelona never voted-an
impressive e=ple of their political marginality. Thus we
could dem.onstrate a social division deeper than either age
or gender.
ran1~1
27
tiplemesi hakla.nda inceleme yaptJ.. 1934 belediye

se<;;imleri i<;;in 12 sec;:im b5lgesinden l154'U okur-yazar olmayan toplam 7034 sec;:menden olu~an ornekleme aldlk.
1936'daki iki sec;:im ic;:in ise toplam 600,000 sec;:menden 41
kesime tekabUl eden ve 4510'u okur-yazar olmayan
24,798 5mekleme aldlk.
Veri setlerinden ki~ileri izleyerek zaman ic;:ersindeki ve
cinsiyet, ya, servet, parti uyeligi, okur-yazarllk ve i~ gU.cu
ic;:ersindeki pozisyonu gibi degikenlerin 'U.zerinden oy verme ah~kanhklan arasmdaki ili~kileri <;:5zU.mledik. Buna ek
olarak 5meklemelerimizdeki se<;menler i<;;in se<;:men mahrekleri gelitirdik, yani her kii i<,;in s0z konusu u<;: se<;;ime
katllma ve kahlmama ka}'ltlanru. <;lkardlk. Omegin, herhangi bir se<;:menin belediye se<;;iml.erinde oy kullanmayrp
'Compromisarios'lann sec;:iminde yeniden oy kullandlguu
belirledik. Anarist tutumun analizi ac;:1smdan bu se<;:men
mahrekleri bize gerc;:ekten kimlerin oy vermeyenler oldugunu ortaya glkarttJ.. Bundan sonra bu kimselerin meslek
durumlanru ve de oy kullaruna ya da oy kullanmama tercihlerinin arkasmdaki durtilleri yazili. ve sozlu kaynaklardan saptamaya <;:ahtJ.k.
Hem k5ylerde ve hem de Barselona'da oy kullanmama
tutumunun arkasmdaki en 5nemli etkenler ya~ ve cinsiyet
idi. Dunyanm diger y5relerinde oldugu gibi 30 Ya'>m al'tl:ndaki se<;:menler olgun sec;:menlerden daha slk oy kullanmaktachrlar. Ve, yine dunyanm diger yorelerinde oldugu
.,ekilde kadJ.nlar, bir grup olarak almdlklannda, erkeklerden %10 orarunda daha az oy kullanma egilimindeler. Ancak en 5nemli ac;:lklaylcl gostergenin okur-yazar olmamaktan kaynaklandlg,. anla~iliru~trr. Okur-yazar olmayan
erkeklerin okur-yazar kadmlardan daha az oy kullandlklan ve okur-yazar olmayan kadJ.nlann okur-yazar olmayan
erkeklerden daha az oy kullanchldan ortaya . <;:Ikb..
Barcelona'daki okur-yazar olmayan kacimla= yaJda:ilk
%50'si ve okur-yazar olm.ayan erkeklerin %30'undan fazlaSl hie;: oy kul.lanmaml.,lardl. Bu onlann siyasetin ne kadar
kenannda durduklanna dair <;:arpl<;:J. bir g5stergeydi. Boy-
28
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Our electoral analysis showed poverty, in addition to

illiteracy, as strongly correlated with voting behaviour. In
Barcelona we could measure poverty in so far as it could
be deduced from occupational status. Significantly, among
women the group that most abstained from voting was
illiterate domestic servants, probably the most isolated and
poor group of workers in all of Barcelona. For l'Escala
(population about 2,500), the availability of income tax data
allowed me to differentiate more precisely between poor
illiterates and poor literates among the male population. I
could not do this for women, because the only females to
appear in income tax registers were widows. As in other
countries, poor men in l'Escala tended to vote less often
than not poor men. But we also found that poor literate
men voted more often than poor illiterate men did. As a
result, I concluded that among the illiterate, poverty
increases the likelihood of nonvoting behaviour. Through
interviews I also tried to discover whether illiteracy was an
individual characteristic or shared among members of a
family. While illiterates were more likely than not to have
illiterate parents, a more significant finding was the degree
to which a politically committed spouse encouraged voting
behaviour among illiterates, suggesting that political
commitment and the capacity for sclidarity with others can
break the isolation imposed by illiteracy.
Once I demonstrated that non-voting behaviour was
seldom due to affiliation with the CNT or adherence to the
anarchists' "Do Not Vote" campaign, we decided to study
non-voters in greater detail. To understand how social
revolution developed during the collectivization period
between 1936 and 1939, we closely scrutinized the
demographic
proflle
and
political
behaviour
of
approximately 1,600 workers at a Barcelona metalurgical
firm. From company docum.ents we were able to
determine workers' (blue collar or white collar) (moderate
or radical) political beliefs, occupational status and level of
political activism (leaders, militant activists, or less
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Barcelona'daki <;alt::}malanm
29
lece bizler hem ya<;dan, hem de cinsiyetten daha derin bir

sosyal ayn<;may:~ ortaya koymu<; olduk.
Se-;men analizimiz yoksullugun da, okur-yazar olmamanm yanmda, se<;:men tutumu ile ilgili gii<;:lu bir ili'lkiyi
sergiledigini gi5sterdi. Barcelona'da yoksullugu, mesleki
analizlerden <;:Ikanlabildig; i5l<;:ii.de saptayabildik. Anlamll
bir <;ekilde, kadmlar arasmda Barcelona'da en faz!a slkllkla oy ku!lanmayan grup, en <;:ok tecrit olmu,. ve en yoksul ve de okur-yazar olm.ayan hizmet<;:ilerdi. L 'Escala'da
(niifus 2500) eldeki gelir vergisi verilerinden yola <;:lkarak,
erkek nii.fus i<;:ersindeki yoksul okur-yazar oimayanlar ile
okur-yazar clan yoksullan daha bii.yii.k bir kesinlikle ay:lrt
edebilme. olanag,. sagladlk. Kadmlar i<;:in ayru '!eyi yapamadu:n, <;:ilnkii. gelir vergisi kay:~tlarmda tespit edilebilen tek
kadm grubu dullar idi. Diger li!kelerdeki gibi, L'Escala'daki
yoksul erkekler, yoksul olm.ayan erkeklerden daha az slkllkla oy kullaru.yorlarcii. Fakat ayru zamanda yoksul okuryazar erkeklerin yoksul okur-yazar olmayanlardan daha
slk1lkla oy kullanciigu:u belirledik. Sonu<;: olarak, okur-yazar
olmayanlar arasmda yoksullugun artmas1yla oy kullanmama temayii.llinlin arttJ.g,_ neticesine vardu:n. Millakatlar vaSltasiyla da okur-yazar olmamanm ki:;;isel bir ozellik mi oldugu, ya da ailenin diger fertleri tarafindan da payla~ilip
pay~aciiguu ortaya <;:lkarmaya <;:ah,.um.
Okur-yazar
olm.ayanlarm ebeveynleri genellikle okur-yazar deg;!ken,
daha kayda deger bir bulu:;;umuz ise politik olarak kendini
adanu:;; clan bir e:;;, diger okur yazar olmayanlan politik tarafhllk ve digerleri ile dayaru.<;ma i<;:inde alma yeteneginin
cehaletin yii.kledigi tecrit edilm.e halini larmaya yaraciigr. i<;:in
oy kullanmaya te:;;vik etmekteydi.
Bir kez oy kulla.runama davraru.,.mm nadiren CNT ile
ili'!kili oldugunu ve anar.,istlerin "oyunu kuJlanma kampanyasma baglilik ile ili'!kisi olm.aciiguu gi5sterdikten sonra, oy kullanmayanlan daha geni~ ayrmn ile incelemeye
karar verdik. 1936 ila 1939 Ylllan arasmdaki donemde
sosyal devrimin nasll. geli.,tigini anlamak ~<;:in Barcelona'
daki bir metaloxji fabrikasmdaki yakla,.lk 1600 i'i<;:inin
demografik profllini ve politik davraru:;;rm o;:ok yakmdan
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Barcelona'dald
~all:;malanm
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militant affiliates). We found further information about

most of the militant workers in the Minutes of the General
Assemblies held during the collectivization period, and
also by conducting oral history interviews. Unfortunately,
company records did not include data on illiteracy; for this
we referred back to electoral sources.
Combining data from the firm's documents and the
electoral census, we created a list of voters that included
information about ideological affiliation and level of
literacy. We also developed electoral information on 300 of
the firm's workers. We found three main patterns: those
who never voted, those who always voted, and those who
voted only during the Popular Front election. We then
projected these electoral pattems onto a schedule of the
workers' personal socio-political behavior during the civil
war and subsequent Francoist repression. Analysis of this
data made clear that the illiterate population did not
experience repression as intensely as the literate
population because illiterates usually were not =ilitants.
(There was one exception however: from oral sources we
learned that illiterate women who had militant fathers,
husbands, or brothers were fired because of these family
relationship). Reading the minutes of the collectivized
factory we also discovered that each of the three main
electoral pattems corresponded to a particular level of
political leadership or militancy and also to the level of
Francoist repression experienced after the civil war. The
socialist or republican leadership always voted and some
of these, because of thdr knowledge and literacy, held
important positions during the war. One became manager
of the factory during the absence of the owners and he
suffered only ye:ry mild repression since he only lost his job.
Moderate anarchists who voted only in the Popular Front
election suffered a more serious fate, they were interred in
concentration camps, jails, and tortured. A minority of the
anarchist leaders who were radical and ideological nonvoters were tortured and executed after the war.'
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mercek altma aldlk.s Firmanm ar:;;iv belgelerinden (mavi

yakalr ve beyaz yakalr) i<;:ilerin (rlunh veya radikal) politik
inanc;:lan ile onlarm mesleki statiileri ve politik eylemcilik
seviyelerini (liderler, militan eylemciler, veya daha az milltan eylemciler olarak) belirledik. Kolektivizasyon Donerni'nde yapilrru clan Genel Asambleler'in tutanaklanndan
militan i9iJ.er ile ilgili <;:ok daha geni bilgilere ulatrk ve
onlarla s6zlii tarih miilakatlan- gerc;:ekletirdik. $anssrz bir
ekilde f"rrma arivinde okur-yazar olrnayanlar hakkmda
veri yoktu. Bunun igin geri doniip sec;:men kUtiiklerine
ba.,vurduk.
Firmarun arivleri ile sec;rn:en sayunlanr:u birletirip
sec;:menler hakkmda id.eolojik ilikileri ve okur-yazarhk seviyelerini ic;:eren bir liste ortaya <;:lkardlk. Aynca firmarun
300 i<;:isi iizerinde sec;:men bilgileri gelitirdik. Oc;: ana olgu belir!edik: hie;: oy kullanmayanlar; her zam.an oy verenler; ve, yalruzca Popiller Cephe se<;:irnlerinde oy kullananlar. Bu sec;:men temayiillerini daha sonra i'l<;:ilerin i<;:
sava ve sonraki Franco baskl rejimi srrasmdaki ferdi
sosyo-politik taVtrlanru. g6steren bir tabloya yansrtbk. Bu
verilerin anali.zi a<;:rkca g6sterdi ki okur-yazar olmayan
nufus, okur-yazar nufus kadar basklyr hissetmemilerdi
<;:Unkii onlar genellikle militan deg;Jlerdi. (Ancak bir istisna varm; sozlu tarih miilakatlan srrasmda g6rdiik ki okuryazar olmayan fakat militan babasr, kocasr veya erkek
kardei alan kadmlar bu ailesel bagdan dolayr iten aWmwlarm). Kolektivi.ze olmU fabrikarun tutanaklanru okudugumuzda yine g6rduk ki bu U.c;: ana sec;rn:en tavn 6zelligi
alan bir politik liderlige veya militanhga ve de sivil savatan sonraki Franco donemi basklya tekabill etmektedir.
Sosyalist veya Cumhuriyetc;:i lider kadrosu her zaman oy
kullar=lar ve bunlann bir kl.sm1 bilgi diizeyleri ve okuryazarhklan yiiziinden sava,ta 6nemli mevkilerde bulun. mularru. ic;:lerinden biri fabrikarun sahiplerinin yoklugunda y6neticilik yapmr ve yalruzca i'linden olup c;:ok ha.Iu
bir basla g6rmU.tU. Sadece Popiller Cephe sec;:irnlerinde
oy kullanan llunh anaristler ise <;:ok daha ciddi sonuc;:larla
kar:;lla:;trular, toplarna kampl.anna ve hapishanelere ka-
32
Barcelona'daki c;.a.h:1}malanm
33
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Although we conducted one hundred interviews with

former workers from the Barcelona metallugical factory, as
well as with members of their families, if they were living
in the same household at the time of the interview' we
were only able to interview a very small group of illiterates
(nine women and three men), the only workers still
surviving in the mid-l980s whom we could identify as
illiterate. At the time of interviews, all were elderly,
between seventy-three and eighty-six years old. Compared
to interviews with even functionally literate workers, we
had considerable difficulty establishing dialogue with
these illiterate narrators in part due to their fear of talking
about the civil war even though it was more than forty
years in the past. And in part because they understood
our question in a very concrete way. For instance when we
asked: "What does it mean to vote?", the answer was, "To
put a piece of paper in a box. As a result we decic:J.ed to
pursue. two lines of questioning with each subject: first, we
asked narrators to relate their life history, and then we
asked more specific questions about voting, wor~. trade
unions, social revolution, .exile~ repression, and war. After
, several interviews, we observed that illiterates had
particular difficulty answering our specific questions,
which we had outlined in the form of a questionnaire.
There Was evidence of greater cooperation in the life
history section of the interview, where the presence of the
historian was less intrusive: answers were longer and
more complex and the illitei:ate narratox:, without leaving
his or her co=unicative universe, seemed better able to
share his or her story. We realized that in the interviews
we confronted a double gap. When trying to co=unicate
with illiterates, historians are handicapped by abstract
concepts like justice, d=ocracy, and socialism. And
illiterates are handicapped by their und-erstandable
unease and mistrust when confronted with a verbally
aggressive historian; representative of a reading culture
not accessible to th=-'
pati.hp i'}kence gormii.'}lerdi. Anar'}ist liderlerden radikal

olup ideolojik sebeplerden otii.ru oy kullanmam1'} alan azm!lk bir grup ise savatan sonra i~kenceden ge<;:irilip idam edilm.i,lerd.i.
Barcelona metalorji fabrikasmm eski ic;ileri ve aym
anda evlerinde ya,ayan aile fertleri ile 100 adet mii.la.kat
yaprm'> olmamJ.Za. ragmen <;:ok az say:1da.(dokuz kadm ve ii.<;:
erkek) okur-yazar olmayan kiiler ile goru,ebildik, ki
bunlar da 19801erm ortalannda halen hayatta olan ve bizim okur-yazar olmadlkl.anm belirleyebildigim:iz tek ic;i
grubu idiler. Mulakatlann yapild.J.jp su-ada hepsi ileri yalarda idiler, yani 73 ila 86 ya,lan arasmdaydilar. Eylemsel olarak okur-yazar i'?c;:iler ile yaptlij;)nuz mulakatlar ile
kar,ilaord.J.gmuzda bile okur-yazar olmayan bu anlab.cilar
ile diyalog kurmakta t;:ok zorland.J.k, <;:unkii. lark yildan
fazla bir zaman ge<;:mi olmasma ragmen it;: sava'> ile ilgili
konu.,m.a.ya korkuyorlard.J.. Bunun bir ba'?ka sebebi de
sordugum~ sorularm ce:vaplanm t;:ok katl bir ekilde anhyorlard.J.; 6megin, "Oy kullanmak ne demekti:r?" diye sordu!;umuzda, "Bir kajpt par<;:as1ru bir kutunun i<;:ine atma.ktlr" diye cevaplandJ.nyorlardJ.. Sonu<;:ta, her gorutii.gumii.z ki'>i ile iki ayn sorgulama yontemi kulland.J.k; birincisi, once hayat hikayelerini anlatmalanru. istedik ve sonra
oy kullanma, i~ hayatl, sendika, sosyal devrim, surgiin,
baslo ve sava'> gibi konularda daha aynntili sorular sorduk. Birka<;: mii.la.kat sonraSl gorduk ki okur-yazar olmayanlar bir anket fonnunda bizim dii.zenledigimiz aynntili
sorulara cevap vermekte <;:ok zorlanmaktadrrlar. MU!akatm
hayat hikayesi lasmmda daha faz1a i~?birl.igine dair ipu<;:lan
vard.J., <;:ii.nkii tarih<;:mm buradaki rolu 6zeJ. hayata daha az
kan'>maYI gerektiriyordu. Cevaplar daha uzundu ve daha
karmalktJ. ve de okur-yazar olmayan anlat1c1 kendi ileti:oimsel evrenini terk etmeden hikayesmi daha iyi payla'?mak olanaguu bulmu'> gibiydi. Mii.liikatlarda c;;ifte boluk
oldu!;llnun farlo.na vard.J.r. Okur-yazar olmayanlarla ileti:oim kurmaya <;ah'>u-ken tarihc;;il.er adalet, demokrasi , ve
soSYaJi= gibi soyut kavramlar yonii.nden oziirludu:tler.
Ve de okur-yazar olmayanlar ise, onlann ula,a.mad.J.jp bir
....,,
34
This study of Barcelona workers during the social

revolution and civil war has used statistics and other
written sources to clarify the main issues and to choose
the main narrators. But only through interviews we could
understand the meaning of literacy and illiteracy in the
lives of the workers during the 1930s.
Barcelona'daki Cal1$malarun
35
okuma kiiltiiril.n"G.n temsilcileri alan saldrrganca konukan

tarih9iler ile karl kar1ya kaldlklannda dogal olarak anla'>'labilir bir rahatsiZllk duygusu ve giiven eksikligi.nden
dolaYl 6zti.rluydii.ler. 7
Sosyal devrim ve i9 sava<> srrasmdaki Barcelona'11 ic;iler ile ilgili gerc;ekle,.tirilrni alan bu c;all,.ma srrasmda
istatistikler ve diger yazili belgeler kul.la.ru.lrru, b6ylece ana
konularm aydJ.nlattlmasmda ve ana anlat1c1lann sec;iminde
bunlar 6nemli olmutur. Ancak yalniZCa millakatlar yoluyla 1930'lardaki ic;ilerin hayatlannda okur-yazar alma
veya olamarna olgusunun manasuu kavrayabildik.
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2. My Work in Baltimore
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Having reached a certain point in my studies of Spanish

illiterates, and while in residence at the Woodrow Wilson
Center, I decided that it might be fruithful to conduct a
comparative study and to interview illiterates, or
functionally literate workers in the United States. Mainly 1
wanted to fmd out if illiteracy was as meaningful a social
characteristic in the United States as I was fmding it to be
in Spain. I also wanted to learn how Americans' attitudes
towards voting, political parties, and trade unions
compared to those of Barcelona workers and how . US
workers coped with their inability to read, with feelings of
shame, and with the invisibility that accompanies social
marginality. I thought that may be in the United States 1
would find keys to understanding what happened to the
illiterate poor of Barcelona.
It was not easy to find people to interview. In Washington, D. C., where the Woodrow Wilson Center is
located, people who could have helped me were afraid that
I would treat interviewees as gujnea pigs and repeatedly
refused my request for contacts. They were reacting like
most of my colleagues in the European oral history
mov=ent, who I find tend to be paternalistic and
overprotective of marginalized. Fortunately Anne Gray,
Head of the Aging Program and supervisor of an adult
literacy program in Baltimore, Maryland, (about thirty-five
miles north of Washington, D. C. ), understood my project
and introduced me to her colleague Gwendolyn Anderson,
an African-American who became my "chaperone. She
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ispanyol oku.manu,,an ile ilgili <;;all'j'malanm muayyen bir

noktaya vardrgmda ve Woodrow Wilson Center'da buiundugum srrada Birle,;k Devletlerdeki oku.manu,,ar veya gorevsel olarak oku.r-yazar i'j'<;;iler ile mu!akatlar yaprp kar'j'Ila::;trrmah bir .;;ah::;ma yiirutmeye karar verdim. Ozellikle
oku.r-yazar olmamanm Birle::;ik Devletlerde de, ispanya'da
oldugu derecede, manah bir sosyal nitelik olup olmadlgmr
ogrenmek istiyordum. Ayru zamanda Amerikahlarm oy
ku.llarrma, politik partiler ve i::;.;;i sendikalarma kar:;;r tutumlannm. Barcelona'daki i.;;ilerle kar::;Ila::;t:J.nl.dlgmda naSI! oldugunu anlamayr arzu ediyor ve Birle:;;ik Devletler i:;;.;;ilerinln oku.yabilme yeteneklerinln olmamaSI ger<;;egi ile nastl yiizle:;;ebildiklerini, utan<;; duygu.lan ile sosyal dilantDl
lik yoluyla gelen goxiilmezlik duyg'usunu ne ::;ekilde bagda::;trrabildiklerini merak ediyordum. Belki de Birle:;;ik Devletlerde bulabilecegim ip u<;;lan ile Barcelona'daki okur-yazar
olmayan yoksullara neler oldugunu anlayabilecektim.
MUlakat yapabilecek kimseleri bulmam kolay degildi.
Woodrow Wilson Center'in yer aldlgr Washington, D.C.'de
bana yardlm edebilecek insanlar gor1ime yapacagun kimseleri deney fareleri gibi ku.llanacagundan <;;ekiniyor ve ili:;;ki kurma taleplerimi redediyorlardl. Aslmda onlar Avrupa'daki s5zlu tarih hareketi i<;;inde bulunan bir <;;ok
meslekda:;;rm gibi ma:xjin3llere kar:;;r pedervari bir :;;ekilde
fazla koru.yucu davramyorlardl. ~ans eseri, Washington,
D.C.'nin yakla:;;Ik 35 km kUzeyinde yer alan Baltim,ore,
Maryland'de bir Ya:;;hlar Program1 Yoneticisi ve yeti~er.
oku.ma-yazma programr denet.;;isi clan Anne Gray projemin
-. ama= anladl ve beni, daha sonra bana refakat edecek
clan, Afrika kokenli Amerikah meslekda:;;r Gwendolyn
..
38
My Work in Baltimore
and I visited various soup kitchens and homeless shelters

where sometimes I ran into the same resistance I had
found in Washington. FurtheJCmore, people in charge at
these places did not have clear notion of who was or was
not illiterate. In fact, my request created so much
confusion that several times they introduced me to people
who were mentally retarded or who had serious
psychological difficulties. But with patience, the help of
Gwendolyn
Anderson,
and
the
asistance
and
understanding of the Cuban Catholic n1.:ms of the Learning
Bank of Baltimore, I was able to identify some .AfricanAmericans and European-Americans to interview.
This book includes interviews with seven men and seven women; nine are .African-American and five EuropeanAmerican. Eleven were illiterate or only functionally
literate; two had some years of schooling; and one had
completed secondary school. The majority had started
working during childhood and later had migrated to Baltimore from Georgia, the Carolinas, or Virginia. Some did
not know their origins and had broken off contact with
their families. In general, they thought of themselves as
poor and belonging to what we might call the "fourth
world," that is, people living ;n pockets of poverty in an
advanced capitalist economy. The men talked more anci.
were more anxious to learn at the learning banks; the
women had experi_enced greater violence, which they
revealed in their many stories of drugs, alcohol and
isolation.
As with the Barcelona interviews, I basically asked the
interviewees to tell me their life stories, while also focusing
on the meaning of the vote, their political ideology and
religious beliefs and practices, and their level of literacy.
Questions included the following: Literacy; Did you learn
how to read and write? How did you feel about not being
able to read? How did you handle the fact that you could
not read or write? Electoral participation; Did you vote?
Baltimore'daki
c;:ah~malarun
39
Anderson ile taru:;:trrd!. Onunla birlikte <;:e:;:itli a:;: evlerini

ve evsizler bannaklaruu gezdik ve za=an zaman Washington'darJ. tarud1g,.m aym diren9le kar:;:J.la:;:trm. Aynca bu
gibi yerlerin sorumlularmm kimin okur-yazar olup olmadJ.g,. konusunda pek bir fikirleri yoktu. Aslmda, mU!akat
yapma talebim oyle karl:;;lkhklara meydan verdi ki bazen
beni zihinsel ozii.rluler veya ciddi psikolojik sorunlan olan
insanlarla taru:;:trrdJ.lar.
Fakat sabu-la ve Gwendolyn
Anderson'Un yard!mlan ile ve de Baltimore Bilgilenme
BankaSJ.'na bagh Kubah Katolik rahibelerin yard!mlan ve
anlaYIlan sayesinde miilakat yapabilecegim birka<;: Afrika
k6kenli ve Avrupa kokenli Am.erlka.b. bulabildim.
Bu kitap yedi erkek ve yedi kad!n ile yapJ.lml:;: miilakatr
i<;:ermekte, bun!arm dokuz tanesi Afrika kokenli Amerika.b.
ve be:;: tanesi Avrupa k6kenli Amerika.b.drr. !91-erinden on biri ok:ur-yazar degi.ldi veya yalmzca gorevsel ok:uyabiliyorlard!. !kisi birkac;: yJ.l okula devam etmi:;:lerdi ve biri orta egitimini tamamlarru:;;tr.
<;:oguruugu <;:ocuk ya:;:ta <;:a.b.:;;maya
ba~;>la=:;: ve daha sonra Georgia, Carolina'lar ve Vrrginia eyaletlerinden Baltimore'a go<;: etmi:;;lerdi. Bazllan kOkenlerini bilmiyor ve bir <;:ogu aileleri ile baglanru koparrm:;;lard!.
Genellikle kendilerini yoksullar olarak tarumllyor ve "dordful.cu dunya" olarak tarum!ayabilecegimiz bir alemin par. <;:as1 saJilyorlardJ.; bir ba:;:ka deyi:;;!e ileri diizeyde bir kapitalist ekonorni i<;:indeki yoksulluk adalannda ya:;;ayanlarm alerni. Erkekler konu,.maya daha <;:ok istekli idiler ve bilgilenme bankalanndan 6grenmek i<;:in daha fazla gayret gosteriyorlard!. KaciJ.rJ.lar ise daha <;:ok ddete maruz kalm.J.'>lard! ve bunu uyu:;;turucu, alkol ve tek ba:;;mahk ile ilgili ammsadJklan hayat hikayelerinde if,a ediyorlard!.
Barcelona'daki millakatlarda oldugu gibi gorii:;;tiigum
ki:;:ilerin esasen bana hayat hikayelerini arJ.latmaJ.anru ve
bu arada oy kullarunarun manas1, politik ideolojileri, dini
inan<;lan ve vecibeleri ile ok:ur-yazarl.Jk. seviyeleri iizerine
odaklanmalanru istedirn. Sorular araSJ.nda :;;Unlar vard1:
Okumu,tuk; Ok:uma-yazmaJil ogrendiciz mi? Ok:uyamamamz ile ilgili nasll hissediyorsunuz? Ok:uyup yazamama
durumunuzu nasll idare ediyorsunuz? Oy kullanma; Oy
40
My W ark in Baltimore
II'"
Baltimore'dald <;:all~malanm
41
!I
What does it mean to vote? How do you vote without
knowing how to read? Political options; Who are better,
Democrats or Republicans? Is there any American
president that has made any difference in your life? What
was the difference between Malcom X and Martin Luther
King? Church; Should churches be involved in politics?
What should a minister be doing? Should a minister run
for president? Ideology; would you prefer a bigger or a
smaller government? Who should run the hospitals, the
government or private business? Should the government
pay for abortions for women who can not afford them?
Social change; To what social class do you belong? What is
the most effective means of bringing about social change?
I asked questions that tried to establish chronology,
SUch as, "When did your mother die?" I asked q'tlestions
that tried to establish what people thought and felt, like,
"What did you think of the civil rights movement?" And I
tried to establish people's understanding of and
relationship to important social and political questions
likel "Did you assist?"; "Were you involved?"; !(How did you
know about it?"; "With whom did you talk?"; "About what
did you talk?" In general interviewing in Baltimore was a
very gratifying experience. Sometimes narrators thanked
me because I had helped them think and say what they
Would not otherwise have said or thought, or they gave me
a present at the end of the interview. Usually with each
narrator I talked between one or two hours. I had some
dif!iculty understanding black English and in these cases I
asked Gwendolyn Anderson for help.
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verdiniz mi? Oy .kullanmak ne demektir? Okuyamaymca

oy nasll kullanabiliyorsunuz?
Politik tercihler; Demokratlar m1, yoksa Cumhuriyet<;:iler mi daha iyidir? Hayattdeg:i,tiren bir Amerikan Ba:;;kam oldu mu? Malcolm X
ile Martin Luther King arasmdaki fark nedir? Kilise; Kiliseler politikaya kan'ifmah rot? Bir papazm gorevi ne olmah? Papazlar Amerika Ba'ifkaru olmak i<;:in se<;:ime girmeli
mi? ideoloji; Hiikiimet daha IDI buyiisiin, yoksa daha m1
kii<;:ii!siin? Hastaneleri, kamu ve ozel :;;irketleri kimler yonetsin? Devlet odeme giicli olmayanlarm kUrtaj masraflarmt kar'iftlasm IDI? Sosyal donu,.um; Hangi sosyal suufm
mensubusunuz? Sosyal deg:i:;;imi gerc;:ekle,tirmenin en etkili yo! u nedir?
Kronolojiyi saptamaya c;:ah:;;an sorular sordum, ornegin "annerriz ne zarnan oldu?" insanlarm neler du:;;unduklerini ve hissettiklerini arllayabilmek ic;:in sorular sordum, orneg:in "sivil haklar hareketi ic;:in ne dii'ifiindiinuz?"
Ve insanlarm sosyal ve politik ili:;;kilerinin onemine vaktf
olup olrnadtklanru arllamak ic;:in sorular sordum, omeg:in
"yardtm ettin mi?" "Sen olaya kan:;;tm rm?" "Nastl ogrendin?" "Kitninle konu:;;tun?" "Ne hakktnda konu,tun?"
Genelde Baltimore'daki miilak:atlar son derece tatmin edici
bir deneyim oldu. Bazen anlattcllartm onlan du,.iinmeye
sevk ettig:im ve ba,ka turlu soyley=eyecekleri veya dii">iin=eyecekleri ,.eyleri dii'?iindiirdiigum ve soyletebildig:im
ic;:in bana te,.ekkiir ettiler. Bazen ise miilak:at sonunda
bana bir hediye verdiler. Genelde her goru,meci ile bir veya iki saat konu'!?tum. Siyahlarm Ingilizce'sini anlamakta
biraz zorluk c;:ektim ve bu gibi durumlarda Gwendolyn
Anderson'un bana yardtmct olmasmt istedi.
~il
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4 ~ The Meaning of Oral History
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4. Sozlu Tarihin Anlam1
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Words and Silences
For me, the experience of interviewing illiterates has been
astonishing. In Barcelona, when I asked illiterates to what
social class they belonged, they quickly responded: "We are
normal. We do what others do." In Baltimore, white
illiterates responded similiarly, they also want to pass as
'normal'. African-Americans on the other hand, recognizing
the dehumanization thrust upon those with . dark skin,
answered very quickly: "We are human, don't you believe
it?'' When I went to the favelas in Brazil, I also asked
illiterates who they were; they told me, "'We are beggars,"
recognizing the conditions of their misery. In France, one
gets a, yet, different image: There the label 'analphabete',
instead of reminding the Greek letters alpha and beta
sounds like "silly'' or "bete," and since illiterates do not want
to be called this, they refer to themselves as 'handicape'.
Perhaps the French Ministry of Culture introdu<;:ed the word
'illetre' to solve this semantic problem. Of course, illiterate
people do not view themselves as abnormal, inhuman,
beggars, silly, or handicapped; these are descriptions that
the literate assign to them. The illiterates' answers
contradict these assignations, transforming them into a
mirror that reflects our views of them. This is one reason
why interviewing illiterates is such a challange. Hidden in
their answers
we
sometimes
discover what
we
unconsciously think but are unable to formulate.
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SOzler ve Sessizlikler
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Okur-yazar olmayanlarla mUJ.akat yapmak benim a9lffidan

c;:ok :;;a:;>u-b.Cl oldu. Barcelona'da iken okur-yazar olmayanlara hangi sosyal suuftan olduklaruu sordugumda, "Biz
normaliz, ba:;;kalan ne yap1yorsa biz de onu yap1yoruz" diye cevap verirlerdi. Baltimore'daki okur-yazar olmayan
beyazlar da aym :;;ekilde kar:;;ilik veriyorlardJ. ve onlar da
"normal" olduklaruu ileri siiriiyorlardJ.. Afrika kokenli Amerikalllar ise, siyah derililerin Uzerine yap1:;;tlnlnu:;; clan
~siyetsizlik yaftaSlillil bilincinde, c;:abucak, "Bizler insaruz, inanm>yor musun?" diye cevap verirler. Brezilya'da
'favelas'a gittigimde, okur-yazar olmayanlara kim olduklanru sordugumda, "Biz dilenciyiz" diyerek sefalet ic;:indeki
durumlaruun farkmda olduklaruu belirttiler. Fransa'da ise tamamen degi~ bir gorilntU ile kar:;;ilapbr. Orada
"analfabete yaftaSl, eski Yunanca'daki alfa ve beta harfleri
yerine "aptal" ve "banal" anlamma geldiginden ve okuryazar olmayanlar bOyle tannnlanmak istemediklerinden,
kendilerine "orurluyiiz". derler. Belki de Fransa Killt1ir
Bakanllg, "illetre/cahil" sozcii.gunu bu anlamsal sorunu
c;:o=ek ic;:in ortaya atml:;;tlr. Ashnda, okum=:;; insanlar
kendilerini anormal, sefil, dilenci, aptal veya orurlu olarak
gormezler; bunlar okumu:;;larm onlan tarumlamak ic;:in
kullandJ.klan slfa.tlardJ.r. Okur-yazar olmayanlar'ile mUlakat yapm=n bu kadar <;:arplCl olmasmm bir sebebi budur. Bilinc;: alturu.zda du:;;iinup de formille edemediklerimi-
::;{!:~~~:~~:::\W.:~,~::ij~~~~ "or orru History
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Soz!u Tarihin Anlanu
65
'!~~
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At the beginning of my work as a historian I conducted

research with intellectual rigor and honesty, believing like a
detective that the evidence would provide objective answers
to my questions. I thought that history was above all a
science and I was not in hurry. For a long time I searched
for the facts of what happened during the Spanish civil war,
I exhaustively collected all possible documentation; I
examined economic, social, and political statistics; I
consulted the literature and experts. Only then did I
consider myself ready to interview people who had lived the
events I was studYing. At that time my intention was to use
interviews only to fill in gaps in the written record, without
dreaming that something else would oc=, that narrators
would open the unexpected gates of their common sense to
me and transform almost all that I had learned.
My interview experiences quickly destroyed the frame
of reference I had so laboriously created. What I heard was
entirely different from what the literature had revealed, yet
it also seemed more truthful. As a consequence, I started
to think that what had been written about the 1930s had
been falsified and mystified, and determined to find out
how events really did occur. Like many oral historians
when they first confront those largely absent from the
historical record, I believed that those who had been
marginalized indeed had a voice, but that as an
intellectual I had not known how to recognize it. I was
naive enough and optimistic enough to think that the
people were going to inform me of the truth
enthusiastically and accurately if only I asked. On the
other hand, as my theoretical sophistication increased, I
began to question every story that was told to me and i
began looking for the unsaid. I and my team began to
realize that militants in general, and those who agreed to
be interviewed in particular, represented a very small
fraction of the population, usually they were the ones :that
tended to. 'thiilk that somehow they have succeeded in life
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zi bazen onlann verdikleri cevaplarda sakh olduklanm

ke~federiz.
Bir tarih9i olarak 9ahmalar1mm balang1cmda aratlrmalariiDI entelektuel enerji ve durustluk i!e yliruttum,
9iinkii bir detektif gibi inamyordum ki bulacagun ip u9lar1
sorulanma objektif cevaplar sunacaktir. Her eyden once
tarihin bir bilim olduguna inan1yordum ve acelem yo1.1:u.
Uzun bir sure Ispanya I9 SavaI Sirasmda neler oldugunu
aratlrdim, ulaabildigim tum dokUmanlan toplad1m; ekonornik, sosyal ve politik istatistikleri inceledim; yaYJ,nlan
taraYJ,p uzmanlara dan.ltrm. Ancak o zaman U.Zerinde 9ahtrgxm olaylan yaami alan Y.iiler ile mUlak.at yapmaya
hazir duruma geldighni varsay&m. 0 tarihte niyetim mulak.at metinlerini yal.mzca yazili kaynaklann olasr bo'llukladoldurmak i9in kullanmaktr ve baka eylerin olacag,.ru katiyetle tahmin edemedim, yani anlat:J.Cll.ann akh seliminin beklenmeyen kapllan a91p ogrendiklerimin h=en
h=en tumunu si! batan yapacaklannr beklemiyordum.
Mulak.atlan ger9ekletirme deneyim!erim 90k zorlu bir
ugra,. sonucu olueyturmu bulundugum dayanaklanmi suratle dannadagxn etti. littiklerim yaymlann ortaya koyduklanndan tamam1yla bakaydi ve de kulaga daha ger9ek9i geliyordu. Bunun sonucunda 1930'lar ile ilgili yaZJ.l.Im olanlarm yanilhcr ve gizemletirilmiey o!dugunu diiUnmeye bala&m ve olaylann ger9ekten nasll olu:,tugunu
ortaya 9lkartmaya =ettim. Tarihi veslkalarda genellikle
yer almayan o!aylarla ilk kez karllaan diger bir9ok s5zlu
tarih9iler gibi drlanmi alan insanlann da sesleri olduguna inan&rn, ancak bir entelektuel olarak bu sesleri taruyabilmeyi beceremedigmu anla&rn. Kendilerine sorular
sordugumda insanlarm ger9ekleri hevesle ve durusto;;e
aktaracaklannr duiinecek kadar saf ve iyimserdim. Diger
taraftan, kuramsal d'iizeyim yiikseldik9e, bana anlatrlan
her hikayeyi sorgulamaya bala&rn ve soylenmeyenleri aradun. Ben ve ekibim giderek farkma var&k ki gene! de
militan o!anlar ve ozellikle de mUlak.at vermeyi kabul edenler toplumun o;;ok k6.9uk bir y'iizdesini olueyturmaktalar,
aynca bu ki,Uer hayatta baeyarlll olduklarrru duiinup
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The Mc:aoing of Oral History
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and have something to share or to gain from an interview.

But we wanted to reach also the non-militant majority
encased in silence. Their silence became precisely what we
wanted to scrutimze. To penetrate that which was unsaid,
we developed special questionnaires, changed our
hypotheses, and presistently searched for persons who
systematically wanted to avoid us because they did not
want to be in the picture. Conscious that written history is
not their history, interviewees in Barcelona repeated again
and again that they wanted to pass unnoticed, that their
Jives were not interesting, that I was not going to give them
anything. This reticence was surely one of their
).iinitations, but at the same time, one of their strengths,
source of protection for them and insight for me.
This task of systematically searching for the unsaid,
for those who had been unseen, allowed me to "discover"
illiterate persons. And this encounter has been my
greatest professional challenge, for in confronting their
perspectives I was able to recogniz<:; my own prejudices.
Faced with their invisibility, I realized that our mind tend
to act as already-written-books or books-in-the-making,
forcefullY imposing our intellectual inheritance on new
evidence. The fact is that illiterates hide, they make
theDlselves invisible, and they function with knowledge
other than that of the literate world. If this is true that one
is born either illiterate or literate and, as Jean Hebrard
argues, it takes several generations to cross the border
frOm the oral to written, a large __portion of the world's
population has ~ved until recently between an oral and a
written culture, mdeed may still be living there. And this
poses problems for the highly literate historian trying to
penetrate the world of the invisible majorities.
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mUlakat srrasmda bir eyleri payla,.acaklanna veya bir

eyler elde edeceklerine inanmaktalar. Ancak bizler sessizlige buriinmii alan ve mUitan. olmayan o;;ogunluga da
ulamak istiyorduk. Onlarm sessizligi bizim 6zellikle irdelemek istedigimiz eydi. S6ylenmemi olanlara nii.fus edebilmek amaC1yla 6zel anket formlan geli,.tirdik, hipotezlerimizi degi,.tirdik ve 1srarla bizden kao;;anlara ulamaya
c;ah:,tlk, <;;ii.nkii onlar bii.yiik resmin i<;;inde yer almak istemiyorlardl. Barcelona'daki anlatrc11ar yaz1h tarihin kendilerine ait olmad1gmm bilincinde olduklarmdan her seferinde dikkat c;:ekmemeye c;ahtlklarmr tekrarlaYJ.p yaamlanrun hi<;;bir 6nemi olmad1grm ve benim onlara hi<;;bir katlada
bulunamayacag,.nn belirtiyorlardJ.. Bu <;;ekingerilikl.eri ashnda onlarm bir eksiklikleri idi, fakat aym zamanda onlan
gii<;;lii. lo.lan. bir 6zellik, onlan koruyan. bir kaynak ve benim
i<;;in ise olaym i<;;yiiziinii kavrama firsatr oluturuyordu.
S6ylenmeyenleri, g6riinmc:yen1eri sistematik bir ekilde aramaYJ. ama<;; edinmem okur-yazar olmayanlan "kefetrne"mi sag!adJ.. Ve bu yiizleme kendime karl en bii.yiik bir profesyonel meydan. okuma !:;aline geldi, <;;ii.nkii
onlarm gorii a<;;llan ile karl}l kar'ii1ya gelm.ek kendi 6nyargllanm ile yiizlememi sagladJ.. Onlarm bu g6riinmezlikleri
karlsmda zi.hnimizin mevcut-yazili-kitaplar veya yaziimakta-olan-kitaplar gibi davrandJ.guu fark ettim, bir ba:,ka
degile, entelektii.el miras= yeni verilerin ii.zerine iddetle empoze ediyoruz. Gero;;ek Udur kl okur-yazar olmayanlar sakla.ru.yor, kendilerini goriinmez yapwor ve okuryazarlar diinyasmm ger<;;eklerinin dJ.mdaki bilgiler <;;ero;;evesinde hareket ediyorlar. Eger bu dogruysa, ki kii ya cahil
ya da okumu:, olarak diinyaya geliyorsa ve Jean Hebrard'm
ileri sii.rdiigu gibi s6zel ile yazlh arasmdaki SlillXl geo;;mek
birka<;; nesii :iliyorsa, dii.nya niifusunun onemli bir lo.sxm lo.sa bir sii.re 6ncesine kadar bu aradaki b6lgede ya.,.a=:;; demektir, hatta belki de halen oradadJ.rlar. Ve bu da g6riinmez
o;;ogunluklarm diinyasma SlZDJ.aya c;ahl}an yiiksek seviyede
okur-yazar tarihc;:i-i<;;in sorunlar yaratlnaktadJ.r .
68
The Meaning of Oral History
Soz!u Tarihin Anlalru
The Double Biographical Story

Sitting in front of my interviewees in Baltimore, I was
conscious of how very difficult it is to interview people
whose experiences are very different from my own. The
process is sometimes tense and always unfinished. Words
come slowly, hesitantly and then sometimes like a
cascade; questions need to be framed spontaneously, in
response to the moment, and then reformulated when
interlocutors gain more strength. After pretending to know
what was right, objective, and true about the past, I have
come to listen carefully to the prosody, the achievements,
and the absurdities in other people's stories, encouraging
them to look inside th=selves to discem the meaning of
their lives. In recent years I have changed the way I
interview. I began somewhat like a detective. Afterwards I
assumed a lawyer's role. Then, to explore the less
accessible, I began to submerge myself in a double
biographical reflection. Oral sources force us to
cont=plate the past from the perspective of the present,
and through speech, one approaches to the other's reality.
But the past as r=embrance buried in consciousness
may or may not be shared. Whlle dialogue can break
interior barriers, including the literacy barrier, it does not
always do so. Some old people with whom I spoke knew
very. well that they were not merely going to past the time
of day by talking tQ me, but rather that they would find
their inner-selves; they have answered my questions
deeply and told me of the vicissitudes of their lives. Others
ended the dialogue when the _challenge of sharing their
experience became overwhelming.
We take great risk when we interview and, as in my
meaningful dialogue, interviewing transforms our way of
seeing. Interviews challenge us when silence persist.
Interviews become a seduction of the senses when the
cascade of words fascinates and overwhelms. Because
interviewees also have their own reasons for consenting to
69
<;ifte Ozgec;>m~ Hikayesi
.:~:
Baltimore'da mulakat<;:rlanmm onunde otururken, yaam

tecrube!eri benimkilerinden <;:ok farkh insanlar!a mulil.kat
yapmanm ne denli zor oldugunun bilincindeydim. Sure<;:
hazen s1kmtili ve her seferinde yanm kalmaktadrr. Kelime!er yava<;:a, tereddutle <;:lkar ve sonra hazen bir o;:ag!ayana donuur. Sorular anl1k durumlara gore kendiliginden ekillenir ve giirumeciler gU<;: kazandJk<;:a yeniden
formU!e edilir!er. Ge<;:mile ilgili nelerin dogru, objektif ve
ger<;:ek oldugu konusunda uzun sure umarSlZ davrandJktan sonra kar1mdakilerin hikayelerindeki yontemleri, baanlan ve sa<;:mahklan dikkat!ice dinlemeyi ogrenirken
onlann io;: dunyalarma bakmalanm tevik edip hayatlarmdaki anlamr bulup <;:lkarma!anru sag!adlro. Son =anlarda mulilkat yap1:;; yontemimi degitirdim. Once bir detektif gibi ba:;;ladlm. Daha sonra avukat rolu ustlendim.
Nihayet, daha zor ula:;;1labileni kefetmek amaCI ile <;:ifte
iizgeo;:mi:;;in yans=asma nufus etmeye karar verdim.
Sozlu kaynaklar bizleri g\i.ncelin perspektifrnden ge<;:mi:;;i
tasavvur etmeye zorlar ve sohbet yoluyla digerinin ger<;:egine yakla:;;trrrr. Ancak Uurda gomulu clan bellegi payla::.mak her seferinde olasr degildir. Diyalog i<;:teki, okumamr:;;hk dahil, tum engelleri bertaraf edebilse da bu her zaman gero;:ekle:;;emez. G6rumeler yaptJ.grm bazr yalrlar
onlarla konuurken yalmzca =aru.n ge<;:mesine yardl.IDcl
olmayacag,..uu pek iyi bilmekle beraber benliklerine de ulaacaklarmm fark:mda olduklarmda sorular=a derin cevaplar verip bana -yaamlanrun degiimlerini anlatWar.
Bir krsm1 ise tecmbe!eri payla:;;manm yUkU dayarulmaz
hale gelince diyalogumuzu sonlandrrdrlar.
Bizler mii.lilkat yaparken buyii.k risk ahnz ve benim
anlamlr diyalogumda o!dugu ekilde mu!akat g6ru a<;'lnllZl
donu:;;1ime ugratJ.r. Sessizlik uzadJk<;:a mU!aka.t bizi zora
ko:;;ar. Sozcuklerin <;:ag!ayarra donumesi buy\i.ler ve etkiler, mii.lil.kat duygulanm=n batan <;:lkmasma yo! a<;:ar.
CUnkU kiilerin mU!akata onay vermelerinde kendi amao;:larr
saklldrr, karrlannda g6rumeyi yiinetenleri de oni.ar iyice
70
)l'
Sozlu Tarihin Anlaxru
71
-~
l
an interview, interviewers are also scrutinized, inspected,

persuaded, and confronted. Moreover, we never know
beforehand what the limits of the dialogue are going to be;
we only comprehend them when the relationship end
suddenly because we have touched upon the unspeakable.
This happened to me with Mary Kinder when I asked her
why her son was killed. No doubt this was the wrong
question, implying as it did a judg=ent on my part. It
would have been better to have asked her how her son was
killed, allowing Mary to describe what she knew or had
seen of the dramatic event.
Oral histories are like underwater landscapes seen
through glasses that increase, distort, and then focus the
view. Our questions are unable to shed light on the entire
panaroma of another's life and can only focus on a few
selected points. The interviewer's questions are like a
beam of light in the sea; they illuminate poorly, but they
can outline the contours of what can be investigated. If
questions are very broad, they diffuse the light and we are
left in the shadows, adrift in the vagueness of the
response. As in the ocean, where our own breathing nrixes
with the silence of the sea, a life story is a double
biography, an interchange of expressions, of words, of
emotions, that combines the consciousness of the
interviewer and interviewee. During the interviews, like
floating in the sea, we loose ground and go forward with
other forces, and with different ways of understanding and
speaking. As we go deeper into the story that we hear, a
double process occurs. The convictions that have shaped
our vision of the past collapse, and we then must be open
to accepting the other's way of understanding, we must
reformulate our own views. So finally we do not know if we
are writing or thinking about the other's or our own
biography.
Thinking about .the interviews for this book, I have
come to better Understand my past experiences in the
.,-.
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incelerler, yoklarlar, inanrrlar ve yiizle:;;irler. Daha onemlisi, bir diyalogun Sm1rlanrun ne olaca_g,.m onceden kestiremeyiz, ancak konu:;;ulmas1 tabu clan :;;eylere dokundugumuz anda ili:;;kimizin aniden kesildiginde onlan fark ederiz. Bu durum ba:;;tma Mary Kinder ile gorii:;;ii.rken oglunun neden oldugunu sordugurnda geldi. $ii.phesiz bu soru sorulmamab.ydl ve benim hatal1 bir karanmm gostergesiydi. Dogru yontem ona oglunun nasli oldugunii. sorrnaktl, ki boylece Mary'ye olayla ilgili bildiklerini veya bu
dramatik olay srrasmda izlediklerini a<;lklayabilme olanag,.
sunulabilirdi.
Sozlu rnUlaka.tlar su aln peyzajlan gibidir; camdan
balcldlg,.nda gon1num geni:;;ler, 9arplhr ve sonra odaklamr.
Sorulan= kar:;;muzdaki.nin ya,.antlslilln tiim panoramas= aydlnlatamaz v<; ancak birka9 se9ilmi:;; noktayr odaklar. GOru:;;meyi yonetenin sordugu sorular denizde bir
projektor huzmesi gibidir, goriintii zaylftlr fakat incelenecek ortamm genel hatlanm 9izebilir. Eger sorular geni:;;
kapsamh olursa l'>lk dag,.ltr ve bizi golgelerde brraktr, cevaplarm bulanlkllj:p. i9i.Jlde suruklenmemize sebep olur.
T1pla ok:yanustayken nefesimizin denizin sessizligine kan,.masl gibi, bir ya,.am hikayesi 9ifte 6zge9mi'>tir, yani goru::;meyi yoneteni.n ::;uurunu miilakat yapllantrlki ile ifadeler, sozcukler ve duygularm kar:;;ili.kb. etkile">imi yoluyla
birle:;;mesi sonucu ortaya 91kar. MUlakatlar srrasmda, tlpla dertize suzillur gibi, altmuzdan toprak kayar ve diger
gii.9ler ile degi::;ik anlamalar ve konu,.malar yoluyla ileriye
dogru sUrUkleniriz. i::;itmekte oldugumuz hikayeye daha
derinde nufuz ettik9e, bir 9ifte sii.re9 olu:;;ur. Ge9ffii'>in gorunrusu ile ilgili :;;ekillendirmi., oldugumuz inan91=
96ker ve kar'>l.IIllZdaki.nin anlayt'>lffi kabullenmeye ve dolay:tSlyla kendi bala:;; a<;liillZl yeniden olu:;;turmaya ba~lanz.
Sonu9ta kar~=daki.nin mi ya~am hikayesini, yoksa kendimizin 6zge9ffii">ini mi yazmaya ve du,.Unmeye ba:;;la&g,.m=kan~tlnnz.
Bu kitaptaki mulaka.tlar Uzerine du.,u.nduk9e Amerika

Birle.,ll<: Devletleri'ndeki ge9ffii'> deneyimlerimi daha iyi degerlendirmeye ba.,ladlm. Amerikan kUltUru ile deneyimle-
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72
The Meaning of Orallstory
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United States. My experience with American culture began

in 1948, when my parents traveled throughout the U.S.,
sending us giant postcards from New York, the Grand
Canyon, and California. These cards were so impressive
and unknown in Spain that the postman told us he
delayed distributing them in order to enjoy them himself.
My parents brought back all kinds of marvelous things
from plastic hangers that I still have, to the then
absolutely unknown chewing gum, to electric appliances
such as our Westinghouse refrigerator. The United States
also crept into our adolescent consciousness through the
movies, and clandestinely we exchanged pictures of
Hollywood stars whose films introduced us to the so-called
American dream. Years later I decided to find out for
myself just what this dream was and I applied for a
scholarship to a woman's college in Illinois. In my
application I wrote that I wanted to know if the United
States was like it was in the movies. The college answered
by giving me the scholarship without further question. So
at seventeen I started what would be my trip around the
world, an adventure that would eventually change the
course of my life, and that would weld me forever to
American reality.
During adolescence, experiences engrave themselves
in a special way because the world impacts us without the
distance of time. While still in high school, I had traveled
through France, England, Italy, and Germany with
girlfriends during the summer to learn the language. I was
always grateful to be leaving a country still going through
the darkest years of dictatorship to visit a Europe that was
also full of trouble, with woun.ds of World War II still open.
The United States, of course, meant something very
. different. I went to an American college to explore my
interests before entering the university in Spain, to learn
about the country, to mix myself in with America's dreams
and to become one more of her citizens. But soon I realized
it
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rim 1948'de annem ve babam Birleik Devletleri ziyaret ederlerken bizlere New York, BuyU.k Kanyon ve Kaliforniya'dan gonderdikleri kocaman kart postallar sayesinde
balanutlr. 0 tarihlerde bu kartlar ispanya'da o .kadar
etkileyici ve ender idiler ki postaCl onlann taduu <;J.karmak
amaClyla bize dagrtmadan once bir sure kendinde sakladrgrru itiraf etmiti. Donduk;J.erinde annem ve babam bizlere
l>U anda dahl sahip oldugum plastik askllardan tutun, o
tarihlerde hie;: bilinmeyen c;:iklete ve evimizin ilk
Westinghouse buzdolabr gibi elektrikli aletlere kadar bir
<;ok ~ getirmi'!?lerdi. Birlel>ik Devletler filimler yoluyla ergenlik bilincimize de nufuz etti ve bizleri Amerikan ruyasr
ile de taru.tlrdr. Holywood starlanrun fotograflanru gizlice
elden ele dol~tlrdrk. Yillar sonra bu ruyanm tam nasll bir
ey oldugrmu ke1>fetmeye karar verclim. Illinois'de bir klz
kolejinde okumak ic;:in burs ba1>vurusunda bulundum.
Bavuru forrnuna, Birleik Devletlerin filmdekiler gibi olup
olmadrgrru anlamak istedigimi yazdrm.
Kolej barra baka
bir ey sormadan ba1>vurumu kabul etti. Boylece 17 yal>Imda dunyanm etrafmda yapacagrm seyahatime ba'!?laduu. Bu macera sonunda ya"m'mm <;izgisini degitirecek
ve beni Amerika gerc;:egi ile sonsuza dek kaynatlracaktlr.
Ergenlik donemimizde deneyimlerimiz belleklerimize
ozel bir ekilde kazuurlar, <;UnkU dunya bizi zaman smrrlanru drlayarak etkiler. Lisede iken lisan ogrenmek amaClyla yaz donemlerinde kJ.z arkada'!?larrmla Fransa, ingiltere, italya ve Almanya'yr dolamrtlm. Her seferinde diktatorlugun en karanllk yrllanndaki bir illkeden <;lkrp daha II.
Dii.nya Saval'nm yaralarmr saramamr olmasmdan dolayr
sorunlarla dolu Avrupa'yr dolamak beni mutlu ediyordu.
Birleik Devletlerin etkisi pek tabii c;:ok baka idi. Bir Amerikan Koleji'ne ispanya'da universiteye ba'!?lamadan once ilgi duydugum :;;eyleri kefetmek, o ulkeyi tanrmak, Amerikan ruyasr ile bulumak ve oranm vatandar olmak'
.arzusu ile gittim. Fakat c;:ok krsa bir surede bunun ne kadar olanaksrz oldugrmu arrladrm. Kolej'de sosyal gruplar
ac;:rk bir :;;ekilde taru.mlanmrlardr ve biz Avrupahlar h=en
c;:ok slklca orUlmU. bir grup olu:;;turrnu:;;tuk. Latin Ameri-
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The 'discovery' of illiteracy and its defining characteristics

should be fundamental focus of oral history. Illiterates are
absent from all written documentation save statistics, and
oral history is the only method for integrating them into
mainstream written history. The enormous difficulties in
discovering and reaching illiterates, the communication
. problems, narrators' refusal to answer, and their frequent
silence, especially in societies that have suffered civil wars
and harsh political represSion, all pose enormous
challanges to the historian. Yet these same difficulties also
open up possibilities for oral history. To the illiterate, our
scientific universe, our ways of thinking, our linguistic
structure, and our vocabulary constitute an almost
insurmountable obstacle, an almost unbreachable gap in
co=unication. The experience of interviewing illiterates
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kahlar ile ortak dilimiz vas1tas1yla butiinle'>ffiemize karlllk

Kuzey Amerikahlar ile ;;:ok az eyi paylarnaktaydun, <;Unkii. onlar benim dunyamdan hi;;:bir ey talep etmiyorlardl.
Ancak kendiminkinden ;;:ok uzakta bir dunya}'l kabullenerek bir diyalogu balatabilecegim ger;;:egini anlamam uzun
bir sure aldl. Bir balama bunu kefetmek, ancak kendi
benligimden vazge;;:erek bana yabanCl clan eyi benirnsernek olanagm1 verecegini anlatb., yani bir baka gezegende
yeniden yaama sanlmak gibi bir eydi. Bu deneyim o kadar ac1 vericiydi ki tekrar ispanya'ya d6nmeye karar verdim ve bunu bir yandan Franco karltr yeraltl hareketine
destek vermek, diger yandan ;;:ocuklanma ingilizce konumak mecburiyetinde kalxnamak arzusunda oldugum i<;in yaptun. ~uphesiz bu deneyimim diyalogun degerini
anlamama yardunCl oldu ve s6zlu kayriaklara clan ilgimi
katalize etti. Aynca otuz kUsur yll sonra Baltimore'un
'dorduncu dunyas1'nm sakinleri ile millakat yapmak Uze:re
arab= sfuerken daha once balatnu oldugum deneyimime devam etmekte oldugum hissi bende uyandl.
Okwna~lxk ve Sozlii Tarih
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how impossible this was. In college, social groups were

clearly defined, and we Europeans immediately formed a
closely-lmit group. Wheras Latin Americans and 1 were
united by a common language, I shared little with the
North Americans, because they did not want anything
from my world. It took me a while to understand that only
by accepting a world very distant from my own, could I
initiate a dialogue. In a certain way, this discovery meant
having to give up my own self to capture what was foreign,
to somehow start again on another planet to survive. The
experience was so poignant that I chose to return to Spain,
partly to help the underground movement against Franco,
but also so that I would not be obliged to talk in English
with my own children. No doubt this experience helped me
value the price of dialogue and helped catalyze my interest
in oral sources. It also meant that driving to Baltimore
more than thirty years later to talk with residents of its
"fourth world," I had the feeling of continuing an
experience I had started earlier.
Illiteracy and Oral History
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SOzlU T.arihin Anla.tru
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Okuma:rruhk ve onu belirleyen 6zelliklerin 'kefedilmesi'

sozlu tarihin temel odak noktaSl olmahdrr. istatistikler
haricinde okuma:rrular tum yazlli be!gelerde yer almazlar
ve s6zlu tarih onlan esas yaZlh tarihin btinyesine yerletirmenin tek metodudur. Okumanu.lan belirl=enin ve
onlara ula,abilmenin muazzam soru.nlan, iletiim zorluklan, anlatrcllann cevap vermeyi ret etmeleri ve slkhkl.a tekrarlanan sessizlikl.eri,. Ozellikle de i<;i sav3.:? ve acrmasJZ politik basla d6nemlerine katlaruru toplumla:rda, tarih<;i i<;in
ii.stesinden gelinebilmesi ;;:ok g(i;;: bir meydan okumadrr.
Bununla birlikte bu g(i;;:lukler s6zlu tarih i<;in firsatlar ya"
ratrr. Bir okuma.Ini kio;i i<;in bizim bilimsel evrenimiz, duunce t = , dil bilgimizin yap1s1 ve kelime ha=emiz
h=en h=en baa. 9J}olmaz bir engel, a<>ll.amaz bir ek.siklik oluturur. , Okur-yazar olmayanlar ile millakat yapma
deneyimi b6ylece bizlere tarih<;:inin ne seviyede ;;:oguruuk
..,
~~
.
76
SOzlU Tarihin A.nlam1
'W
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thus pennits us to measure the degree to which the

historian is anchored in the majority culture and complicit
in the power of writing. Our experience interviewing
illiterates pennits us to comprehend the extend to which
the 'normal' 'simple' interview is indeed conventional, in the
strict sense of the word; a game that is detennined by the
rules of a culture, where the expected response determines
the form of the question. Difficult or impossible dialogues
require the interviewer to go beyond the limits of the
questionnaire, to enter a different human landscape rich
and unusual in its own right. The study of illiterates thus
makes oral history truly oral, the orality of those who
cannot read or write and who even speak so little. By
ignoring them we lose a counterpoint necessary for
understanding literacy, and we refuse to look at much of the
past. We lose the complete memory of what we have been.
77
killtU.rii.ne bajp.mh oldugunu ve kaleminin g\iciinu olo;:ebilme olanaguu verir. Okumamrlar ile yaprlan mUlakatlar
kelimenin tam anlamr ile 'normal' ve 'basit' bir mU!ak:atJ.n
aslmda ne kadar ahIlage!enlere uygun oldugunu anlamamiZa yardJ.m eder: herhangi bir kii.lturiin kurallan <;:ero;:evesinde oynanan bir oyunda beklenen kar';liliga gore duzenlenen sorular. Zor veya olanaksrz diyaloglar gorumeyi
yonetene onceden hazrrla<lljp. sorular silsilesinin <ll';lma
<;lkmaya, kendi ba';lma zengin ve olaganustu alan ba';)ka
bir insan peyzajma girmeye zorlar. B6ylece okumamrlan
incelemek s6zlu tarib.i ger<;:ekten okuyamayan veya yazamayan ve hatta <;:ok az konu';labilenlerin sozelliginde sozlu
kl!ar. $ayet bu insanlara aldlnnazsak, okur-yazarhgr anlayabilmek ir;:in gerekli alan kar';ll tezi kaybederiz ve ge=iin buyiik bir klsmma bakmayr ret etmi';l oluruz. Oz geo;:miimizin tUm bellegini yi tiririz.
I'
I'
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II::
II
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.i
END NOTES/DiPNOTLAR
1
Mercedes Vilanova & Xavier MorenO, Atlas of the Evolution of Jfliteracy in
Spain Between 1887 and 1981, (Madrid, 1992); and, Mercedes Vilanova,
~Anarchism, political Particip3tion, and Illiteracy in Barcelona Between 1934
'I
and 1936", American Historical Review (Feb. 1992).

2
Mihain Nadin, The Civilization of Illiteracy, (Dresden, 1997).
3
Pierre Vilar, Histoire de I'Espagne, (Paris, 1947).
"' Mercedes Vilanova, Atlas BectoraJ de Catalunya durant Ia Segona
Republica, (Barcelona, 1986).
5
We learned the political identity of many Barcelona workers through a
remarkable document (since lost) in the archives of the metallurgical fadory.
This document ennumerated property seized from mansions of the factory
:I
owners-pianos, beds, furtinure, silver, dishes, etc.-for the purpose of

auctioning it to factory workers for a small price designed to raise funds for the
,li,,
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Republican Army. Because the document also 1\sted the names of the workers
who "purchased" these items, the list was used aftet the war by the police, who,
accompanied by the fa dory owners, went house to house to recover the
property. Anna Monjo and Carme Vega, Bs Trebafladors i Ia Guerra CiVil:
Historia d'una Industria Catalans Col/ectivitzada (Barcelona, 1986).

Mercedes Vilanova, Las Mayorias lnvisibfes, (Barcelona, 1996).
.
7
HaiVey J. Graff. The Legacies of Uteracy: Continuities and Contradictions in
Westem Culture and Society, (Bloomington, 1987).
/i
II
.
'
I
s Barcelona
~yilerinin siyasal kimliklerini metalijlji fabrikasmm a~ivlerinde bul~
dugumuz (o tarihten beri kay1p) olaganustQ bir dakumandan ogrendik. Bu dcr

kQman fabrika sahiplerinin malik..anelelinden, Cumhi.rriyet9 Ordu'ya fan olu~~
turmak niyetiyle fabrika i~~ilerine kQ~Qk bedeller ka~1hg1 mezat yoluyla salllmak
Uzere elkonulan piyanolar, yataklar, m6bleler, gtrmO~Ier, tabak tak1mlan, vs.'nin
tutulmtJ9 bit listesi idi. Aym zamanda bu dokaman bu e~yalan "sat1n" alml olan
i~ilerin isimlerini de Slralad!Q"mdan, sav~ sonrasmda polis tarafmdan kullamiml~ ve de, yanlannda fabrika sahipleri olduQu halde, ev ev dola.darak bu "ta;Imt
mallarm geri ai1nmasrnda kullanllml~.

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~

ARZU OZTURKMEN &

Arzu Oztiirkmeu & Ash Ozyar

ETHNOGRAPHY FOR HISTORIANS

The concept of ethnography, fieldwork, reflexivity, ethnographical writing, histol"ical ethnography,

MEMORY OF MATERIAL CULTURE

Alunet Hamdi Tanpmar ( 1946) "Erzurum", Bq ehir. Ankara:

ORALITY AND LITERACY: CONSTRUCTION AND ANALYSIS OF

ORAL HISTORY APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

*** MIDTJ<:RM ***

:;; .:::~ ...............................::,::0?~ .....\.

!:. .~ 0 7 -09- 2007

, ................................. :- CtJ .::

First edition published in 1983 by Tavistock Publications Ltd.

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an il!{orma business

British Librmy Cataloguing in Publication Data

Prologue to the third. edition

Prologue to the third edition

focus groups, visual methods, conversation- and discourse-analytic techniques, and so

Prologue to the third edition

In a parallel development, many sociologists working at the University of Chicago

Positivism versus naturalism

The methodological model for social research is physical science, conceived in

under criticism as lacking scientific rigour. Ethnography was sometimes dismissed

A first requirement of social research according to naturalism, then, is fidelity to the

of positivism. In the view of interactionists, people interpret stimuli, and these

Anti-realist and political critiques of naturalism

Tire politics of ethnography

Reflexivity ami realism

Reflexivity mul the political chamcter of research

Introduction: Partial Truths

Interdisciplinary work, so much discussed these days, is not

You'll need more tables than you think.

ELENORE SMITH BOWEN, advice for fieldworkers,

Our frontispiece shows Stephen Tyler, one of this volume's

innovation and structuration, and is itself part of these processes.

. denies it!") or deploying a consistent manner of quoting, "speaking

France, largely because of the Vietnamese and Algerian conflicts and

I', I ' '

anthropology with respect to its "objects" of study. Anthropology no

with semiotics and discourse analysis, the new rhetoric is concemed

5 I exclude from this category the various histories of "anthropological" ideas,

work has been mobilized as a critique of ethn<;>graphy by Johannes

7. I have explored the relation of personal subjectivity and authoritative cultural

and others-Georges Balandier (L'Afrique ambigue 1957), David

A subgenre of ethnographic writing emerged, the self-reflexive

tion of "actual" encounters. It locates cultural interpretations in many

of Pine Ridge shamans; and it is revealing to see -questions of belief

sociated with bringing elusive, "disapp.earing'' oral lore into legible

The volume was planned as the publication of a seminar limited

nography has focused either on setting the record straight about

condition of multicultural life demanding new forms of inventiveness

volved a process of "self-fashioning" (Greenblatt 1g8o). Cultural

logical questions are sometimes thought to be paralyzing, abstract,

IOGAZil;l iJ<~;;;:Oh;,>fESl !tUTOPHANESI

recognize the poetic dimensions of ethnography does not require that

MARY LOUISE PRATT

Fieldwork in Common Places

In his introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)

* MIDTJ<:RM *