Baba Tükli and the swan girl. Legitimising elements in the Turkic epic Edige

Abstract

The present article deals with two legitimising elements to be found in the Turkic epic cycle Edige. According to oral tradition Edige’s genealogy goes back to Angšïbay who married a heavenly swan girl thus laying foundation to the Manghit clan. But in the same oral tradition Edige’s forefather is identified with a Muslim saint ( walī or awliyā ) called Baba Tükles. The article tries to analyse the process of linking the Muslim tradition of Baba Tükles, who in written sources appears as the Islamiser of the Golden Horde, to a pre-Islamic tradition about the superiority of a clan originating form a heavenly swan girl. Similarly to folklore and oral tradition, modern religious traditions also display the elements of Islamised folk belief and Central Asian Muslim (e.g. Sufi) traditions, where worshiping ancestor spirits is often intermingled with the respect for Muslim saints who were Islamisers or Sufi practitioners. Some historical and ethnographical data are presented to elucidate the parallel processes that took place in folklore and religious traditions.