KÜTAHYA DÜĞÜNLERİNE İLİŞKİN BİR ANLATI ARAŞTIRMASI

Abstract

As the home of many civilizations over the course of the history, Kutahya have a rich cultural inheritance with its well-protected historical texture and living folkloric values. This study examined the weddings and circumcision feasts of Kutahya based on the individual narratives of the participants. This qualitative study was designed as a narrative research. In the current study, the data were collected through the individual’s lived stories using unstructured interviews, which are commonly used in narrative research. The study was carried out in Kutahya. The participants were selected using the snowball sampling technique which is part of purposeful sampling. In the study, eligibility criteria were developed as follows: older than the age of 50 and being a resident of the city. The number of the participants was five, three males and two females. At the process of analyzing, the events were grouped and marked based on the place, date, and topics. Then the codes were compared and the related themes and categories were developed. According to the results, the seven categories of the weddings were as follows: pre-arrangement for a possible marriage, asking the girl’s and her family’s hand for marriage, betrothal, engagement, marriage, henna night/wedding and post-wedding events. For the circumcision feasts, two categories were found: pre-circumcision events and post-circumcision events. To conclude, the traditions of weddings and circumcision feasts corroborate with Turkic countries and the most of the regions in Anatolia. Also, some of the traditions disappeared or had a change, and some of the traditions are continuous.