International Journal of Kurdish Studies

Abstract

Oral culture constitutes societies’ memory. Particularly in the societies in which the script is not well developed culture transmission between individuals occurs orally. This interaction transforms into oral literature and music over time. And some individuals turns this culture transportation into a job. In this study we focus on dengbejs who are known as Kurdish oral literature transporters and the importance of the dengbej art. Dengbej is a transmission of art, music and memory. Where restrictions on Kurdish language being used as a state language constitutes an impediment on devolopment of literary language it is also an advantage for oral culture to develop better. Particularly in music field there has been a gigantic musical memory from mournings to manis. Dengbejs performed all of these different kind of music types. In our study evaluations are carried out on kilams which are generally trajic songs and refer to love, war and death. Most of these songs were performed without an instrument and in the unmetered folk song format. Because of the page restriction kilams’ scripts are not included enough. The term dengbej in this study refers both man and woman artists