Zarbêj and Dengbêj Women whose voices resonate with music in Mesopotamia
August 2023 - May 2024
DİYARBAKIR, MARDİN, TUNCELİ
Zarbêj and Dengbêj women have been the keepers and resource of an authentic method of musical production and transmission of the multi-layered oral culture, oral history, art, literature and musical memory in Mesopotamia. They have transformed the memory of Mesopotamia's unofficial history and culture into melodies with special rhythms and music in their works using language, culture and one of a kind narrative tradition, ensuring that it was passed on from one generation to the next one that lasted for hundreds of years.
Women, who have been the sole actors for the tradition Zarbêj (the source creators of works such as laments, songs, folk songs, tales, stories, etc.) and Dengbêj that have an egalitarian role and mission in the artistic production and performance of the society. Although they are the source of the dengbêj tradition, a small number of Zarbêj women could participate in dengbêj environments where they were professional performers due to social traditions, religious reasons and dominant culture being a masculine one. They had to record their works under very difficult conditions, under different identities and pseudonyms due to national, religious and identity pressures.
Since it only became possible to record sound in the 19th century, despite Kurdish being a banned language, religious and ethnic pressure, many Yazidi, Yarsani, Muslim, Christian and Jewish women succeeded in recording Mesopotamian music, which they were the creators and bearers of, under very difficult conditions, even though the recordings were made in different countries. They managed to record many of these classic works on vinyl, radio, reel tapes and cassettes. The authenticity of these recordings and the positive social impact created by women's voices carried an encouraging mission for women of all peoples living in the Middle East.
With this project as an effort to compile the collections of Zarbêj and Dengbêj women whose works are on records, reel tapes, radio and cassettes in the archives of collectors, radio stations and production facilities, we aim to record the "Female Voices of Mesopotamian Music" with their real names, using their biographical and artistic true stories with feminist pedagogy, researching and writing, cataloguing, protecting, making the works and information accessible with today's technology, introducing them correctly through printed editions and publications, and ensuring their dissemination and transfer to new generations.
Zeynep Yaş Salam
Zeynep Yaş Salam was born in Siirt. After the 1980s, her family had to migrate to Istanbul. In order not to lose her cultural ties, she has started compiling and archiving oral culture and Kurdish music in 1991. She has graduated from Marmara University, Department of French Language and Education. In 2003, she continued her research and compilation studies with feminine pedagogy in cultural heritage with the field study "The Role of Women in Kurdish Culture" in collaboration with the Cultural Research Department of the University of Bergen, Norway. She continued her oral culture and music research, compilation and archiving activities until 2011 at the Kurdish Cultural Heritage Institute, which was established in Sulaymaniyah in 2003. She compiled the collections of female artists such as Elmas Muhamed, Meyrem Xan, Gulbihar, Nesrîn Şêrwan, Ayşe Şan in a music album titled "YADGARÎ/MEMORABLE SONGS" for the Kurdish Cultural Heritage Institute, and prepared the catalogue of works by artists such as Mehmûd Hesen Kirorî, Seîd Axayê Cizîrî, Tehsîn Taha, Îsa Berwarî, Erdewan Zaxoyî, Eyaz Yûsif, Mihemed Şêxo and these collections were published by the Institute. Within the scope of this catalogue, she prepared the book "Ez Eyşe Şan im" by the famous Kurdish vocal artist Ayşe Şan, working together with the compiler Hilmi Akyol, and the book was published by the Institute in 2008. Her research and compilation anthological work on 110 deceased Dengbêj and Music Artists who lived between 1803 and 2013 was published in 2 volumes under the title "ŞAKARÊN MUZÎKA KURDÎ" by Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Culture Department in 2015 and 2016. Her presentation at the First Asian and European Women's Museums Conference titled "Lost Voices" under the theme of Feminist Pedagogy, which was a conference held by the Women's Museum on 20.10.2018, was included in the joint book study titled "Feminist Pedagogy, Museums, Places of Memory and Remembrance Practices". Her article titled "Lost Voices and Memory: The Recording Story of Kurdish Music from Oral Tradition to the Present" was included in the joint book Kurdish Studies prepared by the İsmail Beşikçi Foundation. Her article titled "The Role of Women in Kurdish Cultural Heritage" was published in The World of Music, the international peer-reviewed journal. Many of her articles were published in Dilop Magazine about the first female vocal artists whose voices were recorded in Kurdish music.
In addition to the studies she has held on "Lost Sounds of Kurdish Music", "Kurdish Music on Records, 1900 - 2000", "Şakarên Muzîka Kurd, Jin", "Diyarbakır Music", she continues to work on documenting, recording and archiving Kurdish music works and artists. She started working as the founder and museum researcher of the Diyarbakır City Museum in 2012, and continues her work as a curator of the museum with research, compilation and archiving work on the memory of the city.
This page is published on 7 December 2023.
