‘Spirits of the place’: sea in the Kabyle and Kurdish imaginary
‘Spirits of the place’: sea in the Kabyle and Kurdish imaginary

Author(s): Nassima TERKI
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Customs / Folklore, Geography, Regional studies, Human Geography, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Сдружение „Транспонтика“
Keywords: Kabylia; Kurdistan; the sea; the mother; transformation
Summary/Abstract: The Black and the Mediterranean Seas are two geographical and cultural spaces where different cultures meet and strive to co-exist. This research looks at two famous minority groups; the Kurdish population to the south of the Black Sea and in the Middle East and Kabylia in Algeria. These two distinct cultures share a fight for the recognition of their respective cultures and traditions. Looking at their oral tradition, both communities celebrate a diverse and rich heritage. Their oral tradition is an example of a primary national literature that records the history of the region and constitutes a major ingredient in the formation of their ‘imagined communities’ and the shaping of their respective identities. By investigating the representation of the sea and its images, this article engages into a novel discussion into the hermeneutic of the said oral tradition. Carl O. Sauer’s “The Morphology of Landscape” (1925) explains the way geography and landscape are significant active factors that shape and determine the vision of the world. The sea and other elements referring to sea imagery, like the seahorse or the birds, etc., in the Kabyle/Amazigh and the Kurdish oral tradition are often associated with the image of the nourishing mother. In other instances, it represents danger, the open frontier, the impossibility, or the fact of not being able, to perceive what is beyond. It is also the energy of transformation and the symbol of the mysterious that cannot be reached and the open space that represents the unknown that must be feared.

• Details
• Contents