«Edige – a Karakalpak oral epic» EDIGE is one of the most esteemed oral epics of the Karakalpaks, a Turkic-speaking people, who live on the mouth of the Amu Darya and the shores of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. Edige is a historical person¬age from the time of Timur at the turn of the 14th to the 15th century. He is considered the founding father of the Noghay Horde, from which the Karakalpaks and other Turkic peoples have emerged, and his tale is therefore for the Karakalpaks intimately linked to their historical roots and ethnic identity. The singer, Jumabay Bazarov, was the last Karakalpak singer of heroic epics who stood in an entirely oral tradition. In this edition and translation an attempt has been made to capture as much of his oral performance as possible, including the singer's dialect features and his musical style. The singer's performance is also illustrated by audio and video clips on the CD accompanying this book. KARL REICHL is Professor of Medieval Literature and Historical Lin¬guistics at the Institute of English, American and Celtic Studies of the University of Bonn. He has held visiting professorships at Harvard Uni¬versity, the University of Nukus (Karakalpakistan, Uzbekistan), the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris) and at the Hebrew University of Je¬rusalem. Among his pulications, including a number of translations of epics and folktales from various Turkic traditions, two monographs are specifically devoted to Turkic oral epic poetry, Turkic Oral Epic Poetry: Traditions, Forms, Poetic Structure (New York, 1992; Turkish translation Ankara, 2002) and Singing the Past: Turkic and Medieval Heroic Poetry (Ithaca, NY, 2000). Cover: Jumabay Bazarov in Shomanay. Uzbekistan, in 1993. Photo by Karl Reichl. FOLKLORE FELLOWS' COMMUNICATIONS SUOMALAINEN TIEDEAKATEMIA ACADEMIA SCIENTIARUM FENNICA FFC Editorial Office: Dept. of Folklore Studies. University of Helsinki, P. O. Box 4. 00014 Helsinki, Finland Folklore Fellows' Communications is part of the publishing cooperation between the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Copyright © 2007 by Acadcmia Scientiarum Fennica and the author ISSN 0014-5815 ISBN (hard) 978-951-41-1012-2 ISBN (soft) 978-951-41-1013-9 Vammala 2007 Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy CONTENTS A Note on Transcription/Transliteration and Pronunciation 11 Introduction 14 1. Edige: a Karakulpak Oral Epic 15 2. The Edige of History 22 3. Edige in the Noghay, Kazakh, Tatar, and Bashkir Traditions 32 3.1. Edige in the Noghay Tradition 33 3.2. Edige in the Kazakh Tradition 39 3.3. Edige in the Tatar Tradition 45 3.4. Edige in the Bashkir Tradition 48 4. Edige in the Karakalpak Tradition 51 4.1. The Singer Jumabay-jTraw Bazarov 54 4.2. Jumabay-jiraw's Version of Edige 57 4.3. Bekimbet-jiraw's Version of the Epic 67 5. Transmission 73 5.1. The Influence of Literacy 73 5.2. Tuifm-biy 74 5.3. The Influence of Training 81 6. Origins 98 6.1. Text, Mental Text, Version 98 6.2. Baba Tukli 104 6.3. Sipira-jiraw 106 6.4. Genealogy 112 7. Poetic Structure 116 7.1. Myth-Formation 117 7.2. Scenic Patterning 124 7.3. Metre 134 8. From Performance to Text 142 8.1. From Word to Text 143 8.2. The Folklore Text 153 9. The Music of Edige 163 9.1. Performance Modes 163 9.2. Melodic Patterns 166 Text 179 Translation 283 Textual Notes 432 Commentary 456 Bibliography 479 Glossary 491