Abstract:

This study tackles the ethnic origins of the Turkish Cypriots in the context of some traditions related to birth, as some speculations have been made on the ethnic origins of this community by some Greek Cypriot and Western historians. Despite the fact that re-settlement of Turkish communities to the island right after the conquest and during the following centuries are established by archival documents, the ethnic origins of Turkish Cypriots has been made a matter of controversy in some circles. A comparative study of the elements of the Turkish Cypriot culture with the rest of the Turkic world would be an important step taken in the direction of putting an end to these controversies. The superstitions and traditions present in the Turkish Cypriot community around infertility, infant death and an evil spirit pestering infants and women after birth are compared and contrasted with those present in Turkey, which is the motherland of Turkish Cypriots, and the rest of the Turkic world. Particularly superstitions, which are formed around the evil spirit called albasti, give important clues about the ethnic origins of the Turkish Cypriots, since this spirit previously had been classified by Turkologists as a cultural entity with Eurasian origins. Comparison has demonstrated that the applications practiced in Cyprus are parallel with those practiced in the rest of the Turkic world. In some cases this parallelism reaches the limits of identity in spite of geographical distance and in some cases religious differences. This situation has put forth that the culture and therefore the ethnic origin of the Turkish Cypriots are tight-knit with the rest of the Turkic world.

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