Abstract:

From the moment of birth until the last breath, a person goes through many "thresholds" in the course of his/her life. The first of these thresholds is birth, which has been considered important in many societies, and various rituals and beliefs have been developed regarding birth in different cultures. According to Arnold van Gennep (1908), who first introduced the concept of the rite of passage and conducted a comprehensive classification study on rituals, the purpose of birth rituals is to facilitate the birth, protect the mother, the child, and even the father and other relatives from personal or impersonal malevolent effects. In this article, the birth rituals of Uyghur Turks living in Istanbul (Küçükçekmece and Zeytinburnu) are examined and analyzed in terms of pre-birth, birth, and post-birth phases. Observation (as a passive participant in a natural environment) and interview (directed interview) methods, which are part of folklore collection methods, were used during the study. The data was collected by interviewing source individuals who migrated from various parts of East Turkistan at different times and now reside in Istanbul. Conducted within the scope of the master's thesis titled "A Research on the Folklore of the Uyghur Turks Living in Istanbul: The Example of Küçükçekmece and Zeytinburnu", this study aims to inform the scientific world about what the Uyghur Turks, who come into contact with many different cultural circles, have preserved from the old Turkish culture and belief structure and with what changes, their relationship with the other Turkish tribes and to contribute to the cultural continuity of the Uyghur Turks. It has been determined that the reasons for migration of Uyghur Turks, who migrated from East Turkestan for similar reasons on different dates and live in Istanbul, are reflected in their birth rituals. Their choice to use birth control in order to prevent them from being subjected to compulsory abortion and sterilization practices by the Chinese government, their adoption of working in families with multiple children, the improvement of various practices in order to try to reproduce because they could not go on maternity leave while in East Turkestan, the birth of the person's navel and the wife's birth in the hospital, the naming of children with names that evoke independence can be shown as an example of this situation.

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