Abstract:

Anatolian village plays and pastoral tradition commonly celebrate the harmonious union between people and the physical environment and reveal how such material entanglements are contingent on an anthropocentric desire for power and control over the natural world. They both, however, rely on early rituals for their form and content. These early ritualistic performances indicate the dependence of the social life on agricultural and meteorological events. This indication coordinates these works with popular celebrations of the co-evolution of the human and the nonhuman. By doing so, these ritualistic plays also uncover a materialist undercurrent about the acknowledgement of NatureCultures in that cultural changes are based on natural formations, or vice versa, hence producing a reciprocal relational network. However, this acknowledgement celebrates natural events only for the benefit of the human realm, hinting at weak anthropocentrism. As we will see in these works, union with the environmental forces is important for the survival of the human species. This union is further necessary to avoid punishment from venomous natural beings. In this respect, these cultural performances help us see very different sets of relations with more-than-human habitats. Elaborating on this complicated representation within different sets of relations, this article will analyse traditional folk performances and pastoral tradition in terms of their representing NaturalCultural formations.

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