The Dengbêj House was added to the tourist travel program of Diyarbakýr four years ago. For those who don’t know Kurdish, Dengbêj means Kurdish bard, storyteller.

We translated Nilay Vardar's article, first published in bianet (http://www.bianet.org/biamag/diger/133689-dengbejler-yeniden-sahnede)

The Dengbêj culture was silenced for a long time when the Kurdish language was forbidden, it continued only in houses, among the people themselves. Although accompanied by an instrument in some regions, dengbêj generally sing without an instrument and they are described as those who transmit the Kurdish language, literature and history.

Dengbêj restarted to sing their stran (ballads) in recent years. The Dengbêj House with its 28 dengbej, who perform a musical ceremony once a month, was opened by Diyarbakýr Municipality to keep this culture alive and increase the tourism potential.

Reviving long-unvoiced traditions may sometimes make these traditions “exotic” and denaturalise them, however the process of reviving a silenced tradition contains different dynamics; only time can show that.

I knew that I was going to feel like an outsider in the Dengbêj House where I went with all these question marks and listened to stran sung in a language I don’t know.

The feeling of alienation I felt was a little bit eased by listening to variety of adventures of two dengbêj, one of them was Seyîdxanê, the eldest among them, and the other was Feleknaz, the only woman dengbêj in the Dengbej House.

“Diyarbakýr’s Nightingale”, as Seyîdxanê is called, continues singing stran at his home now, after working as a municipal worker for long years.

Seyîdxanê, who sings in both Turkish and Kurdish, once appeared on a TV channel and announced the nonpayment of his salary to the Mayor singing a stran.

Seyîdxanê laughing tells that he was able to get his salary the week after, while at the same time telling the compliments made by women for the strans he sang while cleaning the ground.

“Women wouldn’t sing near men at old times” says Feleknaz who sings since she knew herself-she says- but sang in the public for the last ten years.

When I ask her what the reason of this change is, she answers “Kurdish struggle”.

I could no doubt have talked to Feleknaz more if I knew Kurdish and wasn’t obliged to a translator to understand her. Feleknaz exerts herself and begins telling word by word;

“Villages were evacuated and we moved to a city. The responsibility of all things was shouldered by women; to send children to school, to earn living and other things. Men left us alone when they saw the courage of women.”

“Stories of love and bravery” she answers when I ask her what she loves singing the most. As she keeps telling, she confesses that she in fact doesn’t like singing about love and starts singing a stran which tells the Kurdish struggle. “It would lose all its meaning if I translated it into Turkish”, she says.

Feleknaz is a Peace Mother, as well as a dengbêj. She is one of the women who went to Çukurca district of Hakkari and left their white scarfs for nine soldiers who died there. “I can walk day and night and to everywhere for peace”, she tells.

Feleknaz gave concerts in France, Germany and Denmark but she could hardly escape from the police in Turkey on March 8, International Women’s Day. We may perhaps have the chance to listen to Feleknaz and other dengbêj on mainstream television channels and not know beans about this tradition, who knows…