Evdalê Zeynikê

Evdalê Zeynikê, who lived in the Serhed region in the nineteenth century, is remembered as the father of the dengbêj tradition. Around his name gathers the founding mythology of Kurdish oral song: contests of improvisation, patronage at princely courts, blindness and wandering, and kilams that singers still perform today. Because his life predates recording, he survives entirely through the voices of later dengbêjs and through literature, which has retold his story as the archetype of the Kurdish bard.