Dengbêj

The dengbêj is the singer-storyteller of the Kurdish oral tradition: a voice, usually unaccompanied, carrying kilams: long sung narratives of love, feud, migration, war and mourning. For centuries, in a culture where writing was often forbidden or out of reach, the dengbêj functioned as the archive of the people: history, genealogy and geography stored in melody. The tradition has its legendary masters, from Evdalê Zeynikê in the nineteenth century to Şakiro, Karapetê Xaço, Reso and Huseyno in the twentieth, and its own institutions, such as the dengbêj house (Mala Dengbêjan) in Amed, where singers still gather. Interest in the tradition is remarkably alive: dengbêj-related searches exceed thirty thousand a month, with hundreds of distinct questions about masters, kilams and meanings. This section of Kurdimusic documents the tradition master by master and kilam by kilam.