A caravan dispute becomes a changing sung narrative about rivalry, weapons and loss. Comparing named dengbêj performances reveals differences in the journey, the women’s roles and the fatal confrontation.

Two seated men beside a stone wall in Diyarbakır, one singing with his hands beside his face while the other holds a phone and prayer beads
Dengbêj singers and storytellers in Diyarbakır, 18 May 2015, photographed by Kolpakovtour, CC BY-SA 4.0. This is a contextual image of the performance tradition; the file does not identify the song or name these men as Filîtê Quto’s documented performers. Kolpakovtour · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

A remembered conflict, not one fixed transcript

Filîtê Quto is a long Kurdish kilam associated with the Reşkotan and Etmanekî communities around Beşiri/Qubîn in the Batman region. Tarık Yorğun places the narrative in a nineteenth-century setting while recording competing datings to the 1860s–70s and 1880s–90s. His study compares versions rather than establishing an independently verified date for the confrontation. The caravan and a demand for passage payment provide a recurring frame; motives, names and the sequence of events vary. [1]

One telling of the caravan and the rifle

Hasan Karacan and Rıdvan Nayman report Salihê Qubînî’s account of the dispute. In that telling, the Etmanekî caravan travels to Diyarbakır because of scarcity, and Elî’s attraction to Şîrîn creates a rivalry with Filît. On the return journey Filît demands the rifle; refusal leads to violence and his death. This is the singer’s explanation of the story, not a verdict independently confirming every participant’s motive. The researchers also record that Qubînî learned the song from Mamê Nazê. Naming that teacher makes transmission concrete and avoids treating a recorded rendition as its singer’s entirely new composition. [2]

What changes in other versions

Yorğun takes Nuroyê Meter’s extended rendition as an important comparison text and examines four performances through selected episodes. In Meter’s telling, Elî’s relationship with Şîrîn, presented as Filît’s betrothed, contributes to the conflict. In Nesoyê Zado’s version, a conversation between Emê and Almas is central to the grievance. The person carrying the demanded weapon also differs between these accounts. Such changes alter relationships and responsibility, not merely a decorative detail. Yorğun’s transcription lets readers follow a particular long performance; its length does not make it the original or universally authoritative form of the narrative. [1]

Listen for Şemê as well as the armed men

The texts printed by Karacan and Nayman include the voice of Filît’s mother Şemê. She warns him against confronting the caravan and invokes the families waiting for its return. They compare Qubînî and Karapetê Xaço, noting similarities and differences. A summary concerned only with courage and a man’s rifle would lose the warning, grief and differing voices that the performances preserve. The comparison does not establish a timeless Kurdish code of honour. [2]

Narrative, refrain and performance

Amir Hassanpour’s account of bayt provides a useful wider vocabulary. Such oral narratives may be sung throughout or combine sung verse with spoken prose. They differ from short lyrical songs through their storytelling and often their length. Regional versions can vary in stanza size, rhyme, melody and the balance of verse and speech. A written plot summary therefore captures only part of what an audience hears. In studying Filîtê Quto, it helps to identify the performer and version before comparing a name, a refrain or an episode. “Variant” describes an act of telling, not simply an error against a single master text. [4]

Local history and a wider cultural memory

Wendelmoet Hamelink and Hanifi Barış analyze the political geography of dengbêj songs through fieldwork and close reading. They emphasize local connections and alliances rather than assuming every older song already expresses a unified national programme. Their approach offers a way to read conflict and belonging without reducing Kurdish history to a stereotype of irrational feuding. Applied here, the question is how specific performers make a remembered dispute meaningful. It is not whether one can extract a complete moral code for an entire people. [3] The photograph illustrates that broader vocal tradition; it does not document the historical confrontation or a named rendition of this kilam. [5]

Sources and further reading

  1. Tarık Yorğun, “Karwan, Eşîr û Bazinbelek: Nêrînek li Varyantên Filîtê Quto,” Kurdiyat 9 (2024), pp. 39–76, doi:10.55118/kurdiyat.1488769: variant comparison and Meter transcription.
  2. Hasan Karacan and Rıdvan Nayman, “Dengbêj Salihê Qubînî ile Karapetê Xaço’nun Şarkılarında Aşiret Kavgaları,” Dicle Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 16/2 (2014), pp. 361–388, especially 375–385: singer interview and parallel texts.
  3. Wendelmoet Hamelink and Hanifi Barış, “Dengbêjs on Borderlands,” originally Kurdish Studies 2/1 (2014), pp. 34–60; Brill archival edition pp. 39–71, doi:10.1163/9789004706538_005.
  4. Amir Hassanpour, “Bayt,” Encyclopaedia Iranica IV/1 (1989), pp. 11–12; updated 2017: narrative performance and formal variation.
  5. Kolpakovtour, dengbêj singers/storytellers in Diyarbakır, 18 May 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0: contextual photograph; song and performers not identified.