A HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF EPIDEMIC DISEASE NARRATIVES IN THE TRANSITION OF TAHTACIS IN IZMIR TO SETTLED LIFE

This article aims to evaluate whether the narratives on the settled life tran sitions of the Alevi-Kızılbaş Tahtacı community living in İzmir can be a source of historical reality. Based on the narration of settlement where the epidemic stopped by the miracle of “yatırs” and one of the descendants of Yanyatır sacred lineage, the investigation from the archival sources that the plausible effect of the pandemic on the settling of the Tahtacı community in İzmir. According to archival sources that determined Tahtacıs in İzmir started to settle at the beginning of the XIXth century, epidemics that could be effective for the nomadic Tahtacıs were the epidemic diseases seen in İzmir during the same period. We determined that it might be the plague. The epidemic may be a plague, but the Tahtacı community in İzmir was affected by the no epidemic finding could be reached. The determination that the Tahtacı community was affected by the plague epidemic in Söke, the closest region to İzmir, gave the idea that the epidemic disease narrative might have spread among the interacting Tahtacı communities. The fact that epidemic narratives in memory are woven with miracles clues about how the Tahtacı community comprehended the world around them. The sedentary life policies of the state and the attempts of modernization in forestry brought about the end of the traditional woodworking profession as the main factors in the transition to settled life. The reason why the narrations about the epidemic and miracle, rather than the main factors, remain in the memory may be the facilitating effect of the marvel on the nomadic Tahtacıs to accept the settled life. Tahtacıs must have made these places, the essence of the world through miracles, into livable places for them.
Key Words: Collective memory, Alevism, Nomadism, Tahtacıs, İzmir, Epidemics.