Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The sacred meaning of Saukele – a wedding headdress Kazakh bride , cilt.2, ss.61, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
The article discusses the role and function of the wedding headdress of
the Kazakh bride – “saukele”, establishes the place and role of the bride’s
headdress in the wedding ceremony of the Kazakhs in the context of the
ethnic culture of the Turkic peoples, since the Kazakhs are part of the Turkic superethnos with their own unique culture. Among the headdresses of
Kazakh women, “Saukele” deserves special attention. This is a traditional,
very ancient bride’s headdress.
The headdress of the bride among all peoples served as a talisman, because covering the face of the bride, according to popular belief, was one of
the most important means of protection from the evil eye and damage, and
on the other hand, such a rite was a marker indicating the transition of a girl
from one social and age group to another, from the category of brides to the
category of married women. This transition was carried out in the process
of a special ceremony, when the girl’s hat “börik” was removed from the
bride and dressed in the female wedding headdress “saukele”.
The sacredness of the headdress is noted in the fact that always and
everywhere any headdresses were removed carefully, trying to put or hang
them on a dais. Saukele was an obligatory part of the dowry and was prepared long before the girl entered marriageable age. The saukele wedding
headdress among the Kazakhs was a significant element not only of wedding clothes, but of the entire wedding ritual in general, denoting its main
stages as a kind of markers and signs symbolizing the new statuses of the
bride and married woman.