The National Treasure in Turkish Dowry Tradition

Dowry is a feeling-filled art event that develops in traditional Turkish culture. The dowry, also known as the material contribution of the married girl to marriage, is mirrored at the beginning of marriage, reflecting the outward appearance of popular culture. It is an important folklore material that contributes to the enrichment and survival of tradition by accommodating new additions in the transfer of cultural richness. The dowry is not only of material cultural objects but also abstract concepts. Both the form and the sense of ornamentation have become a verbal communication language that women bring to the fountain, the meaning of which is loaded on the dowry products. Although the motifs that are housed in dowry products are defined as non-linguistic signs, they are evaluated based on the visual culture, the event pattern, hero / character, culture-value-perception, space-body dynamics. When the information uploaded on the products is transferred, sometimes only words are sufficient and sometimes visual elements are needed. This is a kind of empathy in the sense of attributing their own motives, feelings and behaviors to others, which turns an audiovisual-visual-tactile multisensory experience into a product shaped by the Anatolian woman. This brings the user to a multi-centered journey in the imagination world created by motif characters of the same kind. In the study, it was tried to compose the motifs of this language which has a vivid structure, and which is ending with rich accumulation. It has been observed that the motifs used have been used for the same meaning in different regions and formed a sustainable cultural activity with common characteristics. This culture, which also has meaning as a system of indicators, is a heterogeneous structure because it is a learned and acquired phenomenon later on. The motifs studied in a limited scope in the study and classified in terms of meaning load are the rich archive of Anatolian people, clustered in the framework of life, values and imagination, and a carrier of cultural means.

Keywords

Turkish culture, dowry, handicrafts, motif, language.