Zeynep Korkmaz

Keywords: Shamanism, tree cult, ancestors' spirit, beech

Abstract

"Continuation of the 0ld Turks' Tree Cult in the Islamic Era"It is a well known fact that many Turkish tribes and communities believed in Shamanism before accepting the religions such as Buddhism, Manichaeism, Brahminism, Nasturism, Jewishness, Islamism. Shamanism is a system of faith, which represents the societies' totemism period and which includes the natural forces' sanctity. Therefore, in Shamanism, nature, forest and some kinds of trees such as beech are sacred. Shamanists worship the trees by believing that their ancestors derive from these trees and live in the spirits of the trees. The tree cult comes from this worship.In the later centuries some of the Shamanist beliefs combined in the Islamic beliefs. In this article, the traditions about the tree cult traditions whiched in the Islamic beliefs have been analyzed.