The Reflections of Raa Haqi Cosmology in Dersim Folk Tales

Abstract

This article illuminates the cosmology of Raa Haqi (often called Dersim Alevism or Kurdish Alevism), a rarely examined strand within Alevi Studies. Existing scholarship’s emphasis on identity politics and sparse ethnography has left Raa Haqi’s mythological and cosmological dimensions underexplored. This paper approaches Raa Haqi through a dual authority framework: (1) Ocak lineages and Ocak–talip relations—sustained by kinship institutions like kirvelik, musahiplik, and communal rites such as the cem—and (2) jiares, non-human agents from the Batın realm that manifest in Zahir as sacred places, objects, and animals. Methodologically, I conduct a close, motif-based reading of folktales compiled by Caner Canerik (2019, Dersim Masalları I), treating them as ethnographic windows into living theology. The analysis shows that tales encode core principles—rızalık (mutual consent), ikrar (vow), sır (the secret knowledge), fasting and calendrical rites, ritual kinship, and moral economies involving humans, animals, and Batın beings. Dreams, metamorphosis, and jiare-centered orientations structure time–space, ethics, and authority beyond the Ocak, including in individual re-sacralizations of objects and sites. I conclude that these narratives do not merely reflect belief; they actively transmit, test, and renew Raa Haqi’s cosmological order, offering Alevi Studies a theory-grounded, source-proximate account of Kurdish Alevi mythic thought.

1. Introduction

In the early 2000s, one of my relatives and I visited our ruined village in the mountains of eastern Dersim1, forcibly evacuated and torched in 1994. As we explored the crumbling remains, an old woman suddenly appeared. Strands of her red hair slipped from beneath a fez-like headdress, glowing like fire in the sun. Dressed in a faded entari (a long traditional dress), she seemed almost otherworldly—like a mılaket (a jiare [a sacred entity in various living and non-living forms] this time in the form of a fairy). Approaching us, she began to sing laments in Kırmancki.2 She was the eldest member of our former neighbours’ household, who had refused to leave during the forced evacuations and was now living alone among the ruins. This encounter was more than meeting an elderly neighbour—it was an entry into a worldview in which the sacred was not confined to ritual spaces but inhabited the very landscape.

That day, the old woman sang many laments and recounted the severe violations Dersim had endured. When she learned whose grandson I was, she wept, then turned to anger. Pointing toward the remains of our family home, she said: “The other day I came across the jiares3 of your house. They are angry with you for abandoning them and leaving them alone.” She spoke as if those jiares were right there beside us. In her world, jiares were not abstract, venerated symbols but living, ever-present companions—mysterious beings that could be both helpful and dangerous. Without doubt, the old woman (aged over 90 at that time) belonged to a very different Dersim, and like the generations who had lived in that mountainous world until the 1980s, she was speaking from within the worldview of old rural Dersim. This encounter crystallised the lived reality of jiares in Raa Haqi—as an authority and presence independent of, yet intertwined with, the human-led Ocaks (the sacred lineages). It planted the seeds for the dual-authority framework that underpins this study: a conceptualisation of Raa Haqi cosmology4 as structured by two interdependent yet distinct spheres of authority—the human-led Ocaks of the Zahir world and the non-human jiares of the Batın world.

Although Raa Haqi differs from other Turkish- or Arabic-speaking Alevi traditions, it also shares many similarities, especially a cosmology that, rather than mapping onto mainstream Abrahamic eschatologies, imagines two parallel realms, Zahir and Batın, whose permeability structures time, space, ethics, and authority. Kurdish Alevis do not believe in notions of heaven and hell; instead, they envision two parallel universes that continuously interact with one another: the Zahir, where Alevis and other humans live, and the Batın, inhabited by an invisible population of mystic beings. Within this worldview, souls transmigrate between the two realms, and each has its own rulers in the sense of religious authority mechanisms. The Zahir world of Ocaks constitutes a highly structured socio-religious order linking talip (disciple); rayber (spiritual and practical guide); pir (spiritual guide and authority); and mürşid (the highest authority, usually a pir from a different Ocak considered to be the guide of other pirs) in hierarchical and often caste-like relations. It integrates political-administrative organisation, kinship-based social networks, and a rich ritual repertoire -most notably the Cem ceremony- under the authority of Ocaks. Practices such as kirvelik and musahiplik (fictive kinship institutions) reinforce these networks, while ancestor veneration shapes collective identity and historical consciousness. Ultimately, Ocaks mediate access to the Batın realm, guiding followers towards Haq as divine knowledge and truth (Gezik 2021, pp. 560–80; Deniz 2019, pp. 45–75).

The Batın world of jiares—the non-human sacred entities—forms a parallel and less formalised sphere of authority. These beings, which may appear as landscapes like mountains, rivers, lakes, caves, forests, stones, trees, springs, wild animals, celestial objects, relics from ancestors or mythic figures, act as living agents in everyday life. Jiares also include ancestral graves, which in Raa Haqi function as focal points of ritual practice; offerings and acts of remembrance performed at cemeteries are, thus, part of the wider cult of jiares. This reflects the strong ancestor cult within Raa Haqi, where the veneration of the dead and ritual visits to cemeteries are integrated into the sacred geography of jiares. Rituals here are personal or household-based, unregulated by Ocaks or communal institutions, and include offerings, acts of reverence, and visionary practices such as dreaming. Jiares serve as intermediaries between Batın and Zahir, providing direct, unmediated mystical experience and guidance. They can be benevolent or dangerous, male or female, and their characteristics shape the rituals performed for them (See Gültekin 2025a; Çakmak 2013, pp. 163–76; Çem 2011, pp. 73–101). Both realms legitimise actions, shape moral values, and sustain religious identity. Yet in daily practice, most Kurdish Alevis engage more frequently with jiares than with Ocaks, since cem ceremonies have traditionally been infrequent, annual events. The weakening of Ocak networks—especially since the 1990s—has further elevated the role of jiares as primary spiritual authorities (Gültekin 2019), a role they continue to play even in diaspora settings. This dual system has always carried an implicit tension: a competition for religious legitimacy, social authority, and communal prestige between human-led Ocaks and non-human jiares (Gezik 2000, pp. 15–28; Gültekin 2024, pp. 570–88).

This article draws on a close reading of 48 folktales collected in “Dersim Masalları I” by Caner Canerik (2019), combining character analysis and symbolic interpretation with the dual-authority framework of Raa Haqi cosmology. The importance of these recently collected and published folktales lies in the fact that ethnographic research on Raa Haqi remains severely limited. While Kurdish Alevi identity through ethno-political and ethno-religious lenses has been extensively discussed in both academic and intellectual circles -especially as Dersim has become a popular topic in recent decades- the cosmology of Raa Haqi, its everyday practices, and the dynamics of their performance by individuals and the community have been largely overlooked. Because Raa Haqi has been sustained almost entirely through oral traditions, there are virtually no written records of its everyday cultural life, apart from a few şeceres (hand-written historical records of lineage manifestations (Gezik and Çakmak 2010, p. 182)) or handbooks authored by pirs. Of course, there are also written accounts of outsiders like Western missionaries in the 19th or 18th centuries or Ottomans and early Republican state authorities.5 Yet these texts offer not enough insight into the lived, everyday practice of the religion, either in the distant past or in more recent history. What we have instead are oral accounts, narratives, and tales about Dersim’s past. Although academic and intellectual interest in Raa Haqi began to emerge in the early 1990s, written documentation of rural Dersim’s daily life remains scarce.6 These folktales, thus, represent rare and invaluable sources, allowing us -through analytical interpretation- to gain deeper insight into how this belief system has functioned in practice. Beyond the already documented and overly studied Ocak–talip relationships and annual communal ceremonies in the academic study of Alevism, there is a need to understand how daily religious life operated, and how it has been transformed in recent decades.

The narrators from whom these tales were collected range in age from their sixties to their nineties and beyond. This is significant: they belong to the generation born in the aftermath of the 1938 genocidal massacre in Dersim.7 They were raised by parents and elders who themselves belonged to the pre-1938 era—a period in which Dersim was still relatively isolated from the outside world and rural lifeways were dominant, with severely limited modern technology.8 Only from the 1980s onward did rural life begin to change more rapidly, with the introduction of roads, vehicles, electricity, radios, newspapers, modern ideologies (like socialist movements) and other markers of modernisation. The narrators, therefore, represent a collective memory rooted in pre-modern rural Dersim, refracted through their own childhood experiences, and preserved in stories that retain traces of that older world. These tales, therefore, are not only literary expressions but also carriers of generational memory, offering an intimate glimpse into how religious cosmology and everyday life intertwined in an earlier era.

A closer examination of these narratives also shows that the storytellers inevitably shape their tales according to their personal life experiences, perceptions, desires, expectations, popular religious figures, and even political attitudes.9 This feature is particularly valuable for understanding Raa Haqi, a belief system that has long relied on diverse forms of individual religiosity among Kurdish Alevis (Gültekin 2020, pp. 289–303), especially in the absence of a fully functioning traditional Ocak system. Through their everyday engagement with jiares—personified sacred places, objects, plants, or animals—these individuals enact a form of belief that is at once constructed by collective codes and shaped by individual creativity and style. In this way, the narratives reveal a Raa Haqi world in which shared traditions coexist with personalised expressions, demonstrating both the continuity and the adaptability of this sacred system. This interplay between collective frameworks and personal agency is central to my analysis, as it provides a rare opportunity to observe how the Batın and Zahir worlds intersect in the lived religious experience of the Kurdish Alevi community.

In the following sub-sections, I will first outline the methodology and the theoretical framework for understanding mythology as a key to interpreting an oral-history-based collective mind, drawing on pioneer academic contributions from Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell in the fields of mythological theory and folktale analysis, as well as Pertev Naili Boratav’s and İlhan Başgöz’s leading discussions on folklore in Turkey, both theoretical and field-based. This framework will provide the conceptual tools necessary to trace the actions of the heroes and the roles of secondary characters, and to interpret the narrative flow, symbolic patterns, and interrelationships embedded in the stories. Building on this foundation, I will then evaluate the folktales within specific analytical categories -such as geography, social structure, daily life, and key recurring figures- in order to construct a more vivid picture of the Batın world. This, in turn, will allow me to explore its interactions with the Zahir world, its people, and the ways these interactions shape the practice of Raa Haqi through human & non-human relationships. By following this structure, I aim to illuminate how these narratives serve not only as cultural memory but also as active agents in preserving, adapting, and transmitting the dual authority system that perfectly defines Raa Haqi cosmology.

2. Corpus and Method

This study analyses 48 tales published in Dersim Masalları I by Caner Canerik (2019). While the book presents Turkish texts, the original recordings were collected predominantly in Kırmancki and partly in Kurmanci. I, therefore, treat language and translation as analytical variables and retain key emic terms (e.g., jiare, Batın/Zahir, mılaket, Oli) with brief glosses in italics to emphasise their original meanings. Yet, given the absence of direct access to the original recordings, the analysis inevitably carries the limitations of working through translation. I address these limitations by comparing multiple tales to identify recurring patterns and by emphasising emic terms whenever possible.

Methodologically, I combine close reading with motif- and figure-based coding, situating the tales in dialogue with both folklore scholarship and the broader study of myth. The analysis is organised into seven thematic categories: (1) lived geography and the sacred landscape; (2) social structure and authority (religious and political); (3) ritual repertoire, religious calendar, and orientations of prayer; (4) metamorphosis and transitions between Batın and Zahir; (5) human–animal relations and the Batın dimension of animals; (6) secrecy (sır), vow (ikrar), and moral codes; and (7) the dynamics of religious authority mechanisms and individual religiosity.

In this article, the figures, events, and relationships depicted in Dersim folktales are treated as ethnographic windows through which the cosmology of Raa Haqi can be reconstructed. In doing so, I also take into account the few but significant academic studies on Kurdish Alevi (Raa Haqi) tradition that examine everyday life, ritual calendars, emotional and symbolic worlds, and mythological narrative forms. These studies are cited where relevant, and my own academic publications, fieldwork, and ethnographic notes on Dersim have likewise informed the framing of this study. The analysis, therefore, proceeds through the dual framework of religious authority in Dersim Alevism: on the one hand, the Ocaks that mediate collective ritual life, and on the other hand, the jiares and mythic beings that embody non-human authority. The approach is interpretive and source-proximate; it does not aim at exhaustiveness beyond this corpus.

3. Folktales as Lived Memory and Cosmological Narrative

Folktales are narratives transmitted across generations from a community’s distant past, especially in non-literate cultures like Kurdish Alevis. In this sense, they function like a memory reservoir, grounded in the accumulated experiences of dozens, even hundreds of generations (Boratav 1988, pp. 31–41). The events that come to the fore in this reservoir often mark major ruptures and historical turning points in the life of the community, while certain recurring characters refer to historical events and figures that have left an imprint on its intellectual, religious, social, and economic life (Bascom 1954, pp. 333–49; Dundes 2007, pp. 53–67). In this regard, Dersim folktales offer a direct gateway into the unwritten history of Dersim, seen from within the lived reality and emotional world of its people. Although much of what has been written about Dersim in recent decades—both in academic settings and earlier by outside observers and rapporteurs—comes from an external perspective, the view from ordinary people’s eyes, and how the dynamics and practices of daily life in these mountains were perceived, remains largely missing.10 Gaining access to this lived experience is not only vital for understanding the present but also for anticipating the future.

Unlike religious narratives that centre on formalised and standardised depictions of sacred figures, folktales focus on the life of the ordinary person and the events of everyday life. They offer unique narratives that reveal how ordinary individuals perceive their own world, the “foreign” outside world, and the various mechanisms and representatives of authority within it -be they religious or political (Başgöz 1988, pp. 25–29). In this regard, the relationship of the Dersim folktales with the “ordinary” is especially important, because it does not portray outsider figures like padişahlar (sultans), vezirler (viziers), kadılar (qadis), or müftüler (muftis) from their perspective, nor does it depict religious authorities such as pirs, mürşids (authority figures of Ocak families) or ağalar (aghas)11 from their viewpoint. Instead, it narrates events directly from the perspective of the talip (here simple peasants), interpreting them through their emotional and meaning-making world: distinguishing between good and evil, defining morality and immorality, differentiating beauty from ugliness, drawing the boundaries between the desired and the undesired, teaching how one should relate to the sacred and how one should deal with events. In short, folktales convey the fundamental truths that can serve as a guide for everyday life and existence.

More importantly, while folktales preserve certain common narrative patterns, events, and figures, they are, to a large extent, individualised narratives as explained above. At this point, they also intersect in a striking and revealing way with the phenomenon of individual religiosity in the Raa Haqi faith. In Raa Haqi, communal religious ceremonies take place either during the annual Cem rituals or on specific dates in the religious calendar when the köy (village) community gathers together, such as funerals, weddings or religious calendar days like Gağan (New Year), Hewtemal or Kara Çarşamba (Black Wednesday)12. Outside of these occasions, there are no regular communal acts of worship. Instead, individual practices predominate: believers engage in devotional acts directed daily toward celestial bodies (the sun, moon, and stars), as well as toward jiares in the form of mountains, lakes, rivers, trees, forests, wild animals, and various animate or inanimate objects. To this must be added the veneration of ancestors and grave worship. Thus, in Raa Haqi, the practice of religion is fundamentally individual in nature (Gültekin 2025a). This makes such narratives an invaluable source for the ethnographic study of Dersim, as Greve (in Canerik 2022, Vorwort) also underlines, emphasising that storytellers continually reshaped the tales through personal details, improvisation, and fragments of everyday life in his foreword to the German edition of the Dersim folktales. The way the characters in folktales practice religion mirrors the way it has been practised by humans in their daily lives. This makes such narratives an invaluable source for the ethnographic study of Dersim.

As Eliade (1963, pp. 18–23; 1959, pp. 68–74) observes, myth interrupts ordinary, profane time and opens a passage to illud tempus, the primordial time of origins. In the context of Dersim, this temporal rupture is not merely an abstract phenomenon but is embodied in folktales, whose narrative worlds repeatedly transport listeners into the Batın realm, where they encounter and interact with characters believed to have existed since the very beginnings of human time. Through the actions of jiares and other non-human sacred agents, these narratives transform ordinary spaces of Dersim into sacred places and everyday temporalities into sacred time. The storyteller, thus, becomes more than a transmitter of events; they function as a ritual mediator, guiding the audience into a lived experience of primordial reality. Within the Raa Haqi community, it is primarily the talips who embody and sustain this majority experience. In this way, folktales constitute a remarkable space of collective memory, emotion, and knowledge, carried across centuries and transmitted through generations.

Crucially, in Dersim’s unwritten past, the Raa Haqi community was never the only cultural actor. The region was also home to Armenians, Sunni-Muslim Turks and Kurmanji-speaking Kurds, whose oral traditions and ritual repertoires interacted with and influenced Raa Haqi cosmology.13 The distinctive originality of Raa Haqi also emerges from its striking affinities with the Yaresan and Yezidi traditions, parallels that reveal a shared symbolic vocabulary and ritual logic, hinting at common, deep-rooted origins in the ancient Middle East.14 Thus, these folktales are not only an intimate record of rural Dersim life but also a portal into the region’s deeper, largely forgotten heritage of sacred traditions that have shaped its identity over millennia.

Eliade (1959, pp. 95–100; 1963, pp. 18–25) conceives myth as a repository of ideal and sacred models for human conduct, transmitting paradigms for how one should live, relate to the sacred, and respond to danger. Viewed from the talip’s perspective, the folktales of Dersim encode such behavioural codes in ways that are both profoundly personal and embedded in a collective symbolic universe. This convergence closely mirrors the structure of Raa Haqi, where individual religiosity coexists with, and at times operates independently from, communal authority. Eliade’s foundational distinction between the sacred and the profane aligns closely with the Batın-Zahir duality. Yet this alignment should not be read as a simple equivalence. While Eliade’s distinction provides a useful heuristic, the Batın–Zahir duality in Raa Haqi is less a static dichotomy than a dynamic interplay. Unlike Eliade’s model, where the sacred interrupts profane time at discrete moments, the Batın permeates the Zahir continuously through the presence of jiares, producing a more fluid and multi-layered cosmological structure. The Ocaks represent religious authorities within the Zahir world, and in the communal rituals they lead, sacred time and space are periodically created. However, by contrast, the distinctive feature of the jiares lies in their continuous presence with the talips -accessible at every moment of daily life and enveloping the entire geography of Dersim, from houses and villages to paths, mountains, and valleys (Greve 2024, pp. 131–47; Deniz 2020a). Unlike the Ocaks’ annual gatherings, the jiares enable talips to experience sacred time and space at any time and in any place. Thus, the tension between these two spheres echoes Eliade’s (1959, pp. 20–65) idea of the sacred repeatedly breaking into and reshaping the profane world. Moreover, in reproducing the structure and order of the cosmos, these myths create symbolic landscapes -mountains, waters, forests, animals, and supernatural beings- that reflect Raa Haqi’s cosmological vision. In jiare-centred narratives, it is especially evident how individuals internalise and reinterpret this cosmic order through personal engagement with the sacred. Each telling becomes a reworking of an archetypal model, in which the storyteller’s lived experiences adapt inherited patterns -keeping the tradition alive while allowing for individual moral and spiritual interpretation.15

While Eliade (1959, pp. 68–74) emphasises myth as a conduit to sacred time and a vessel for preserving archetypal models, Joseph Campbell’s Creative Mythology (Campbell 1968b, pp. 3–30) shifts the lens toward the individual’s transformative journey and the creative reimagining of myth through lived experience. For Campbell (1968b, pp. 35–50), the enduring power of myth lies not only in maintaining collective archetypes but also in the hero’s ability to reshape these inherited patterns in ways that speak directly to their own life circumstances. In the context of Raa Haqi folktales, this insight resonates with how talips adapt and reinterpret narratives about jiares and Ocaks -stories that retain their archetypal frameworks while being recast into highly personal, context-specific accounts. Campbell’s (1968b, pp. 3–30) notion of the creative aspect of mythology parallels the adaptive and individualised religiosity in Raa Haqi, where storytellers act not as passive transmitters but as active makers of sacred meaning. In this sense, the Raa Haqi oral tradition demonstrates a dual dynamic: Eliade’s (1959, pp. 68–74) timeless, cosmic order embedded in myth is continually reanimated through Campbell’s vision of myth as a living, personal creation—especially evident in how the authority balance between human-led Ocaks and non-human jiares shifts across time and circumstance.

Campbell (1968b, pp. 3–30, 35–50) also foregrounds the role of the individual as both inheritor and innovator of myth, stressing that the mythic journey gains its fullest meaning when reinterpreted through the lived reality of the storyteller or hero. This emphasis on personal myth-making aligns with the flexibility of Raa Haqi’s individual religiosity, where talips adapt the archetypal figures and structures of jiare- and Ocak-centred narratives to their own experiences and local contexts. While Eliade (1959, pp. 68–74; 1963, pp. 18–25) interprets myth as a means of re-entering sacred time and re-enacting the primordial cosmic order, Campbell (1968b, pp. 3–30, 35–50) is more concerned with the hero’s capacity to creatively transform inherited patterns into a personal vision that nonetheless retains its archetypal resonance. In the folktales of Dersim, this interplay is tangible: the narrative logic retains the Batın–Zahir duality as a stable cosmological framework, yet each storyteller infuses the account with subjective detail, local colour, and personal moral insight. The result is a living tradition in which the cosmic order of Raa Haqi is not simply preserved but continually re-imagined -anchored in ancient structures while responsive to contemporary individual and communal realities.

Furthermore, Campbell’s (1968a, pp. 45–89, 97–186, 207–246) “hero’s journey” model—comprising the call to adventure, crossing of the threshold, trials, transformation, and return—finds vivid expression in many Raa Haqi folktales. Encounters with jiares often parallel the “supernatural aid” or “threshold guardian” stages, as the hero moves from the ordinary world into the sacred realm of the Batın, undergoing tests or receiving gifts that may take the form of sacred objects, protective powers, or esoteric knowledge. The hero’s return, in turn, is not merely a personal triumph but an act of reintegration, bringing back something of value to the community’s collective memory. In this way, these narratives embody Campbell’s balance between individual transformation and communal benefit, showing how Raa Haqi folktales weave personal spiritual journeys into the fabric of the sacred order.

Although the folktales of Dersim have so far attracted only a limited degree of academic attention in Turkey, most of the existing studies exemplify a broader tendency in Turkish folklore scholarship. Instead of approaching these narratives as windows into a distinctive symbolic order, an indigenous epistemology, or the internal dynamics of the Raa Haqi cosmology, they are usually treated as raw material to be subsumed under pre-established analytic grids such as motif catalogues, formal classifications, or universal archetypes. This externalised reading not only imposes categories that originate outside of the community’s own cultural logic but also risks erasing the unique cosmological insights that the tales preserve. Most of the few academic studies of Dersim folk tales employ this formal approach, reducing the specifics of Dersim mythology to variations in universal narrative themes. Characteristic examples are: an article on “shapeshifting motifs” (Özcan and Kaval 2019), a doctoral dissertation that largely restricts itself to questions of textual transmission and superficial commentary, although it contains 122 collected folktales (Kaval 2019), and a master’s thesis that interprets the narratives through Jungian archetypes and the “hero’s journey” paradigm (Tekgül 2020). What emerges from such works is not a deeper understanding of Dersim’s mythological imagination but rather a reiteration of familiar scholarly taxonomies, in which the tales are reduced to variants of global typologies. In doing so, they obscure precisely what makes these narratives meaningful within their own cultural world, namely, their role as narrative reflections of the Raa Haqi universe.16 Moreover, these studies fail to clarify in which language the folktales were originally recorded. This omission is not a minor detail but a significant methodological shortcoming: if the tales were collected in Kırmancki or Kurmanci but published solely in Turkish, the act of translation inevitably mediates, reshapes, and sometimes distorts the semantic fields, symbolic structures, and culturally embedded meanings of the narratives. A rigorous analysis would, therefore, require a reflexive discussion of how linguistic translation affects the relation between key terms, thematic constellations, and the overall coherence of the tales within their local epistemological universe. The absence of such reflexivity results in a further detachment from the emic cultural logic of the Raa Haqi cosmology and contributes to the reproduction of a homogenised and decontextualised representation of Dersim folktales.17

4. Sacred-Geography, -Flora and -Fauna: Traversing the Zahir and Batın Realms of Dersim

Dersim folktales, beyond their narrative dimension, offer vivid geographical depictions and rich portrayals of the fauna and flora of a hidden mountainous world. They reflect the lifeways of the highlander Kurdish Alevi tribes who survived relative independence until the 20th century. The folktales, thus, become a mirror not only of the mountainous Dersim, where a rural way of life once dominated, but also of the cosmology of Raa Haqi that is deeply intertwined with nature. These tales allow us to grasp the region from within -through the symbols and meanings of the Kırmancki and Kurmanci linguistic worlds- rather than through historical, ethnographic, or administrative discourses that have mostly been constructed by outside observers. The world depicted in the tales bears the imprint of Zahir (the visible, social realm) and Batın (the mystical realm where the invisible population18 resides), which are inextricably intertwined. Unlike the cosmologies of the Abrahamic traditions -where notions of Heaven and Hell dominate- Raa Haqi envisions a chosen community (the community of hakikat, [also “the truth” or “the light”]) descending from the Gürûh-u Nâci (or Naciye)19 genesis myth, living in this sacred cosmic geography with both material and mystical dimensions.

The people of Dersim live within kinship-based social networks that range from households to tribes (aşiret), from talip–rayber-pir–mürşid relations to bonds of kirvelik and musahiplik (Gültekin 2019). Yet this social fabric simultaneously operates in constant interaction with the mystical order of Batın, populated by animate and inanimate beings. Social order is, therefore, not limited to human relations, institutions, and moral norms; fairies, mystical beings, ancestral spirits in (domestic or wild) animal forms, sacred mountains, rivers, lakes, springs, other mystical presences and elements such as fire20, water, and wind are integral to this order. A talip or a member of an Ocak, whether walking along a path, sitting at home, herding animals, harvesting crops, or travelling, always finds themselves accompanied by these Batın beings. They accompany human life both day and night like an invisible population. In this regard, Dersim folktales are not mere narratives of imagination but mythological maps that reflect the Batın & Zahir topographies of Raa Haqi.

In Dersim, every individual is part of an extended patrilineal family that belongs to a larger hane; hanes are linked through actual or mythical ancestors to form ezbets. Ezbets are considered later generations of common mythical ancestors, and together they constitute aşirets (tribes), which in turn form tribal confederations. The ways in which individuals establish contact with Batın characters also follow these individual and collective levels: there are individual jiares, jiares belonging to extended families or hanes, then village jiares (representing one or several ezbets), and more important jiares serving as pilgrimage sites for whole tribal territories. Some even transcend these categories and are venerated throughout Dersim (like Munzur or Duzgı), from east to west (Gültekin 2020, pp. 137–43).

A similar layered pattern appears in the tales, in the organisation of mystical time and space. The narrative geography unfolds from the level of the individual (the world of kin and non-kin) to broader social dimensions in a structured hierarchy. Such spaces of heroes can be arranged as follows: desolate places (mountain tops, caves, dark forests) → villages → towns → distant cities and countries beyond the known geography, which is the cultural geography of Dersim. Importantly, the tales contain not only natural features specific to Dersim but also elements absent from the region, such as oceans or islands.21 These motifs serve as thresholds of Batın, revealing how mythological and lived geographies are interwoven. Beyond Dersim, the landscape always unfolds in two dimensions: on the one hand, the “others” of Dersim -the Turkish, Muslim, and Christian worlds- as figures of Zahir22; and on the other hand, a transcendent layer surpassing these Zahir actors, namely the Batın world itself23. Accordingly, a broad spectrum of geographical objects is referenced: mountains, high peaks, plains, meadows, lakes, rivers, forests, dark woods, and even deserts, seas, and islands. Especially the motifs of desert, ocean, and island function as thresholds, marking both the end of Zahir’s domain and the beginning of the outside world or Batın -the realm of the invisible population- where the boundaries are often blurred.

The living spaces of the heroes and their communities—villages, mountain tops, desolate regions, dark forests, and deep valleys—constitute the central stage of the tales. In contrast, towns and cities are usually depicted as lying outside Dersim, inhabited and—more importantly—ruled by pashas, vezirs, beys, and foreign figures—often Sunni Muslim outsiders.24 Thus, Dersim appears at the very centre of the cosmos, while the outside world remains peripheral, populated by alien human elements. Batın is accessible both within this centre and at its boundaries, across mountains, rivers, enchanted regions, and forests. The mystical landscape is, thus, organised along the same logic of centre and periphery. Accordingly, the transition from Zahir into the hidden Batın of Dersim world that constitutes Dersim can be achieved in two ways: first, by moving to the very edge of Zahir and then crossing into the unknown lands beyond; and second, by reaching certain liminal points within Zahir itself -most often the jiares, sacred places that open windows onto Batın.25 The Zahir world is explicitly named the “Blue World” (Mavi Dünya) in the tales, setting it apart from the material world of other peoples, while simultaneously marking the cosmological threshold beyond which Batın unfolds within Dersim itself.

The folktales also offer an extraordinarily rich panorama of fauna. Through the dual lens of domesticated and wild animals, we can see how people in rural Dersim conceived their relationship to nature and to other beings -how they imagined them in their minds, and how they engaged with them. Two major categories emerge: domesticated animals -camel, sheep, lamb, ram, billy goat, goat, bijek (young goat), cow, calf, ox, horse, goose, dog, cat, hen, rooster, donkey, greyhound, pigeon- embody the everyday life, economic order, and social institutions of Zahir. In contrast, wild animals -bear, wolf, fox, marten, partridge, pigeon, rabbit, snake (black snake, yellow snake, bull snake), tortoise, lynx, gazelle, fish, wildcats, nightingale, mouse, squirrel, boar, crow, flies, duck, ant, snail, ladybug, hedgehog, frog and even lion- constitute a different symbolic realm.26

The difference between domesticated and wild animals vividly reflects the characteristic features of Zahir and Batın. Wild animals appear as more independent, mature, intelligent, and resourceful beings. A striking example can be found in the tale of “Evlinge and Şevlinge” (Canerik 2019, pp. 83–95), where a goat, after bravely confronting and defeating the wolf that devoured her kids, ascends to the mountain peak and ultimately joins Xızır’s27 sacred flock (Xızır’ın davarı) together with her surviving young. This transition symbolises how even domesticated animals, once passing through the threshold of struggle and death, may be absorbed into the Batın order, acquiring a sacred and eternal life beyond the boundaries of Zahir. The animal’s relation to Batın is immediate, as they are themselves part of that realm. They even possess secret languages of their own (the cryptic languages of Batın), which only spiritually accomplished individuals can understand. Dervishes (dervişler), miracle-working humans (kamil insanlar or pirs), and in some cases even talips with divine gifts are believed to have access to these hidden idioms. When they wish, wild beings speak with humans, intervene in their lives for good or ill, and maintain hierarchies and complex relationships of their own, much like humans in Zahir. In this way, wildlife functions as a direct gateway through which Batın manifests into Zahir. Wild animals are active agents of Batın: they speak, transmit messages, and shape destiny. Among them, the snake stands out as one of the most powerful symbols of Batın, embodying both fear and wisdom.28

In the folktales, not only animals but also various objects come to life. Trees, stones, waters, and even fire speak. Celestial bodies -the sun, moon, and stars- guide human life, carrying the signs of Batın. The four elements -fire, water, earth, and wind- are not merely natural entities but Batınî symbols of the 4 kapı 40 makam29 (four gates and forty stations) doctrine at the heart of Raa Haqi. They correspond to the Ocak-centred (Zahir) hierarchy of talip–rayber–pir–mürşid, and at the same time to the jiare-centered (Batın) symbols of heart, mind, ear, and eye. In this way, the dual authority structure—Zahir and Batın—is consistently articulated through sets of four, each reflecting the other. In folktales, too, this duality is reproduced in multiple forms: the elements symbolise not only the material world of nature but also the sacred cosmology and its representatives. Nature, thus, emerges as a world full of spirit, communicating with humans and embodying the layered ontology of Raa Haqi.30

Botanical elements also provide crucial insights into the rural world of Dersim. Given the region’s mountainous and rugged terrain and its long, harsh winters, cereal crops such as wheat, barley, and millet have historically been among its most valuable products. In the tales, they symbolise famine, hunger, and abundance. Situated at the very centre of daily life and the cycle of life and death, these grains embody how survival was valued and sustained. Alongside them, fruits such as apples and pomegranates are linked to magic, miracles, and communication with Batın.31 The pomegranate is especially significant: it highlights the shared symbolic heritage between Raa Haqi, Yezidism, and the Ahl-e Haqq traditions. This shared symbol points to common historical and cultural roots stretching back to antiquity (Bruinessen 2020, pp. 177–219).

In sum, these tales show that social order is not shaped solely by relations among humans but is continually structured by the presence of Batın. This hidden dimension manifests itself through every living and non-living being in the geography -mountains, rivers, lakes, trees, plants, domestic and wild animals, celestial bodies- each of which is sacred in itself. Every extraordinary event encountered in daily life is interpreted as a sign sent from Batın into Zahir. Heroes wander through mountains, set up camp and dwell in forests, bathe in streams and lakes, and ascend to remote and desolate peaks. In doing so, the narratives mirror the most characteristic features of the Dersim landscape. Geography, fauna, and flora are, thus, not merely the stage upon which folktales unfold; they are themselves active agents of Raa Haqi cosmology.

5. Echoes from the Zahir (Societal) Order: Memory, Morality, Forgotten Names, Outlaws and the Structures of Power

Dersim folktales are not merely mythological narratives; they are also rich historical, social, and ethnographic documents reflecting the inner relations of the people inhabiting a mountainous geography where life oscillated between scarcity and survival, as well as their interactions with the outside world. In the pre-modern era, and especially before 1938, when Dersim remained relatively isolated, both its internal world and its perceptions of the external world vividly emerge in these tales. Thus, the folktales function as memory reservoirs densely filled with sociological data, reminding us of forgotten ways of life, traditions, customs, habits, popular events, fears, collective emotions, desires, and expectations.

When the typologies of characters in the stories are examined, the most fundamental distinction is drawn between “us” (the Raa Haqi community) and the “others” (Turkish-Sunni rulers and, at times, Christians). All heroes are imagined as members of the enclosed Raa Haqi community. Spatially, the Raa Haqi world is represented through mountaintop huts, caves, forests, and villages, while cities and (partly) towns are depicted primarily as the domain of outsiders -pashas, beys, and sultans. In the stories, the poor people, namely the talips, form the main body of society. They are followed by aghas, beys, pashas, sultans, and kings. Aghas are often portrayed as part of Raa Haqi society, while beys are depicted sometimes as insiders and sometimes as outsiders. Kadıs, müftüs, imams, pashas, and sultans are unequivocally associated with the outside world, that is, Sunni Muslim authority. An important distinction emerges here: in the Batın realm, no person or place is considered “foreign”; all beings belong within this faith, as part of “us.” By contrast, in the Zahir realm, the boundary between “us” and the “other” is strictly maintained.32

The dominant traits of “good characters” in the folktales include poverty, disability or misfortune, honesty, helpfulness, empathy, and diligence. Heroes are always on the move: they cross mountains and rivers, travel from village to village, reach cities, and even surpass the limits of the Zahir world to enter the Batın realm and return. This mobility reflects the central characteristic of the religious communication networks established around the Ocaks and pirs (Deniz 2019, pp. 45–75). Stories typically begin with a disruption of a static life, and the chaotic flow continues until a new order is established. The poor have modest expectations: a life without quarrels or hunger, a hopeful future for their children, and ultimately a “good death.”33 These narratives demonstrate how deeply the traumatic historical experiences endured by the Dersim communities over centuries have been inscribed into collective memory.

In the background of the folktales, peasants engage in subsistence activities entirely dependent on nature -farming, herding, woodcutting, and hunting. Occasionally, characters appear who subsist solely through gathering, evoking even faint traces of a distant hunter-gatherer past while also offering clues about the harshness of Dersim geography.34 Heroes, typically depicted as poor, provide vivid and detailed portrayals of rural Dersim life. As Greve (Canerik 2022, Vorwort) has emphasised, animal ownership was the primary livelihood in this mountainous terrain; products such as milk, yoghurt, and curd derived from sheep and goats formed the centre of daily life. Seasonal migrations to high mountain pastures in summer and the long, harsh winters are directly reflected in the tales.

Poverty is persistently emphasised as a defining feature of old Dersim: life sustained with only a few animals and small plots of land is depicted as true deprivation despite gruelling labour. Poverty constitutes also the most common condition shaping the social position of heroes. In this context, the concept of “doing good” comes to the fore. Acts of kindness are extended not only to humans but also to Batın beings and wild animals. Thus, the central characters of the tales can be grouped into three categories: humans, non-human beings (mountain, stone, river, lake, sun, moon, fire, water, etc.), and animals, reflecting how Zahir and Batın realms are constantly intertwined in Raa Haqi cosmology.

The economic order of rural Dersim in the tales is not limited to farming and herding; it also includes other livelihood practices specific to the region and historically well-known. In this regard, “raiding” or “banditry” emerges as a significant theme.35 Some folktales represent this as one of the local subsistence strategies.36 In this regard, one striking figure in the tales is the levent. These are depicted as fugitive sailors who escaped from the Ottoman palace in Istanbul. This illustrates how, throughout Anatolia’s long feudal centuries filled with uprisings, Dersim functioned as a refuge and fortress for those fleeing central authorities, while also integrating oppositional memories and figures into its cultural universe. Thus, raiding in the tales appears not only as an economic activity but also as a symbol of fleeing central authority, living outside the order, and preserving local autonomy. In remote geographies far from state power, banditry is portrayed at times as a form of resistance and at times as a survival necessity. Their activities extend far beyond simple rural plundering, carrying complex social and political meanings of detachment from authority, integration with local communities, or confrontation with them.

The social order portrayed in the folktales is shaped not only by peasants, the poor, and talips, but also by rulers and authority figures. In this regard, the hierarchy depicted in the tales is typically arranged as follows: kings (rulers of realms) > viziers/chief advisors (kral lalaları) > pashas (rulers of cities) > beys (authorities ruling rural districts, equivalent to city-level power) > aghas (leaders of villages or tribes).37 Within this hierarchy, kings, pashas, and beys are usually represented as foreign to Dersim. On rare occasions, pashas or beys are portrayed as part of village life, but the prevailing tendency is to associate them with the “outside world,” specifically the Turkish-Sunni order. The female counterparts of kings, pashas, and beys are the figures of hanım and hatun, who also appear as extensions of foreign authority. Aghas, by contrast, are depicted as the group most closely connected to Dersim society. Most often coded as integral to the Raa Haqi community, aghas occasionally appear as outsiders. This highlights a division among authority figures between those intrinsic to Dersim and those belonging to the outside world.

Dersim folktales not only depict social order, values, and the organisation of daily life, but also preserve original names that are on the verge of being forgotten. These names, once used in Dersim but now largely lost, carry traces of a vanished social fabric and memory. Thus, the tales serve as an onomastic treasure alongside their symbolic and mythological dimensions. The names bring back into view a forgotten social world, keeping alive the linguistic, cultural, and social heritage of Dersim. Names in the tales diversify under different categories. Among male characters, Kekil, Khekil, Rut, Kheko, Thomır, Mircik, Ale Qodik, Şah İsmail, Avranchi, Mevali, Wuşe, Mem, Hesen, Sıleman, Avres, Qız, Worte, Pil, Noma (the King’s Vizier), Şems, Seyd, Cemal, Sili, Wore, Torge, Sılo, Gujik, Çele, Şahduvar, Sey, Şes, Baqıl, Dewuz, Xort, Şimşer, Hiris, Yusuf, and Xortek appear. Female names include Xanezun, Ceve, Mele, Zeve, Sae Sure, Xane, Sosın, Bese, Sone, Cevahir, Gule, Jil, Fide, Jeroj, and Xeze. Among animals, only one male name occurs—Ostoro Şa (horse)—while female names are more diverse: Bıza Kole (goat), Evlinge (goat), Şevlinge (goat), Kole (goat), and Waye Lüye (fox). For non-human beings, female naming is dominant, such as Çewres (a giant’s daughter); no male-named non-human beings appear. Among places, the city name Suka Sıpela is mentioned. This panorama is striking in terms of social fabric, as male characters are named more frequently than female ones; women are often identified through relational terms such as “so-and-so’s wife” or “an old woman.” By contrast, interestingly, female names dominate in animals and non-human beings. This indicates that gender codes in Dersim folktales are reproduced not only among humans but also across animals and mythological beings.

Dersim folktales reflect social hierarchy and the social norms, moral values, and ritual practices shaping daily life. They provide rich insights into the ethical universe of Raa Haqi society, the institution of family, gender roles, and the culture of festivity. Certain behaviours are explicitly condemned, most notably the coercive taking, abduction, or possession of another man’s wife. In this regard, family emerges as a permanent and dominant value through one of the most important institutions in Raa Haqi, the rızalık.38 In the tales, marriages rarely occur without the woman’s consent, reflecting the central importance of women’s decisions in Alevi society. At the same time, alternative relational forms appear. Extramarital sexual relations surface in certain stories, though they do not undermine the authority of the family; rather, they highlight normative boundaries. Polygamy is absent among ordinary people but is represented as a practice of rulers and “outsiders.”39 In one tale, a girl’s marriage unfolds outside community norms and is narrated as a negative example. In another, a woman leaves her husband for another partner. Significantly, honour killing does not occur here; the woman’s freedom of choice marks a striking departure from surrounding communities. Other tales explicitly question honour killings, with some male relatives rejecting them -indicating the presence of alternative moral frameworks.40 Additionally, sexual relations are generally described as marital (e.g., “Shah Ismail (Şah İsmail)”, Canerik 2019, p. 116). The tales also contain direct depictions of intimacy, as in one account (Canerik 2019, p. 395): “Xort descended from above, Xanezun ascended from below. They embraced each other so tightly that for a whole week he did not return home but remained in the cave.”

In this context, offering lokma (a ceremonial bread) emerges as another central social value (“The Poor Youth and the Pasha’s Daughter (Fakir Genç ve Paşa Kızı)”, Canerik 2019, pp. 319–35). Sharing lokma is not only a religious ritual but also a means of sharing with the poor, travellers, and the needy, embodying a source of blessing and protection. Similarly, sharing niyaz represents a bloodless sacrifice; niyaz is distributed not only among humans but also to wolves, birds, and insects in the mountains (“The Stick of the Poor Man (Fakirin Sopası)”, Canerik 2019, pp. 531–37), reflecting the ethical relationship of Raa Haqi belief with nature and animals. In this regard, some tales directly praise ethical values. They present Raa Haqi life, morality, and perspectives positively. Diligence and labour bring blessings -children, abundance, and domestic order. Laziness and negligence are condemned as sources of misery. Wealth is not seen as a guarantee of happiness or morality; instead, modest, hardworking lives are valorised. Children stand out as the most important value, celebrated as life-enhancing miracles (“The Red Hen [Kırmızı Tavuk]” (Canerik 2019, pp. 425–36)). The lives of the poor are portrayed as harsh, marked by heavy labour without clear improvement. Their modest desires include healing from illness, separation from a troublesome spouse, or a life of peace with a full stomach. These wishes are depicted as aspirations for a simple, nature-harmonious life in small huts.41

Another key value is revenge. When based on legitimate grounds, revenge is represented as a powerful and socially accepted norm. This illustrates how justice in Dersim was not tied exclusively to state authority but also grounded in communal conscience and collective honour. At times, tales depict extremely brutal forms of punishment. In “The Giant’s Daughter in the Middle of the Seven Seas (Yedi Denizin Ortasındaki Dev Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 409–23) and in some other tales, the evil characters are torn apart by tying their limbs to animals driven in opposite directions, revealing the boundaries of communal justice.

6. Mythological Structures and Cosmological Layers in Dersim Folktales

The greatest value of Dersim folktales lies in their capacity to illuminate the largely unexplored cosmology of Raa Haqi, offering crucial insights that allow us to outline its contours almost like a drawn map. At their core, these narratives weave around central figures such as Duzgı, Xızır, Munzur, Kureyş, Baba Mansur, Ağuçan, Ana Fatma, Buyer, Jel, and Xaskar, while also invoking the vast pantheon of jiare—sacred beings and places numbering in the thousands. This multilayered and dynamic body of stories rests on recurring mythological patterns: Ağuçan drinking poison and letting it out through his heel, Kureyş riding a lion and using a snake as his whip, or Baba Mansur moving a wall are just some of the archetypal motifs tied either to the mythical ancestors of the Ocak lineages or to independent yet authoritative figures such as Duzgı.42

When entering the world of jiare, however, these motifs are constantly reshaped and adapted to different sacred sites, even merging with figures and events outside the Alevi context. In this sense, folktales represent a vast ethnographic reservoir through which the mythology of Dersim can be deciphered. It is crucial to note that the philosophy, sociology, theology, and even the economic principles of Raa Haqi are embedded within these stories. They can, thus, be read as the last surviving echoes of a disappearing world. As argued before, the cosmology of Raa Haqi rests upon the parallel realms of Zahir and Batın, each governed by its own religious, social, and cultural authorities. In the folktales, jiare and other Batın beings occupy the position of ultimate authority. While the Ocak lineages and their pirs represent the visible institutions of Zahir, the full range of Raa Haqi’s social and religious institutions—ikrar43 (sacred oath), musahiplik (ritual brotherhood), kirvelik (godparenthood)44, the principle of sır (secrecy), ritual calendars, ascetic practices, and the right to claim one’s due- appear in close entanglement with Batın. Folktales, in this sense, offer the clearest expression of this dual structure of authority and an insight into the hidden world.

6.1. Ocaks, Pirs; Religious Norms and Institutions Structuring the Social World

Only a limited number of folktales make the figures of the Ocak-centered Raa Haqi practices visible.45 Rituals such as holding the cem, the arrival of a pir in the village, and the communal enactment of religious life under the authority of a spiritual leader appear only in fragmentary ways. The reason is clear: pirs and mürşids are primarily actors of the Zahir (the manifest world). While they undoubtedly held great prestige in society, within the world of the folktales even representatives of the Ocak are depicted as showing reverence toward the beings of Batın. Thus, as embodiments of Zahir’s authority, the pirs occupy a secondary position when confronted with the dominance of Batın. As mentioned earlier, this dual structure of authority -Ocak lineages and jiare- is characterised by both subtle rivalry and mutual complementarity.

Within this framework, the concept of ikrar (sacred oath) emerges as one of the most central theological notions of the Zahir dimension of Raa Haqi. In stories such as “The Pasha and His Vizier (Paşa ve Veziri)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 457–69) and “The Poor Youth and the Pasha’s Daughter (Fakir Genç ve Paşa Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 319–55), the decisive role of ikrar is unmistakable. In Raa Haqi, an ikrar is not merely a promise or agreement; it is a binding covenant that extends beyond death and cannot be abandoned. Heroes in the tales refuse to break their ikrar even with antagonistic figures, sometimes ending by forming musahip (ritual brotherhood) with them. The binding force of musahiplik is frequently emphasised. In “The Pasha and His Vizier (Paşa ve Veziri)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 457–69), for instance, not only humans but also domestic animals, wild beasts, and even Batın beings are expected to remain “faithful to the ikrar.” The image of the ant riding on the lamb, the lamb on the back of the Arap, all bound together by ikrar, signifying that this sacred tie extends beyond humanity to all beings and exalts it as a foundational institution of social contracts.

The folktales also implicitly address other cultural institutions such as kirvelik (ritual kinship) and musahiplik. These bonds sustain the social fabric, reinforce the authority of the pir, and align directly with Raa Haqi’s philosophy of rızalık. In this worldview, all humans—and indeed all beings, animate and inanimate—are bound by an agreement of reciprocity. This applies equally to Batın entities. Any act carried out without the consent, approval, or inner acceptance of the other is considered contrary to “the Path” (yol) of Raa Haqi and is believed to bring inevitable misfortune. This theological framework also underpins the principle of hakkını alma (claiming one’s due). Humans, animals, and Batın beings alike are entitled to receive what is rightfully theirs according to their own reality. Thus, wolves or bears taking sheep from a flock, or Batın beings demanding offerings -whether bloodless or with sacrifice- after assisting humans, are seen not as transgressions but as rightful claims. In this way, the cosmological order and philosophy of equality in Raa Haqi become visible through narrative detail.46

The religious calendar of Raa Haqi also surfaces in the folktales. The reference to Thursday evening (kutsal akşam, kutsal gün, Perşembe akşamı) as the sacred day of the week, the mention of Kara Çarşamba (Black Wednesday), and allusions to the Xızır fasts (Xızır oruçları) clearly situate these tales within the cycle of ritual time.47 Told during the long nights of winter, the folktales simultaneously serve as vessels of memory for winter rituals, ensuring the continuity of the sacred calendar through oral transmission. Collective rituals (cem, cemaat yapmak) are also seen in the tales (e.g., “The Dervish and the Dragon (Derviş ile Ejderha)” Canerik 2019, pp. 301–5), reflecting egalitarian participation and decisions reached through consensus. Remarkably, however, explicit references to the cem ceremony -the only central communal ritual of Alevism, usually performed annually- are exceedingly rare in the folktales. When they do appear, as in “The Bear’s Love (Ayı’nın Aşkı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 293–98), the sacred assembly includes not only villagers under the guidance of the pir, but also a bear who participates and is ultimately revealed to be a Batın being in disguise. This striking scene illustrates the unique cosmology of Raa Haqi, where wild creatures and non-human beings are integrated into the ritual order as equals alongside humans, embodying the principle that all life forms share in the same sacred totality.

The practice of çile (ascetic retreat) also emerges as a defining element of Raa Haqi. Through isolation in the mountains, fasting, and self-questioning, the practitioner seeks to approach the ultimate truth (hakikat). In the tales, çile parallels the hero’s journey of transformation, symbolising the bodily and spiritual trials required to access Batın knowledge.48

Finally, the concept of sır (secret knowledge which is also sacred) is a recurrent theme. In Raa Haqi it holds a theological significance equal to ikrar. Sır refers to the body of knowledge that separates Raa Haqi from the profane world. This knowledge exists in differentiated forms across Zahir and Batın: in the Zahir, it is accessed through the forty gates and forty doors (dört kapı kırk makam) under the absolute guidance of Ocaks; however, in the Batın, it is guarded in the secret languages of animals, the speech of fairies, or other esoteric codes. Contained within these secrets are the keys to miraculous powers (keramet) in the Zahir world. But sır is not only knowledge -it is also an ethical imperative. To conceal, preserve, and transmit it is the duty of every follower. For centuries, Kurdish Alevis in the isolated mountains of Dersim maintained a closed communal existence in order to safeguard their sır. When the secret is betrayed—through deceit, temptation, or careless speech—the order collapses. Batın beings lose their forms or powers or return irreversibly to the Zahir. Humans, too, risk social disintegration if they “give away their sır.” This is why tales of fairies, houris, and giants turning into mortals once their secret is exposed resonate with deep theological weight: they dramatise the indispensable role of secrecy in sustaining the Raa Haqi cosmos.49

6.2. Prayers

In Dersim folktales, prayer emerges as one of the most distinctive practices of the Raa Haqi. Far from being only an expression of individual piety, prayers are narrated as moments of communication between the worlds of Zahir and Batın. Their addressees, contents, and timing display a wide range of variation. The most striking are those directed to celestial beings. In the tales, invocations are often made by turning toward the sun or the moon, addressing the very centre of the cosmic order. For instance, a poor woman turns to the east every morning and prays to the rising sun with the words: “O herald of the radiant morning…”—a plea that unites her wish for a child with the sanctity of the cosmos itself. Here, the Sun is described as the “mother of the Blue World” and the “sacred essence of the universe.” Similarly, prayers directed at the Moon establish a direct link between celestial cycles and human life, evoking expectations of fertility, abundance, health, and renewal.50 Celestial bodies simultaneously possess Batın dimensions; ritual invocations addressed to the visible sun are directed toward its hidden, spiritual aspect. Within this symbolic framework, the Sun (Oli) and the Moon are also gendered in Kırmancki: the Sun is regarded as masculine, while the Moon is feminine. Although Oli has often been assimilated in later Alevi discourse to the figure of Ali, the folktales suggest that he originally stood as an autonomous sacred power of Dersim mythology, comparable to Duzgı, Munzur, or Xızır. It is even plausible that Oli represents a pre-Ocak local cult, or perhaps an ancient solar deity from antiquity. In any case, the Sun emerges throughout the tales as the undisputed sacred axis of the cosmos.

Through characters that are unusual in other Alevi traditions, the descriptions of Raa Haqi in Dersim folktales provide significant support for the theory of the dual authority mechanism. In “The Daughter of the Giant Man (Dev Adamın Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 471–81), the definition of following the religion is expressed as “not harming others, fasting during the month of Xızır, sharing niyaz, and bathing in the Munzur River on Kara Çarşamba.” In “Shems and Seyd (Şems ile Seyd)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 191–98), when Solomon, the king of Batın beings, asks vizier Noma what his king (in Zahir) worships, Noma replies that he worships the Sun, which is Oli. Strikingly, in many other cases, from the perspective of Batın characters, there is no requirement to be a talip of an Ocak. Rather, religious life is defined through daily practices at jiares and rituals performed on calendrical days at these sacred sites. This offers fascinating evidence of how the practice of Raa Haqi is envisioned through the world of Batın beings.

Equally significant are the times and orientations of prayer. Supplications at sunrise or sunset, prayers offered while facing east, those synchronised with lunar phases, or invocations performed during special nights such as Xızır’s Night -often accompanied by dreams or visionary experiences- all reflect the inseparable entanglement of ritual, cosmology, and everyday life in Raa Haqi practice. Indeed, early observers of Dersim consistently noted the distinctive bodily orientation of these prayers as one of the most salient features of local religiosity.51

A second group of prayers is directed to Batın figures, above all to Xızır, who occupies a central position in the cosmology of Raa Haqi. He is the most frequently invoked non-human being, remembered constantly in everyday life as an ever-present helper, and this centrality is vividly reflected in the folktales. Unlike prayers to celestial beings, which are tied to cosmic rhythms, supplications to Xızır are usually pragmatic and immediate: they are uttered for the healing of illness, the redress of injustice, or the rescue of those facing death. In these invocations, Xızır’s extraordinary powers are directly referenced -his ability to revive the dead, to restore severed limbs, or to appear suddenly at moments of extreme danger. The folktales depict him as a miraculous intervener who moves fluidly between Zahir and Batın, embodying divine compassion and justice. His roles vary from the protector of the poor to the mediator of oaths and the guarantor of communal ethics, but across these tales, he consistently represents the ultimate source of aid and healing, the figure to whom every desperate prayer is addressed. The spaces where prayers are offered are also telling. Mountain peaks, rivers, lakes, and sacred sites (jiare) appear as the primary arenas of supplication. In some accounts, to pray is explicitly described as “calling upon the jiare,” underscoring their role not merely as sacred places but as thresholds where Zahir and Batın intersect.52

Ultimately, the prayers preserved in these folktales reveal a twofold distinction: invocations to celestial beings (the sun, the moon) articulate cosmic and miraculous hopes, whereas prayers to Batın figures (such as Xızır or Duzgı) seek practical, everyday assistance. Yet in both cases, prayer functions as a dense network of communication linking human life with nature, and Zahir with Batın. This network, vividly retained in oral tradition, constitutes one of the most enduring markers of the old rural life of Dersim. Curses (beddua), on the other hand, also serve as potent social sanctions. In “The Agha’s Three Daughters (Ağanın Üç Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 367–70), an old woman’s curse transforms animals into humans, illustrating how social justice is enacted through metaphysical means. In the tale, the daughters’ arrogance and lack of respect toward the elderly trigger the curse, which exposes hidden traits by turning people into the very animals they resemble in character. Magic and counter-magic here, thus, operate not as mere fantasy but as moral codes that discipline and reorient social behaviour. For example, in the story of “Xanezun and Xort (Xanezun ile Xort)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 390–400), a spell can only be broken through bloodshed -demonstrating how violence is mobilised as a functional element of social morality.

6.3. Jiare (Sacred Places and Beings)

In Dersim folktales, jiares are not merely points of spatial sanctity or enchanted objects. They function as liminal spaces where Zahir and Batın interpenetrate, where forms shift, and where boundaries dissolve. Mountains, stones, springs, caves, and graves are simultaneously part of everyday life in the Zahir world and the abodes of beings who hold direct authority in Batın. In this sense, jiare are the most powerful knots binding the two realms together.

The intertwining of mountain and grave venerations is particularly striking. In the tales, mountain peaks are often described as burial places. This illustrates how mountains and the spirits of the ancestors are fused into a single concept of jiare. As such, jiare occupy a foundational place in the religious and social life of Raa Haqi communities: they are both centres of individual devotion and loci of collective memory through ancestral veneration. Folktales link death and post-mortem rituals directly to individual piety (Canerik 2019, p. 56)53. Cemetery visits, bonds with the dead, appearances of the deceased in dreams, or signs they send, all reinforce the role of jiare as points of contact with Batın. More importantly, funerals and, apart from individual casual visits, the annual communal visits to the deceased are among the most common social practices among Dersim Alevis, serving to reinforce and renew social bonds.

Another remarkable detail is that even animal characters take oaths by placing their hands (or paws) on a jiare. This motif demonstrates that jiare are sacred not only to humans but also to animals and even Batın beings. They are, thus, not merely religious sites but spaces where the moral order between all forms of existence is established. Ultimately, in the folktales, jiare appear as liminal spaces where Zahir and Batın intersect and transform into one another. In these places, distinctions between human, animal, mountain, water, or the dead dissolve; every being finds its share of sacredness there. Jiare are the strongest domains of individual religiosity, while also serving as thresholds where Batın authority permeates the world of Zahir.

Dreams and visions are also among the most important expressions of this individual religiosity in relation to jiare practices. In many tales, the hero receives a message from Batın through a dream or by encountering an old man during a journey (Canerik 2019, p. 252). Such experiences serve as answers to problems or guiding signs. Independent from communal ritual forms, these mystical encounters show that jiare are spaces where individuals can make direct contact with Batın. Through dreams, individuals also transform their being in Zahir into other forms and, thus, come into more direct and active contact with Batın. Dreams constitute one of the most intense domains of such contact, functioning as liminal experiences where the self undergoes metamorphosis in order to cross into the mystical realm. In the folktales, dreams often operate as vehicles of revelation and transformation: in “The Sultan’s Daughter (Padişahın Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 534–37), a poor man’s dream of a hidden treasure materialises in waking life; in “The Giant’s Daughter in the Middle of the Seven Seas (Yedi Denizin Ortasındaki Dev Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 409–23), the mutual dreams of a prince and a maiden forge a predestined bond between them; while in “Cimri Kral (The Miserly King)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 443–48), the deceased wife appears in a dream to summon her son, bridging the boundary between life and death. Such instances demonstrate that dreams are not mere psychological episodes but culturally codified thresholds into Batın.

Beyond the narratives themselves, rüya görmek (dream-seeing) has long been an integral component of everyday life among Dersim Alevis. Visiting a jiare not only involves offering prayers or lighting çıra but also lying down, sleeping, and seeking revelatory dreams at the site. Such practices reveal that dreams are conceived as “windows” into Batın, a privileged medium through which individuals receive guidance, warnings, or legitimation. They are, therefore, not detached from social life but exert a direct influence on decision-making processes, affecting choices of marriage, livelihood, migration, or conflict resolution. In this sense, the dream motif in folktales reflects and extends a broader cultural logic in which nocturnal visions function as authoritative channels shaping both the sacred and the everyday.

6.4. Batın Characters

The beings of Batın form some of the most striking images of the Raa Haqi mythological universe. Frequently appearing in folktales are jinn, fairies, giants, witch-like old women, dragons, and various semi-human or semi-divine figures. They dwell not only in remote and desolate landscapes -lakes, rivers, or the enchanted forests of Batın- but also in ordinary objects of the Zahir world, such as gourds, jars, or staffs. The concept of sır (the secret knowledge) defines these figures above all. If a person who has access to the sır fails to guard it or reveals it, these semi-human beings return to Batın -rendered in the texts as the “other world.” In Raa Haqi cosmology, “changing worlds” signifies a passage between Zahir and Batın, a cycle of metamorphosis in which souls continually shift forms and move back and forth between the two realms (Gültekin 2019). When sır is not kept, truth withdraws into concealment. This dynamic reflects an existential survival mechanism developed over centuries by Kurdish Alevis, who preserved their identity by protecting knowledge from the outside world. Sır functions to safeguard communal essence by withholding knowledge.

The language of Batın characters is equally telling: they refer to humans simply as “two-legged creatures,” marking them as beings outside their own domain. In the tale of “The Stableman and the Pasha’s Daughter (Seyis ve Paşa Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 133–47), the boundaries between Zahir and Batın are carefully delineated, and both humans and animals cross between the two realms, taking on new forms. Through such narratives, Batın characters emerge not only as mythological figures but also as vital and active agents within Raa Haqi cosmology itself.

6.5. Pirê

Among the most frequently encountered figures in the folktales is Pirê, literally meaning “old woman”.54 Yet beyond this simple translation, Pirê emerges as a multilayered character. Most often, she is portrayed as a witch-like, malicious, and cunning crone. In this sense, the term is frequently coupled with cambaz (trickster), highlighting a typology of deceitfulness, opportunism, and manipulation—someone who exploits the naivety of humans and animals alike. Cambaz carries connotations of “schemer” or “juggler,” underscoring Pirê’s role as a figure who uses intelligence and experience to mislead or outwit others. Nevertheless, Pirê is not always malevolent. In rare instances, she appears as a benevolent elder, offering guidance, wisdom, and direction to the hero. This duality -witch-like trickster on the one hand, wise counsellor on the other- positions Pirê as a liminal character. Standing at the threshold of Batın, she embodies both danger and wisdom, marking her as a personification of the fluidity between Zahir and Batın.

Within collective memory, Pirê can be seen to play a dialectical function. On the one side, she serves as a cautionary reminder of exploitation, deceit, and the abuse of innocence, continuously reinforcing moral codes. On the other hand, she embodies the possibility of feminine wisdom in Raa Haqi cosmology, where religious authority (rayber, pir, mürşid) is predominantly associated with men -even though ana figures exist as female authorities. Through Pirê, folktales reveal that Batın knowledge can also be embodied in women. She is, thus, not merely a malevolent witch but also a guardian of knowledge, a threshold keeper who may conceal or disclose Batın wisdom, testing the hero’s resilience on the path toward truth.

This ambivalence of Pirê also sheds light on broader gender dynamics in the folktales. Women are frequently portrayed as more intelligent and decisive than men: they solve problems, expose tricks, uncover lies, and provide solutions (Canerik 2019, p. 396). Men often consult their wives and ultimately follow their advice. While most heroes are male, certain stories highlight female protagonists. Male “villains” are typically rulers -aghas, beys, pashas, viziers, kings—figures of wealth and power. Female “villains,” by contrast, are usually their wives or witches (pirê). In this way, Pirê as both trickster and wise elder stands at the intersection of mythological typology and gendered power, embodying the dual role of women in the moral and cosmological order of Raa Haqi.

Beyond pirê, the folktales reveal a wider repertoire of female figures who oscillate between benevolence and malevolence. On one side stand fairy-girls and saintly mothers, embodiments of beauty, wisdom, and nurturing power; on the other, rulers’ wives, wealthy women, and witches, female giants associated with deceit, greed, and destruction. This contrast is not merely moral but cosmological: the same narrative world that empowers women as mediators of Batın knowledge also warns against their potential to destabilise communal order. Female figures simultaneously embody threat and wisdom, danger and creativity, functioning as a liminal category—capable of embodying both the sacred continuity of life and its rupture.

6.6. Giants

In Dersim folktales, giants (devler)55 are strikingly often depicted as female figures -mothers and daughters- who appear in direct interaction with humans, alternately as obstructive or testing agents. Unlike distant, untouchable beings, they are creatures that can be fought and ultimately defeated. Their destruction, however, follows a peculiar rule: they fall with a single sword strike, but if struck again they return to life. This motif highlights their dual nature -mortal yet extraordinary, destructible yet resilient. Male giants are rare; in some exceptional cases, however, they appear as repentant giants (Canerik 2019, p. 475). Like Pirê, giants also possess magical powers, emphasising their liminal positioning between the human and supernatural realms.

Symbolically, giants represent mostly the feminine and perilous face of Batın. Their prevalence suggests a connection to fertility, raw power, and trial. The motif of the single sword strike, and the danger of striking again, conveys an encoded lesson: truth can be approached only in the correct way; excess or imbalance revitalises its formidable power. Giants, thus, personify the terrifying thresholds of Batın. In confronting and overcoming them, heroes approach truth -but are always reminded of Batın’s dangerous yet transformative force. As Greve notes, giants, together with other wondrous beings such as dragons and fairies, appear with remarkable frequency in the folktales, often as grotesque and dangerous figures who nevertheless can be outwitted and defeated (Canerik 2022, Vorwort).

6.7. Fairy Girls (Peri Kızları) and the Vocabulary of Batın Beings

Among the most striking Batın figures in Dersim folktales are the fairy girls (peri kızları).56 They are portrayed as the most beautiful of all beings, human and non-human alike, often depicted swimming naked in small lakes hidden deep within forests. Their beauty is not merely physical but also enchanting and seductive, embodying both allure and danger. Frequently, they appear as shape-shifters who can transform into doves, rising from lakes and assuming new forms. This transformation serves as one of the most powerful symbols of Batın’s permeability between forms and worlds.

Fairy girls represent Batın’s captivating yet testing dimension. For the hero, they are sources of immense attraction, but access to their secret—especially witnessing their moments of transformation—is strictly forbidden. When this secret is revealed, the fairies either withdraw from the human world and return to Batın, or they are forced into mortal life as ordinary humans. This motif is one of the clearest illustrations of how the concept of sır (secret) operates within Raa Haqi cosmology: truth withdraws and conceals itself once its secrecy is broken. The fairies’ association with lakes, forests, and birds underscores Batın’s intimate bond with nature. Their transformation into doves combines the symbolism of peace and sanctity, rendering them at once embodiments of dangerous seduction and pure sacredness. This duality reflects the very essence of Batın: simultaneously alluring and destructive, guiding and deceptive.

The Batın pantheon in Raa Haqi is extraordinarily diverse and complex. Non-human beings could be male or female and maintain social structures much like humans in the Zahir world, complete with hierarchies, struggles, alliances, and major events (Gültekin 2025b). They are marked by absolute independence, governed by rules that belong exclusively to their own realm. In contrast, the Zahir world’s religious authorities, centred on the Ocak institutions, generally stand in the background when confronted with these beings. In practice, it is this pantheon of Batın entities that sustains Raa Haqi communities in their everyday interactions, ensuring that life remains “on the path” (yolu yürümek).

6.8. The Arab and the Dragon

In Dersim folktales, the figure of the Arab (used in the sense of “black person”) is typically male, wealthy, powerful, and at the same time malevolent.57 Whether he appears in the Batın or the Zahir world, he consistently carries a negative connotation.58 In the tale “The Poor Youth and the Pasha’s Daughter (Fakir Genç ve Paşa Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 319–36), the pasha’s daughter declares that “marrying the Arab pasha’s son would be no different from going to hell,” a statement that encodes the Arab figure in the most negative terms within the folktale tradition. He is depicted as ugly, coercive, and devoid of beauty, embodying the “external other” of the Zahir world: associated with palaces, pashaliks, and tyranny, and viewed from the talip perspective as foreign, dangerous, and undesirable. Thus, in the collective memory preserved by these folktales, the Arab functions as an image of exclusion -an outsider marked by moral and cultural alterity.

Another striking Batın figure frequently encountered is the Dragon (Ejderha). In the tale “The Dervish and the Dragon (Derviş ile Ejderha)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 301–6), the creature is found trapped in the midst of fire, rescued by the dervish, yet immediately attempts to devour him. This tense encounter symbolises the destructive and insatiable nature of Batın’s forces. Later in the story, however, the dragon’s fate is debated in what resembles an Alevi cem assembly, attended by a stream, an ox, and a fox. The dragon, thus, emerges not only as a dangerous adversary but also as an object of communal deliberation within a moral–ritual framework. The dragon also embodies the theme of transformation. In the tale “The Giant’s Daughter in the Middle of the Seven Seas (Yedi Denizin Ortasındaki Dev Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 409–23), the daughter of a giant successively turns the prince into an ox, a stake, a mill, and finally a dragon. This motif illustrates the dragon’s role as more than a terrifying beast; it is a liminal figure that signifies the metamorphic power of Batın. As such, the dragon tests the hero’s courage, patience, and endurance, acting as a threshold guardian on the path to the divine truth.

Together, the Arab and the Dragon represent two distinct “outsides” in Dersim folktales. The Arab signifies the otherness of the Zahir world -foreign, ugly, oppressive, and beyond the moral boundaries of the community. The Dragon, by contrast, embodies the other side of Batın: fearsome, destructive, yet also transformative and instructive. The hero’s confrontation with the dragon—success or failure—becomes a measure of his proximity to truth. In this sense, the Arab stands as the external other of Zahir, while the Dragon manifests as Batın’s testing power, rendering visible the dialectic between the two realms.

7. General Characteristics of the Stories

One of the most distinctive structural features of the Dersim folktales is that their plots are often built around the motif of events repeated three times. A hero or character usually attempts the same task three times; the first two attempts fail, while the third succeeds (for example, “Ale Qodik” (Canerik 2019, pp. 95–113)). This triadic structure resonates both with universal narrative patterns in folkloric typologies and with the Raa Haqi teaching of trial, patience, and perseverance. It also directly parallels the ethic of sabır (patience) and çile (ordeal), core values connected together in Raa Haqi cosmology, as illustrated in “The Patience Stone (Sabır Taşı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 539–44), where only endurance and restraint can unlock salvation.

Another striking feature is the fluidity of characters on the axis of good and evil. A figure may appear benevolent at one stage of the story but display malevolent behaviour at another. This instability aligns with the unpredictable nature of Batın beings. In “Brother Bear (Ayı Kardeş)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 157–64), the bear embodies both danger and brotherhood, while in “The Bear’s Love (Ayı’nın Aşkı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 293–98) even a bear is integrated into the sacred order of the cem through keramet (miracle). Such cases highlight that good and evil are not fixed essences, but relational states shaped within the moral order of Raa Haqi. Positive characters, by contrast, are marked by a set of recurring traits: poverty, disability or exposure to calamity, honesty, diligence, helpfulness, and compassion. These qualities are consistently rewarded in the narratives as signs of being “on the Path of Truth.”

Almost all protagonists are portrayed as constantly on the move. Rather than a fixed and monotonous flow, the tales unfold through journeys across mountains, rivers, and villages. The stories usually begin with an irruption -calamity, injustice, or deficiency-develop through the journey, and end only once a new order is established (for instance, “Sey and Jil [Sey and Jil]” (Canerik 2019, pp. 273–81)). This mobility reflects both the traces of a pastoral–nomadic way of life and the metaphysics of the yol (path) central to Raa Haqi. Journeys are not only spatial but also moral, echoing the notion of ikrar and musahiplik as “walking together on the path.”

The stories also bear historical and social layers embedded in their fabric. In “Who Is Sorrowful? (Kim Dertli?)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 337–44), the motif of an adopted tailor whose body is carried to a church clearly echoes the trauma of Armenians after the 1915 genocide and the practice of incorporating Armenian orphans into households. Place names such as “Keşiş Yaylası” (Monk’s Plateau), in “Evlinge and Şevlinge (Evlinge ile Şevlinge)”, Canerik 2019, pp. 83–94) preserve the memory of Armenian presence in the Dersim landscape. In “Gule and Sıle Mem (Gule ile Sıle Mem)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 231–37), the presence of bandits and Ottoman exiles in the mountains is woven into the narrative, while in “The Most Stupid (En Aptal)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 283–91) the hero’s journey across the “world of seventy-three nations” conveys both Dersim’s awareness of difference and its relations with the wider world. “The Pasha and His Vizier (Paşa ve Veziri)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 457–69) foregrounds tyranny and resistance, while “The Pasha of Erzincan (Erzincan Paşası)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 515–24) anchors the tales in concrete geography and political figures. These historical and “exotic” layers transform the folktales into not only symbolic narratives but also vernacular historiography, transmitting Dersim’s memory of violence, exile, and intercultural encounters.

The narrative techniques are equally noteworthy. Names of protagonists are often chosen spontaneously by the storyteller, which -despite the anonymity of the tales- opens space for individual interpretation and emphasis. Some stories end abruptly or feel fragmented, suggesting that narrators, working with what remained in their memory, combined fragments to produce new versions (for example, “Pirê and Kole [Pirê ve Kole]”, Canerik 2019, pp. 201–8). As Greve observes, this fragmentary quality reflects the conditions of oral storytelling in long winter nights, where memory, improvisation, and recombination created hybrid yet coherent new versions (Canerik 2022, Vorwort). Such fragmentation mirrors the flexible and re-constitutable structure of Raa Haqi’s own social organization.

The tales are woven not only with the supernatural but also with small, realistic details. Alongside Batın beings and miracles, mundane elements of daily life are carefully noted. In “Kundure” (Canerik 2019, pp. 8–22), domestic scenes such as fetching water, kneading bread, or conflict with the mother-in-law are recounted with remarkable ethnographic precision. In “The Poor Youth and the Pasha’s Daughter (Fakir Genç ve Paşa Kızı)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 319–35), the meticulous sorting of mixed grains provides a glimpse of everyday agricultural practices, while in “The Dervish and the Dragon (Derviş ile Ejderha)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 301–6) the collective deliberation of a stream, an ox, and a fox reflects communal modes of decision-making. Such details show how the fantastic and the everyday constantly intersect in the narratives.

Recurring linguistic and symbolic formulas further structure the tales. The phrase “shining like the moon, sparkling like the sun” (e.g., “Gule and Sıle Mem [Gule ile Sıle Mem]”, Canerik 2019, p. 232) is a common expression of extraordinary beauty. Proverbs and idioms often form the narrative’s core message, as in “Who Is Sorrowful (Kim Dertli?)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 337–44). Storytellers also employ riddles and formulaic openings or closings (“Was he lived, it became a tale…”), which anchor the folktales firmly in oral-poetic style (Canerik 2022, Vorwort). Taken together, these features reveal that Dersim folktales are not simply fragments of fantasy, but narrative vessels that encode the philosophical, sociological, and theological dimensions of Raa Haqi cosmology and community. They function simultaneously as myth, memory, and moral pedagogy, while also preserving ethnographic and historical detail as the last voices of a vanishing rural Dersim universe.

Lastly, in addition to central figures such as Xızır, giants, peris, etc. Dersim folktales also feature less central but recurrent characters drawn from the Abrahamic religious imagination -figures such as King Solomon (Süleyman), Moses (Musa), and Şah İsmail (Shah Ismail). Their appearances, though marginal, open important windows onto the cosmological intersections of Raa Haqi. In “The Frog Girl (Kurbağa Kız)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 39–55), Sultan Süleyman is invoked as a ruler who cannot challenge Tanrı (God), recalling the Biblical and Qur’anic image of Solomon while being situated within Batın geographies. “Shah Ismail (Şah İsmail)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 113–27) emphasizes prophecy, generosity, and the dangers of revealing one’s sır, portraying the Şah İsmail interestingly both as kurukafalı (boneheaded, slow to understand) and as a figure whose destiny is intertwined with miraculous combats, blindness, and deceptive witches. “Shems and Seyd (Şems ile Seyd)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 191–98) situates its protagonists in the realm of Sultan Süleyman across the seas, blending exotic clichés -desert islands, monkey kingdoms, and sudden investitures as pashas- with distinctly Raa Haqi motifs: the Sun as the supreme divine force, the ring as a Batın seal of power, and homoerotic undertones that recall the Sufi relationship between Mevlana and Şems. In “The Smiling Fish (Gülen Balık)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 347–58), Biblical resonances reappear in motifs of virgin birth and miraculous conception from a skull’s dust, alongside a queer figure of a half-female, half-male fish, and lurid depictions of palace life and sexual transgression, with punishments evoking both medieval tortures and memories of Alevi massacres under Sultan Selim (Yavuz). “The Miserly King (Cimri Kral)” (Canerik 2019, pp. 443–48) introduces the “land of the dead” through a bush that recalls Moses’s burning bush, populated by quarrelling trees, talking grains, and the souls of the deceased -a vision of transmigration in which humans, animals, and plants embody the cyclical flow between Zahir and Batın. Here the moral essence of “the path” (hak yolu) is clarified: compassion, generosity, and service to humans, animals, and nature alike. Dreams again play a crucial role, as Batın beings transmit truths through visionary encounters, demanding courage to pierce the veil of the sır.59

8. Conclusions

Dersim folktales provide a unique ethnographic source for the study of the Raa Haqi belief system and social organisation. The invaluable fieldwork and video interviews conducted by Caner Canerik in the Kırmancki language reveal a world of Dersim that is rapidly vanishing -quite distinct from both the narratives shaped in the last thirty years under the influence of Kurdish and Alevi politicisation, and the portrayals of Dersim found in early Republican documents or nineteenth-century missionary notes. Unlike these external and often prejudiced depictions, the folktales offer an insider’s perspective. For Raa Haqi society and culture are fundamentally rooted in oral tradition; collective thought and mythological knowledge were transmitted across generations both orally and through tightly woven forms of communal life centred around the Ocak lineages and everyday jiare worship practices and experiences. Yet the cataclysmic ruptures of the twentieth century -the 1938 genocidal massacre and the dismantling of the tribal system, the forced displacements of 1994 and destruction of almost all rural settlements, and consequently the mass migration to western Turkey and Europe -deeply shook this cultural world that had survived in relative isolation in the Dersim mountains for centuries. Today, in 2025, the childhood memories of Dersim people above the age of 60–70 (especially those born in villages and who remained there until the 1980s), and the traces of the world transmitted to them by parents born before 1938, provide us with an invaluable, though now fragmented, cultural memory.

Alevi studies over the past thirty-five years have developed largely around questions of identity politics, social transformation, and political struggle, with academic analyses often constructing Alevism from these perspectives. As a result, our knowledge of Alevi theology remains fragmented, dispersed, and frequently distorted. Kurdish Alevism (Raa Haqi) in particular is among the most contested, yet theologically least understood, cases. The methodological approach proposed here is to analyse Raa Haqi society and faith through its own cosmological framework: the authority figures of the Zahir and Batın worlds, the symbolic–imaginal fields they embody, and their interrelations. These relations may at times be peaceful and harmonious, at other times tense and conflictual, yet they constitute the key dynamics of the Raa Haqi order. Folktales provide an exceptional source for tracing and analysing these dynamics.

The most important contribution of the folktales lies in how they preserve the theological and cosmological codes of Raa Haqi and give crucial insights into the mythological imagination of Dersim Alevis, together with details of everyday life and fragments of collective memory. Concepts such as ikrar (sacred oath), sır (esoteric knowledge), musahiplik (ritual brotherhood), kirvelik (godparenthood), çile (ordeal or ascetic retreat), and the principle of hakkını alma (claiming one’s due) converge with the centrality of jiare and Batın beings. Sun and moon symbolism, prayers directed to Xızır, the transformative capacities of Batın figures, and the binding power of oaths extending even to animals -all of these elements elevate the folktales from mere folklore to a unique archive that reveals the cosmological order of Raa Haqi. Moreover, mythological Batın characters such as Pirê, the giants, the dragon, and the fairies open an unparalleled window onto the soul, emotions, thoughts, and daily life of the non-human world. These figures are not merely products of mythical imagination, but symbolic reflections of the multilayered relationship between humans and nature, Zahir and Batın. In this sense, the folktales of Dersim are not only the last voices of a vanishing rural world, but also a roadmap -and indeed a guide- for understanding the Batın–Zahir universe of Kurdish Alevism.