A tale mother: Muhsine Ekinci (Biography and performance)

This study offers a multilayered analysis of Muhsine Ekinci's life story, folktale repertoire, and narrative practice within the context of cultural memory, performance, family folklore, and oral transmission, shaped by the rural oral culture of Siirt. Born in a village in Siirt, Muhsine Ekinci started working at an early age and developed a strong narrative memory in her life full of deprivations. Her storytelling emerged as a form of oral tradition that both reinforced communal solidarity and sustained cultural transmission, particularly during long winter nights spent in domestic gatherings with women and children. Interwoven with supernatural elements, local motifs, female protagonists, and everyday life themes, her tales are not only entertaining but also instructive. For Muhsine Ekinci, storytelling is more than a means of transmitting cultural heritage; it is also a form of resistance and a practice of memory. Her use of facial expressions, vocal tone, and repetition highlights the performative nature of her interaction with the audience. Despite the narrowing of her storytelling environment following migration, her narratives have continued to carry a longing for the past and a spirit of cultural resilience, sustained through the attentive and supportive roles of her sons, Necmettin and Cemal. Through the translation efforts of her daughter Leyla, the tales were transcribed, enabling the preservation of oral cultural memory through a collective familial endeavor. Muhsine Ekinci's storytelling builds a bridge between individual memory and collective remembrance, rendering women's experiences visible through oral expression and enabling intergenerational continuity via family folklore. As a "Mother of Tales," she has not only told stories but also shaped familial memory through narrative, affirming women's voices and storytelling spaces. In this respect, her narrative practice is regarded not merely as an individual expression but as a living testimony of collective memory, cultural resistance, and oral tradition.