Traditional professions sustained with their last masters in Kula

Traditional professions are one of the cultural elements that provide important information about societies lifestyles, tastes and aesthetics. As a result of the advancement of technology and the speed up of the mechanization process, societies have changed rapidly and traditional professions have been negatively affected by this process. The decrease in demand for the manufactured product day by day, the difficulty of access to raw materials, the difficulties of hand work production in the sense that work force and process, and as a result of all these problems failure to train new masters by masters of traditions has led many traditional professions to lose their importance in daily life and even to be forgotten. Kula district of Manisa province; with beliefs and practices in transitional periods such as clothing-dressing and food culture, birth, wedding and death is a district where the traditional way of living is maintained, in other words which maintains its connection with the past. There are many traditional professions in Kula that have continued existence from past to present. An important part of traditional professions, which occupy an important place in daily life in Kula, nowadays are the professions that are kept sustain with their last masters and in this sense live their last period. In this study, traditional professions sustained with their last masters in Kula are discussed. In the study, primarily, information was given about the history, geographical features and economic structure of Kula district, then information was given about the coppersmithing, felting, saddlery, saddle working and quilting professions that were tried to be sustained in Kula with the last masters, and determinations and suggestions were made for the sustain of these professions. The absence of any previous studies on traditional professions sustained with their last masters in Kula revealed the necessity of such a study. The data obtained in the study were obtained by field research, observation and interview techniques were used in field research. In this way, the information and opinion were received from the primary sources with interviewing the source people as well as the focus was not only on the product, also on the needs of the society, and some determinations were made about the current status of traditional professions that are the subject of the research. Keywords: Kula, tradition, traditional profession, artisan