Aksaray Saratlı town transition periods and folklore examination of the beliefs connected to these periods

Folk culture is made up of the aspects which are connected to rule, custom, practice, order, and organizational structure. It develops through the ties between the people who make up society, their effect on one another, and their common struggles and collaborations. Each community has its own traits, social mores, and way of life. These traits are demonstrated in behaviors that are referred to as transitional times (birth, marriage, and death), which are seen as significant moments in a person's life. In this study, the rituals and customs which have been associated with birth, marriage, confession, and death that are observed in Alevi-Bektashi villages, Saratli town and its surroundings are reviewed. Traces of ancient Turkish culture were looked for and compared to other communities in the Turkish cultural geography in the rituals and belief components practiced in the area. In the introduction part of the thesis; subject, purpose, scope of the study, methods and techniques used in the study were mentioned. In the first part; Information was given about the history of Saratlı and other villages within the scope of the research, the concepts of Alevi-Bektashi were explained and information was given about the Sultan Samıd, Arzumanlı and Eslemezoğlu quarries that existed in the region. In the second part; The importance given to birth in the Saratlı region, the practices for women who do not have children and the treatment methods in this regard, the beliefs and practices related to pre-pregnancy, birth order and postpartum are mentioned. In the third part, marriage traditions are examined. The forms of marriage in the region, what to do before, during and after the wedding were conveyed. In the fourth part, the confession, which is seen as the intermediate transition period that we can define as the ceremony of entering the sect, is examined. Information about what the person should do and know in order to be confessed, the confession ceremony and how the individual who has become a suitor after the confession will continue his life. In the fifth part, the reasons that remind us of death, the beliefs and rituals applied during and after death are mentioned. In the conclusion part of the thesis; a general evaluation was made and as a result of this evaluation, it was concluded that the cultural elements of the people who lived in the Saratlı Region were similar to the ancient Turkish culture and other societies in the Turkish World.