The Study of Changes in Meaning and Roles of Bagshy in Musical Culture of Turkmens of Turkmen-Sahra

In Turkmen musical culture “Bagshy” plays a significant role as the vehicle for the tradition of “Bagshy” and also in the absence of written history and literature he also conveyed these to later generations. Among the Turkmens, similar to the other bards of Central Asian musical traditions which are based on individual performers, their role has been changed severely up to now. According to the history of Turkmens, Bagshy’s role and meaning could be studied in three stages, the past which refers to the history and culture which Turk tribes of Central Asia held in common before the 14th century, the recent past which include the history of Turkmen nomads wandering in Central Asian plateaus to 19th century and the present-day situation that deals with sedentary Turkmen tribes that has lived under various political systems during the 20th century.The study of the common history of Turkmens and other Turk tribes of Central Asian reveals that in the past “Bagshy” referred to various but intertwined concepts such as musician, healer, narrator, clergy, and the wise man. It seems that the present-day “Bagshy” and his role among the Turkmens derives from “shaer-Bagshy” a reduction of “shaman-Bagshy” in the recent past, that then separated into two roles of poet and musician. In present-day Turkmen-Sahra, in contrast to prevalent definitions, “Bagshy” involves various types of musical activities which somehow reflect various signs of their ancestors, healers, narrators, and musicians. “Bagshy” in present-day Turkmen musical culture is categorized into four groups. The first, “golag Bagshy”, do not perform music but know the tradition of Bagshy very well, the second group, “yanama Bagshy” and “tayagh Bagshy”, only sing and the third one only plays musical instruments: “dutar Bagshy”, “gyjeg Bagshy” and “toyduk Bagshy”. The last group is both player and singer, but each member has a different role in Turkmen Musical life such as healer, the narrator, Khalifa (master) Bagshy (both singer and player).This paoer is an attempt to examine changes in meanings and roles of “Bagshy” through centuries, various associations and variants of word “Bagshy” among the Turkmens from past to present and to study them comparatively. The study is based on analyzing the proposed hypothesis about the history of “Bagshy” and collected data on its present situation gathered during fieldwork in Turkmen-Sahra as the important habitat for the Turkmens in Iran. To answer the question about the transformation of “Bagshy” among Turkmens, a review has been carried out on paradoxical ideas offered by the scholars about it. Then according to historical studies, I try to portray the “Bagshy” up to the 20th century, and finally, by comparing the results with data gathered from present-day Turkmen-Sahra, it is possible to explain the extent of changes. Despite changes in this musical tradition in the past centuries, some continuous elements such as the healing function and narrating heroic stories and performing according to “yol” could be interpreted as clues pointing to their shamanistic origin.