Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi

Öz

Since his existence, man has tried to create a system against nature and started to create "culture" with all its elements. Culture and nature are seen as two inseparable elements that oppose each other, like chaos-cosmos. As a being struggling for life, human beings are in a struggle against natural processes in the cultural world. As a result of expectations such as ensuring the fertility of the soil and the health of animals, avoiding evil spirits and being safe from them, and bringing benefits from gods and good spirits, some practices, solutions and lifestyles against nature have been developed. While all these elements represent culture, everything else is part of the supernatural. Understanding the supernatural and being sure about it is a very remote possibility for the ordinary person. This can only be possible for the chosen ones who have attained the secret. According to traditional beliefs, while humans try to survive in the face of nature with their own ways and methods, they regard the universe outside as a sacred, inaccessible and full of unknowns. Reflections of this belief can be seen in the narratives. One of these narratives is The Sheep Shepherd, a tale of the Shor Turks compiled in the early 20th century. The tale is about the protagonist, who should be considered a cultural hero, leaving his own cultural world and getting involved in the supernatural for a while. In this context, the fairy tale was examined in terms of the nature-culture contrast, and the reflections of this contrast on the tale were emphasized.