Three Examples of Woman Songs from Moghan Plain (Moghanlu Clan) Vocal Texts and the Reconstruction of Ancient Beliefs

Introduction: The subject of this study is three examples of work songs in the women's community among the people of Moghan. Moghan Plain is an extensive green area in the north of Azerbaijan. By being present in the tribal society and the possibilities of people's life in the body of rural life, women make the difficulty of daily tasks easier with music and draw a narrative of their local environment in it, which we examine and analyze here as a text in a human and ethnic context.
Research Methodology: Our research method combines fieldwork and library study. The fieldwork was carried out in two consecutive weeks in the Moghan area. We talked with some local experts about women's music, especially in the section related to the songs of the work.
Research purpose and question: So far, no research has been done on women's music and singing in Moghan, and everything that has been written about the Moghan people is mostly related to historical issues, language, culture, and myths. Here we introduce the main sources because one of the questions of the present study which are related to the antiquity of the beliefs and rituals of the Turks, and this is something that we should talk about by relying on authentic historical documents.
Analysis and Discussion: Three examples of songs performed in work situations by the women of Moghan are introduced here. The first is an example of a lullaby performed by a woman in the interior of the house in the form of a solo song. The second example is singing that women sing outside the house while waving Mashk, and the third example is singing especially for women during the performance of the ritual of Samanu Pazan in the reception of Nowruz, which is performed by a soloist accompanied by other women. All three examples are performed in a two- or three-tone context and with a simple melodic circulation. The content and text of these songs evoke themes that will be studied during this research along with the study of musical structure.
Each song consists of short, recurring melodic figures, which can have a variety of variations in proportion to the different poems. The performance tone of each piece can vary according to the performance position and the physical movement related to the work. The content of the reading texts is precisely related to the work that is being done, and in the simplest case, it can be a description of the situation – the difficulty or the ease and beauty of doing the work, praying for good and blessings and health. Our revelation beyond the text of the songs of the work in the Moghan in this study is a novel subject that we will discuss in detail in future studies.
These three pieces of music are each sung at specific times and during work. One of the important points in the study of work songs is that we do not call every type of music a work song, and the work song is a song that is related to the performance context and the theme of the song, and in studying these cases, we will see that all three examples studied contain themes related to the work that is being done.
Conclusion: Here we will see that there are several similar and common characteristics in them. First, these songs are sung in a two-tone and three-tone context. So we can define their nature within the scope of the discourse of songs. The second issue is the importance of tempo and its relationship with body movements when singing songs. The more movement and faster the work is required, the faster the tempo of the musical performance will be, and these two, i.e. the movement of the body and the tone of the performance of singing and music, are directly related to each other. The third point is related to the themes discussed in the lyrics of the work.
In these cases, we can see that all three songs evoke issues related to the work in progress. Wishing the child good health and well-being in singing lullabies, or creating a sense of security in the child, is one of the prominent themes in lullabies. But about the song of Mashk and the song that is sung while cooking Samanu, an important point becomes clear. While singing, the singer speaks to the material of his work: He tells the milk that it must be turned into oil and asks Samanu to bring them blessings and happiness. This view can be rooted in the animistic view, which is one of the very ancient views in pre-religious thoughts, and it is something that can be considered a fact in the studies of ancient cultures in proving the antiquity of ritual beliefs among these peoples.