The Role of Women in Kurdish Cultural Heritage*

This article-an intervention from an archivist and author who builds collections and museums to preserve and promote Kurdish culture and writes from outside of academia in the strictest sense-interrogates the frequently valorized and romanticized notion of Kurdish oral tradition as enshrined in the art of the dengbej, revealing that on recordings and books and in popular imagination, male performers and male performance contexts have come to define this domain. The article argues that the contributions of women in creating and evolving the rich spectrum of orally transmitted genres, with their poetics, emotive force, and unique approaches to vocalization, is completely erased in the iconography of the male dengbej. An understanding of the spaces of domestic seclusion and the vibrant role of a full range of languagebased arts in household rhythms and the imparting of a worldview and historical consciousness supports the adoption of the term zarbej (non-professional performer and purveyor of a spectrum oral genres) as an unsung counterweight to the dengbej, who dominates public spaces from village gatherings to radio broadcasts and folklore collections.