Sypyra Zhyraw
Karakalpak · mortal · Karakalpak traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Sypyra Zhyraw is the immensely old bard-counsellor of the Edige epic, a figure held in common by many Turkic epic traditions, the Karakalpaks among them. As the archetypal jıraw, the minstrel-sage who chants heroic verse to the bowed qobız, he moves between the courts of khans as adviser and truth-teller, his great age lending weight to the prophecies and admonitions through which he shapes the fate of the heroes. Within Edige he stands as the voice of ancestral wisdom, and he is remembered alongside the saint Baba Tükti Shashty Aziz as one of the shared personages of the pan-Turkic epic imagination.
Domains
- wisdom
Powers
- counsels khans and foretells the hero's fate
Relations
- ally: EdigeKarl Reichl (ed.), Edige: A Karakalpak Oral Epic (2007). (secondary)
Sources
- Sypyra Zhyraw is the legendary aged bard-sage of the Edige epic, a shared figure of the Turkic peoples who counsels khans and delivers the epic's prophecies.: Karl Reichl (ed.), Edige: A Karakalpak Oral Epic as performed by Jumabay Bazarov (2007). (secondary); 'Edigey as the common heritage of the Turkic people', ERIC document EJ1115732 (naming Shashty Aziz and Sypyra Zhyrau as common heroes of the Turkic epic). (secondary)