TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

voice, and other nonverbal markers of emotion. Through this imitation people recreate
in themselves the mood of the other person. 147
It is of primary significance to realize that, the faith, in such compact societies, is
regarded as a social issue rather than an individual experience. Or more moderately
saying, the former component of the faith is far more dominant than the latter. Every
individual experiences, of course, spiritual and mystic sentiments during religious rituals
or prayers. But he/she has little change, even capacity, to choose, to determine, and to
clarify in what he/she believes in and how. Rather these have been evaluated as socio-
religious processes. Once a belief appears and becomes a social fact, in Durkheimian
terminology, it encompasses the whole society and forces every individual to believe in.
On the other hand it becomes one of the abstracts constraints in nomadic society which
strengthens the solidarity. 148
147 Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland: Bantam
Books, 1995, p. 115. Moreover, emotions are, at least of their considerable part, social by nature, since
they are originated in social relations. For further reading on social constructionist approach to emotion
see, for example, Gene A. Fisher and Kyum Koo Chon, ”Durkheim and the Social Construction of
Emotions”, Social Psychology Quarterly, vol.52, no.1, Special Issue: Sentiments, Affect and Emotion,
March, 1989, p.1.
148 The binding and imperative force of such a sentimental structure, in which individuals placed and could
not get rid of, in a close-knit society, is, indeed, far beyond the perception of modern man. But a closer
scrutiny would unveil how conscious and unconscious social structure surrounds an individual and heavily
influences both emotional and intellectual activities of an individual. Very striking examples from African
natives, which shows enormous power of social premises on individual in such societies, are presented by
Walter B. Canon. Canon recites a number of deaths recorded among natives by European travelers and
missioners, all caused by sorcery and magic. Among them one example would be sufficient for my
purpose. The occurrence was recorded by Merolla in his voyage to Congo in 1682. A young negro lodged
in a friend’s house at night. The friend had prepared for their breakfast a wild hen, a food strictly banned
by a rule which must be inviolably observed by the immature. The young fellow demanded whether it was
a wild hen. When the host said ‘no’, he ate of it heartily and proceeded on his way. A few years passed on
and the two met again. The old friend asked the younger man if he would eat a wild hen. He answered it is
strictly forbidden. Thereupon he began to laugh and told what he ate few years ago at the breakfast was a
wild hen. On hearing this news the negro immediately began to tremble, so greatly was he possessed by
fear, and in less than twenty-four hours was dead. See Walter B. Cannon, “’Voodoo’ Death”, American
Anthropologist, vol.44, no.2, 1942, p. 170.
It is obvious from this example that, in such societies, in which the individual is tightly stitched and
sticked into the social body, once the ties with social environment are torn apart so little is left, as little as
not enough to sustain the life. In other words, dissolution of the social personality inevitably demolishes
individual personality in such a degree that the psyche could not maintain internal harmony of both limbic
and psychological body, for the social environment as support for moral is of vital priority. It might be
55