Reed weaving around Beyşehir

A craft beside the lake

The reeds and marsh plants of Lake Beyşehir supported mat weaving alongside fishing, boat work and other waterside trades. Art historian Gazanfer İltar writes from both field research and his childhood in Yeşildağ, where looms once stood on sunny roofs and in sheltered courtyards. He recalls women weaving during winter, talking and singing as they worked. The account makes the craft part of social life as well as household income; it should be read as situated testimony about a particular generation.^[1]

Cutting and distributing the plants was organized separately from weaving. In İltar’s description of Yeşildağ, the autumn harvest in the Öteyüz and Yazada marshes was shared among groups by lot. Men generally gathered the raw material, while women operated the looms from late autumn until spring field work resumed. The same chapter describes a Tuesday mat market in Beyşehir where rural weavers sold their products. By the time of his writing, mat making had largely ceased to be a commercial sector, though some older practitioners still wove for their own needs.^[2]

Plants and preparation

İltar distinguishes hasırotu or kamış, used for both warp and weft, from kofaotu, mainly used for the weft. A third plant, kıyakotu, supplied cord in some mats; he records it particularly in Yeşildağ’s marshes. These are local craft terms, not a single botanical category called “reed.” The chapter identifies cattail as Typha and kofaotu as Juncus inflexus. It also notes that marsh plants grew in Hüyük, Karadiken, Üstünler and Yeşildağ, giving neighbouring settlements access to different raw materials.^[3]

Harvesters cut the plants in autumn, spread them out to dry, tied them into bundles and carried them to weaving places. Before use, the stems were moistened and softened with a wooden mallet to reduce breakage. A simple loom, locally called a düzen, held cords taut between parallel wooden members. The weaver passed stems over and under these cords, beating the rows close with a comb. At the end, the edges were trimmed and the cords tied to keep the mat from unravelling.^[4]

Forms, motifs and use

Different mats served different parts of daily life. A taban or ev hasırı lay under rugs on earthen floors; a yöreme protected walls where people leaned; mats were also made for carts, prayer, hearths and burials. The strongest products used the inner part of the cattail, called öz. Plain over one, under one weaving and twill like over two, under two patterns produced different surfaces. Diamond and ram’s horn designs decorated wall mats and prayer mats, showing that practical objects could also carry deliberate ornament.^[5]

The link to traditional houses was direct. Mats kept dust from compacted earthen floors off rugs and people’s backs away from adobe wall surfaces. Reeds also appear in local building materials, but woven wall and floor pieces were separate household goods that could be rolled, sold and replaced. The varieties recorded by İltar demonstrate how closely craft design followed the dimensions and uses of rooms. They also make mat weaving a source for social and architectural history, beyond a list of plant species.^[6]

A changing tradition

Because woven plant fibre decays, old mats seldom survive; İltar discusses archaeological impressions as indirect evidence for ancient weaving generally, not proof that Beyşehir’s present craft dates unchanged to prehistory. His most direct evidence is remembered practice, interviews and documented techniques from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Urban migration and the decline in weavers changed the craft. The article records a tradition under pressure and helps explain why the wetland ecosystem matters to cultural history as well as wildlife.^[7]