Festival; Function; International Mesir Macunu Festival Of Manisa; Nevruz; Social Practices;

Festivals are intense and face-to-face social practices that take place within a certain place and a certain time, to transfer culture and collective world view by various rituals. A festival contains almost all of the practices in the fields of folklore and has a multi-layered structure. In the organism of the festival, there are many factors such as the time, place, story, rituals, program, food, participants and economy of the festival. A festival, formed by the combination of various components, has a structure that can be understood by examining these components on an individual basis. In this study, the International Manisa Mesir Festival, that taken under protection by UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2012 will be examined. The Manisa Mesir Macunu Festival, which has a 476-year history, is based on Nevruz, a celebration that exists before Islam. Mesir Macunu (Mesir Paste) invented by Merkez Efendi to heal Hafsa Sultan who is the mother of Suleiman the Magnificent. The festival became the way of celebrating the Nevruz in Manisa after Suleiman the Magnificent ordered that the paste which healed his mother to be disseminated to the public in the Nevruz day since the Ottoman Period. Mesir preparation ceremony, cortege march, praying ceremony for the souls those who contributed to invention of mesir, the ceremony representing Hafsa Sultan’s commendation to the Merkez Efendi and the dissemination ceremony are important practices of the Festival. This paper examined aforementioned practices and their contributions to the festival. In addition, various inferences made about festival-time, festival-venue, festival-meal, festival-economy, festival-participation, festival-potency relations in the example of International Manisa Mesir Festival. It is educed that each component of the Festival keeps the common memory of the celebrated community alive by repeating it with various activities at certain times of the year, has an important role in maintaining the Festival.