¹ Comparable ritual forms exist in other cultural contexts, but this study does not aim to construct a typology of nature-related rituals. Instead, it focuses on the specific historical transformation of the Isparta ritual. References will be made to other seasonal practices from Isparta to develop an analytical framework for understanding how the Weather Change Wedding functioned and evolved within its local context.

² This study does not aim to directly engage with the epistemological distinctions between ritual theory and performance theory. Likewise, it does not rely on typologies based on structural stages or spatial-temporal arrangements as proposed by anthropological theories. The focus here is not on the formal structure of the ritual, but rather on its functional transformation and its relationship to gendered regimes of power. The aim is to make visible the historical shifts in women’s modes of agency within the provincial context of Isparta. This methodological choice does not imply a disregard for the dramatic or performative elements of the ritual. On the contrary, these aspects—particularly as they relate to the visibility of women as public actors—are analyzed through the lens of Catherine Bell’s conception of ritual as a dynamic practice that simultaneously sustains cultural continuity and accommodates social change. See Bell, Catherine, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009), 210–52Google Scholar.

³ Ethnographic accounts of agricultural and seasonal rituals in Anatolian villages have frequently recorded women’s participation in such practices. For some examples, see Boratav, Pertev Naili, 100 Soruda Türk Folkloru: İnanışlar, Töre ve Törenler, Oyunlar (Istanbul: Gerçek Yayınevi, 1984), 218–24Google Scholar. However, in towns like Isparta, where gender norms have been more strictly enforced, it is quite exceptional for women to take on an active role in organizing such rituals. Therefore, the gendered transformation of a ritual practice in a provincial town also reveals the need for further research into women’s roles in ritual and performative practices. The expanding field of performance studies in Ottoman historiography has increased interest in such practices. As Sinem Erdoğan İşkorkutan emphasizes, the growing literature on imperial festivals, drawing on ritual and performance theories, has made it possible to interpret these ceremonial representations as dynamic forms of public performance in which legitimacy and belonging are continually redefined. These studies offer valuable insights into the visibility of women in such events. However, as Derin Terzioğlu also reminds us, this visibility has often been documented through “the tension that characterizes the presence of women.” Moreover, these theoretical perspectives have rarely been applied to small towns and provincial cities. As Arzu Öztürkmen points out, although Ottoman society produced a wide variety of performative practices, many of these remain understudied due to either the limited availability of sources or the historiographical focus on imperial representation. In this context, the Weather Change Wedding offers an important case for analyzing the specific social, economic, and cultural conditions under which women’s agency historically became visible in the provincial sphere. See İşkorkutan, Sinem Erdoğan, The 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations in Istanbul: Festivity and Representation in the Early Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 18–23 Google Scholar; Derin Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas 12 (1995): 95; and Öztürkmen, Arzu, “Performance in the Ottoman World: Between Folklore and Cultural History,” in Celebration, Entertainment and Theatre in the Ottoman World, ed. Faroqhi, Suraiya and Öztürkmen, Arzu (Kolkata: Seagull Books, 2014), 201–20Google Scholar.

⁴ Sami, Böcüzade Süleyman, Isparta Tarihi, ed. Babacan, Hasan (Isparta, Turkey: Isparta Valiliği İl Kültür ve Turizm Yayınları, 2012): 375–76Google Scholar; Zühdü, Besim, Türkiye’nin Sıhhi İctimaī Coğrafyası Hamidābad (Isparta) Sancağı (Ankara: Öğüd Matbaası, 1922), 27 Google Scholar; Turhan, Hikmet, “Isparta’da Lodosun Kızını Poyrazın Oğluna Gelin Etmek,” Halk Bilgisi Haberleri 5 (1930): 69–70 Google Scholar; Tütüncü, Mehmet Ali, “Isparta’da Halk İnanmaları,” Halk Bilgisi Haberleri 120 (1941): 279–80Google Scholar; Ezen, Salahattin, “Poyrazın Oğlu Nasıl Evlendirilirdi?” Ün: Isparta Halkevi Mecmuası 10, nos. 118–20 (1944): 1657–58Google Scholar.

⁵ For some examples, see Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 605–6; Gratien, Chris, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022), 94 10.1515/9781503631274-005CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dolbee, Sam, Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 219–20Google Scholar.

⁶ Local newspaper articles from Isparta began criticizing traditional weddings for their excess, consumption, and display, while portraying “modern weddings” as signs of frugality and emotional restraint. See Sadık Bilgiç, “Eski Yeni Düğün Şekilleri,” Isparta, 17 May 1939, 2; and “Düğünlerde İsrafat,” Isparta, 14 June 1939, 1.

⁷ Yiğit, Gülşah, “Isparta Yöresi Geleneksel Kutlamaları” (MA thesis, Süleyman Demirel University, 2015), 110–11Google Scholar.

⁸ Natalie Zemon Davis, “On the Lame,” American Historical Review 93, no. 3 (1988): 572–603.

⁹ Ginzburg, Carlo, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, trans. John and Anne C. Tedeschi (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 96–213 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Mahmood, Saba, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Deniz Kandiyoti, “Bargaining with Patriarchy,” Gender and Society 2, no. 3 (1988): 274–90.

¹² Butler, Judith, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar.

¹³ Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 375.

¹⁴ M. Halit Bayrı, “Isparta’da Yağmur Duası,” Ün: Isparta Halkevi Mecmuası 8, nos. 91–96 (1941–42): 1285.

¹⁵ Zühdü, Hamidābad (Isparta) Sancağı, 27.

¹⁶ Hikmet Turhan first published his observations on 12 February 1925 in the newspaper Vatan, during a period when news reports on severe winter conditions across the country were widely covered in the press. The article, written in accordance with the journalistic style of the period, employed a popular tone that was at times ironic. The ritual was presented more as a form of seasonal folk entertainment, as reflected in the remark: “I suppose events like this provide a basis for amusement to people who spend the whole winter in deep silence and indolence.” The account that forms the basis of this study, however, is Turhan’s version published in 1930, which was written within a more systematic and ethnographic framework. See Hikmet Turhan, “Lodosun Kızını Poyraza Gelin Etmek: Isparta’da Havaların İyileşmesi İçin Halk Bu Eski Adete İttibā’en Pilav, Helva Dağıtmıştır,” Vatan, 12 February 1925, 4.

¹⁷ Turhan, “Isparta’da Lodosun Kızını,” 69.

¹⁸ Ibid., 70.

¹⁹ Ibid., 71.

²⁰ Mehmet Ali passed away on 7 April 1936. In a commemorative article written after his death, Hikmet Turhan Dağlıoğlu described Tütüncü as “a knowledgeable person with a strong memory” and “someone who knew the recent history of Isparta very well.” For Tütüncü’s biography, see F. Aksu, “Mehmet Ali Tütüncü,” Cumhuriyetçi Isparta, 15 April 1936, 1–2; and Hikmet Turhan, “Mehmet Ali Tütüncü Öldü,” Cumhuriyetçi Isparta, 22 April 1936, 1.

²¹ Tütüncü, “Isparta’da Halk İnanmaları,” 279–80.

²² Ibid.

²³ Ezen, “Poyrazın Oğlu Nasıl Evlendirilirdi?” 1657–58.

²⁴ Ibid., 1657.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Ibid., 1658.

²⁷ Zühdü, Hamidābad (Isparta) Sancağı, 5, 9.

²⁸ “Osmanlı Halıları,” Ahenk (İzmir), 22 November 1899, 2; Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 49, 432.

²⁹ Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 48.

³⁰ “Isparta Mekātībimizden,” Ahenk, 24 September 1899, 5; “Isparta,” in Yurt Ansiklopedisi: Türkiye İl İl: Dünü, Bugünü ve Yarını (Istanbul: Anadolu Yayıncılık, 1982), 3590; Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 432–33.

³¹ These seasonal practices, which were part of the town’s broader festival calendar, were not merely technical interventions aimed at influencing natural forces. Rather, they served as cultural sites where everyday life was interpreted across multiple registers. Rituals such as burning mats to invoke fertility or change the weather; young men firing guns and lighting fires in vineyards during the grape harvest; torch-lit summer processions descending from Sidre Mountain; and the avoidance of agricultural tasks during the crescent moon—considered a “sorrowful” time—formed a ritual repertoire shaped by embodied knowledge, emotional experience, and collective meaning-making. Sources: “Isparta Mekātībimizden,” Ahenk, 24 September 1899, 5; Yurt Ansiklopedisi, 3589; Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 400, 420, 433.

³² Ottoman State Archives (hereafter, BOA), DH.MKT. (Ministry of the Interior, Correspondence Office) 1820/57 (19 March 1891); Konya Vilayet Salnamesi (Konya Province Yearbook), no. 30 (Cihan Matbaası, 1913/1914), 319.

³³ Cuinet, Vital, La Turquie D’Aise, Geographie Administrative Statistique Descriptive et Raisonnee de Chaque Province De L’Asie Mineure, vol. 1 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1892), 849 Google Scholar.

³⁴ Quataert, Donald, Workers, Peasants and Economic Change in the Ottoman Empire, 1730–1914 (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2010), 117 10.31826/9781463229993-010CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ Ahenk, 21 June 1899, 2; “Osmanlı Halıları,” Ahenk, 22 November 1899, 2; “Isparta Mekātībimizden,” 22 February 1900, 2; “Isparta’da Halı Ticareti,” Ahenk, 4 July 1900, 2.

³⁶ Ahenk, 6 March 1898, 2; Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 49; Şükrü, Süleyman, Seyahatü’l-Kübra, Armağan-ı Süleymani Be-Bergah-ı Sultani, ed. Mert, Hasan (Ankara: TTK, 2013), 51 Google Scholar.

³⁷ Şükrü, Seyahatü’l-Kübra, 51.

³⁸ BOA.DH.MKT. 2107/141 (14 September 1898); BOA.DH.MKT. 2179/9 (18 March 1899); BOA.DH.MKT. 2250/49 (24 September 1899).

³⁹ BOA.DH.MKT. 1238/18 (18 March 1899), 2.

⁴⁰ BOA.DH.TMIK.M. (Commission for the Acceleration of Procedures and Reforms) 202/1 (22 July 1905), 1, 4.

⁴¹ BOA.DH.MKT. 1017-2 (15 October 1905). Although the document lacks specific details, it is likely that such complaints were related to cases like that of Hatice, suggesting that women’s growing visibility in public and semipublic spaces was increasingly framed by conservative circles as a “moral crisis.”

⁴² Quataert, Workers, Peasants and Economic Change, 131; Quataert, Donald, Sanayi Devrimi Çağında Osmanlı İmalat Sektörü, tr. Tansel Güney (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2011), 273–75Google Scholar.

⁴³ Berichte über Handel und Industrie, Zusammengestellt im Reichsamt des Innern (Berlin: Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1906), 724.

⁴⁴ Eldem, Vedat, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun İktisadi Şartları Hakkında Bir Tetkik (Ankara: TTK, 1994), 86 Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Kostakou, F., Pikopoulou, D., Pisimisi, M., and Christodoulou, L., I Yfantiki kai Alles Istories sto KEMIPO (Nea Ionia, Greece: Kentro Mikrasiatikou Politismou Dimou Neas Ionias, n.d.), 10 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Jeancard, Paul, L’Anatolie: Smyrne, Sparte, Bourdour, Hiérapolis, le Dodécanèse (Paris: Librairie Française, 1919), 67 Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Quataert, Osmanlı İmalat Sektörü, 281.

⁴⁸ Ali Rıza, “Isparta’dan,” Maşrık-ı İrfan (Konya), 5 July 1909, 4.

⁴⁹ “Meclis-i Umūmī Mukarreratı,” Konya Vilayet Gazetesi, 11 April 1910, 2.

⁵⁰ For discussions on how similar production centers contributed to the increased visibility of women in the public sphere, see Quataert, Osmanlı İmalat Sektörü, 279.

⁵¹ This transformation also should be understood as a local manifestation of a broader structural crisis unfolding across the empire. Yiğit Akın emphasizes that, particularly in the Ottoman provinces, military mobilization led to the absence of men, which in turn compelled women to assume more active roles in production, public representation, and even in negotiating with the state. See Akın, Yiğit, When the War Came Home: The Ottomans’ Great War and the Devastation of an Empire (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), 144–6210.1515/9781503604995CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵² Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 420, 433.

⁵³ Ibid., 410–11.

⁵⁴ Hikmet Turhan, “Isparta Kadınları Yazın Nasıl Eğlenirler?” Millī Mecmua 5, no. 50 (1925): 809–11.

⁵⁵ Zühdü, Hamidābad (Isparta) Sancağı, 27.

⁵⁶ Turhan, “Isparta’da Havaların İyileşmesi,” 4.

⁵⁷ Information recorded by Halit Bayrı in 1929 from Süleyman Şükrü, a teacher from Isparta, indicates that its structure had been preserved in considerable detail within local memory. According to Bayrı, the rain prayer practices in Isparta appear to have functioned as climatic rituals organized by religious authorities and guild associations, involving redistribution and collective participation. See Bayrı, “Isparta’da Yağmur Duası,” 1281–87.

⁵⁸ A local healing ritual known as Gelincik (little bride), recorded in the late 19th century, used against kızıl (scarlet fever), may offer indirect insight into this transformation. Organized by women, this ritual involved dressing sick children in festive or bridal clothing, symbolically designating them as a bride or groom, and performing a ceremony through which the illness was believed to be banished. The use of the marriage metaphor by women as a ritual strategy for healing and transformation offers clues to the gendered reconfiguration of the Weather Change Wedding. This example is revealing in two ways. First, it shows that within the same cultural universe, the same social actors—women—developed similar symbolic strategies across different ritual contexts. Second, it demonstrates that the metaphor of marriage could serve as a vernacular tool of intervention and meaning-making in women’s everyday lives. See “Isparta’dan,” Ahenk, 8 October 1899, 2.

⁵⁹ Cora, Yaşar Tolga, “Female Labor, Merchant Capital, and Resilient Manufacturing: Rethinking Ottoman Armenian Communities through Labor and Business,” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 61 (2018): 361–9510.1163/15685209-12341453CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ For contrasting experiences of female carpet weavers in Usak and female tobacco workers in Salonica, see Quataert, Workers, Peasants and Economic Change, 117–36; and Hadar, Gila, “Jewish Tobacco Workers in Salonika: Gender and Family in the Context of Social and Ethnic Strife,” in Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture and History, ed. Buturović, Amila and Schick, İrvin Cemil (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 127–52Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Dündar, “Halıcılık,” Isparta, 21 March 1928, 11–12.

⁶² To avoid simply labeling this reconfiguration as “conservative,” it may be useful to compare the Weather Change Wedding with the traditional Isparta marriage ceremony (velime cemiyeti) as described in detail by Süleyman Sami. His account presents women’s roles in the marriage ceremony through values such as “chastity,” “silence,” and “modesty,” terms that reflect not only the ceremony’s moral framework but also a patriarchal idealization of femininity. Decision-making authority is attributed to men, and the structure of the event is depicted as hierarchical, positioning women largely as passive, observed, or evaluated figures. In this light, the Weather Change Wedding, in which women came to occupy visible and active roles as performers, signifies a transformation in gendered ritual participation. Rather than being structured around ideals of modesty and obedience, this ritual foregrounds themes such as public visibility, collective labor, and engagement with nature. If Süleyman Sami’s narrative reflects the dominant gender ideals of his time, then the Weather Change Wedding offers a modest yet meaningful departure from those ideals and highlights an alternative mode of female presence in the public sphere. For Süleyman Sami’s description of the Isparta marriage ceremony, see Böcüzade, Isparta Tarihi, 358–76.

⁶³ Kandiyoti, “Bargaining with Patriarchy.”

⁶⁴ Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1–39.

⁶⁵ Butler, Bodies That Matter, 2.