In 1906 two Kurdish singers from Urfa Sheikh Bozan and Ayib Agha Temir dictated epics and
stories from their repertoire to the German scholar Oskar Mann. The fourteen pieces
rediscovered in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Humanities and Sciences are presented here
for the first time in a bilingual historical edition.Half of the texts deal with the history of
Kurdish Milan confederation and its leaders especially with Ibrahim Pasha Milli (1843-1908).
They include a hitherto unknown beautiful lament from the 1840s by the wife of the Milan leader
who fell in battle. The second half are mostly well-known epics among them a surprising first
variant of Dewresh son of Evdi two examples of Mem and Zin and the earliest long version of
Siyamed (Siyabend and Xece) to be recorded.Mann's collection is the lost sibling of the two
canonical collections by Albert v. Le Coq (1903) and Hugo Makas (1900 1926). All three are from
the same decade and document the literature of the Kurdish tribes of the Kurdish
Southwest.Difficult passages in the texts were unraveled in cooperation with members of the
Berazi confederation to which the singer Sheikh Bozan belonged. Their comments are included in
the introduction and footnotes together with detailed background information. The introduction
deals among other things with the concept of history shaping these texts typical of an oral
society and with the local network of singers and the transmission of epics between Urfa and
Afrin. The edition includes photographs a glossary and an index of names and places.
