A Survey on Intertextual and Intersemiotic Relations between the Sechischti Lyrics and the Kilims of the North Khorasan’s Kurmanj Nomads

Diverse artistic media in a nomadic community, despite their differences, represent the familiar traditions and beliefs of their creators. Text is a dynamic site in which relational processes and practices are the focus of analysis instead of static structures and products. Every text is an intertext that borrows, knowingly or not, from the immense archive of previous culture. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems. With a semiotic analysis of the Sechischti lyrics and kilims of the Kurmanj people of the North Khorasan, the present study seeks intertextual and intersemiotic connections between these two sets of cultural texts, from two distinct types of sign systems: verbal and visual. This paper’s qualitative data has been collected in both field and documentary methods, and its statistical population includes 250 kilims and 1386 kilims Sechischtis. The arrangements of these signs in each of the two visual and verbal systems have a deep dependence on ethnic characteristics, socio-economic conditions, lifestyle and long-standing historical experience of the Kurman people. Without knowing the values of these signs and understanding their secondary layers, it won’t be easy to decipher these texts. The common signs used in both sign systems, have analyzed both denotative and connotative and categorized into five groups: human, animal, plant, natural phenomena and object signs. In all these categories, intertextual communication is visible. According to this study’s findings, the entry of signs can be traced from the Sechischti to the kilims.