Vaylöğ Dede

This page was compiled from sources by mezirme.com.

Vaylöğ Dede’s real name was Mustafa Tuna (Oktay, email). The folklorist Fuat Bozkurt, in an article published in a peer-reviewed journal, describes him as a dede from the Şah İbrahim Velî Ocak; the article mistakenly gives his name as “Mustafa Öztürk”:

Some dedes became famous for the power of their breath. One of them is Vaylöğ Dede from the village of Mezirme in Malatya. […] Vaylöğ, who came from the Şah İbrahim Veli ocak and whose real name was Mustafa Öztürk, granted children through his prayers to young brides who could not conceive, in many villages in the Malatya–Sivas–Tokat triangle. The boys born took his name.

— Bozkurt 2012, p. 386

Bozkurt writes that he remembers this dede from his childhood “as if in a dream”, and that children born through his prayers carried the nickname Vaylöğ alongside the name Mustafa (Bozkurt 2017). Bozkurt regards this belief as shamanic in origin.

Place of pilgrimage

A Vayloğ Dede Tomb is known as a place of pilgrimage in Ballıkaya (Yılmaz 2023). We have not yet found a source confirming that the tomb belongs to the Vaylöğ Dede on this page. The name is spelled both Vaylöğ and Vayloğ in the sources.

What is missing

• Dates of birth and death
• A photograph
• Accounts from people said to have been born through his prayers (with the narrator’s consent)

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