Gecse Annabella et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 18. (Szolnok, 2009)
Régészet - Fodor István: A belső-ázsiai normád népek halottas szokásainak sajátos eleme, a tul
István Fodor A special element of the mortuary traditions of the peoples of Central Asia: the tul In the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly among the Kyrgyz and Kazakh people ethnographers observed that after the death of a husband the wife made a puppet of her deceased husband, which she dressed in his clothes. This puppet was called the tul. This word could be found in the vocabulary of almost all the Turkish peoples living in Central Asia meaning “obituary puppet" and “widow”. The fact that it appears in Turk runic writing shows how ancient the word is. (The original meaning must have been “the portrait of the defunct person”, it was only later that it also absorbed the meaning “widow”.) They kept this mortuary puppet for a year and they considered him as an impersonator of the person who died. The widow looked after it with great respect, in the evening, she put it in her bed, and during the day she set the table for it at lunchtime. At the first anniversary of the death, the puppet was taken apart, at some places it was burned or buried in the grave. According to the ancient beliefs of the peoples of Northern Euro-Asia, every person has two souls: a body-soul (Körperseele), which resides in the thoracic cavity, and when the body dies it also expires; and a free-soul (Freiseele), which nests in the head and is able to leave the body for shorter or longer periods of time (during dreams, for example). This second type of soul is not destroyed at the death of the person, but stays among the people for a while. Undoubtedly, this mortuary puppet, the tul, was the shell of this free-soul, and it was treated with great respect because it was considered as the representative of the deceased person, they tried to please its fancy to win its benevolence so that it could not cause any harm to them. Among the peoples of Central Asia, a long pike or spear could also act as a tul. The handle of the pike was stuck into the floor of the yurta, and the spearhead adorned with a small flag lolled out at the top of the tent. The colour of the flag (red, black and white) indicated the age of the defunct. The widow held this in the same respect as the puppet. After a year the handle of the pike was broken and they either burnt it, or stuck it into the grave at the head. The tul among the Turk peoples acts as the shell of the free-soul with the difference that it could not be replaced with a pike. This soul shell was also destroyed or buried after a certain time (generally after a year), which marked the end of the mourning.
