Digital Culture Environments; Epics; Folk Beliefs; Mythology; Spirits Of Underworld/ Black Possessors; The Kyrgyz Turks;

Perceptions of man about himself, his environment, life, and the universe are expressed through various ways such as cultural elements, customs and traditions, and beliefs. People who establish a relationship between the beings they see and they do not see but believe in their existence have exhibited various acceptances and behaviors about these beings since ancient times and have formed several belief patterns with the elements they symbolize by attributing positive or/and negative properties. As these belief patterns become a part of man's personality traits, they become one of the elements that form the identity of society as they are adopted and spread by society. There is a three-dimensional structure in the mythological universe design of Turkish tribes, and every layer of the universe is full of spirits. While ulgen (luminous) spirits prevail in the holy blue sky, the evil spirits under Erlik's command live underground. The spirits of these two realms have an impact on the earth. While the luminous spirits prevailing in the sky bring goodness, beauty, and abundance to human beings with the order of Ulgen, the evil spirits living underground cause trouble, famine, and death. As in the mythological world concept of other Turkish tribes, there are evil spirits/black possessors who negatively affect people's lives and cause evil and troubles in the mythological world concept of the Kyrgyz Turks. The Kyrgyz Turks attributed the illness and death of people and animals, misfortune, infertility, and famine to the negative effects of evil spirits. In epics of the Kyrgyz Turks, which reflect the common thought systems, philosophies, and sociological evaluations of society as an epic genre, it is possible to find certain traces of the belief concept of the Kyrgyz Turks. As long as these belief elements, the common cultural heritage of the Turkish tribes in general and the Kyrgyz Turks in particular, are kept alive in the virtual environments that have emerged with the spread of digital culture environments, they will have the opportunity to reach larger masses. Western countries, which produce contemporary products by using oral culture and folk beliefs and market these products to the world, have started to come to the fore in the race to create a global culture. For example, it is seen that the fantastic heroes created in cartoons, computer games, and horror films are generally adaptations from Western culture. However, there are many sources that can create such characters in the cultural heritage of Turkish tribes. These sources should be identified and re-processed by artists such as scriptwriters and game designers to meet the socio-cultural needs of the new generations, and they should be kept alive in contemporary narrative environments (digital culture environments). Therefore, it will be ensured that the cultural memory is fed with the essential elements and the intangible cultural heritage products left from the ancestors will be adapted to new cultural environments. Such studies are also compatible with UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage policies. This study aims to determine the symbolic meanings of "black possessors" in the epics of the Kyrgyz Turks called "kence epos" (short epic), and to compare them with common/similar motifs found in the belief concept and oral literature of other Turkish tribes. Bringing these motifs to regional and global culture is among the aims of the article.