Hayat Ağacı ve Vakvak Ağacı’nın Bitki-İnsanHayvan Metaforu Kapsamında Karşılaştırılması

One of the views accepted in nature cults in Turkish society from the early periods until today is the idea of

attributing holiness to trees or certain tree species. The belief in the Tree of Life, perhaps the most important

of these as in all world cultures. The Tree of Life, which gained a formal character with the belief of two

worlds in the old Turkish belief system, was evaluated as a totemic cultural form and was also identified with

nature or supernatural beings. While making its name known with various events such as the tree of life and

used in later periods with its iconographic meaning rather than decoration, the Vaqvak Tree is known as a

tree that grows on the Vaqvak Island in the Indian Ocean and gives its name to the island where it is located.

This legendary tree with the tips of its branches or fruits in the form of humans or animals and making a

sound like a quack can be considered as the most important iconography that exemplifies the plant-human

metaphor. Within the scope of the study, the connections of the concept of sacred tree with the cultural

tradition in Turks, the origin of the Tree of Life, which contains various meanings, and the Foundation Tree,

which contains a different cultural texture, and the areas where they are used were investigated. It was tried

to compare the plant-human, animal metaphor and the symbolism of two trees by scanning the literature

on the subject. In the article, it is aimed to focus on the meaning of the Tree of Life and the Tree of

Quarantine, how they are used, and their similar and different aspects, if any.