The Details of Rafsanjan's Feminine Traditional Clothing in Local Quatrains

The city of Rafsanjan is located in the northwest of Kerman province, Iran and its people speak in a local dialect of Persian. Oral literature plays a significant role in the popular culture of the city and reflects well the way people live in it. Based on aesthetic criteria and indigenous make-up and jewelry, the details of Rafsanjan's traditional feminine clothing have been explored from 600 local quatrains in present study. Since there are many similarities in the names and the forms of clothes in the cultural geography of the Persian language, it has been attempted, to some extent, to refer to these similarities in explaining the components of these types of clothing. Chādor and burqa, Chārqad (a kind of headdress), shirt, skullcap, ārkhāluq (a kind of long and collarless shirt with no button), shoes and handkerchief are among the list of clothing and the details of the coverings have been mentioned in the quatrains that show the importance and the diversity of Rafsanjan's traditional feminine clothing, their social status, their occupations and even their wealth. The type of women's makeup and its related norms and the few attempts were common in their traditional thinking for the sake of being more beautiful are also being mentioned in present study. Rafsanjan's local quatrains, called in local dialect "Charbeitu", have been collected for the first time by the authors through a field study method. The purpose of this research is to study the traditional feminine clothing of Rafsanjan to achieve a clear picture of it.