Culture, Family, Art Of Central Asia.docx

Character of Central Asians All Central Asian cultures have been described as high context and formal, especially with outsiders. Describing a group as high context means that they tend to deal in absolute truths and spell things out clearly while emphasizing smooth interpersonal relations and, in some cases using subtle and indirect ways of communicating. Central Asia has a long tradition of paternalism and Central Asian are known for their patience. A sense of fatalism in Central Asia is not as strong as among other Muslim groups. Uzbeks and Kazakhs are regarded as the most individualist of the Central Asians. Central Asians with strong Turkic roots tend to come on more strongly than those of descent, Asians, who tend ro be little more mellow and self effacing. In Journey to Khiva Philip Glazebrook described a famous Uzbek writer he met as a “robust, bullnecked man” with “friendliness radiating from and a bone-crushing handclasp and a greeting like a loudspeaker announcement.” Society in Central Asia Traditionally there have two kinds of people in Central Asia: 1) the settled people, which included farmers, merchants, craftsmen and city dwellers; and 2) nomadic herdsman. The type of society individuals lived in was defined by these two ways of life. The basic social units were the village. In the case of the nomads their village was an aul, which tended be small and was comprised of a winter time village or camp and camps at the summer pastures and intermediary spring and autumn camps. In the case of the settled people, the village was called a kishlak. It was larger and remained in one place. The structures of the aul and kishlak have both traditionally been based on kinship ties. Uzbeks tended to be settled. Their society has traditionally revolved around clans, villages ( kishlak) neighborhoods ( mahallya), and men’s houses or tea houses ( chaykhana), all of which are clearly defined physically and socially. Clans have traditionally been very important among Uzbeks and remain so although they are less important than among Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Each clan had its own territory, leader and system of authority. Descent lines traveled along patrilineal lines from a common ancestor but could be amended, say because of a military or economic alliance. In these cases, the clan leaders often recognized each other as brothers.

Most Central Asian societies are hierarchally oriented and organized. People have traditionally shown total respect for local khans, emirs or chiefs, who in turn have traditionally not shared

power or limited it by law. All major Soviet organizations—the Octobrists, the Young Pioneers, women’s organizations and labor unions—existed in Central Asia. Marriage and Weddings in Central Asia Traditionally marriages often took place or were arranged when the couple was very young, sometimes when they were children. Contracts between the families of the bride and groom were made by a third party. At the time of the marriage a bride price, which could be quite high and often consisted of livestock and carpets, was paid with the understanding that the bride was now a member of the groom’s family. Many of these traditions endure today. Polygamy has traditionally been allowed in accordance with Islamic rule but was uncommon because bride prices were so high and under the Soviet system there were few men who were wealthy enough to support several wives. Marriages between cousins occur but is not as common a thing as it is some Arab and other Muslim cultures. Weddings have traditionally featured feasting, the actual wedding ceremony and sometimes competitions such as horse races. The Soviets discouraged kalym, religious weddings, and extravagant feasts but they were held anyway. Couples often went through with both a civil ceremony and a religious one, which is still true today. Families in Central Asia Society has traditionally been organized along patrilineal lines, with status and kin relationships distinguished by gender and by birth order age among siblings. Kinship terminology is very complex. They are different terms for older and younger brothers and sisters and for patrilineal and matrilineal uncles and aunts. Sons traditionally inherited the bulk of property and possession with each receiving roughly equal shares and each getting part when they are married and part after the death of the father. Under the Soviet, women went from wearing veils and rarely leaving the home to being doctors and tractor drivers. In some places there is some segregation between women and men — such in mosques or in homes during parties — but it is generally not as pervasive and as strict as in some other places in the mother world.

Culture of Central Asia Central Asia and Russia contain a total of six countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Each of these countries has its own culture, but they're very much related. Central Asia was, after all, once a part of the Soviet Union. The Central Asian countries also share their religion, Islam. Central Asia is where middle-Eastern Islamic culture meets Russian Soviet culture. The countries of Central Asia were once the center of multiple nomadic empires and tribes, including the Scythians, Mongols, and Turks. This had a big influence on the traditions and cultures of many Central Asian countries to this day. This is especially true in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which contain huge green plains and pastures that are populated by nomadic groups even now. Many people in Kazakhstan live in traditional, movable houses called yurts, which are covered in Turkish felt. Across many of the Central Asian countries, horseback riding competitions and sports are popular, which reflect the tradition of nomadic herding. A strong respect for elders is also common across Russia and Central Asia. The influence of the Soviet Union and Russia is a major factor in Central Asian culture. Russian is spoken in all the countries of Central Asia. People also put a lot of emphasis and value on family and the homeland. These values are a direct result of the 70 years that the Communist Party ruled Russia. Under Soviet rule, people became dependent on the sharing of resources among family members, and this meant that a strong extended family was valuable. While, strictly speaking, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan didn't take Russia's side during the Cold War, there is still a lot of Russian influence in these countries. Religion Religion is a big deal in most places, but this is especially true in Russia and Central Asia. The culture of the area cannot be separated from religious beliefs and practices, especially in Central Asia. The most significant religion in Central Asia, by far, is Islam. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan are all 90% Muslim, and Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan aren't far behind. Russia, on the other hand, is 47% Christian, and mostly Russian Orthodox, which is the single largest group. Considering how Russia has influenced Central Asia, it's no surprise that Russian Orthodox is second to Islam in every (Central Asian) country. The closer you get to Russia, the more Russian Orthodox people you find. In Kazakhstan for example, a full 24% are Orthodox Christians and only 70% are Muslim. But, what does this mean for everyday life? How does Islam really influence Central Asian culture? That depends a little on the political situation in each country. Uzbekistan, for example, is a mostly totalitarian regime, and it isn't easy to be of any religion other than Islam. Islamic law and regular law are combined together, and the daily cycle of prayer five times a day is simply a part of life. Islam also affects what you eat: alcohol isn't allowed, meat must be prepared a certain way to conform to Islamic law, and pork isn't eaten at all. This is in contrast to Russian

culture, where pork is eaten, and vodka is popular - and no, this isn't just a stereotype! Generally, the further south you go, Arab and Islamic culture is dominant compared to Russian. For example, some people in Tajikistan even speak Iranian. But wherever you are, there is a respect for elders, family, and the collective good. Russia's influence goes far. Turkmenistan

The Turkoman nomadic group came from the Altai Mountains. Their ancestors were the Oghuz and their traditions have been preserved in the "Book of Oghuz, Oguz Nama. Around the tenth century they were settled in the region east and south of the Aral Sea, when they came to be known as Turkoman. In the fifteenth century there were two confederations: Qara-Qoyunlu, "they of the black sheep", and Aq-Qoyunlu, "they of the white sheep". A number of the leaders entered Iran as shepherds and conquered it to remain as rulers; however, a large number of them remained in the area and evolved their own way of life with their swift horses, which were their pride and their lifeline; and their sheep, camels, and other cattle with which they migrated according to a seasonal cycle of available pastureland and water. However, their movement was not very far and it was confined to approximately within the radius of 31 miles (50 km). The round, felt-covered dwellings called Oy, yurts, were an essential part of the Turkoman way of life, and even the agricultural groups moved to the summer camps and lived in the yurts. Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country surrounded by deserts. The Tien Shan ("Heavenly Mountains") range separates it from the Ferghana Valley, part of which occupies the southwestern area of the country. The Kyrgyz's rich cultural traditions are seen in the

mountainous areas of the northern part of the country, where they settled as they moved from the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. The Chinese chronicles describe them as fair skinned, green eyed, and red haired. The Mongols arrived in the tenth century and the intermingling created a very sturdy, handsome people, whom even the Soviets could never change. The Kyrgyz have traditionally been a nomadic people, living in yurts. Even in the early 2000s many Kyrgyz have a yurt in their compound, and the death ceremony even in the capital city, Bishkek, is performed in a yurt. Their 100-year-old epic Manas tells the story of the warrior king and the migrations, of his people. It is the world's longest epic and the Manaschi, who recite the story, keep the oral tradition alive.

The traditional dress worn by the men is often leather trousers, terishym, which are also used by women when they are migrating or helping with the animals. These are worn along with high leather boots for everyday, chaitik, or embroidered massey. Over that they wear a shirt and often a leather jacket with fur lining known as ton. For special occasions the older men wear a long coat, chepken, which may be held together by a sash or a leather belt with silver buckles, kur. Very fine suede long coats with extra-long sleeves were made with elaborate hook embroidery. The typical headgear is a conical embroidered felt cap with embroidery and a tassel at the top, ak-kalpak. For special occasions the urban men wore flat, gold embroidered caps with fur lining and fur edging the headdress. The women wore a long shirt, which was often made out of striped red and black cotton known as kalami or it could be of abr, the ikat of cotton and silk. For everyday use they would wear a sleeveless jacket and a padded long coat along with leather shoes. They wore a bonnet with embroidered ear caps over which a turban would be worn or a decorated cap. Long, embroidered

plait covers were worn to cover the nape of the neck, which was considered to be vulnerable to black magic. The women favored greatly the brightly colored ikat striped cotton of Kodzhent, which was given a glossy polished surface with the use of egg white. This was used as a sash, as well as a scarf. Elaborate dresses, koinok, were made from silken patterned cloth known as kimkap, probably derived from the name for woven gold brocade of India, the kimkhab. For special occasions they wore a wraparound skirt, beldemehi. It was either made of velvet or silk with leather and fur lining, and rich embroidery. This could be worn easily on horseback and would cover them well, giving warmth as they rode their horses. Traditional costume of the republics of Central Asia

Emir of Bukhara, 1905. Library of Congress

Kazakh couple, 1870-86. Library of Congress

Kyrgyz women and men, 1865-1872. World Digital Library

Trousers worn with the tunic are usually of a loose type, very large at the top and tightened on a string and narrowing down at the knees , mid-calf, or at the ankles. The upper part of the trousers is usually made of a plain-woven undecorated fabric and the bottoms of a different, more expensive and decorated material because only the bottom portions are seen. Very practical. The third basic article of the Central Asian costume, the coat, comes in different types. It can be made of different fabric, have sleeves of varying lengths, and be worn left open or tied with a belt. There are two major kinds of coats, the chapan and the khalat. The chapan is a loose coat of padded and quilted cotton. The khalat is a lightweight robe made of cotton, silk or a mixture of the two. There are regional variations in the cut of this garment but, essentially, khalats have wide sleeves and are bordered with patterned-silk edging tape stitched onto the coat material.

Woman's coat with a richly decorated lining. Bukhara, Uzbekistan, late 19th century. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Turkmen man's khalat, mid.20th century. Gallery of Textiles & Costume

In the 19th century coats played an important part in defining a person's rank. The ruler and highest court officials would dress in silk velvet coats, with gold embroidery and a large belt. Men of the next rank were permitted to wear coats made of imported cashmere or silk velvet with brocade embroidery. Peasants and nomads wore coats of rough cotton or coarse wool. Men and women from wealthy families wore multiple coats as a display of wealth. Such coats were specifically designed to show the embroidery on the front edges and cuffs of the multiple garments.

Turkmen family, early 20th century. Photo source

Tajik girls, photo courtesy Marusia

Uzbek woman wearing a khalat in traditional pattern

An importand part of the Central Asian costume is the headdress. It serves as an item of identification. The Turkmen men, for example, wear large shaggy sheepskin hats, the Kazakh fur, and the Kirghiz conic moulded-felt hats. They can be embroidered, quilted, beaded, with or without tassels and neck extensions. Another type of head covering worn by men, as well as

women from some nomadic groups, is the turban. For the Kazakh, Kirghiz, Karakalpak and some Uzbek and Turkmen ethnic groups, the turban remained an obligatory part of a nomadic woman’s headgear until the 20th century. The type of turban identifies the ethnic group, class, religion and area of origin of the wearer. Silk turbans were and are only worn by the aristocracy. The skull cap is a head-covering item that is quite popular in Central Asia as well. It can be worn on its own, beneath bigger hats or serve as a base for wrapping turbans and arranging rumols. They are usually richly embroidered and can be conic, four-sided, round, and cupola-shaped.

Girls at the National Dress Festival, Uzbekistan, representing Bukhara and Samarkand. Photo source

Girls at the National Dress Festival, Uzbekistan. Photo source

Headgear specifically worn by women differs among women of different ethnic groups, between women of different ages and of different social status. The most common is a fine silk shawl called rumol. It can be tied on a woman’s head in a variety of ways.

Woman in paranja, Samarkand, 1905. World Digital Library

Veils were once a part of traditional woman's costume too but are not worn in the most regions of Central Asia nowadays. They are divided into two groups: those that cover the face and those that cover both the head and the body, so called paranjas. The paranja-type head-covering seems to be a fairly recent innovation. According to the sources paranjas do not appear at all in medieval miniature paintings, and are not mentioned in written sources until the 18th century.

Central Asian arts and music Central Asian arts, the literary, performing, and visual arts of a large portion of Asia embracing the Turkic republics (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan), Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and parts of Russia and China. As used here, the term denotes only those traditions that were not influenced by the religion of Islām. This immense tract of land—with its highly varied topography and climate and its diversity of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds—encouraged the development of greatly varied artistic styles and traditions among the inhabitants of widely separated regions. These differences were magnified by the emergence of dissimilar religions, which in turn encouraged the formation of distinctive schools or traditions of art. Further artistic variances can be attributed to cultural time lag, for comparable stages of artistic development were not reached simultaneously throughout the area. The arts that developed across Central Asia often fed or were fed by those of adjoining cultural regions or by such supraregional influences as Islam. Although reference will be made to such cross-cultural interactions wherever appropriate, more detailed information on these other areas may be found in the articles East Asian arts; Islamic arts; and South Asian arts. (The peoples and cultures of the region are treated in the articles Asia and Central Asia, and in articles on specific Asian peoples, such as Pashtun.) Literature Of the relatively few Central Asian languages that have developed written literatures, the most important are Turkic, Tibetan, and Mongol. (For a treatment of these languages, see Altaic languages and Sino-Tibetan languages.) This article will deal with Tibetan and Mongolian literatures from their inception to the 20th century and with Turkic literature from its inception to the 11th centuries, when the Muslim invasion introduced a period of Islāmic culture. Subsequent Turkic literature and Central Asian literatures written in Arabic and Persian are treated in the article arts, Islāmic. (For literature in Chinese, see the article Chinese literature.) Turkish literature The purely Turkish period in the history of Turkish literatures came before the conversion of the Turks to Islām and covers approximately the 8th to the 11th centuries AD. The oldest literary legacy of the period is found in the Orhon inscriptions, found in the Orhon valley, northern

Mongolia, in 1889 and deciphered in 1893 by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen. The inscriptions are on two large monuments erected in 732 and 735 in honour of the Turkish prince Kül and his brother Bilge Kagan; they are carved in a script used also for inscriptions found in Mongolia, Siberia, and western Turkistan and called by Thomsen “Turkish runes.” They relate in epic and forceful language the origins of the Turks, their golden age, their subjugation by the Chinese, and their liberation by Bilge Kagan. The polished style suggests considerable earlier development of the language. Excavations in Chinese Turkistan have brought to light specimens of writings of the Uighur Turks from the 9th to the 11th century. Maḥmūd Kāshgarī’s comprehensive dictionary (1071?) contains specimens of old Turkish poetry in the typical form of quatrains (dörtlük), representing all the principal genres: epic, pastoral, didactic, lyric, and elegiac. Tibetan literature Tibetan was developed as a literary language from the 7th century onward as a result of earlier cultural contacts with neighbouring Buddhist countries—namely, the small states of the Takla Makan, especially Khotan (Ho-t’ien) and the kingdoms of ancient northwestern India (modern Gilgit, Kashmir, and Kullu) and Nepal. Scripts of Indian origin were in use in these countries, so the Tibetans also adapted an Indian script to suit their own very different language. By far the greater number of works produced between the 7th and 13th centuries are skillful translations of Buddhist works, largely from Sanskrit, on which Indian scholars and Tibetan translators worked side by side. The Tibetans had to create an entirely new (and therefore artificial) vocabulary of religious and philosophical terms, mainly by ingenious compounding of simple terms available in their own language. Apart from some religious terms in daily use, this vocabulary remains a specialized scholarly language. An indigenous literature was also produced: annals and chronicles, sets of spells and prognostications, legendary and liturgical works, all representing the remains of ancient oral traditions. Large collections of such manuscript fragments, all earlier than the 11th century, were discovered early in the 20th century in the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas near Tun-huang (at the eastern side of the Takla Makan). The quasi-official work of translating authorized Indian Buddhist texts, which continued for six centuries, gave incentive to the Bon-pos (the followers of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet) to collect and write down their own early traditions; but in so doing they adopted many Buddhist ideas and, inevitably, used the new vocabulary. The followers of the earliest Buddhist traditions to enter Tibet (the Rnying-ma-pa, or “Old Order”) also committed their teachings to writing; and, conversely, these are interspersed with pre-Buddhist traditions. The official Tibetan Buddhist canon was closed in the 13th century; it consisted of two parts, the Kanjur (“Translated Word,” teachings or reputed teachings of the Buddhas themselves) and the Tanjur (“Translated Treatises,” mainly commentaries by Indian teachers). By this time, however, there already existed some orthodox Buddhist works of Tibetan origin (for example, Mi-la ras-pa and Sgam-po-pa); and from the 13th century onward, under the impetus given by the prolixity of

religious houses and orders, there were produced such lengthy and numerous collections of historical and biographical works, treatises and commentaries, and liturgy and religious drama that Tibetan literature must be one of the most extensive in the world. Just as in the European Middle Ages there was little secular literature worth the name, so there is none in Tibetan except for a great epic (Rgyal-po Ge-sar dgra’dul gyi rtogs-pa brjod-pa, “The Great Deeds of King Gesar, Destroyer of Enemies”) that recounts the exploits of the king and magic hero Gesar. This work grew through the centuries, assimilating whatever material pleased the fancy of the bards. After the craft of printing from incised wood blocks was introduced from China, possibly in the 14th century, certain monasteries became famous printing houses. This form of printing continued until the Chinese invasion in 1959. Manuscripts and block-printed books are always of elongated shape, thus imitating the form of ancient Indian palm-leaf manuscripts. There are considerable collections in some European libraries—London, Paris, and Rome—but few translations are available, because of the small number of scholars of Tibet. Despite the phonetic changes in the spoken dialects since the script was fixed, the Tibetans have never changed their system of writing. Thus, once the literary language and the various types of script have been mastered, the reader has immediate access to all literature of the 7th to the 20th centuries, though changes in style and vocabulary have left many obscurities in the earliest works. Since there is no modern style of writing, the 20th-century colloquial language can be written only in the traditional medium (as though, for example, one had to write modern Italian with Latin spellings and grammatical forms); the Tibetans themselves compose even personal letters in a conventional literary style. Mongolian literature Mongolian literature begins with the Secret History of the Mongols, an Imperial chronicle dealing with the life and times of Genghis Khan and his successors, written about 1240. Üligers, orally transmitted epic stories in verse, form the bulk of native literary expression. Highly stylized, these tales relate adventures of legendary heroes and villains. In spite of their great length (sometimes more than 20,000 lines), they are recited from memory by bards. Like other epics, such as the Greek Iliad and the Roman Aeneid, Mongolian epics are genuine artistic creations. The verses alliterate in couplets or quatrains, are seven or eight syllables long, and are characterized by parallelism. In addition to Genghis Khan, the epic stories tell of heroes such as Erintsen Mergen, Engke Bolod Khan, and Gesar Khan (the last of Tibetan origin). The villain of the epics is the many-headed monster, the manggus, whom the hero always defeats in the end. Historical chronicles represent another important form of indigenous literature. Usually beginning with the creation of the world from primordial elements, they attempt to link the Indian and Tibetan rulers with the house of Genghis Khan. Such are the Altan tobchi (“The Golden Button”), composed about 1655 and giving a world history down to Ligdan Khan (1604–

34); another Altan tobchi (written about 100 years later); and the Erdeni-yin tobchi (“The Jeweled Button”), written in 1662 by Saghang Sechen. Mongolian written literature was profoundly influenced by the introduction of Buddhism about the end of the 1500s. Earlier surviving written works (on stone or paper) are mostly official documents; and no oral epics were written down until the late 1880s. The advent of Buddhism prompted translations of its sacred writings and related works. A Buddhist canonical collection, the Bka’-’gyur (or Kanjur; comprising the Sūtra and Vinaya of the Tripiṭaka), was translated and printed in 1635 in 108 volumes; the Bstan-’gyur (Tanjur), containing canonical commentary and noncanonical works in its 225 volumes, followed in 1741. Two especially well-known sermons (sutras) of Buddha are the Altan gerel (“Golden Beam”) and the Chagan lingqua (“White Lotus”), or, as they are known in Sanskrit, Suvarṇaprabhāsa and Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. None of these works, however, is indigenous. Religious but nondogmatic birth stories (called in Sanskrit Jātaka) deal with Buddha’s meritorious deeds and, like the parables of Christianity, illustrate religious truths. Best known is the Üliger-Ün dalai (“The Sea of Stories”). Translations of other Indian fables are the Siddhi Kür (“Tales of the Vampire”) and the Bigarmijid (“Saga of King Vikramāditya”). In the 18th and 19th centuries Chinese traders brought from China many Mongolian translations of Chinese novels of enchantment and romance, including the San Kuo chih yen-i (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and others. In the early 20th century T. Zhamtsarano, a Russian-educated Buryat writer and intellectual, founded the short-lived Mongolian newspaper Shine toli (“The New Mirror”). He also translated the works of some Western authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells. After a Soviet state was established in Mongolia in the early 1920s, the power and influence of the Tibetan Buddhist church declined, and with it the literature it sponsored. There began to arise a revolutionary and socialist literature serving the people according to the current beliefs of the Communist Party. Popular themes were social criticism of the feudal past, with its exploitation of the people, and exemplary tales that showed new socialist values and educated readers to overcome the resistance of reactionary forces. Mongolian reliance on and gratitude for the fraternal Soviet Union and its assistance was an ever-present undercurrent. The rise of a system of schooling extending to the university level enabled many young Mongolian writers, poets, artists, and actors to achieve, within limits, a self-expression never before available to them. Leading 20th-century modern writers are Dashdorjiyn Natsagorj, Ts. Damdinsürün, D. Sengee, S. Erdene, and others. Music Music in Central Asia flowered along centuries-old caravan routes linking the Middle East with China and India via what is often referred to as Turkistan, the vast region extending

from the Caspian Sea to the Xinjiang region of northwestern China. Musical instruments diffused from one region to another, and many of the musical styles still display foreign influence. The variety of musical styles ranges from the systematically organized classical music of Turkistan to the notated religious chants of Tibetan Buddhism to the highly varied folk musicstyles of the region’s numerous ethnic groups. The main thrust of this examination of Central Asian music will be on the traditions and styles first of Afghanistan and the sedentary population of Turkistan, then of the Turkic nomads, the Mongols, and the Siberian peoples, and finally of the Himalayan peoples in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China as well as in Bhutan, Nepal, and the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim. Advertisement Afghanistan and the sedentary population of Turkistan This region of Central Asia includes Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and the oases of eastern (Chinese) Turkistan. The region lies within the Persian cultural area, and in the arts and in language, the Persian imprint has endured over many centuries. In music the links with Persia appear most clearly in terminology and instruments. Islampredominates in this region, and because Muslim religious authorities there have largely denounced music as contrary to the teachings of Islam, musicians and musical performance have generally occupied a low social position—a situation that is rare in other regions of Central Asia. The area includes two main streams of musical practice: folk music in a broad range of styles, often closely linked to specific ethnic groups; and the more exclusive cosmopolitan classical music, derived from the medieval court music of Bukhara, Samarkand, and other urban centres of Transoxania (a region spanning present-day Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan). A third stream is popular music, which is disseminated through the mass media. Folk music Generally characterized by a scarcity of musicians and musical instruments, folk music of this region is predominantly a matter of solo playing and singing, small ensembles, in absence of musical notation or codified musical theory. In their general types, the musical instruments are closely related to those of Persia and the Middle East, but specific forms and playing styles are purely local. Thus, there are numerous variants of the Persian long-necked lute, with names derived from the Persian ṭanbūr or dūtār; small spike fiddles, in which the neck skewers the body, forming a spike at the base; various block or fipple flutes, with air ducts like that of the Western recorder; transverse (horizontally held) flutes; reed instruments; metal jew’s harps; and two basic drum types, a single-headed goblet-shaped drum of pottery or wood and a large singleheaded frame drum, or tambourine—all instrumental types widely diffused in the Middle East.

Stylistically, the music relates to that of both the Middle East and the surrounding nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Songs are monophonic (i.e., consisting of just a single line of melody), but instrumental music often includes two-part polyphony (music with multiple parts sounding simultaneously). The polyphony may take the form of a drone (sustained note) with a melody played above it, or it may be organum style—i.e., the second part playing the same melody as the first but at a higher or lower pitch. The most common interval between the two parts is a fourth or a fifth (respectively, the distance between the first four or five notes of a major scale). In structure, much of the music is based on small forms, frequently binary (twosection) or ternary (three-section). Small musical units may be repeated many times and varied slightly at each appearance. The recurrence of melodic phrases and an emphasis on marked rhythms is common and is related to the frequent role of music as dance accompaniment. Thus, in the following example, a dance tune from Afghan Turkistan, sections A and B are similar in their overall melodic structure and also in the small units of three or four notes on which they are built. The sequence ABAB and so on is repeated throughout the

dance. Vocal music may have greater rhythmic flexibility and melodic range, but in form it is almost always subordinated to the structure of the song text. Quatrains such as the robāʿī and chārbaytī are the most prominent village verse forms, with the exception of the landai (or landay), a couplet used by the nomadic Pashtuns of Afghanistan. In the urban oases, couplet forms based on the classical Persian ghazal, a type of lyric poem, are more common. The generally negative attitude toward music among Muslim leaders in Afghanistan has led to strictures against musical performance and to extremely low social status for musicians in that country. Music is heard mainly in male-dominated public teahouses or at private celebrations such as weddings and circumcisions. Women may have their own musical genres within their enclosures; in this context the strong tradition of women’s music in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan is noteworthy. Since the late 20th century, however, festivities that include both men and women have become increasingly popular in Central Asia.

Within this general picture there is enormous diversity. The Uzbeks (a Turkic people) and the Tajiks (an Iranian group), who live side by side across northern Afghanistan and southern Turkistan, tend to share many musical traits and instruments. In contrast, most groups, such as the Pashtuns, the Ḥazāras, and the Balochs of Afghanistan and Pakistan or, in the extreme, the isolated mountain peoples of Nūrestān in Afghanistan and of the Pamirs in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, have maintained distinctive musical styles and, in some cases, unique musical instruments. The Nūristāni vaj, an arched harp (having a bow-shaped body with no forepillar), is a striking case of the possible survival of an instrument type on the margins of a now disintegrated culture area. There are no other harp traditions today between the Caucasus and Myanmar, although iconographic evidence indicates that in ancient times harps were widespread in Central Asia, the Middle East, and India. The music of the Ḥazāras includes vocal effects produced by striking the throat while singing, causing a break in the sound, and Balochi music also features a broken-voice style. Classical music In contrast to the folk music styles just described, the court-derived classical style of Bukhara and Samarkand represents a highly systematic, theoretically grounded, cosmopolitan musical tradition. Lying along the medieval Silk Road trade route, the Turkistani oases were open to musical crosscurrents. Today’s musical roots may reach back to the period in which urban Central Asian music was in vogue at Tang dynasty(618–907 CE) courts in China. The movement of musical instruments across the caravan trail from the Middle East to China via Central Asia has been well documented since early times. Over the centuries, town musicians evolved an urban style patronized by the local courts, notably under Timur (Tamerlane) and his descendants (c. 1350–1500) in Herāt (now in Afghanistan) and Samarkand. The degree of musical eclecticism characteristic of the era is illustrated by a court historian’s description of the festivities of Timur’s son: Golden-tongued singers and sweet-sounding musicians played and sang to motives [melodic figures] in Persian style, to Arab melodies according to Turkish practice and with Mongol voices, following Chinese laws of singing and Altai metres. By the 17th century the court style had been codified into sets of nonimprovised suites of instrumental and vocal pieces using poetic texts in classical Persian and local court Turkish (Chagatai). In Bukhara this collection of suites was known as the shash maqām, or six maqāms (suites), with each maqām (an Arabic term, but changed in meaning) set in one of the classical Persian musical modes. (The Persian modes are melodic frameworks, each with a given scale, typical melodic figures, and accepted emotional content.) Regional courts and large towns developed their own sets of maqāms, which are performed in unison by an orchestra and a male chorus.

Areas of Turkistan under Soviet rule between about 1920 and 1991 underwent far-reaching modification of traditional music practice, although the older styles and repertoires such as the shash maqāmwere also maintained. Changes include the reconstruction of local instruments to fit the Western musical scale of 12 equally spaced half steps, the establishment of music schools and conservatories, the creation of orchestras of folk instruments, the introduction of vocal polyphony, and the writing of works in Western forms (symphonies, operas, chamber music) by native and European Soviet composers. In Afghanistan musical change began on a national basis in the 1950s under the influence of Radio Afghanistan, which broadcast principally popular styles based on Pashtun folk music and songs of the Bollywood(Indian film) industry. After the Taliban government captured Kabul in 1996, however, the station was renamed Voice of the Shari’at, and the broadcast of music was forbidden. Turkic nomads, Mongols, and Siberian peoples The region inhabited by Turkic nomads, Mongols, and Siberian peoples includes primarily the great open spaces of Central Asia, from the deserts of Turkmenistan in the southwest through the steppes of Kazakhstan to the plains of Mongolia in the east, and from the Gobi in the southcentral region to the vast subarctic Siberian taiga (boreal forests) and tundra (Arctic plains), stretching to the Pacific Ocean. The considerable mobility and often close linguistic affinity of the peoples in the area led to substantial interchange of musical terms and instruments and to common social functions of music relating to the traditional tribal social structure of most of the groups of this region. Social role of music Three basic functions of music are common throughout most of the region: music as ritual, with magical connotations (shamanism); music as tribal record, aiding group solidarity (epic recitation); and music as entertainment (itinerant performers, festivals). Music is the medium of the shaman, or priest-healer, who serves as a mediator between the seen, or human beings, and the unseen, the spirits that inhabit the spheres above and below the earth. Traditional shamanistic rituals were creative, impassioned musico-dramatic scenes produced by a single male or female performer—the shaman. Not only is music the shaman’s aid in inducing the trance that enables contact with the spirits, but in Siberia the shaman’s drum (a very large tambourine) may be considered a steed for the trip to other worlds. Thus, great attention is given to each stage of drum construction, from the selection of the wood of certain trees to the painting of symbolically charged designs on the drumhead. The metal hangings, sometimes including bells, on the shaman’s costume also play a musical role. Among the Kyrgyz and the Kazakhsand until recently among the Turkmen, a fiddle with horsehair strings and bow perform the same function as the Siberian drum. Metal ringlets are attached to the head of the fiddle, and a niche is hollowed there for a mirror to catch the reflections of spirits. Shamans’ horsehair fiddles can even be found among townspeople of northern Afghanistan. The

occurrence of shamanism has sharply declined in the portions of Central Asia that were part of the U.S.S.R. Epic recitation, which may serve as tribal history, also has magical overtones. Among Turkic peoples, the same term (bakhshi) may be used for both shamans and bards, and both may be called to their trade by spirits to undergo a difficult period of initiation. Storytellers use a fiddle or lute as accompaniment, and tales may run through several nights of exhaustive performance; one Kyrgyz bard was known to have recited some 300,000 verses of the Manas, the major Kyrgyz epic. Such marathon performances are facilitated by the use of formulaic or otherwise recurrent melodic motives—standard short melodic figures—often invented by the individual performer. Local epic traditions vary widely in dramatization—i.e., the proportion of dialogue, monologue, and narrative. The third areawide musical function, entertainment, takes many forms. One common diversion is the singing contest, in which rival minstrelscompete in wit and virtuosity. Such trials of skill are most notable among the Kyrgyz, the Kazakhs, and the Mongols. The contests follow strict rules of versification, musicality, and procedure. Often the loser must pay a forfeit to the victor, who receives acclaim from the audience and gifts from wealthy patrons; a singer’s reputation may be made or broken in a single afternoon. Frequently a contestant will vilify the clan championed by the opposing singer and laud his own faction. In Siberia another type of entertainment is the historically widespread practice of bear festivals at specific times of the year, during which a bear—considered a sacred animal in Finno-Ugric religion—is killed and its head displayed, to the accompaniment of music, dance, and games. Instrumental and vocal styles Across the region the principal instrument types are plucked lutes, with two or three strings, the necks either fretted or fretless; bowed lutes, largely horsehair fiddles; flutes, mostly open at both ends and either end-blown or side-blown; and jew’s harps, either metal or, often in Siberia, wooden. Few percussion instruments are found, except for the shaman’s magic drum. Considerable instrumental polyphony is played on lutes and fiddles, particularly among the Turkic peoples. Vocal polyphony may occur in special ways. In a style known as throat-singing, Mongol and Tyvan (a Siberian people northwest of Mongolia) vocalists produce two parts while singing solo by strongly reinforcing upper partials (overtones) while singing a very deep fundamental pitch. West of the Ural Mountains, Bashkirs may hum a basic pitch while playing solo flute pieces, and certain Siberian peoples may sing choral overlapping responsorial songs (in which group and soloist alternate, one beginning slightly before the other finishes).

The vast geographic stretch of the region produces musical links to neighbouring areas as well as highly distinctive local styles. The Turkmen, who live in Afghanistan and Iran as well as in Turkistan, manifest some Persian influence in musical terms and instruments, yet they possess unique vocal and instrumental styles. Particularly striking is their series of guttural sounds serving as vocal ornaments. The Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, closely related musically, maintain ties to Mongol and northern styles (e.g., of the Bashkir and Tatar peoples, west of the Urals) as well as to those of Turkistan. Nevertheless, their relaxed voice quality, musical scales, and distinctive instrumental polyphony set them apart. Noteworthy here is the versatile polyphonic style of the three-stringed Kyrgyz komuz lute, based on extensive development of short melodies called kernel tunes. In the komuz piece shown below, the kernel tune is stated in the first two measures and is varied and developed elaborately as the piece progresses. Another KyrgyzKazakh specialty is program music, in which instrumentalists suggest situations or tell specific stories without words, through musical images alone.

The Mongols display links to both Chinese and Tibetan music. Chinese influence is apparent in the use of certain instruments (e.g., some flutes and fiddles) and perhaps in the structure of melodies; Tibetan impact appears in the religious music and musical instruments of Tibetan Buddhism, introduced in the 16th century. Mongolian music also has its own distinctive profile, sporadically documented since the 13th-century Secret History of the Mongols, the first written Mongolian chronicle. Of interest is the fact that Arghūn, Mongol ruler of Persia, sent a musician as emissary to Philip IV the Fair of France in 1289. Because of the focal position of Mongolia at the heart of Central Asia, some Mongol epic melodies have spread westward as far as the Kalmyks on the Volga Riverand eastward to the Ainu of Sakhalin Island, north of Japan. Mongol songs may be either quick and marked rhythmically or drawn-out in free rhythm, with extensive melodic ornamentation. The Mongol horsehair fiddle (often called a “horsehead fiddle” because of the carving of a horse’s head that commonly crowns the instrument) accompanies a singer with simultaneous variations on the melody, a technique known as heterophony.

A Mongolian throat-singer accompanying himself on a traditional horsehead fiddle, with strings and bow made of horsehair.© Testing/Shutterstock.com

Siberian music includes a broad spectrum of styles over a huge geographic expanse. Many unique traditions occur, such as the bridgeless, often rectangular zithers of the Khanty and the Mansi, Uralic peoples living along the Ob River; farther east, the solo flute-and-voice polyphony of the Tyvans and the Bashkirs; and the rapid, compact songs with nonsense syllables of the Nivkh, the Chukchi, and other peoples of the far eastern Amur River region and the Pacific coast. At that northeastern shore of Siberia there is a carryover of musical style to the Ainu of northeastern Japan, and possible musical ties are found between the Eskimos of Asia and of North America. Other links beyond Central Asia may exist at the far western end of Siberia, for example, to the music of Lapland in the Scandinavian Arctic; or in the relation of tunes of certain peoples of the Volga River region, such as the Mari, with old Hungarian folk songs. Outside the few written Mongol references to music, the only approach to discovery of the stylistic history of this region of Central Asia is through fragmentary information about musical instrument types. Perhaps the most remarkable instrument finds were made at Pazyryk in southcentral Siberia, where Soviet archaeologists found wooden objects that possibly form pieces of a harp and an artifact resembling a vase-shaped drum, both dating from the 5th century BCE. The Himalayan peoples The Himalayan region—including the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, the countries of Bhutan and Nepal, and the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim—occupies an important middle ground between India and China, and its central position is reflected in the local music cultures. Of utmost importance for musical life was the introduction of Buddhismfrom India via Turkistan, beginning in the 7th century CE. Music became an integral part of the official creed of Tibetan Buddhism, and the considerable cultural influence of Tibet spread Tibetan religious music to the nearby areas of Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan and, much later, to Mongolia. Tibetan music Tibetan religious music is the only Central Asian repertoire that has a long history of written notation. This notation, for liturgical chant, consists of neumes—i.e., symbols representing melodic contour rather than precise pitch, similar to the earliest music writing of medieval Europe. Also distinctive is the metaphysical aspect of Tibetan Buddhist music, related to Indian philosophy. Each instrument of the monastery orchestra, as well as the drawn-out tones of chant, is believed to represent an externalized form of the mantras, or sounds inherent in the human body, accessible otherwise only through steadfast meditation. For the monks such music is a basic aid to devotion and prayer. Musical styles vary somewhat among the sects of Tibetan Buddhism, but the basic approach and instruments are the same.

Tibetan Buddhist monk reading with handbell in Lamayuru monastery, Ladakh, India.© Robert Frerck from TSW—CLICK/Chicago The monastery instruments typify the crossroads position of Tibet. Some, such as the large cymbals, stem from China, while others (the majority), such as the conch-shell trumpet and handbells, can be traced to Indian influence and are found as instruments of Buddhist worship as far away as Japan. Still other instruments, such as the large double-reed instrument and the long (generally from 5.5 to 10 feet [1.7 to 3 metres]) metal trumpet, are perhaps Middle Eastern in origin. One wind instrument, the short trumpet made from a human leg bone, seems to be of purely local invention. Similarly, the structure of the music seems basically Tibetan. It is founded on a principle of greatly prolonged dense, deep sounds, such as unison long and short trumpets with the double-reed or the seemingly endless bass chant of groups of monks, whose long drawn-out notes are punctuated by sharp extended bursts of percussion. Each monk is said to be able to sing two or even three notes simultaneously.

Tibetan ritual objectsDril-bu bell and rdo-rje double sceptre, two principal implements used in Tibetan Buddhist rituals, 19th century; in the Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.Collection of The Newark Museum, purchase 1920, Shelton Collection Much of this music emerges from monasteries only at festival time, when the great ’cham (dance) dramas, which may last several days, are performed for the public’s entertainment and edification. These plays, which generally show the triumph of Buddhism over Bon, the earlier shamanistic religion of Tibet, may involve hundreds of musicians in the guise of masked dancers with drums, backed by a large temple orchestra. Other types of public music also abound, such as secular, perhaps Chinese-related historical plays with an alternation of dialogue and songs with orchestral accompaniment. There is also a strong tradition of folk dance, which may include songs sung by mixed antiphonal choirs (i.e., two alternating groups of singers). Minstrels ply their trade along the caravan routes and play instruments perhaps more related to general Central Asian traditions than to the Indian and Chinese background of religious music.

Tibetan 'cham dramaTibetan Buddhist monk performing in a 'cham drama during Monlam, or the Great Prayer Festival, Gomar Gompa (Monastery), Qinghai province, China.Frederic J. Brown—AFP/Getty Images The music of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim Little is presently known about the music of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim. Minstrels play a major role in the musical life of Nepal, where, under the influence of Indian practice, musicians are classified according to casteand each group is distinguished by specific instruments and repertoire. There appears to be a great deal of both Indian-related and indigenous folk music in the three Himalayan kingdoms. Varieties of lute, such as the long-necked damyan of Nepal and its Sikkimese relative, may be linked to a similar instrument of the Pamir Mountains, whereas a Sikkimese flute having an outside air duct (in contrast to the inside duct of a Western recorder) seems to be a unique instrument. The Sherpas of Nepal and other Tibetan-related populations of the Himalayas, along with the thousands of Tibetan refugees now living in the area, maintain the traditions of Tibetan Buddhist religious music. The mani-rimdudance drama of the Sherpas, a variant of ’cham, is a good case in point. The study of Central Asian music In the West the study of Central Asian music was until the late 20th century restricted mostly to travelers’ accounts and analyses of small samples of music. By far the bulk of collection and study of Central Asian music of Turkistan and Siberia lay in the domain of Soviet scholars, who instituted systematic fieldwork as early as the 1920s; much of this literature has remained largely

inaccessible to the non-Russian reader. Mongol music was the subject of sporadic but intensive fieldwork by Scandinavian researchers in the 1920s and early 1930s, so some of the traditional music culture was documented before Mongol society underwent the changes brought by war and the advent of socialism. Tibetan music has attracted increasing attention since the late 1950s, when large numbers of Tibetan refugees poured into the Himalayan kingdoms and northern sectors of India, thus making Tibetan music more accessible to outside observation. Afghanistan has been an object of intensive musical investigation only since the mid-1960s. Thus, outside the Soviet-era contributions, Central Asia has remained a comparatively lightly studied although quite fertile area of musical investigation.