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- 26 Most o f my classmates had married early and already had at least two or three children.
- 27 Jeentek is a Turkic kinship term referring to the children o f a female relative.
- 29 The reason this custom is called otko kiriiii is because in the past, when entering the yurt, the new bride
- 30 One of the first and most important rules o f etiquette for the new bride is the tradition o f tergoo, not calling
- Kyrgyz families and helps to establish respect and balance between the newcomer and the accepting family.
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25 Torkiin denotes a married woman’s own parents, relatives and her tribe in general. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 bed away. Of course, my parents also wanted to see me every day, because they had not seen me for three years after I got married, but they also respected traditional values and rules of marriage and they did not want to hurt my mother-in-law’s feelings. I could not start my research seriously until my son was about 4-5 months old. He was a very active and restless child who used to cry a lot for no reason until he was able to see things clearly and thus be distracted. Although I did not start my structured or formal interviewing of people until the late winter of 2003, we, i.e., my husband and his family, were busy organizing traditional feast/offerings and visiting other relatives’ feasts, offerings, and weddings. As a respected member of the town community as well as of my own and my husband’s tribes, I experienced a unique participant-observation position during those traditional feasts, weddings, and other sociocultural events. Most of the funerals and memorial feasts and other traditional feasts were held by my own as well as by my husband’s family and relatives. My position and identity towards people in my hometown was diverse. My popular and key identity for my townsmen was Elmira, our girl, who studies in America. Everyone was happy to see and meet me as well as my husband and talk about America and Americans. My second identity was in relation to my tribesmen: for them I was Elmira, their Ogotur (my tribal name) girl/daughter. To my husband’s tribe, I was their American kelin, daughter-in-law. For my restless and energetic son, I was simply a mom, his source of food. For my classmates, I was that Elmira, their classkom, class leader, who studied well, and was the last girl in the class to
get married. For my schoolteachers, I was their best student, who made it all the way to America, and they were very proud of me. Last but not least, in addition to all these
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 2 different identities and positions that I held, I was a native, a female scholar, who, unlike during her previous home visits had now come with a clear scholarly goal of doing “fieldwork” among her own people and the culture of which she was an integral part. All of these regulations me in a unique and advantageous position to learn and study my own society and culture from within, and to represent it to an English speaking audience. I knew the ins and outs of the town and the surrounding villages, and had close personal relationships with most of the people whom I interviewed. The oral history of my own relatives, both patrilineal and matrilineal tribesmen, alone provided me with a significant amount of valuable information to help me understand the issues and questions under study. I had easy access to culturally sacred and sensitive gatherings such as funerals and memorial feasts (See Chapter 5). Unlike many foreign fieldworkers, my “field site” and “informants” were not strange or new to me. The first essential tool that a foreign fieldworker needs to bring to another culture is the knowledge of the local language. I had the advantage of knowing both Kyrgyz, which is my native language, and Uzbek, which is closely related to Kyrgyz.. Moreover, I did not have to begin my research by learning about my culture from scratch, as in the case in the traditional practice of anthropological fieldwork where a brave imperial person sails off to an unknown place. My main scholarly goal and approach was to update my existing knowledge of my own native culture and to try to analyze and interpret current socio-cultural and religious issues and developments that were taking place in the society. I did not face any difficulties in gaining people’s trust and permission to be interviewed or to participate in other families’ special events, or to take pictures and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
43 videotape them. My relatives and townsmen, whom I interviewed, did not quite understand the necessity of the consent forms, which I brought with me for them to sign. These forms created an official and artificial barrier between me and the people, with whom I had a close and trustworthy relationship. Many did not care about the forms and simply signed them without reading them. My first experience of participant observation in fieldwork was the traditional
old son Erbol in my mother’s in-law’s house. Traditional wooden cradles are still used in Central Asia, especially in the countryside. According to this custom, it is the maternal grandparents of the baby who bring the new cradle for their daughter’s first child.28 We killed a big sheep on the day of the feast and invited my parents and relatives, and my husband’s relatives and neighbors. My mother and three other respected female relatives came with a new cradle for Erbol. My mother bought the colorfully painted frame of the cradle from Uzbek merchants on the other side of the border and made all the mats, pillows, and other covering blankets herself. The cradle had a protective charm and some hanging toys. The main traditional dish which the baby’s maternal grandmother brings is called talkan, sweetened powdered com, which is eaten with clarified yellow butter. In addition to the cradle and the talkan, my mother brought the cooked/boiled meat of a whole sheep. I captured the essential parts of this old tradition on a videotape. Another old custom relating to a child’s growing up was my son’s tushoo kesuii toy, a feast for cutting the strings which are tied onto the legs of a baby who is just learning to walk.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 4 This custom is still alive among the Kyrgyz, who believe that cutting a child’s tushoo helps the child to walk smoothly and run fast without stumbling. People comment on children or even older people who keep falling down, tripping, and stumbling, as to whether or not his or her tushoo was cut. As a married woman in another tribe/clan, I had to integrate into the tribesmen relatives of my husband through special customs, in order to establish a new relationship with them. I could not visit my husband’s married older brothers as well as other close relatives’ homes without their special invitation called otko chaki'ruu, inviting into one’s hearth. The terms depend on who is talking - the host or the guest. According to a Kyrgyz nomadic tradition called otko kirtiii,29 entering the hearth for the new bride, I was officially invited into his home by my kayin aga,30 my husband’s oldest brother, who is married and has five children. This custom requires the host to kill a sheep and prepare a special dastorkon, a traditional tablecloth filled with various foods, sweets, and fruits, and to give gifts to me of clothes. After this symbolic establishment of relationship, I could visit their home any time. Thus, my diverse statuses and identities in my hometown required me to carry out a variety of specific duties and responsibilities. This position made me a passive observer.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 I actively participated in various important aspects of my relatives’, in-law’s and tribesmen’s social gatherings, which mostly involved traditional customs and rituals. I was the key player or guest of honor at many events. One of the main sacred duties of my husband and I, as adult Kyrgyz Muslims, was to pay visits to the homes of all our deceased relatives, friends, and teachers who had passed away while we were in the United States. It was important to visit their relatives and children as soon as possible after arriving home and to make bata [fr. Ar. “fatiha” the first surah in Quran] by reciting from the Quran in their remembrance. The nature and goal of my final fieldwork visit varied in several ways from my previous homecomings or visits. First, I had to adapt myself to a new home and establish new relationships with my in-laws as a daughter in-law. Second, I was experiencing the joy and challenges of being a mother for the first time, and my foremost responsibility was taking care of my son. Unlike my previous very short stays in the summer time, for the first time in ten years I got to spend all four seasons of the year, because I stayed for eighteen months in Kyrgyzstan. This longer stay enabled me to satisfy my deep homesickness and to visit the summer pastures where I grew up as a child, in addition to other regions of Kyrgyzstan. I was able to observe all the socio-economic and religious changes and developments in the town and in the country in general. This time, however, I observed and listened with wide-open eyes and ears or “with spy glasses,” as they say, and captured many special events and gatherings on video camera and with photographs. However, unlike foreign fieldworkers, who try to pay attention to and take notes on everything they see, I concentrated on major new socio-cultural and religious developments. In many situations and occasions, I could not separate myself from my Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
46 own society and culture. As a native researcher, it was difficult for me to keep my own feelings and views on certain socio-cultural and religious issues to myself. On the other hand, people wanted to hear what I had to say as an educated young Kyrgyz who had seen the world. Therefore, I often found myself engaging in lively dialogues and discussions with my relatives, neighbors, friends, and townsmen, and thus putting myself in an influential position by expressing my judgments and personal feelings about particular subjects. The clearest example of that was the heated discussions, at the fortieth day after death memorial feast for my late grandfather, between two local members of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir and my uncles and cousins, on the so called “pure” form of Islam and Kyrgyz Islam. These “Hizbut” men, who have very narrow religious viewpoints, were trying to brainwash the other local Kyrgyz men and women who, by the way, also consider themselves good Muslims, but only know and practice the Kyrgyz form or version of Islam. One of the “Hizbut” men was my own paternal uncle, who had joined the fundamentalist Islamic group in the mid-1990’s when he was still living in Uzbekistan. I, having the personal background described earlier, could not tolerate these men’s outright condemnation of all Kyrgyz, whom they accuse of having un-Islamic beliefs and practices, particularly in relation to funerals and their associated nomadic customs. As is true with many other religious fanatics or missionaries, they were very eloquent and articulate in their religious preaching and speech, which had the dangerous power to influence the minds and lives of the locals, especially the youth, who are an easy target. My other relatives and uncles, who have a basic secondary school education combined with very little knowledge of orthodox Islam and Kyrgyz pre-Islamic religious history, were not in a position to argue with these Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
47 religious men, who used very elaborate and smart answers to every question and comment other people posed. Although I respect all religions, including Islam, as a knowledgeable person of my own culture and history, I did not buy their intolerant views on un-Islamic elements of Kyrgyz Islam. Unable to withstand their condemnations and intolerance of many tolerant Kyrgyz customs and traditional values, I stepped out of the yurt in which the women were sitting, joined the men’s discussion outside the yurt, and began arguing with them based on my own knowledge of the Kyrgyz religious worldview and values. In mentioning this, I would like to emphasize the fact that it is difficult to observe or listen to such critical discussions passively, especially when you know the language and possess deep cultural and historical knowledge on the subject. As I said, during such discussions, my townsmen and relatives expected a lot from me, as an educated or knowledgeable person, to counter argue the “Hizbut” claims. When all variables are considered, I believe that my rich and unique personal experience as a native researcher puts me in a much more advantageous position than non-native fieldworkers, and gives me greater confidence and authority to represent and interpret many key aspects of Kyrgyz culture and society. I do not draw my conclusions and interpretations solely from one and a half years of fieldwork experience, but rather from my entire life experience as a Kyrgyz. I am a member of my own Kyrgyz family and society, I cannot exclude my life experiences from my research. My entire life before coming to America was centered around family, tribal and social community interactions, gatherings and traditional feasts, in the mountains as well as in my hometown in southern Kyrgyzstan. I grew up interacting with many people on a daily basis, where I listened to people’s talks and discussions on many socio-cultural and family issues. As the Kyrgyz Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
48 say, Adam, adam menen adam bolot, “A person isn’t a person withour other people.” My three younger brothers, and my sister and I grew up listening to such traditional teachings, which helped us to develop essential respectful socializing skills and manners with other people, especially when interacting with elders and receiving and treating guests. In short, my family and kinsmen, with deep traditional nomadic socio-cultural values, played an important role in my attempts to become a good human being. Being a good human being requires many qualities, such as generosity, kindness, unselfishness, and great hospitality. In fact, I do not hesitate a bit in making the following assertion: excluding minor exceptions, Kyrgyz traditional culture is a culture of deep hospitality rooted in the nomadic past. Many foreigners who come to Central Asia enjoy the hospitality of the local people and say that they are very hospitable. Sometimes, some are annoyed about some of the hospitality treatments which make them feel pressured. But anyone who studies deeply, by analyzing and interpreting all the meanings that lie behind this important aspect of Kyrgyz culture, will see that it embodies many other important human qualities and values such as tolerance, that is, accepting and respecting all guests, even enemies, without regard to their racial, ethnic, gender, and religious backgrounds. (See Chapter 3). Although, I spent almost ten years of my early adult life acquiring academic training in the West, in the United States, I do not consider myself to be a “hybrid” or “halfie” anthropologist. I knew that the educational opportunities and the quality of academic education and training in the U.S. were better than in the Soviet system, and for that reason I wanted to pursue my academic goal all the way to the end. Finally, although I do not blame American and western culture, even after ten or twelve years I still cannot Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
49 fully adapt myself to the lifestyle and culture. And I firmly believe that my deep roots in my own culture prevented me from marrying someone outside of my own culture and staying in the United States. Yes, I do not deny the fact that I adopted many western or American habits or manners, but they constitute very small amount of my true self or identity. This is not, however, contrary to my earlier statement that identity, like culture, is not static or fixed in time and space. My more than ten years of western socio-cultural and academic experience are part of my current identity, but they are built on top of my very firmly established Kyrgyz+Ogotur identity, which is rooted in nomadic culture. Above all, the only person who knows best who I am and how I feel about my own self or identity is myself. I grew up listening to and playing Kyrgyz music on the komuz, a three stringed instrument. In my family, it is mostly men who play the komuz. My father, grandfather, paternal great grandfather, and great uncles all played or still play tunes on the komuz, but they did not sing. My grandfather always took his komuz with him to the jayloo, and he used to play, usually in the evenings, in the yurt. He loved to listen on the radio to Kyrgyz aki'ns, oral improvising poets, and in particular, to the ayt'ish, a traditional singing contest between two poets who challenge each other in improvising poems while keeping alliteration and rhyme, which are characteristic of Kyrgyz and Kazakh oral poetry. As a little girl, I loved to sing. My parents and grandparents and all the other relatives who grew up with me often recall how I never stopped singing and dancing. They say “Bassang, tursang i'rdap ele jiirchusung,” “You would sing all the time, whether you were walking or sitting.” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 I really became interested in playing the komuz in 1991, when I was studying in the 11th grade, and I owe my final and strong inspiration to one of the well-known Kyrgyz male singers, Jolboldu Alibayev. He is the man who reintroduced some old, forgotten poems of some of the great Kyrgyz oral poets such as Jengijok, who composed many philosophical songs about life, nature, and old and young age. After Kyrgyzstan became independent, influenced by the cultural and national revival in the country, Jolboldu Alibayev gave new life to one of Jengijok’s popular lament poems called “Balam jok,” “I have no child (son).” Alibayev composed a very pleasant melody which perfectly matched the content of the song, was very well received by the people, and was constantly broadcast on national TV and radio. In “Balam jok,” the poet Jengijok laments the fact that he is getting too old to have children and he has no son/heir to leave behind him, but the way he expresses his lament is very touching and powerful and filled with many traditional expressions and parallelisms. It was this particular poem that inspired me to learn the komuz and sing dastans, traditional poems. Thus, at the age of sixteen, I quickly learned to play the komuz on my own in order to sing “Balam Jok.” My paternal step great-grandmother, Rapia used to cry when I would sing this song, because she had no children of her own. I received many blessings from elderly Kyrgyz every time I sang this and other dastans composed by well-known Kyrgyz oral poets. It was my komuz and my passion for Kyrgyz music that helped me to earn recognition in my hometown and at my University in Bishkek, and that finally brought me to the United States. My father continues to remind me that I should keep singing, because many people can achieve in academics, but few can achieve in academics and in singing with an instrument. If I measure my identity based on Joldasbekov’s statement, then I am a “true Kyrgyz,” Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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