Through deserts and oases of central Asia

by Ella Sykes; Sir Percy Sykes

It happens sometimes that a man does not possess enough live-stock to purchase a wife, in which case he will enter into an agreement with his would-be father-in-law to serve him and look after his flocks for a term of years, just as did Jacob many centuries ago in order to gain the hand of Rachel. He is allowed to marry the girl of his choice and lives with her family during his service, at the end of which her father will give him an akhoi, yaks, mares, sheep and goats, and the couple will go off and live independently of the old people. My brother’s best Kirghiz shikari, Shamshir by name, confided to him that he was most anxious to marry, but so far he had only gathered together thirty sheep towards the realization of his heart’s desire. However, his hard case so touched his employer’s heart that, when we left the district, Shamshir received a parting gift that would appreciably hasten the wedding-day.

There is practically no divorce among the Kirghiz, marriage being looked upon as permanent. A wife is considered to belong to her husband’s family and lives with them if she becomes a widow, and in the event of her remarriage she is obliged to forgo the dowry that she brought to her first husband. Mohamedans are permitted to have four wives, but, owing to the scarcity of women, few Kirghiz can avail themselves of this privilege, though a man occasionally takes a second wife at the urgent request of his first one.

Certainly a good wife must be “above rubies” to a Kirghiz. She looks after the flocks and herds more or less, does all the milking, makes cream, curds, cheese and koumiss, cooks the food, fashions clothes for herself and her family, and of course has to rear her children. Besides all this, she is skilled in weaving felts with which to cover the akhois, and the effective embroideries that adorn them are the work of her hands, as are also the coarse but pleasing carpets. I have seen her staggering along under the big bundle of laths that form the framework of the “white house,” and she lends a hand to its erection and ties on its felt coverings. Her lord and master has often filled me with indignation by standing idly by and looking on at his wife’s labours.

Though the women are almost as good riders as the men, they ride only for the practical purposes of travelling from camp to camp or herding the mares and cattle. Recreation, as we understand it, does not come much into their lives, and when guests have to be entertained, or feasts are given, they have to work harder than usual at the cooking. In fact I was not surprised to hear that when he recounts his possessions a Kirghiz will mention his camels, yaks, horses, sheep and goats first, relegating wife and children to the end of the list.

The man’s part in life struck me as being by far the easier one. He rides about on his wiry ponies, attends all the wedding and funeral feasts in the district, loves to play the “goat game,” and will drive his yaks and sheep into Kashgar to sell, if he is in need of flour, clothing or boots. He is too wise to wed the pretty Kashgari girls, who would be utterly useless and out of their element in an akhoi, nor do the active, weather-beaten maidens of his tribe hanker after the life of the city.

In the different encampments that we visited children were often conspicuous by their absence, and I was told that most of those born during the long winter succumb to the rigours of the climate, a large proportion of infants being stillborn from the same cause. Smallpox also carries off many, and although the health of the Kirghiz is, as a rule, excellent, they die very easily if they fall ill, there being no doctor on the Pamirs, or any knowledge of the rudiments of nursing. It seems a case of the survival of the fittest; for I have never come across sturdier, hardier-looking men and women than those I encountered during our tour. They live almost entirely on milk, curds and cheese, killing their flocks for food only when milk is scarce or guests arrive, or for wedding and funeral feasts. Their favourite drink is koumiss, the fermented milk of mares. One sip of this was enough for me, as I found it so acid and smoky that I had no desire to repeat the experiment. Bread, sugar and tea are luxuries, and, as they grow nothing save a little barley in places, they never taste either fruit or vegetables; but they certainly thrive on their milk diet. The best milk comes from the yaks. These sturdy animals looked very dishevelled at this season, as their shaggy hair was coming off in patches. They are far hardier than cows, and, though their yield is less, the milk is much richer and is yielded over a longer period.

Neither my brother nor I derived much benefit from the limitless quantities of milk and cream that we saw at the encampments. The Kirghiz boil the milk in open vessels, with the result that it always tasted so strongly of the pungent smoke that we found junkets and milk puddings quite uneatable. Moreover, they are in the habit of manipulating the cream with their hands, both these and the bowls being very far from clean. Only twice were we offered cream that was smokeless and white, and this we found delicious.

The yaks—black, brown, grey or black and white—are of two species, those carrying big branching horns and those without any. They are strong and remarkably sure-footed, though slow, and we used them often for pack work. The curious single grunt which they emit at frequent intervals earns them their scientific name of Bos grunniens. It was frequently my fate when camping to have a yak ensconced somewhere outside my akhoi, separated from me only by a felt, so that it seemed as if it were literally grunting into my ear during the night. They appeared to be very docile to their owners, but sometimes took a violent dislike to Europeans, as my brother once experienced to his cost in Ladak, when he was chased by a black bull and escaped with considerable difficulty. The Kirghiz are on the most familiar terms with their animals. I often found a crowd of lambs and kids behind a screen in an akhoi, or struggling to emerge from some hole underground, and if I rolled up my hanging door I was frequently visited by the most engaging kids, only too ready to make friends with the intruder. I was told that the Kirghiz keep cocks in order that the birds may rouse their owners at daybreak, but we ourselves came across no poultry during our travels among these nomads.

Washing is not a Kirghiz characteristic, and, indeed, in a country where the rivers are partly ice-bound in July one could hardly expect the inhabitants to be fond of bathing. They must find the long winter with its bitter winds very trying, even in their lowest grazing-grounds. The flocks scrape away the snow with their hoofs in order to find the grass underneath, but are in extremely poor condition before the approach of spring, and have to be carefully guarded from the depredations of snow-leopards, wild dogs and wolves. These last come round in packs and lie in wait, watching their opportunity; on one occasion Nadir lost eighty of his sheep in the full daylight of a winter morning. His brother, who was in charge of the flock, went to his akhoi for a short time, leaving a small boy and his savage dogs in charge. As soon as he was out of sight the wolves set upon the sheep, killing them one after the other in a kind of orgy of bloodshed, and paying no heed whatever to the dogs, which were powerless to prevent the slaughter. Many of the sheep fled into the hills in their terror, and Nadir recovered very few of them.