Muslanimism

Warning: I’m about to go into religious history mode…so if you’re looking for another story of a cough-drop-bearing suitor or a flame-engorged Santa, you’ll need to refer to my other entries. If you want to skip my mini-religious-history lesson, though, just skip down to paragraph #3.

As you know, Kyrgyzstan is a mostly Muslim country whose faithful adhere to the Sunni sect (the divide between Sunnis and Shi’ites was originally over the role of the imam…but has hence provided fodder for intra-Islam conflicts galore, including the most recent problems I in everyone’s favorite migraine, Iraq). Islam was originally brought to Central Asia in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D., where it flowered most significantly in Uzbekistan. Holy cities there – most notably, Samarkand and Khiva – were once the greatest of Muslim learning centers outside the Middle East. Uzbekistan, with its large cities and agriculture-based economy, proved to be an excellent incubator for devout Muslum. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (incidentally, considered to be one and the same group of nomads until good ole Joe Stalin started tinkering with borders and labels for the area), on the other hand, were home to mostly herdsmen and shepherds – partakers of a nomadic lifestyle that easily adapted to some outward signs of conversion to the Islam of their conquerors, but nevertheless remained loyal to many of their own animist beliefs and rituals. Think about it – a guy who spends most of his time on his horse, roaming mountainous terrain and looking after herds of livestock, doesn’t really have time to go to the mosque every Friday…nor do his wife and children, who spend the bulk of the year in the pasture as well. Furthermore, these nomads didn’t hold much interest for the powers that be (Muslim and otherwise); their natural resource and population levels aren’t nearly high enough to be pursued by anyone very seriously (that is, until the Russians wanted to conscript them for World War I…and ended up having to do so bloodily when the nomads refused to fight for a cause which seemed remote, unrelated to their day-to-day existence).

Now, Kyrgyz nomadic life has largely faded from view. It now takes shape in situations like that of my host mom’s cousin: a woman who, having recently lost her husband and daughter to illness, decided to move to the jailoo (summer pasture) in May, take care of the cows and goats, and make various milk-based products to sell in the bazaar as means of support for herself and two remaining children. With a shrug, Apa asked, “What other work is there for her to do?” referring, of course, to the lack of viable, lucrative job opportunities in most Kyrgyz villages, a situation that leads to all kinds of social problems, from alcoholism to misbehaving youth to hungry babies.

Ok, I’m losing my focus here. To return to the reason for this backstory…last Saturday, I attended the neighborhood kudai (literally, “god,” but here refers to the coming together of a group of people for prayer and fellowship). Every spring, the families from my street gather together in some shady spot, lay out blankets and tablecloths, slaughter a sheep, and eat ash. Kind of like a block party, except that after everyone ate, the local imam (leader in the mosque) read from the Qu’ran and offered a series of prayers on behalf of the community for good health, successful work, happy families, and calm weather (especially that the rivers don’t flood like they did last year).

Then things got interesting. As I mentioned before, the Kyrgyz people traditionally subscribed to an animist kind of religion – that is, that the trees, mountains, skies, and waters were the keepers of a supernatural life force. And since they took to Islam more loosely than some of their neighbors, the Kyrgyz people blended some of their old animist traditions into their new religion – a development I got to see first hand at my neighborhood gathering. Once the imam finished reading and praying aloud, everyone – from the elders to the babies to the teenagers to the redheaded American – got up and began to circle a tree. Attached to one of the branches was a copy of the Qu’ran, snugly bundled in some sort of holy cloth. As we passed under the holy book, we were to put a small amount of money on a blanket on the ground and touch our foreheads to the bundle. We repeated this three times. Meanwhile, the imam splashed the crowd with water using a bunch of fresh herbs. This may sound like a very sacred undertaking, but – like most things Kyrgyz – it was all performed lightheartedly, as children shrieked with delight at the spraying water and squat old ladies failed to hop high enough to reach the bundle. So here you have a Muslim holy man and the Muslim holy book being coupled with a traditional cleansing ritual. Pretty intriguing stuff, huh?


Unrelated Footnote: I’ve had one of those days where I feel very Kyrgyz-fied. I woke up to my host mom giving me a pair of boldly-patterned camel-hair socks as a gift from my host sister. Since I didn’t have lessons until 11:30, I went to the post office and then found a nice tree to sit beneath and read. I’d done this the day before and I really confused my Russian neighbor (sitting under trees without a chair is something adults don’t do here).
After I’d been reading for maybe 15 minutes, three kids came up to me, their hands covered in kurut (a Kyrgyz snack made from hardened, salty, milk curds). They ask me lots of little kid questions like, “Where’s your mom?” and “What grade are you in?” and “Hey, is that a ball?” It was beautiful out, so I humored them for a while before heading to school. I got there early, but was soon overtaken by some boys from my 9th form, who informed me that they’d cleaned my classroom and locked the door. This was very good news. My classroom has been something of an elusive entity in recent months, being taken away for the winter, then returned sans furniture, and then furnished with desks but not chairs. Oh, and the lock was broken in December by our crotchedy maintenance man. I was very excited about having a usable classroom again…until the boys explained that now, in order to enter the room, one must go through the window since the door only locks from the inside. My current end-of-school apathy allowed this to be highly amusing to me.
So then I got back home and found my host dad home for the long weekend (we’re celebrating V-E Day tomorrow). As usual, he’d brought goodies from the city, including strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, and apricots (unlike America, these things are unavailable September-April)…and kimiz (which you may remember is fermented mare’s milk). So I happily had delicious produce and fermented mare’s milk for lunch as my host dad told me about the most recent slew of tornadoes in the U.S. (since meeting my family, they’ve taken a particular interest in natural disasters occurring in or around Tennessee).
Even though I’m feeling more and more like I’m ready to check out, I still enjoy many a marvelously odd moment here in the K.R.