City

When the main commercial routes meet and permit access to the outside world, cities spring up, all within a few hours by road from international boundaries. Five cities exist in Afghanistan:

Cities in Afghanistan: 1969

                                    Population

Kabul                          435.203k

Qandahar                     115,000

Herath                          86,000

Mazar-i-Sharif             50,000

Kunduz                          40,000

Maimana, now transitional, may well become a city within the next decade, and the growing industrial complexes at Baghlan and Pul-i-Khumri should also develop into cities. Jalalabad, because of its increasing commercial importance, geographic position, and site as center of a large new irrigation project should soon achieve cityhood.

The city, therefore, is a major commercial, administrative, and communications center, linking the interior with the outside world.

Large guild-like groups of specialists live in separate sections of the bazaar of the "old city." Individual artisans and, more recently, factories produce items for export and for sale in the town bazaars.

In addition, particularly in the off-agricultural season, certain groups move into the urban centers, particularly Kabul, in great numbers (Groetzbach, 1969). About 2 to 3,000 Hazara from Besud and Jaghori come into Kabul and engage in the manufacture and sale of roghan (butter and lard), wood, and charcoal. Many have settled in or near Kabul and now virtually, control the winter sale of wood; others have become artisans working in aluminum, making pots and pans, etc. (Amoss, 1967). Most Hazara, however, work at coolie labor, gathering each morning at specific points in Kabul, to which labor foremen come to enlist their day’s requirement of workmen. In the city as well as the countryside, the Hazara are low men in the ethnic peck-order. Man must always find a rational reason for his discrimination against fellow men, and non-Hazara Afghans use two counts against the Hazara: 1) they are physically Mongoloid and, by tradition, descendants of the destructive army of Genghis Khan; 2) most are Shi’a.

The relative peck-order from top to bottom of the major ethnic groups is: Pushtun, Tajik, Nuristani, Uzbak, Turkoman Aimaq, Hazara.

Many Tajik come into Kabul, primarily to work as servants in the foreign community or as motorwan (drivers). Most maintain roots in their villages, however, and use their surplus monies to purchase land or trucks, and go into the transportation business.

Some Pushtun from Paktya and Ningrahar come to Kabul. Only a few work as servants. Most work as seasonal specialists, such as making buryah (matting from nyi, a fibrous grass); many as motorwan.

Provincial officials (the governor, his staff, commanders of major army garrisons), normally live in the "new city," and increase in number as the administration tightens its procedures and expands its operations. Each ministry involved with development has a representative in the office of the governors, subgovernors, and often district administrators. A crucial chain of command exists in this situation. The Ministry of Interior appoints the governor, but his development staff is appointed by the ministries involved, making coordination difficult as jealousies over rights and prerogatives develop. The primary ministries represented in various administrative government offices are Public Works, Public Health, Education, Finance, Communications, Justice, Interior, Information and Culture.

In the capital city of Kabul, a central government administration exists, and a two-house, partly-elected parliament meets to pass laws. Courts administer justice under the new Constitution and the present transitional secular-cum-Islamic law situation.

The new sections of Kabul continually spread into the countryside or rise upward with multi-storied buildings which now probe the skyline. A plethora of new restaurants, general stores, supermarkets, and garages cater to the swollen foreign colony and growing Afghan middle class. A new Russian-constructed prefab factory belches out duplicate structures, which some Kabulis have put up inside their compounds as second houses.

Hydroelectric power or large gasoline- or diesel-powered generators offer unstable (though rapidly improving) facilities to the residents of Kabul and other cities and some larger towns. No cities yet have potable piped water; the Japanese, however, are currently building such a system for Kabul at the perfect time to catch the beginnings of a population expansion, an excellent example of developmental timing. Modern plumbing, however, remains a curiosity for most urban Afghans, and all the world serves as an outdoor toilet.

The city grows rapidly; the town follows more slowly; the villages continue as always (Neolithic subsistance pattern in an Early Iron Age technology), sending surplus crops and population to towns and cities.

 Nomads and Modern Trends

About two million Afghans remain either fully nomadic or semi-nomadic, and an increasing number of these two types join the already numerous semi-sedentary groups. It must be borne in mind that all ethnic groups have fully sedentary villages and at least some semi-sedentary elements.

Having defined the sedentary village-town-city trinity, we must now define the symbiosis and strain which exist between sedentary farmers, semi-sedentary farmers, nomads and semi-nomads.

Sedentary Farmers: These are agriculturists who live permanently in the same village and leave only when forced or to accept a better farming opportunity.

Semi-sedentary Farmers: This group comprises agriculturists who own enough livestock to be moved in the summer to highland pastures by a few people (less than 50 percent) and return to permanent villages in the winter; or agriculturists who move with their families to their fields at harvest time and live in portable huts, a phenomenon most common among the central and eastern mountain farmers extending into Badakhshan. The movement is primarily vertical, not horizontal.

Nomads: These are herdsmen who move as a group from summer to winter pasturages and back again. Most nomads are either Pushtun, Baluch, or Kirghiz. The Pushtun and

Baluch move more horizontally than vertically; but the Kirghiz in the Pamir Mountains move more vertically than horizontally.

Semi-nomads: They are herdsmen who practice some agriculture. A sizeabie portion (more than 50 percent) of a semi-nomadic group will move with the livestock to summer pasturages (yilaq), while the remainder tend crops in the winter headquarters (qishlaq). Their movements, primarily vertical, usually cover much shorter distances than those,, of the true nomads. Again, semi-Uomadic groups are mainly Pushtun and Baluch.

For years, most sources estimate two million nomads for Afghanistan. Probably Wilber (1962) was the first to arrive at this figure, and I suspect the number to be as close to correct as possible, and not increasing appreciably. I believe the Afghan nomads have achieved a relative ecological balance, and, although some individual groups may increase in population, ecological and political pressures have forced others to become semi-nomadic or even semi-sedentary in order to remain part-time, functional nomads.

Amir Abdur Rahman drastically interrupted regional ecological balances between sedentary and non-sedentary peoples in the late nineteenth century when he forcibly shifted thousands of families, both sedentary and nomadic, to northern Afghanistan. These shifts brought intensive trade into the central Afghan mountains, where little existed before (Ferdinand, 1962). Actually, the nomads have many functional, symbiotic relations with the villagers along the routes from grassland to grassland.

Sheep and goats furnish meat, dairy products wool (sheep) for clothing, rugs (qalin), and goat hair for tents. Nomads often trade these items for grains, vegetables, fruit, and nuts, and although cash exchanges increase every year, barter is still common when the migration routes leave the modern lines of communication.

Trade items (tea, sugar, kerosene, matches, guns, ammunition, etc.) are offered to villagers by the nomads; itinerant peddlers function only where the nomads do not control the monopoly.

Money lending is a major economic activity of the wealthier nomads. Even landowning village farmers often need extra cash for birth, circumcision. marriage, or other ceremonies and rituals: the nomads happily lend the money at exhorbitant interest rates. In addition, some’ farmers purchase trade goods on credit. Unable to repay his debts or repay the loans, the farmer sometimes loses his land and becomes a tenant to the nomads, who collect annual rents as they pass through the villages.

Animal dung, a primary source of fuel and fertilizer, is liberally sprinkled on farmers’ fields by the nomads’ flocks after harvesting. Certain nomadic groups have traditional grazing rights from specific villages; others pay to permit their flocks to graze Over the reaped, stubble-fields of grains. During grazing. the animals drop tons of manure, later plowed under to enrich the soil.

Communications flow from region to region through the mouths of the nomads. Although the transistor radio (even among the nomads) enlarges the national and world views of the non-literate Afghan, nomads still function as communicators of local and regional news.

The nomads also serve, contrary to popular belief, as the maintainers and perpetuators of marginal grasslands. Sheep and goats do not overgraze, but actually add fertilizing manure to the hilly marginal grass-lands as they move. Withdraw them and marginal grasslands become inhospitable semi-deserts with little vegetation. Such grasslands have, over the centuries, become natural soil banks which can be utilized for agriculture if provided with adequate irrigation, an almost impossible feat if the grasslands become semi-deserts or true deserts. Witness’ the failure of the "Virgin Lands" scheme in the Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic. Soviet planners in the 1 930s considered the nomads totally parasitic, and collectivized or eliminated them from the countryside. The grasslands of Kazakhstan became virtual deserts, and Soviet attempts to make them bloom have yet to succeed. Some Soviet theoreticians maintain that no real conflicts existed between nomads and settled villagers, but rather between semi-nomads and farmers as both competed for land (L. Dupree, AUFS Reports, LD-3-64).

Intelligently conceived, vigorously implemented range-programs to supplement land reclamation and improved agricultural practices would benefit both nomads and villagers, but the elimination of the economically valuable goat, or his replacement by sheep, will probably not appreciably improve the situation. It is worth repeating that the nomads live in a symbiotic, not parasitic, relationship with man and nature in Afghanistan.

Two other important historical events, one internal, one external, since the late nineteenth century affected nomadic patterns. Post-World War II development programs in Afghanistan have been notable in several ways. Unfortunately, however, the Afghan Government, listening to well-meaning foreign advisers wearing cultural blinders, believed that nomads and their flocks were non-productive and parasitic on the landscape, and wanted to settle them down, forcibly if necessary. Prestunably the Afghans never heard of—or digested—the difficulties experienced by ‘Reza Shah Pahlavi in his attempts to break up the migrations of the Zagros Mountains nomads in Iran, nor the bloody maneuvers necessary for the Soviets to collectivize the Central Asian nomads. Many Afghan officials believe that nomads genuinely desire to settle down if given the opportunity. Nomads, however, look on themselves as superior beings, envied and feared by villagers. Any nomad desiring to settle down would be considered psychopathic by his peers.

Nomads Seasonally Crossing into Pakistan Prior to 1961

                                                                                            in Fall

Sulaiman KheI Ghilzai               Ghazni                                     82,973

Abmadzai Ghllzai                      Logar                                      72,040

Ahmadzai Ghilzai                      Paktya                                     46,112

Taraki Ghilzai                           Moqor                                     46,250

Various Ghilzai and
Durrani elements                      Qandahar                                  43,125

Andar Ghilzai                           Kalat-i-Ghilzai                          27,500

Total:                                                                                  318,000

Source: Department of Tribal Affairs, Royal Government of Afghanistan, 1962.

All presently identifiable Afghan ethnic groups have had nomadic pasts and still romanticize about them. In fact, we now have evidence that nomads settle down only if, for one reason or another, they have lost their flocks, and must either attach themselves to other nomadic groups as hamsayah (clients) or work as seasonal farm labor. Wealthy nomads may own land and eventually build kalah (houses in a compound), but they make the annual trek with their nomadic or semi-nomadic companions as long as physically able.

The external trouble, however, the problem of "Pushtunistan," caused a complete shift of the migration patterns of about 200,000 Pushtun nomads. The Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan closed in 1961, and the powindahi as they are known in Paid-stan, bad to readjust their migration routes entirely inside Afghanistan. During the first year, and then with lesser, intensity in 1962, nomads actually fought with each other as they competed for new winter grasslands, and ‘farmers resisted the nomads ‘who established winter quarters near their villages. The government supported the villagers, but helped the nomads feed their flocks with airdrops of forage during the lean 1961 and 1962 winters. By 1966, the internal routes had shaken down, and the ecological balance once again seems’ secure. Many Afghan nomads are still bitter, however, for some own land in the tribal territory of Pakistan, still inaccessible to them because the border remains closed to them—though not to normal commerce.

The Pakistani economy also initially suffered. The powindah worked as seasonal winter labor in the sugar cane fields of the North—West Frontier Province and smuggled goods back and forth into both countries, a lucrative operation for many thousands of legitimate businessmen, who depended on these illegitimate items for great profits. In addition, some of the Pushtun and Baluch nomads also worked in the coal mines near Quetta during the off-herding season.

But the image of the modern Afghan nomad would not be complete without a recent, though still rare, transportation innovation. Several nomadic groups with whom I am familiar have purchased or hired trucks to assist them in their movements from one pastureland to another. The bulk of the baggage, women, children, and elderly people travel by truck, while the young men and women still move along the traditional mountainous.trails with the ‘grazing flocks.

Fully nomadic groups, a diminishing breed, live either in tents or in various forms of portable huts in both ‘qishlaq (winter quarters) and yilaq (summer quarters). Semi-nomadic groups occupy a mixture of tents, portable huts (yurts, etc.) and permanent mud huts in the qishlaq, but fully portable types in the yilaq. Semi-sedentary groups (primarily transhumants), who constitute the next stage in the evolution from fully nomadic to fully sedentary, move vertically to summer pasturages where they live in portable huts or tents.

The differential distribution of tent and hut types can "be used as important indices for cultural connections as well as give hints about the peoples’ origins" (Ferdinand, 1964, 187).

Black goat’k hair tents (kizhdei or kigdei, Pashto; palas or ghizdi, Dari): Three major types have wide distribution: the southern and western Durrani Pushtun type; the eastern and northern Ghilzai type; the barrel-vaulted type of Baluchistan (Ferdinand, I 959c, 1960a, 1 960b). A fourth type, arabi, localized among the Taimani Aimaq and seldom found north of the Han Rud (Ferdinand, 1964; Hatt, 1945), is rectangular in shape. All four types belong to Ferdinand’s "guy-rope tents" which "have no self-supporting structure framework" (Ferdinand, 1964, 188), unlike the yurt types.

The black tent provides a functional portable dwelling for desert and semi-desert environments. At first, the practicality of a black tent. in the white-hot, summer sun might seem minimal, because black absorbs heat. A black covering gives much more shade than white, however, and the sides of the tent can be rolled up to permit the ubiquitous Afghan winds to circulate and cool the interior. The resulting sensible temperature inside the black goat’s hair tent often falls about 20⁰ to 3.0⁰F below the outside temperature.

Yurt Types: Several names are used to identify north and central Afghan yurts, among them kherga (Dan), khedga (where Uzbak—Tajik are mixed). The classic Afghan portable yurt has a latticework wooden frame, covered with reed matting and a number of colorful woven bands (bi(daw) wound around the lattice-work frame and outside the matting. A series of, long poles tied with special knots support the poles at the top of the wooden frame foundation. They are curved to fit into a slotted, hollow, wooden disc (tughlugh) at the summit of the yurt. Felt (namad), often elaborately decorated, is tied over the top of the roof, the designs usually on the inside of the yurt, A two-part, wooden frame door, often carved with designs, serves as the entrance.

Almost all the yurt-using semi-sedentary and semi-nomadic peoples (Uzbak, Turkoman, Hazara, Tajik, Aimaq) of northern Afghanistan use this type of conical mobile structure. The nomadic Kirghiz of the Pamir are the major exceptions and live in iii with more founded roof poles, as do some of the eastern semi-nomadic Hazara, who winter near Chahardeh-i-Ghorband and often tend the flocks of their sedentary Qizilbash neighbors as well as their own.

In many sedentary Turkoman, Uzbak, Tajik, Aintaq, Hazara, and mixed ethnic villages in the northern Afghan mountains, foothills, and plains, true yurts sit,, inside compound walls, serving functionally as summer huts as well as sentimental reminders of nomadic days past. Nuclear family transhumants among the groups seasonally move from village to agricultural fields, often for several weeks. Usually, the families live in chapari, yurt-like structures constructed in a variety of ways, but unlike ‘the yrts In that they have no lattice-work foundation. Curved or straight poles’ are either placed in the ground or braced and then usually sided with matting and roofed with matting or felt. Sometimes a center pole is used for additional support. Certain groups (e.g., Taimani Aimaq) use a chapari as a cooking area.

Mat (buryah) shelters (kappa): These shelters are generally localized south of the Hindu Kush, but particularly where nyi grass (a type of reed) is found in abundance. They are usually lean-to in type, although the Baluch and Brahui construct more elaborate huts.

Miscellaneous: Branch and twig huts often stand beside communal threshing, winnowing, and storage areas. Guards nightly sleep in the huts to protect against thievery, animal and human. In order to check theft, many Afghan and Iranian peasants use unique type of "lock": globs of clay are applied about twelve-inches apart to piles of grain and then impressed with a wooden seal, carved with the owner’s mark. The clay hardens. Grain removal breaks ‘the seal thereby revealing the theft, if not the thief.

To get the full flavor of the villager-nomad symbiotic relationships, one might examine the area of Darra-yi-Suf in north Afghanistan. Many nomads, about 80 percent Pushtun and 20 percent Baluch, pass through Darra-yi-Suf in late spring. Most Pushtun nomads in this region are Mandozai, a branch of the Ghilzai tribe which originally lived in eastern Afghanistan until, Abdur Rahman forcibly moved the groups north in the 1890s. The nomads string out like ants along the narrow trails, moving from the dry, hot, parched Turkestan Plains, west of Mazar-i-Shanif, up into the cool mountains in search of grass. Seldom does a single segment have more than a hundred black goat’s hair tents. On the move, the sheep, goats, camels, cattle, and people often clog up the narrow passes, so that motor vehicle movement must be measured in increments of sheep, not horse, power, although, few vehicles, in fact, travel these roads.

The long arcs of migration usually swing north before reaching Bamiyan. The nomads travel slowly to winter quarters in the Turkestan Plains, and pitch their tents in traditionally defined grassy areas south of the Amu Darya (Oxus River). Some, however, continue to move westward to the Shibarghan and Maimana area.

The nomadic movements resemble intricate military operations. When the mountains are not too steep and rocky to be covered with grasses or wheat stubble, the sheep and goats use the high trails, grazing as they stump along, tended by the younger shepherds. From a distance they look like disjointed snakes, moving in parallel lines. Other livestock, older men, women, and children plod the lower valley trails. Camels shuffle along with the unconcern, of their species, secure in the knowledge that only they, of all creatures, know the hundredth name of Allah. The packs creak as the heavily laden animals move with tents, poles, pots, pans, five-gallon kerosene containers, clothing, wooden and leather sanduq (boxes filled with worldly possessions and. trade goods), iron cooking-trivets, and tambourines. Small children, lambs, kids, chickens, and even puppies often sway polyhedrically, safely tied on the camel packs. Donkeys, and sometimes cattle, also serve as beasts of burden. Horses proudly snort and stamp; the only burdens they ever feel are human. A small boy will walk alongside the trail, holding one of the band’s most precious possessions: a alekan (kerosene lantern, a corruption of the term hurricane lamp). Large, savagely trained, mastiff-like dogs accompany the nomads and guard both the lower and upper trails. When, camp is set up, these fierce dogs will let neither man nor beast approach the tents without their masters consent. Nomads say they clip the ears and tails of these dogs for two reasons: to prevent illness and to give them the advantage in a fight—no ripped ears or torn tails for the Afghan nomad’s dog.

Because the various sections of the moving sub-tribe must mesh their movements to prevent confusion on the trail, scouts from each segment stay in touch with those ahead and behind. The groups occupy traditional camping grounds, often outlined by stones, pausing for a night or several nights as the situation demands. Occasionally, one group may graze for three or more days while the group ahead moves rapidly to the next grass. While in camp, the nomads daily move their herds in separate groups to mountain pasturelands. Each subsection within a moving band paints distinctive designs on the tails and backs of its sheep. These designs may also have ‘a magical; prophylactic function. Sometimes the nomads tattoo the same design on their women.

A group may move only two or three miles in a day; or it may move up to fifteen miles a day over barren passes to reach a fertile camping ground. Often, the groups camp outside villages, on the plowed fields. When the nomads stop for’ the night, the women set to work immediately. The men stand guard and get the sheep and goats ready for the night, tying the lambs together by their forelegs in long lines. Most work is woman’s work. They make the tents, put up the tents, take down the tents, load the camels, unload the camels, cook the food, make the butter, weave and sew, bear the children and help raise them. The men play at being men. They sing songs of love and war. They plot blood-feud revenges and carry out raids from their winter quarters. At times, they hire nearby villagers to watch over their flocks at night, or day and night in winter grasslands. I have sometimes asked nomadic men: "What work do you have?" They quickly and invariably reply:

"Hich!" ("Nothing!") Other Afghans envy the life of the nomad. Of course, the life is much more difficult than the nomads admit but like many men who live with and against nature, they prefer to laugh at their hardships and would not give up their way of life for all the farming land in Afghanis’tan—especially if they had to farm it.

The Afghan government slowly encroaches on the green grasslands of the nomad in the Turkestan Plains and elsewhere, however. Where agriculture once proved impossible because of fluctuating annual precipitation, irrigation now permits year-round water control, and farmers move in. When nomads return from the spring-summer cycle of movement, they sometimes find part of their grazing land occupied, by pioneering farmers. Resistance proves useless because the government, with its largely Russian-equipped army, backs the farmer. Many marginal grasslands still exist in the loess-covered foothills of the north, however, so the’ nomads seek out new areas. In Afghanistan, unlike Iran, the nomad does not own grazing land, but simply depends on traditional grazing rights, for which he sometimes pays. Often the search for new grass throws the group off its time schedule: in 1962, the last nomads passed through Darra-yi-Suf about three weeks late.

Many nomads, realizing that time and the government are against them, make a compromise. They get permission to buy and farm the grasslands of their traditional winter quarters and become semi-nomadic. Part of the group remains behind to raise some crops when the bulk begins its warm weather cycle. Those left behind continue to live in black tents and initially refuse to’ build mud huts. Eventually, however, a subtle change occurs. To make the tents more comfortable, the erstwhile nomads dig into the ground’ inside the tents and begin to build low walls outside the edges of the tents as protection from the weather. The pisé wail grows gradually higher, and in a few years the occupants take down the tents, put on a roof, and have a hut to live in. The group, which moves with the flocks, however, often continues to live in tents or yurts in both yilaq and qishlaq.

The nomad continues to look on the farmer with contempt. Even after he becomes semi-nomadic, semi-sedentary, and eventually fully sedentary, his pride of nomadic ancestry makes him feel superior to his agelong farmer neighbors.

As of the summer of 1969, Pushtun and Baluch nomads still moved up and down the passes and valleys of Darra-yi-Suf, seeking green grass for their flocks, and serving as the most important link of many Hazara, Tajik, Aimaq, Turkoman, and Uzbak villagers with the outside world. (Total sedentary male population of Parra-yi-Suf is about 30,000.)

As the nomads bring in news and trade goods, the search for grass has its commercial side. In fact, several nomads have told me they consider herding secondary to trading. The system involves both cash and barter, with barter more important than cash in some areas. Items brought in by nomads include kerosene, matches, cloth, sugar, tea, spices, peppers, guns, ammunition, iron tools, milk and milk products, livestock, hides, leather, rugs, carpets, and roghan (fat of the fat-tailed sheep, used in cooking). In exchange for such goods, the farmers offer grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. The nomads’ sheep and goats also perform a symbiotic function with the farmers’ fields. They graze over the stubble of freshly reaped fields, depositing manure, which, when plowed under, helps fertilize the fields.

Many farmers remain in perpetual debt to nomadic traders. Some eventually sign over their farms to nomads and become tenant farmers. Violence may occur if a farmer delays too long in paying his debts or a nomad pushes a farmer too far.

Several sub-groups of nomads exist in Afghanistan. They disdain both agriculture and herding for more opportunistic vocations. These groups include roaming, gypsy-like bands, usually called Lit or Musali in the south, and Gull (also pronounced Gujar or Gujur) in the north. They traditionally practice ironsmithing, fortune-telling, entertaining, even prostitution, as they travel from sedentary village to city. Many have obvious Indian origins and bring dancing monkeys as well as musicians along with them. A distinctive group of itinerant traders, the Shaikh Mohammadi (claiming Arab descent), travels in the north. Most of these groups live in either White tents or black goat’s hair tents, which have been repaired many times and resemble patchwork quilts.

Altogether, Coons mosaic concepts (Coon, 195 lb) have never been more amply and graphically illustrated than in the current varieties of peoples and patterns in Afghanistan.