The Qaraqalpaqs - Memory of the Ancient Female Warriors



Qaraqalpaqs, for the most part living in the lower reaches of the river Amu Darya, had many common cultural features with their nomadic neighbours - the Qazaqs, Uzbeks, Noghay, and Bashkirs. At the same time Qaraqalpaqs even in the beginning of the 20th century preserved a number of the unique cultural phenomena, which ascend to the most ancient layer of their ethnogeny...


The Ancient Layers of Qaraqalpaq Culture

Qaraqalpaqs, for the most part living in the lower reaches of the river Amu Darya, had many common cultural features with their nomadic neighbours - the Qazaqs, Uzbeks, Noghay, and Bashkirs. At the same time Qaraqalpaqs even in the beginning of the 20th century preserved a number of the unique cultural phenomena, which ascend to the most ancient layer of their ethnogeny - the sphere of the Saka-Massagetae tribes, who lived in the Aral-Caspian region from the second-half of the first millennium B.C. to the first centuries A.D. Historical sources testify about the strong matriarchal traditions in control of Massagetae tribes and their subdivisions, and about the significant role of women within the Massagetae even in military science.


Epos about the Amazons: Myth or Reality?

Convincing confirmation of the communications of historians about the special role of women in the life of the tribe is provided by the epic poem of the Qaraqalpaqs "Qirq Qiz" - "Forty Girls", which tells about the exploits of the guard of girl-warriors. The main heroine of the poem is their leader - the excellent and courageous fifteen-year-old Gulayim. The motif of the girl-hero is known in the epos of many peoples, but the subject about the guard of Amazons is recorded in Central Asia only in the Qaraqalpaqs. Gulayim and her friends of her own age live in an unapproachable fortress on an island, where a large part of the time is spent in practicing the military arts. In the hour heavy for the native land, when the enemy attacked it, the girls entered into the battle for the freedom of their people and celebrated victory.


Bridal Costume as a Representation of Military Armour

It is interesting that the vivid image of the girl-soldier was portrayed in the Qaraqalpaqs not only in the epic lines, but also in the elements of the costume of the bride. Its basis composed a long dress of dark-blue colour, which the girls began to wear at 15-16 years of age (exactly the age of Gulayim!).

The dress was decorated with abundant embroidery, which was called "chain-mail pattern". In the middle of the 19th century they sewed this dress from homespun cotton material, and before then from the cloth of "torka", prepared from the fibres of kendir - wild hemp; this cloth possessed surprising strength and unusual lightness. It is remarkable, that in the language of the Kyrgyz, who have much in commom with the Qaraqalpaqs, the word "torka" designated the closely woven cloth, not penetrated by arrows, and it means that it was completely suitable for armour.

The head-gear of the bride - saukele, consists of two parts and resembles a combat helmet. The lower part, prepared from felt and quilted on wadded cotton, is very dense and massive; it has large earflaps and a protrusion, which covers the bridge of the nose, with a large metallic platelet in the form of a spike sewn on it, which together with other adornments, which abundantly cover the surface of the headgear, completes the similarity of the saukele to a helmet.

It is interesting to note that one of the heroines of the poem "Forty girls" puts on this helmet before battle. The upper part of the saukele is a metallic cap with a flat top, which, as a crown, marries the newly-weds. The retention in the appearance of the saukele of the features of kingly head-gear is connected with the likening of the bride and groom to a prince and princess, which had wide acceptance in the culture of different peoples.