History of the Qaraqalpaq Yurt

Contents

A painting of a Qaraqalpaq yurt in the late 1940s.
Courtesy of the Khorezm Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition, Moscow.

Despite these shortcomings we can still obtain an approximate idea of how the yurt evolved and how it became adopted by the Qaraqalpaqs and other Turkic groups occupying the lower Amu Darya and the surrounding regions of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

Early History of the Portable Dwelling

"A people without fortified towns, living ... in wagons which they take with them wherever they go, accustomed, one and all, to fight on horseback with bows and arrows, and dependant for their food not upon agriculture but upon their cattle..."

Clay models of Scythian covered wagons recovered from archaeological sites in the Crimea.
Dated about 600 BC. From "Die Welt der Skythen" by Renate Rolle, 1980.

A description of these carts was given by Hippocrates:

"The smallest of these wagons have four wheels, but some have six; they are covered in with felt, and they are constructed in the manner of houses, some having but a single apartment, but some having three... The wagons are drawn by yokes of oxen, some of two and others of three... In these wagons the women live, but the men are carried about on horses..."

"For they have no huts ... and dwell in wagons, which they cover with rounded canopies of bark and drive over the boundless wastes. And when they come to a place rich in grass, they place their carts in a circle and feed like wild beasts. As soon as the fodder is used up, they place their cities, as we might call them, on the wagons and so convey them: in the wagons the males have intercourse with the women, and in the wagons their babes are born and reared; wagons form their permanent dwellings, and wherever they come , that place they look upon as their natural home."

"They are all without fixed abode, without hearth, or law, or settled mode of life, and keep roaming from place to pace, like fugatives, accompanied by the wagons in which they live; in wagons their wives weave for them their hideous garments, in wagons they cohabit with their husbands, bear children, and rear them to the age of puberty."

"They are nomads and have houses of felt. They stay for a while in one place and then move on. One can see their tents dispersed here and there all over the place according to nomadic custom. Although they lead a hard life, they behave like donkeys that have lost their way."

"O lords with tents and commons of the Sir, Toquz Oghuz and Eki-Adiz!"

"Celestial sovereign of the Black Tents,..."

"How is the inside of the trellis tent? How is its roof-wheel?
 How is its trellis opening? It is open to view.
 How is the curve of its dome? It is good.
 How are its lashings? It has them.
 Know in this way: it is extremely good."

"Beyond are the regions of paganism, the territories of the Turks, which surround Khurasan and Sistan, and which together are called Turkestan. The Turks are divided into...the Karluk, Toghuz Oghuz, Turkesh, Kimak, and the Ghuzz. ... These Turks have neither refuges at halting places nor strongholds. They only pitch Turkish domes (tents), which are ribbed and the nails are strips from the hides of pack animals and cattle, and the coverings are felt."

"...They inhabit shelters made of boards, they transport them on carts, which oxen draw..."

"I slept in a house in which there was a Turkish felt tent (qubba lubud turkiyya); I was wrapped in clothing and furs and, in spite of that, my cheek (still) stuck to the pillow."

In the 20th century a few Qaraqalpaqs erected a yurt inside their home
maintaining a tradition from the time of ibn Fadlan, one thousand years earlier.

The Oghuz were in the process of fragmenting, their main eastern territorial stronghold at that time being along the entire lower Syr Darya, from Sighnaq to Yangikent close to the Aral shoreline. There they maintained their nomadic lifestyle, shunning the numerous fortified settlements along the river. Interestingly the western Ghuzz that ibn Fadlan encountered between the Ustyurt and the Emba in the spring of 922 seem to have adopted a different lifestyle, living in "tents of hair", an ambiguous description which could indicate tents covered with pelts or tents similar to those used by the nomads of Arabia. The Hudûd al-Âlam (982) noted that "The Ghuz have no towns, but the people owning felt-huts are very numerous."

At the same time a very different type of nomadic culture had become established within the Aral Delta, in the region north of present day No'kis and stretching to the Aral shoreline. Named the Kerder culture, it had been initially founded in the 7th century by Jety Asar cattle-breeders, whose origins may go back to the Massagetae confederation. As their waterways dried up in the lower Syr Darya they were forced to migrate southwards into the Kerder region of the Aral delta. Further waves of Jety Asar arrived after the Arab invasion and were joined in the 9th century by some of the Pechenegs displaced by the Oghuz along the middle Syr Darya. There is some archaeological evidence to suggest that the Jety Asar used some form of portable dwelling before they left the Syr Darya region.

Kerder settlements generally had an irregular outline, suggesting that they developed spontaneously with the arrival of the nomads. One of the larger settlements was at Quyuq qala, which contained two citadels dating from different periods, one of which was surrounded by a fortress wall and ditch. The remains of numerous brick bases in the surrounding area indicates that it was occupied by a city of yurts, although sadly there is no indication of the types of portable dwelling used. As the Kerder canal began to dry out during the 11th century, so the Kerder community became dissipated, some nomads migrating into other parts of Khorezm and some into the Volga region.

The Qipchaqs and the Turkmen

"As concerns the King of the Kimek, he changes his tents according to the grazing land."

"...live in felt-huts and both in summer and winter wander along the grazing grounds, waters, and meadows. Their commodities are sable-martens and sheep."

A Khitan royal yurt depicted in "The Story of Lady Wen-chi".
From a handscroll painting on silk copied from an earlier 12th century depiction.

Three of the paintings show that the Khitan were using two types of trellis-walled yurts at this time:

a small and simple, low-status yurt with a slightly curved conical roof and a rounded top, and

a larger, high-status blue-coloured yurt with arched roof struts and a pronounced dome-shaped roof-wheel, with a diameter about half that of the yurt itself.

They suggest that such yurts were a well-established part of Khitan life. We can only assume that they had been adopted from the neighbouring Uyghur some centuries earlier, particularly since the Uyghur had a tradition of using blue felt yurts during the 8th and 9th century.

It is most likely that this tradition was continued by the Qara Khitay, who briefly terrorized Khorezm and Transoxiana during the 12th century.

Although there is no similar concrete proof, it is also likely that the trellis-walled yurt was adopted by the Tibeto-Burman Tangut and the Mongolian Kereyit tribes as well, since both are described in the Secret History as having tents described as terme ger, meaning "an assembled dwelling", in other words made from separate parts. There is also a quotation from a Tangut general referring to his camp with trellis tents (terme gertü). The Khan of the Kereyit had an altan terme, or golden trellis-walled tent. Both tribes lived close to the Turkic Uyghurs and Qangli-Qipchaq and both lived in mountainous regions where cart-borne dwellings would have been impractical.

The Mongol Yurt

Temujin sits in his ger, having just been proclaimed Chinggis Khan.
From a 14th century manuscript of Rashid al-Din.

The ger was not collapsible and had to be transported on a cart, hence the ger tergen. The Mongols also used covered carts, which were an essential element of the mobile military camp. Referred to as tergen or qara'utai tergen, they were driven by the women and transported the household goods. They had two wheels, two shafts, and were pulled by oxen. When a Mongol army struck camp, the tergen were either aligned in rows or used to create a defensive circle.

One complicating factor arises from a report from two Chinese ambassadors, P'eng Ta-ya and Hsu T'ing, who traversed the Mongol steppes in 1236 and observed non-collapsible dwellings on carts. However in Yen-ching (Beijing) they also saw dwellings whose framework could be rolled up and unrolled, which were made from willow twigs being similar to a sieve, had a top similar to the framework of an umbrella, a top opening, and a covering of felt.

The suspicion is that these trellis-walled yurts were of Khitan origin. Although the Khitan Empire broke up in 1125 many of its tribesmen joined the Jürchen under the succeeding Chin dynasty. When the Mongols invaded northern China in 1212 they encountered Khitan units within the Jürchen, who allied themselves with the Mongols. Since Yen-ching was the southern capital of the Khitan it is possible yurt manufacture was maintained in local workshops over this period.

The first specific reference to the Mongol use of a trellis-walled tent is provided by Juvaini in relation to Ögedey Khan (1229-41) at Qaraqorum. The Khan would often go into the mountains in the summer:

"…where there would be erected for him a Khitayan pavilion, whose walls were made of latticed wood, while its ceiling was of gold-embroidered cloth, and it was covered all over with white felt: it is called Sira Ordo."

"Their dwelling-places are round like tents and are made of twigs and slender sticks. At the top in the middle there is a round opening which lets in the light, and is also to enable the smoke to escape, for they always make the fire in the middle. Both the sides and the roof are covered with felt, and the doors are also made of felt. Some of these dwellings are large, others small, according to the importance or significance of the people; some can be speedily taken down and put up again and are carried on baggage animals; others cannot be taken down but are moved on carts. To carry them on a cart, for the smaller ones one ox is sufficient, for the larger ones three, four or even more according to the size. Wherever they go, be it to war on anywhere else, they always take their dwellings with them."

"The dwelling in which they sleep is based on a hoop of interlaced branches, and its supports are made of branches, converging at the top around a small hoop, from which projects a neck like a chimney. They cover it with white felt: quite often they also smear the felt with chalk or white clay and ground bones to make it gleam whiter, or sometimes they blacken it. And they decorate the felt around the neck at the top with various fine designs. Similarly they hang up in front of the entrance felt patchwork in various patterns: they sew onto one piece others of different colours to make vines, trees, birds and animals. These dwellings are constructed of such a size as to be on occasions thirty feet (9 metres) across: I myself once measured a breadth of twenty feet (6 metres) between the wheel tracks of a wagon, and when the dwelling was on the wagon it protruded beyond the wheels by at least five feet on either side. I have counted twenty-two oxen to one wagon, hauling along a dwelling, eleven in a row, corresponding to the width of the wagon, and another eleven in front of them. The wagon's axle was as large as a ship's mast, and one man stood at the entrance to the dwelling on top of the wagon, driving the oxen."

"Their huts or tents are formed of rods covered with felt, and being exactly round, and nicely put together, they can gather them into one bundle, and make them up as packages, which they carry along with them on their migrations, upon a sort of cart with four wheels. When they have occassion to set them up again, they always make the entrance front to the south. Besides these cars they have a superior kind of vehicle upon two wheels, covered likewise with black felt, and so effectually to protect those within it from wet, during a whole day of rain. These are drawn by oxen and camels, and serve to convey their wives and children, their utensils, and such provisions as they require."

"The place where we landed was in the wilderness known as Dasht-i-Qifjaq. ...There is no means of travelling in this desert except in wagons, and it extends for six months journey, three of them in the territories of the Sultan Muhammad Uzbak, ...one of the merchants in our company went to some of the tribesmen known as Qifjaq ... and hired from them a wagon drawn by horses."

"They are wagons with four large wheels, some of them are drawn by two horses, and some drawn by more than two, and they are drawn also by oxen and camels, according to the weight or lightness of the wagon. ...There is placed upon the wagon a kind of cupola made of wooden laths tied together with thin strips of hide; this is light to carry, and covered with felt or blanket cloth, and in it there are grilled windows."

"...we saw a vast city on the move with its inhabitants, with mosques and bazaars in it, the smoke of the kitchens rising in the air (for they cook while on the march), and horse drawn wagons transporting the people. On reaching the camping place they took down the tents from the wagons and set them on the ground, for they are light to carry, and so likewise they did with the mosque and shops."

"...the dwelling of the plainsmen in that endless desert is the portable tent (khargah-i kutarma), which is built in such a way that it cannot be taken apart; and they construct it as though it were pitched, and lift it up, and when they move or migrate they place it upon a cart and go on their way..."

"...it was not supported by guy ropes, and it was round, and the walls were of rods about as thick as lances, which were placed crosswise like a net, and above these rods there was something like a tall dome, also made of very tall rods, and this dome and the walls of the tent were fastened one to the other with belts as broad as a hand, and they came down below and were fastened to some stakes set next to the walls of the tent ... on the outside it was girded around the middle by some white bands which went crosswise, which passed all around ... it had a tall doorway with doors made of very small canes covered with coloured material..."

"The aq üy is a conspicuous subject, to which they have put the name khargah, but for most of its parts they use the Turk language. Thus they say tünglük, and üzük, and turlugh, and basrugh, and chigh, and qanat, and közenek, and ugh and baghish, and bosaga, and erkene, and so forth ..."

The trellis-walled yurt of Shaybani Khan, probably at Samarkand between 1502 and 1507.

By the time the English Elizabethan former sea captain named Anthony Jenkinson visited Central Asia in 1558, the branch of the Shaybanid family ruling Khorezm (the Arabshahids) had descended into banditry, and the region was fraught with danger. Landing on the Mangishlaq coast, Jenkinson's party hired camels in order to travel to Vazir, the capital of Khorezm at that particular time. Jenkinson observed that the region in between the Caspian shore and Vazir was devoid of habitation apart from nomads "in great companies" roaming with large numbers of cattle and other livestock. Sadly he failed to describe any of their dwellings.

Within five days the camel train was intercepted by well-armed Tartars and servants of Timur Sultan, the Uzbek governor of Mangishlaq and brother of Hajjim Khan, the overall ruler of Khorezm. Jenkinson decided it would be wise to seek permission for his travels from Timur Sultan and was entertained by him in:

"a little rounde house made of reedes covered without with felt and within with Carpets."

"...for the Uzbeks hang along the sides small carpets of home manufacture; and though the work be coarse, and the colours generally of a sombre hue, dark red or brick colour in particular, their presence sets off the tent to advantage, and gives it an appearance of cleanliness."

Uzbek yurts in Surkhandarya viloyati in the mid-20th century.

Qazaq Yurts

"They plundered ... in excess of ten thousand Kazakh homes which were bound on carts, and the carts harnessed to camels, and took them from the battlefield. What homes! Palaces raised in the air and homes built of wood in the open steppe of the world! Beams and boards of poplar in complete firmness and proportion and art and full ornament wrought all around, and felts of many colours, with outlandish designs and strapwork incised with perfect delicacy and art. The basis of the erection of each tent was brought to the shape of a heavenly dome. Those which were the homes and dwellings of the great men and princes among them appeared as elegant trellis tents, each of which could worthily accommodate twenty people or more if sitting comfortably and at ease."

"There were other houses, khana-ha, of the rest of the people made long in shape, and adorned with art and complete delicacy, and harnessed to one camel or more, and there were small doors provided in front of and behind each house so that its inhabitants might look about ..."

"The dwelling of the Kirghiz is a kibitka or yurt, i.e. a half-spherical tent, made up of a wood lattice covered with felt, and provided at its higher part with a large round opening, which can be opened and closed at will. It acts as a window, and takes the place of a chimney when they light a fire in the tent. These tents, which are very similar to those of the Kalmuks, are from four to eight arshins high, and eight to fifteen arshins in diameter. At some agreed and dedicated site, they attach the lattice wall by means of cords of hair. The doors are made of wood and are furnished with ornaments in small bone, with which they are encrusted; sometimes a simple felt takes the place of a door. The cords, which are used to bind and maintain the lattice, are generally made of wool, and for a rich person, out of silk. In summer the interior walls are covered by a type of curtain braided with straw and variously coloured threads. During the hot summer days they raise the felts at the bottom: these curtains let the fresh air penetrate and protect the interior of the tent from the dust and the heat of the sun. The tents of the common people are made of grey felt; those of the high and mighty and the rich, of white felt; and some sultans, belonging to the more powerful Middle and Great Hordes, cover theirs with red cloth on the outside and with silk fabrics on the inside. The poorest, on the contrary, substitute the felts with mats of tree bark or leaves, and sometimes they even use reeds and turf.

The bottom of the tent, opposite the door, is occupied by trunks covered with carpets, which are used to store the clothes, the overcoats and other clothing. From the walls they hang rifles, sabres, bows, arrows, saddles, horse harness, gunpowder, etc as well as hand towels, teapots, jugs, toursouks (types of leather bags), and also frequently pieces of smoked horse meat. The earth, which is used as a floor, is covered with carpet or felts. On these carpets they arrange large pots, cauldrons, the wooden beds on which they place pillows, and particular kinds of chests, which are decorated in various manners. They are used as places for the bags that contain the qumis.

A Kirghiz removes and replaces his tent in half-an-hour, and he unceasingly transports it, on the back of a camel, to those places where he finds good pasture and water for his herds. He depends on his herds and livestock breeding above anything else."

"The yourt was formed of willow trellis-work, put together with untanned strips of skin, made into compartments which fold up. It was a circle of thirty-four feet in diameter, five feet high to the springing of the dome, and twelve feet in the centre. This dome is formed of bent rods of willow, one and a quarter inch diameter, put into the mortice-holes of a ring about four feet across, which secures the top of the dome, admits light, and lets out the smoke. The lower ends of the willow rods are tied with leathern thongs to the top of the trellis-work at the sides, which renders it quite strong and secure. The whole is then covered with large sheets of voilok, made of wool and camel's hair, fitting close, making it water-tight and warm. A small aperture in the trellis-work forms a doorway, over which a piece of voilok hangs down and closes it; but in the daytime this is rolled up and secured on the top of the yourt."

Qazaq yurts by the salt lakes close to the Arkat Mountains, south of Semipalatinsk. From Atkinson, 1858.

In 1865 A. K. Geyns, a member of the Steppe Commission, visited the rural district of Andagul-Oraz-Baimbetov in Kokchetav region and found that almost all of its inhabitants were occupied by the production of kerege yurts. He estimated that there were approximately one thousand yurts available for sale. At the village of Chingisa Valikhanova close to Airtavskoy he visited a large and stunning Qazaq yurt, built with ten unpainted qanats and arched uwıqs. It was covered with white embroidered felts, its walls were wrapped with shiy mats braided in wool, and the door was made from a red quilted cloth edged with Chinese material. Local people described two other types of yurt in the region at that time:

- the light-weight kos or dzhukum u'y, designed to be carried   by horse-herders, which had two qanats, no roof wheel, and straight uwıqs, and

- the Kalmuk yurt, which had longer and straighter uwıqs and a relatively smaller shan'araq.

Kos were still being used for long-distance travel by horse-herders in the 20th century. They were described by Chokan Valikhanov, the leader of the Qazaq Ethnographical Expedition, in his discussion on the Zailiyskiy region and were not only designed to be light but to be also quickly constructed and dismantled. They usually had only two kerege and the lower ends of the uwıqs had small loops instead of strings that could easily be slipped over the heads of the kerege.

In March 1873 Eugene Schuyler set off from Saint Petersburg on a journey across Central Asia. He described the Qazaq kibitka as a circular tent made of felt spread over a light wooden frame.

"This frame is easily taken apart and put together, and is so light as to form a load for a single camel only. The broad pieces of felt are easily stretched over it, so that the whole can be put up in about ten minutes. On one side is a door covered by a flap of felt, and the fire is built in the middle, the smoke escaping through an opening in the roof. The interior of the tent is decorated with pieces of ribbon of various kinds, used to fasten down the felt, and around the sides the Kirghiz [Qazaqs] place and hang all their valuable goods, consisting of carpets, silk matresses, and clothes, and sometimes, in cases of the richer men, of even silver articles, with the trappings of horses and household utensils. The kibitka forms a most comfortable abode, being cool in summer and warm in the winter."

Illustration of a Qazaq yurt described as a Kirghiz kibitka, engraved by Vasiliy Vereshchagin.
From MacGahan's "Campaigning on the Oxus", published in 1874.

A Kirghiz (Qazaq) winter encampment, engraved by Vasiliy Vereshchagin.
From MacGahan's "Campaigning on the Oxus", published in 1874.

Henry Lansdell made a similar trip to Schuyler in 1874 and while in Vierny (now Almaty) he arranged to visit a Qazaq aul at Suigati. Luckily he witnessed the erction of a yurt and was able to take notes:

"The component parts of the kibitka are felt and matting, wherewith to cover a framework that consists of a lintel and side-posts for a door, and pieces of trellis-work (called kiriga, as I took down the name phonetically from the woman's mouth) resemble a pair of lazy-tongs, or, better still, an English child's toy on which he moves his little company of soldiers, the wooden lathes or poles forming a trellis being fastened with a leather thong where they cross. Four of these kiriga, tied together and expanded so as to stand about 4 feet high, made with the doorway, a circle about 6 paces in diameter, and the whole was girded by a broad band of worsted. Then was hoisted, perhaps 9 feet high, over the centre, a wooden hoop, called chunrukh, to serve as chimney, ventilator, and window, into the holes of which were thrust the ends of long wooden staves called ookh, the other ends being tied to the trellis work, so that, when the woman had tied 55 of these ookh, the framework of her small tent was ready. Huge pieces of felt were then hoisted to the top on poles, and drawn to their position by two bands called bau, and afterwards fastened; the covering for the doorway being hung from the lintel like a curtain. The felts did not quite reach the ground, fresh air on this occasion being a desideratum; but there were placed on the grass two pieces of reed matting called tchi, fastened inside and encircling the tent to the height perhaps of 4 feet, a binding line being tied round to keep all taut. Besides this, ropes made of horse's manes hung from the hoop or corona inside to keep the tent down, and outside a stake was driven into the ground to windward for similar security. The floor was strewn with felts, a space being left in the centre for the fire."

An illustration of a Qazaq yurt from Henry Lansdell's publication in 1885.

He was told that such a small yurt would cost £2.50 new, and a normal sized yurt would be £5. Lansdell also visited a very large yurt owned by a wealthy Qazaq judge, valued for comparison at £100. It was 12 feet tall, 9 paces in diameter, had 120 roof poles, its felt was lined with silk, and the walls and floor were covered with carpets. He then travelled to a neighbouring aul to visit some inhabited yurts. The trellis walls were hung with "basins, bags, harness, firearms, leather bottles, skins, clothes, and a Kalmuk bass, or box in which to put cups and basins, to be slung on the back of a camel". There were rolls of felt, cushions, carpets, and trunks full of possessions, including a Russian metal box. In the centre was a huge open cooking pot, surrounded by metal ewers and leather pails, some with a spout.

The Scottish politician Henry Alexander Munro-Butler-Johnstone also visited some Qazaq yurts on the eastern banks of the Volga in the late summer of 1874 and left us a vivid description of his findings:

"A Kirghise encampment is a picturesque sight. The orientally grave and sedate camel gives it too an air of reality. The tents are oval-shaped, like bee-hives, with a hole at the top, serving indifferently as a window or a chimney. This is covered up, if necessary, by a piece of felt, with which material the whole tent is covered. The framework of the tent is composed of birch twigs of the thickness of a little finger, and presents, when stripped of its felt covering, very much the appearance, on a large scale, of those cages or crinolines one sees dangling in the windows of a provincial shop. This wooden framework, as well as the felt covering, takes into four or five pieces, and is packed, together with the women and furniture, on the backs of the camels, the men following some hours afterwards on horseback, when the encampment strikes its tents and moves to other quarters: when necessary, this demenagement takes place in an incredibly short space of time; five minutes is as much as is required to pack up and be on the way."

Yurts at a Qazaq encampment from Munro-Butler-Johnstone's publication of 1885.

"The tent door consists of an opening at the side, at the top of which a rush matting is rolled up and let down when necessary. One's first impression on entering a tent is an impression of grimy gaudiness, the exact opposite of the simplex munditiis of Horace: everything in it is of red and flaring colours; small carpets or mats of bright Persian pattern are thrown about the ground; on them are strewn cushions of various sizes covered with similarly-coloured cotton prints; a curtain of similar material and design divides off a segment of the tent — that apportioned to the women. Although his creed admits of a plurality of wives, the wise Kirghis does not venture on the experiment within the precincts of his tent. Fancy the consequences, if he did! From the roof, so to speak, of the tent — that is, from its upper concave sides — are occasionally suspended bright red and yellow ribbons, like the pennants of banners. The Kirghis by no means despises ornamentation, only he has his own ideas about ornamentation. A chest or wooden box, painted red, and relieved with yellow birds or griffins, completes the inventory of a tent; in this box are packed the more valuable goods, such as the women's ornaments, as well as their crockery and other implements of domesticity. A Kirghis tent always contains this coffre fort. No description, however, would convey a faithful picture of the interior of these tents which omitted to give to it its last touch of colouring. This consists of a strong coating of nomad dust and soot; which is by no means remarkable, considering that the fireplace is constructed by a few stones piled in the centre, from which the smoke is allowed to wend its way as it listeth to the little aperture which I have described at the top of the tent. An inevitable consequence of this is that great numbers of the Kirghes suffer from sore eyes: ..."

"A Kirgis Aul in Winter", from Franz von Schwarz, 1900.

A Kyrgyz Yurt on the Golodnaya Steppe, photographed by Sergey Prokudin-Gorskiy around 1910.
The roof felts cover the reed screen walls and are held in position by criss-crossed narrow white tent bands.

The yurt of a family of nomadic Qazaq shepherds in the northern Aral delta, east of Taxta Ko'pir, 2003.
Note the steep conical roof. Qazaq yurts were traditionally dome-shaped.

The framework of a Qazaq yurt on the northern shore of Lake Aydarkol, Navoi viloyati, Uzbekistan, 2003.

The frame of a Qazaq yurt at Xoja Aul, close to Janbas village in Southern Qaraqalpaqstan, 2004.
The uyks are not traditional, being straight like the Qaraqalpaq uwıq rather than curved.

Another Qazaq yurt at Xoja Aul in 2004 with felt walls and a decorated felt door.
These Qazaq families are not nomadic but are settled.

Noghay Cart Tents

"All the Tartars whiche inhabite towarde the east beyonde the ryuer of Volga, haue no dwellyng places, nor yet cities or Castles, but cary about with them certayne cartes or wagens coured with beastes hydes, vnder whiche they reste, as we do in our houses. They remoue together in great companyes, whiche they call Hordas. They are warlyke people, and good horsemen, and are all Macometistes [Mahometans]."

"...pasturing ... by estimation about a thousand cammels drawing of carts with houses upon them like tentes, of a strange fashion, seeming to be a farre off a towne ..."

An etching of a Noghay cart tent by Adam Olearius, 1636.

Adam Olearius visited Astrakhan in 1636 and recorded the Noghay tent cart in words and pictures. The tents were round, three metres in diameter, made from twisted reeds or stems, with a felt roof and a central smoke hole. They looked like hen coops. In the cold weather they surrounded the outside with felt and heated it with a fire of burning branches and cow dung. The detailed drawing of a similar Tatar tent cart from the Ukraine was executed at about the same time by a French artillery engineer named Guillaume Le Vasseur. It shows the tent was indeed built like a hen coop with cylindrical walls and a hemispherical top. It was constructed from twenty vertical struts and eight horizontal hoops, the highest hoop being the roof wheel.

Cornelius Le Brun made similar observations when he visited the Tartars just outside of Astrakhan in 1703. He described the cart tent in some detail:

"Their tents are made much like Parrot Cages, except that they are not so high in proportion; they are composed of Lathes four or five inches thick, and covered with Felt, Camel or Horse hair. Those of the most considerable Persons among them, are covered in Cloth; they all have an opening at the Top to let the Smoke out, with a Pole in the middle, which reaches out four or five Foot: to the end of that Pole they fix a Piece of Cloth of divers Colours, which comes down to the Ground, and hangs on a broad Strop which they fasten on the outside of the Tent; by the Help of which they turn the Cloth which way they please, to keep the Wind or the Heat of the Sun. When all of the Smoke is gone out, they cover the Top, and then their Tents are as warm as a Stove; the Bottom or Floor of it is laid with fine Stuffs or handsome Carpets according to the Rank of the Owners, with a Sofa after the Turkish fashion, raised a little above the Floor, which takes up one third part of the Tent. They also have in them very fine Trunks to lock up things of Value, and in general all is very clean and in good Order. When they remove, they put their Tents up on Waggons after having taken off the Cover. The Women and Children put themselves into them, and the Men accompany them on Horseback."

An engraving of Noghay bow-topped carts, cart tents, and Turkic yurts by Geissler, 1793-4.

A detail from Geissler's engraving, 1793-4.

Qaraqalpaq Yurts

The unlikely looking Uzbek yurt of Muhammad Rahim Khan in the Ark at Khiva in 1819.
A lithograph from the Atlas of Muravyov's journey, published in Moscow in 1822.

The tax archives of the Khivan Khan were collected by A. L. Kun in 1873 and were taken to Saint Petersburg only to be subsequently lost. They were rediscovered and studied by Pavel Petrovich Ivanov in the 1930s. They show that during the 19th century there was an extremely uneven distribution of wealth within Qaraqalpaq society, which probably reached its peak sometime after 1850. Most peasants had insufficient land to support themselves – plots of arable land were no more than one or two tanaps in size (1 tanap is equivalent to 0.4 hectare). However individual bays and religious leaders had hundreds if not thousands of tanaps of land – for example the leader of the Qazayaqlı clan, Abdulla bay, had 6,370 tanaps. Livestock was distributed in a similar manner. Qaraqalpaq peasants could only survive by working for these landowners on a land-lease share-crop basis.

These terrible conditions were the cause of several Qaraqalpaq revolts. One occurred in 1827-1828 in response to the collection of cattle tax, the most widespread in 1855-1856, and a more localized revolt in 1860. The 1855 uprising was violently suppressed by Sayyid Muhammad Khan and was followed by a major famine.

This explains why the majority of foreign visitors commented on the widespread poverty of the Qaraqalpaqs throughout the 19th century. More observant travellers realized there was a rich minority, although even their wealth was extremely modest by Western standards. Russian reports on the Qaraqalpaq encampments constantly referred to their terrible state of poverty and the generally poor condition of the yurts.

The log of the Aral flotilla in 1848-1849 reported a visit to the Qaraqalpaqs living in the lower reaches of the U'lken Darya:

"...these unhappy people, exhausted by labour and by deficiencies and oppressed by the clerks of the Khivan Khan, their decrepit clothing, hardly covered by rags – they represent the living picture of misery. Their nomad tents, covered with scraps of ragged felt, blackened from prolonged service, could hardly serve them as a reliable refuge from the intense heat and the cold."

The exiled Ukrainian artist and poet Taras Schevchenko was aboard the steamboat "Konstantin"
with Lieutenant Butakov in 1848 and painted Qazaq yurts on the shoreline of the Aral Sea.

Arminius Vambery travelled across Central Asia in 1863 from Tehran to Herat. While in Khiva he travelled by boat down the Amu Darya to Qon'ırat, observing Qaraqalpaq cattle grazing in the clearings between the woodland on the right bank. He wrote:

"The tent of the Karakalpaks is much larger, and of stronger construction than that of the rest of the nomadic tribes, and is guarded by a species of large dog, only to be met with among this tribe. In their dwellings in general they are distinct from the other nomadic tribes in dirt and uncleanliness; they evince also in their food and clothing a carelessness, which makes them abundantly ridiculed and disliked by their neighbours."

"The framework of the kibitka, or Central Asian tent, is composed of a number of thin strips of wood six feet long, loosely fastened together in the form of a vine-trellis; this frame opens out and folds up compactly, so that it may be placed on a camel. The sticks forming this frame are slightly curved in the middle, so that upon opening out it naturally takes the form of a segment of a circle. Four of these frames complete the skeleton sides of the tent. On the top of this are placed some twenty-five or thirty rafters, curved to the proper shape, the upper ends of which are placed in a hoop, three or four feet in diameter, serving as a roof tree."

"As soon as the camel carrying the felt and framework of a kibitka arrived, he was made to kneeel down, two women seized the framework, set it up on end, and stretched it out in [the] form of a circle, one holding it while the other fastened the different parts together. Then the doorposts were set up, and a camel's-hair rope drawn around the whole, to bind it tightly together. One of them then took the wooden hoop, which serves as roof-tree, and elevated it inside the tent by means of a stick inserted in one of the many holes with which it is perforated, while the other immediately commenced inserting the rafters, some twenty or thirty in number, the bases of which are fastened to the lower framework by means of loops. The heavy rolls of felt are then drawn over this skeleton, and the kibitka is complete. ... "

Qaraqalpaq yurts and qayıqs at the mouth of the U'lken Darya,
with the gunboat "Samarkand" moored in the distance. Sketched by Nikolay Karazin in 1873.

Sobolyev classified the Qaraqalpaqs as settled rather than nomadic, since they only moved their yurts in the summer to the ploughed fields. In the winter they gathered their yurts inside their qalas, in groups of several hundred, for protection against Yomut raids. He estimated a total of 20,000 Qaraqalpaq kibitkas. The overall poverty of the Qaraqalpaq population meant that taxes were not always paid to the Khivan Khan. However the Qaraqalpaqs living along the Kegeyli River had very well-tended gardens and seemed to be better off.

Karazin's first views of the Aral Delta reminded him of the lower Syr Darya, even down to the coastal villages, although the kibitkas of the Qaraqalpaqs had different roofs and appeared flatter than those of the Qazaqs. One of the first Qaraqalpaq villages he visited was on the U'lken Darya in the middle of the delta. The yurts were arranged in disorderly groups and each was small, old, and impregnated with smoke. Glancing into the first yurt they were overwhelmed by the stench of rotten fish:

"Complete misery reigned in this nomad tent. There was not one carpet, not even one felt – an essential belonging in every nomadic dwelling. Several bundles of reed were scattered on the bare earth and coals smouldered under the iron trivet. Some rags hung on a hair rope, which was used to expel the swarming parasites with the smoke ... We visited another nomad tent which was the same; in a third it was even worse!"

Nikolay Karazin's 1878 sketch of a waterside Qaraqalpaq yurt and qayıq.

Small impoverished villages were also located along the Quwanısh jarma, just to the north-east of Fort No'kis. They were unkempt and situated in the wild with kibitkas that were arranged higgledy-piggledy, as if the occupants had only arrived yesterday and were ready to leave at a moments notice. The Qaraqalpaq village of No'kis contained up to twenty kibitka clustered closely together only the width of a foot apart. It was defended by ditches and a fence of thorny vegetation. Nearby were fields of cotton and ju'weri (sorghum wheat).

Wood also observed the same Qaraqalpaq settlements along the banks on the Kichkine channel, one of the mouths of the U'lken Darya. They pastured cattle along the riverbanks and offshore islands, including Toqmaq Ata (which would later become the port of Moynaq), and raised small quantities of cereals, storing their crops in mud-walled enclosures. The latter also afforded some shelter for their kibitkas in winter. Further upstream the Qaraqalpaqs had built small embankments to preserve their awıls from flooding. Families in this region moved their kibitkas, household goods, and a few sheep and cows using small boats known as qayıqs.

He noted that the conditions of the Qaraqalpaqs on the left bank had very much altered for the worse over the last eighteen years following the deliberate closure of the Laudan canal in response to the 1855 uprising. In one stroke the Khan had deprived the Yomuts of water, while flooding the pastures of the Qaraqalpaqs.

"At the present day the Karakalpaks are among the poorest of the Turkestan races, and the occupation of the Amú district by Russia can scarcely fail to benefit them very materially."

"The frame of the Karakalpak roof is made from straight sticks that have been bent only at their lower end, so that they can be conveniently fastened to the wall, whereas the Kazakh roof is made of sticks that have been bent throughout their entire length into an arch. Therefore the Karakalpak roof takes the form of a cone whilst the Kazakh yurt has a spherical form. Secondly the Karakalpaks fasten the roof and the kerege lattice walls of their yurts with very wide white tapes, which intersect the roof in different directions, whereas the Kazakh roofs are either not completely fastened or else are fastened by narrow multi-coloured tapes."

"Approaching the Karakalpak village, located near the small estuary and only supplied with water from the Amu during high-water, we saw bustle; cries were heard from all sides; property and nomad tents were rapidly loaded onto arbas [Qaraqalpaq two-wheeled carts], and everything which was ready was moved away in a hurry. Assuming that our unexpected appearance was the reason for this flight, we accelerated our step and sent our leaders ahead to quiet the population. It proved to be, however, that the reason for the bustle there was the rapid rise of water in the adjacent estuary, and before our eyes the place, occupied by the village, was flooded, so that arbas which were late were already being loaded by people standing in the water."

"Karakalpaks are constantly located as in a state of siege and for their protection against the Turkmen are gathered into large villages which are guarded by clay walls."

"The internal decoration of the nomad tent is very simple and depending on the means of the master consists either of felts, or of palas and carpets, with which they cover the floor and hang from the sides of the nomad tent. The tents of rich nomads are covered outside by the narrow woven strips, with which they affix the felt; in paupers the latter are usually fastened with camel ropes. Most nomad tents are occupied by the entire family, from small to large. Prosperous families have two to three nomad tents. However in the nomad tents of paupers one frequently finds young cattle in addition to the masters during the winter. On the whole there is inconceivable contamination both inside the nomad tent and outside, whose stench infects and dominates the air in the hot weather."

Decrepit Qaraqalpaq yurts photographed in the Amu Darya delta before the 1917 October Revolution.
However the shan'araq of the yurt in the foreground is not typically Qaraqalpaq.
Image number 8315 with commentary courtesy of the Regional Studies Museum, No'kis.

Qaraqalpaq life continued much as before and Turkmen raids actually got worse after 1915 as the Turkmen rebel Junaid Khan ran riot throughout Khorezm. In 1917 many Qaraqalpaqs moved away from Shomanay towards Xojeli. We have met numerous old Qaraqalpaqs who can remember when they were children and were forced to hide in the fields during Turkmen raids on their villages. This problem continued up to 1925.

In 1927 Anna Sergeyevna Morozova was contracted to write an ethnographical description of the Qaraqalpaqs. Unfortunately no record of this specific report remains, although Kurbanova did uncover another early compendium of essays which included a chapter on dwellings. In the following year Aleksandr Lavrentevich Melkov led an expedition organized by the Society for Research on Kazakhstan, aimed at documenting, photographing, and collecting items of Qaraqalpaq material culture.

Melkov's expedition photographed the erection of a Qaraqalpaq yurt
inside the courtyard of a clay ha'wli farmstead in 1928.

Many of Melkov's photographs concerned irrigation works, the local fishing industry, bazaars, and such like. However Melkov did photograph a number of Qaraqalpaq yurts in various conditions during his 1928 expedition: some decrepit, some very simple with no more than a plain roof covered with scraps of felt and simple shiy screen sides, and some decorated with janbaw.

It is clear that Qaraqalpaq yurts were still in widespread use at this time. A survey of handicraft enterprises operating within the Qaraqalpaq Autonomous Oblast in August 1927 identified 17 workshops making felts for yurts.

In June 1932 Lyman Wilbur from Boise Idaho, an American irrigation engineer contracted to the Soviet government, briefly visited the Aral Delta and observed the dirty and disease-ridden towns of Qıpshaq and Xojeli. While sailing down the Kattagar canal to Shımbay he had the opportunity to visit Qaraqalpaq and Qazaq kibitki, which he described as reed and felt tents. Sailing north from Shımbay into the delta towards the Aral port of Qanto'zek, Wilbur noted occasional kibitka in between the various delta channels, most likely to have been Qaraqalpaq given their position.

Drawing of a yurt adjacent to a Qaraqalpaq tam the 1940s.

It was only after the forced collectivization of private farms in the early 1930s that the use of the yurt began to decline. Collectives were eventually merged to create larger farms and new settlements began to be built for the agricultural workers. Tams were laid out on a grid of roads, with perhaps a clinic, a school, or even a social club. Women were needed in the fields to tend the cotton crop, or to work in factories, schools, and clinics. They no longer had time for weaving. It was not only fashionable, but sometimes politically wise to value Western standards of dress and housing. Socially the yurt increasingly became a recreational dwelling for relaxation and entertainment, erected during the summer months to provide a cool respite from the heat of the day, especially when the reed screens were rolled back to let the fresh air blow through.

A Qaraqalpaq yurt next to an adobe tam at Kepe awıl.
Photographed by A. L. Melkov in 1928.

As life began to change irreversibly, so work commenced in earnest to record traditional Qaraqalpaq material culture for posterity. The Moscovite archaeologist Sergey Tolstov established the Khorezmian Archaeological and Ethnographical Expedition in 1937, but it was not until after the Great Patriotic War that serious work could begin on the systematic collection of materials related to the yurt. Even so, surprisingly little was published on Qaraqalpaq yurts by his ethnographic colleague, Tatyana Zhdanko, in the early works of the expedition. Zhdanko's most detailed decription related to the Qaraqalpaq yurts used on the islands of the southern Aral Sea in 1958. These were of a brand new small type, mainly produced by an artel (collective) in Shımbay, with the kerege composed of five qanats and the roof supported by 85 uwıqs. On the islands the yurts were positioned away from the damp shoreline and the loose sand. The local Mu'yten Qaraqalpaqs prepared the ground by clearing a circular area larger than the size of the yurt and putting down a layer of clay as a foundation for the yurt. Finally the perimeter of this area was edged with a fence of plaited reeds to provide shelter from the prevailing wind.

Plan of a Mu'yten Qaraqalpaq homestead on Tasbesqum Island in 1958,
with the yurt (lower left) surrounded by a reed fence. From Zhdanko, 1962.

In the end it was left to Igor Savitsky, a Ukrainian painter, to acquire the most comprehensive collection of artefacts related to the yurt with the help of Xojamet Esbergenov, the latter going on to publish the definitive description of the Qaraqalpaq yurt in 1980. Savitsky did publish a monograph on Qaraqalpaq woodcarving in 1965, which covered yurt doors and wooden furniture.

A Qaraqalpaq yurt in the Aral Delta in about 1930.

A nicely decorated Qaraqalpaq yurt in the 1930s.

Today, whether in the suburbs of No'kis or in remote villages such as Qazaqdarya, yurts are still erected during the summer months, either to provide a cooler sleeping place or a traditional venue for a celebration or for the entertainment of guests. However in many families the younger generation have lost any interest in the old traditions. Frequently the tent bands have been sold for some much needed cash or have deteriorated beyond use. We have even found situations where the yurt has been sold to someone in Tashkent or the land that was reserved for erecting the yurt has been used for constructing a house for a son. For these and many other reasons, the few Qaraqalpaq yurts still in use continue to decline.

Pronunciation of Qaraqalpaq Terms

• awıl



• ha'wli



• janbaw



• kerege



• qayıq



• shan'araq



• shigir



• shıpta



• uwıq



• u'yshi

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