Post dated 21st March 2008.

On a dusty patch of ground on the edge of the Taklamakan desert the horses stamped impatiently. It had taken some many hours to reach this spot from across the Yengisar region, and their pulses raced with the urge to begin.

The wind blew softly across the low scrubby hills where the game was to be held. Flags marked the outer boundary and row upon row of horse and rider danced perceptibly in anticipation of the great game of Oglak Tartis…

It had been almost three years since I’d seen my first game in Afghanistan. My first encounter with the true language and ferocity of the horsemen of the Steppe had created such a strong impression, that I’d been aching to relive the experience ever since.

Known as Kok boru in Kyrgyzstan, Buzkashi in Afghanistan and Oglak Tartis elsewhere, the game is said to have originated with Ghengis Khan’s armies over 800 years ago during lightning forays into enemy territory to snatch goats and other livestock without dismounting.

It quickly became of a game of agility, used as a means to settle old blood feuds and prepare new recruits in the ways of steppe warfare. Khans and kings were known to assert their authority under the banner of their winning teams and the invention of the spectator sport form is only a recent phenomenon.¹

Played throughout all the Central Asian Republics today, the rules are essentially the same throughout: take one skinned, beheaded and de-hoofed goat or calf, a few dozen of the finest horsemen on earth and let them loose on a pitch the size of several football fields.²

There are two primary versions of the game in play. Until the 1950’s the most popular version of the game in Afghanistan, involved placing a calf carcass in the center of a pitch with up to a hundred mounted horsemen – sometimes from opposing teams.

Whoever succeeded in removing the carcass, lapping the pitch and tossing the carcass over the goal line won, though the price for doing so may be at the cost of several lives, both human and equine.

In 1952, the Afghan Olympic Committee placed limits on the game in an attempt to nationalize the sport and bring a semblance of order. The game was split into two teams of 10 riders with opposing goals at each end of the pitch and a time limit assigned to each match.

Leagues were created and rumours even begun about making the game an Olympic sport!³ But then rules are only ever a guide and certainly added nothing to the skill and accomplishment I was about to bear witness on this small patch of scrubland on the rim of the Taklamakan.

Just as three years ago, the occasion that merited this game of Oglak Tartis was Nauroz, Central Asia’s New Year and a major cause for celebration.

Dust hung thick in the air of a sandy bowl as dozens of horses arrived toed by motor-trike or ridden to the event. Small dust devils whirled and eddied around the desert nearby and grit got into everything as I set my camera up to film.

This was a regular event for the people of this area and no one was passing up the chance to watch or take part. Most villages in and around the Western Taklamakan have their own teams and occasions like the one today always drew big crowds.

By 2 pm, horseman from as far away as 20kms away huddled in groups against the wind and the crowd had swelled to well-over 500. Businessmen did a thriving trade selling a combination of sweet bread and a sticky ice laden drink of caramel and plums.

At either end of the pitch, two goals sprouted like de-canvassed umbrellas awaiting their respective teams. The rules were simple. Two teams of ten horsemen competed to score as many ‘goals’ as possible by flinging a toughened sheep’s carcass on top of their opponent’s goal. This might have been the league version of the game but the skill was no less.

The opening ceremony didn’t amount to much – nothing more than a brief speech by village elders committing the games in the honour of Nauroz – and within minutes two teams of horseman were locked in a ‘scrum’ formation in the centre of the arena.

Hanging almost completely off his steed, one rider effortlessly scooped a sheep carcass off the sandy floor and booted his stallion away from the pack, horse and rider streaming away from a quickly ensuing mob, whooping and hollering for all his worth.

The sun was already near its peak as the games began, and everything had a milky white glow making it hard to distinguish man from horse through the clouds of dust that billowed around.

Nearing a goal post, the man flung the goat carcass high above the mayhem and onto the umbrella top, catching the outer-rim dangerously but not falling off. The referee hurried over to check and a goal was announced, to a renewed banter of whoops and hollers from the winning side.

Like a true child of the steppe lands that spawned it, only the best horsemen compete in these matches for only the best could survive. Though the Xinjiang game lacks the brutal force of its free-for-all Afghani cousin, it requires much more finesse and skill to compete in.

Before every game each fresh goat carcass is soaked in icy water for 24 hours to toughen up the hide to survive a new match. Once complete the insides are stuffed with wet sand to give the carcass a weight in excess of eight kilos.

Though carcasses can weigh up to 40kgs on the fields of Afghanistan, the players in Xinjiang have a much harder time, throwing the carcass high onto the goal posts. Many even lack the protective padding that many chapandez riders wear on the traditional Buzkashi fields of Afghanistan.3

Over the course of the afternoon, six games were played in all, each at 20 minutes. After the games were over, the players with the most goals won prizes of steel kettles, but it was it was the glory of the moment that drove most riders to compete today. The universal need among the Pamiri people’s to connect with a deeper instinct born on the grasslands of Central Asia eons ago.

Some might believe the game barbaric but this is a game practiced at a level of horsemanship that not even the best English riders could hope to match. A game passed down from generation to generation among races that grew out of the saddle rather than into it.

While many may have forgotten, we all at one stage came from nomadic roots and this was a belief that not even the sedentary Uighurs of Xinjiang seem to have forgotten in this ‘wild-barbaric’ game on the edge of the Taklamakan.

————–

1. In the 1950s, Afghanistan was unified under the banner of Buzkashi, a tactic President Karzai is attempting to repeat today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/nov/23/afghanistan.travelnews
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1562909,00.html
2. In times past pitches used to be up to several kilometers in length.
3. Back in the 1950s, following a surge of popularism pushed to make Buzkashi an Olympic sport.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1562909,00.html

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 3:04 am and is filed under China, Diary, General, Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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