Last Nomads in China : Notes of the Everyday Life of Kazak Nomads in Xinjiang

文：王建民

An American historian refers to the Kazak herdsmen who lead a nomadic life in the mountains, valleys and gobi in Tianshan and Altay as “the last nomads” in China. During recent years, I traveled many times to the Kazak region in northern Xinjiang to carry out field research. Each time I acquired a better understanding of the nomadic life of the Kazak people there.

Kazak people in China are mainly distributed in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, Tacheng Prefecture, Altay Prefecture, Mori Kazak Autonomous County, and Barkol Kazak Autonomous County in northern Xinjiang, and in Aksay Kazak Autonomous County in Gansu Province. They are also found along the Tianshan Mountains in northern Xinjiang. These are herdsmen, farmers, and officials, workers, and commercial service providers in cities.

It can be said that Kazak people are an important part of nomads in the Eurasian Steppes. They have been living as nomads since ancient times. After the Kazakh Kingdom was founded in the middle of the 15th century, these nomads were found throughout the Tianshan Mountains, the Altay Mountains and the Central Asian Steppe close to the Caspian Sea. Later on, the Kazakh Kingdom gradually declined as a result of the aggression of the Junggar Kingdom and conflicts with other ethnic groups in the Central Asian Steppe. Tsarist Russia expanded beyond the Ural Mountains and the Volga River, thus accelerating the colonization of Central Asia and causing the eventual fall of the Kazakh Kingdom. As a result, most of the Kazak nomadic areas including the territories east and south of Balkhash Lake that had been under the jurisdiction of Chinas Qing government were reduced to the colony of Tsarist Russia. In order to flee the rule of Tsarist Russia, some Kazak people moved to Chinese territory. Some other Kazak people fled from Russia to Xinjiang for various reasons. After the Sino-Russian border was delineated in modern times, Kazak people living in China became an ethnic minority of the country.

The Kazak population has increased. As the feeding capacity per unit area of their grasslands is limited, there is a lack of pastures. Consequently, in response to the governments call, Kazak people today are gradually building settlements. As a matter of fact, they already began to do so over a century ago. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, Kazak people in Xinjiang began to grow crops in river valleys, and they even rented the land of the Man people. During the Republic of China and after the founding of the Peoples Republic, some of the herdsmen began to grow crops and became farmers. In November 1957 the Rural Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Commission for Ethnic Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly held a forum and adopted the principle for developing animal husbandry in pastoral areas. According to the principle, “on the basis of vigorously and steadily carrying out socialist transformation, great efforts will be made to develop animal husbandry, gradually effect a change from the nomadic life to a settled one, simultaneously develop agriculture and animal husbandry and concurrently engage in sideline production such as processing of animal products, so as to develop diverse sectors of the economy centered on animal husbandry.” Consequently, in the subsequent period of peoples communes, most of the peoples communes that had engaged mainly in animal husbandry successively established some agricultural production teams in river valleys and flat hillsides facing south. Communes transformed their members from the animal husbandry status to the agricultural status and transferred households from animal husbandry teams to agricultural teams. So some Kazak herdsmen became farmers who engaged mainly in farming, though they also engaged in animal husbandry. Some other herdsmen had scattered settlements near spring and fall pastures. Today, you can hardly find any townships and towns that engage only in animal husbandry in Kazak pastoral areas. There are even agricultural teams in state-owned or county-controlled pastoral areas.

In the 1980s, the pastoral areas implemented the contract responsibility system with remuneration linked to output whereby livestock were sold to individuals. In 1986, the CPC Committee and government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region held a conference on the work in northern Xinjiang pastoral areas and called for an end to the nomadic production style all the year round and for a settle life in the animal husbandry industry in Xinjiang. In the early 1990s, Kazak herdsmen quickened their pace of establishing settlements, and more and more of them gradually began a settled life. Some international organizations participated in expanding pilot projects to build settlements for herdsmen. The World Bank granted loans to build demonstration projects for settlements of herdsmen in the Altay pastoral areas in Xinjiang. Today, almost all Kazak animal husbandry villages have their settlements. However, in order to better preserve their ancestral heritage, many Kazak herdsmen still adopt a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle in accordance with their eco-system and pastoral resources.

Nomads in different areas cover vastly different distances and make different numbers of nomadic trips a year. Take, for example, Jutobe Village in a small basin in the Tianshan Mountains which is separated from the county seat and the township by the Tekes River. Its villagers move about in quest of pasture in not-so-high hills in Tianshan mountain ranges in summer, get close to river valleys in winter, move between the two areas in spring and fall. The settlements here are very close to the township government building and are not very far from their pastures for the four seasons. They grow mainly highland barley, wheat and forage grass. The one-way nomadic distance of these nomads is about 30 kilometers, and they usually move four times a year. The nomads in the Jirand Pasture move about in quest of pasture in the Paruk Mountains in summer, in the flatlands before the mountains in spring and fall, and on the low slopes facing south in the Paruk Mountains. Their settlements were created out of clusters of reeds on alkaline shoals and are good for growing forage grass, wheat, safflowers and other cash crops. Their one-way nomadic distance was less than 100 kilometers. Kazak nomads whose settlements are in Karajira Village before the Altay Mountains and on the Ulungur River move about in quest of pasture in the gobi between the Altay Mountains and the Junggar Basin, and a household usually has a one-way nomadic distance about 500 kilometers. Their summer pasture is mostly in the Altay Mountains and the farthest one is close to the Sino-Mongolian border. Their spring and fall pastures are at the foot of the mountain, the small basin close to the mountain and the agricultural area in the valley of the Ertrix River. Their winter pasture is mostly in the Junggar Basin. As they need to use water from melted snow as their water supplies, nomads, except those use pastures close to spring water, usually decide where their winter pasture should be in accordance with the snowfalls in the year. As pastures for the four seasons are designated to every household, different families move to different destinations. A family moves 52 times a year at the most, and others move 30 to 40 times a year. About 70% of the nomads move 52 times a year, and they move 60 times a year at the most. Some families in animal husbandry villages even move 80 times a year. They move most frequently when they have to shift to the pasture for the next season. They often stay at a place for a night before moving on to another.

Just as ancient Chinese literature said, nomads move about in accordance with local pastures and whether conditions year after year. As different areas have different natural conditions, nomads have different schedules for moving about in quest of pasture. They may adjust their schedules in light of changes in pastures and whether conditions. Nomads in Karajira Village move a lot, so their township government has animal husbandry production headquarters. The headquarters building is a tent and several government officials live there. In accordance with the schedule worked out by the township government, these officials make unified arrangements for nomads of different villages to move to their next pastures to prevent them from moving to their fall pastures too early and to protect nomadic paths and fall pastures. There is also a deputy township head especially in charge of animal husbandry, and he manages animal husbandry production including moving pastures, dipping, epidemic control for livestock, breeding, and lamb delivery.

In Kazak society, traditional social organizations have long played the role in maintaining normal social operation, coordinating social relations, and handling social disputes. In traditional society, clans and tribes moved together in quest of pasture, and they played an important role in planning animal husbandry production and maintaining production order. At present, county and township governments decide plans for animal husbandry development, work out schedules for moving to the next pasture, and supervise and control pastoral areas. These animal husbandry production management functions used to be performed by clans and tribes. However, due to various changes that have taken place in Kazak society since modern times, clans and tribes no longer play the important role in production as they did before, though they are still major channels through which Kazak nomads seek social and cultural identity. The three villages mentioned above have different tribe compositions. Jutobe Village has only one tribe. The Jirand Pasture has different tribes. Villagers of Karajira Village belong to three branches of a tribe. As China adopted a modern system and gradually extended it to villages and border areas, it was inevitable for the state administrative system to replace the clan and tribal system. The functions of tribes and clans were transferred to the new administrative organizations.

In everyday life, primary-level social organizations that retain certain traditions play a greater role. Aules are the lowest-level organizations in the clan and tribal system, and they coordinate the animal husbandry production of their nomads including making arrangements for moving to the next pasture, breeding, lamb delivery, epidemic control for livestock, shearing, forage grass storage, crop growing and sideline production. In addition, they meet outside challenges as a collective and coordinate its relations with the outside world. At first aules consisted of patrilineal families. There were usually composed of the family of the father and the families of their sons and even their grandsons. Later on, as the tribal system declined, aules also consisted of members of other tribes or clans. Aules played a less important role during the days of peoples communes than before. Since changes took place in the production and operation systems, aules have resumed their important role in production and in peoples everyday life. However, aules appear to be more like a big family. The aule people refer to today is often a patrilineal family including the parents, their sons and the families of these sons, so it often consists of people of three or four generations. When a son wants to live apart, he will usually share some livestock, and when a daughter gets married, she will also get some livestock for her new family. Different member families of the aule sell their own livestock, and then they combine the livestock they have and discuss how they should feed their livestock in winter. The father usually has a greater say in this regard. In some families, the father has the final say. In a fall pasture, the father should decide where to feed their cows, sheep and goats, who should go to the winter pasture and who should remain in the settlement. If they prepare their meals separately, different families should buy their own food. They sell livestock, and with the money they buy food and forage grass. They put what remains into the bank. Usually, all of them put their money into a single bank account in case of emergencies. Sometimes these families may have separate income, and they may put what remains, if any, into separate bank accounts. In aules in contemporary society, a big family has both division of labor and cooperation. However, “cooperation” appears to be particularly important for their production as nomads.

In different seasons, nomadic Kazak people need to complete different animal husbandry activities. Animal husbandry production is usually organized by aules in the Kazak steppe. Now that they have settlements, one of the sons in the aule and his family may be assigned to stay in the settlement to grow crops and take care of the children attending schools newly built in the settlement. In the past, there were the so-called yurt primary schools that moved about together with nomads and there were also boarding schools for nomads children where township governments were located. However, nomads children had difficulty in attending these schools, classes and class hours could not be guaranteed, or students were not properly attended to. As a result, the teaching qualify of these two types of schools were affected to some extent. Now that there are schools in the settlements, nomads find it easier to educate their children.

At present, in areas where nomads move frequently about in quest of pasture, more women, children and elderly people stay in their settlements in winter when one or two able-bodied men and a woman are usually assigned to take care of the livestock in the winter pasture. The womans responsibility is to prepare food, and the men are in charge of grazing livestock. In some areas there are small settlements. Nomads live in the permanent houses in the settlements and graze their livestock not far from these settlements. In summer, spring and fall pastures, in addition to preparing food, doing the washing and sewing, and taking care of children and elderly people, women attend to cattle, especially cows and calves. They get up very early every morning. In the summer pasture, the most important responsibility of women in the morning is to milk cows. Making kumis, cheese, butter and other dairy products is also their important task. People drive trucks to purchase milk in some pastoral areas, selling milk is a major source of income for herdsmen. In animal husbandry production, mens main responsibility is to graze sheep and horses, and they are the indispensable laborers at the time of lamb delivery, shearing, dipping, breeding, and moving on to the next pasture. Young children imitate their parents and gradually learn animal husbandry production skills under the influence of their elders.

When Kazak people move about in quest of pasture, they usually live in yurts. They have permanent houses in some spring, fall or winter pastures. Except for their settlements, the permanent houses in other areas are mostly simple as they were built with adobes, stones, grass and mud, and planks. The houses have heating stoves and hot walls and simple furnishings. Where electricity is available, they use electric lights and even TV, refrigerators, radio-recorders, and VCDs. Some rich Kazak nomads have such portable generating equipment as solar energy direct-current storage battery generators, so they can use electric lights, radio-recorders and VCDs for their nomadic life. Sometimes nomads hold celebrations at home. They invite Kazak young men to form an electronic band that gives performances with electronic guitars and other musical instruments and sings to the music from recorders. In the evening nomads dance and sing together.

Yurts have wooden frameworks, are covered with woolen felt and are composed of other accessories. In the past, most of the windows, railings and support bars were built by mobile artisans, and some able nomads made them too. But now they are mostly made by local ethnic products factories or self-employed Kazak artisans and available in county or township shops. In some places wooden sticks are available for making railings. These sticks are joined together with rubber-covered wire or cattle tendons to form foldable and endurable railings. The sizes of yurts are determined by their basic components including windows, railings and support bars. If a yurt is to be built for more people, more railings, bigger windows and more support bars will have to be used. Smaller yurts may have four railings and 65 support bars. In the Kazak pastoral areas, however, the biggest yurt I saw had eight railings and 150 support bars. The frameworks were covered by woolen felt. Nomads make woolen felt by themselves. They shear wool and then wash and dry it. And then they spread wool on splendid achnatherum curtains and beat it repeatedly with willow twigs or other rattans to make it soft. Some people work together to roll the curtains tightly and press them repeatedly to make woolen felt. Rich nomads have more sheep, so they can make felt with all white woolen. Not-so-rich nomads have to use wool of mixed colors. So in the steppe, a yurt suggests how many people a family have and how rich it is. Now that Kazak nomads in many areas have become prosperous, they add white canvas on their woolen felt to make their yurts look more attractive. Some nomads buy cotton carpets from shops and sew them with ceiling felt. The top of some ceiling felt is decorated with felt where black alternates with red. In addition to woolen felt, woolen ribbons and splendid achnatherum curtains that reinforce and beautify woolen felt are usually made by nomads themselves. Many nomads add color knitting wool and make Kazak patterns with nomadic characteristics. These patterns are made up mostly of abstract animals, flowers and grass. During recent years, patterns featuring on people and livestock have appeared. Women and their daughters who are about to get married are often good at decorating their yurts. During animal husbandry cultural festivals or other similar activities in Kazak pastoral areas, building a beautiful yurt will be the envy of others. While moving to other pastures, nomads also build some makeshift yurts by setting up the frameworks with wooden posts and covering them with wall felt. It is easy to make yurts that way.

In the past, horses were the only means of transportation of Kazak nomads, and they remain important a means of transportation for them today. When moving to other pastures, nomads mainly use camels to carry their dismantled foldable yurts and furnishings. To articles are all easy to carry, and they are carefully bound so that they will not get lost on the way to other pastures. Elderly people, women and children either go in front of the vertical team of camels carrying articles or bring up the rear along the old nomadic path. Riding horses, male laborers move forward along the nomadic path while grazing their sheep, goats and horses, and they join the team carrying yurts that have already arrived at a destination for the night. Nomadic paths are of great importance for nomadic production, and livestock moving to other pastures have to use these paths. The paths must be protected from being diverted to other purposes so that there will be normal nomadic production. However, many areas now provide bus services between pastoral areas and county seats, townships and towns. The services are usually provided with jeeps that are good at traveling in the country. Young Kazak people or young men of other ethnic groups are the drivers, and they provide irregular services between pastoral areas and townships, towns and county seats. This makes it more convenient for nomads to go on business outside their homes. A distance that used to take them one or two days to cover on horseback now takes them only several hours, and they can make a round trip within a day. In many areas, nomads are willing to use buses as their main means of transportation on their way to county seats or townships and towns. In some areas where nomads do not move a lot in quest of pasture, richer nomads use trucks to transport their homes or even their livestock so that they do not have to work so hard to herd their livestock to another pasture.

Kazak nomads live on meat and dairy products all the year round. Since modern times, as they have increased their exchanges with agricultural residents, they have been eating more and more wheaten food. In the vocabulary of Kazak people, drinking tea and dining are two main forms of dining. When you visit their homes, your hospitable hosts would treat you first to tea. They cook red tea and smashed brick tea in boiling water and then mix the tea with fresh milk in a bowl to make milk tea, a must for Kazak people. Milk tea is often accompanied with refreshments such as flat cakes or balsak as well as some butter made by nomads themselves and the raisins, preserved sweetened apricots and other dried fruits and candies they bought. Milk tea is usually served with salt, and some people like to add crystal sugar to their milk tea. Flat cakes are local food all Xinjiang ethnic groups like. They are made with fermented flour. Fermented flour is cut into small pieces and baked on the wall of the stove. Balsak is a kind of deep-fried food made of fermented flour. Fermented flour is rolled out thin and cut into pieces. The pieces are deep-fried in a mixture of edible oil and sheep fat. Both flat cakes and balsak can be stored for a long time and are therefore good for nomadic life. If they do not prepare special food, Kazak people drink tea for the three meals a day. In busy seasons, they may not have time for “dining,” they live on “tea” every day. In addition to milk tea, kumis, called “manaizi” locally, is a more distinctive drink. In the summer pasture, horse milk is preserved in cattle hide bags for fermentation and constantly stirred so that it will become fully fermented. Well-prepared kumis is sour and sweet, helps you digest and is good for your stomach. It is really refreshing to drink it in midsummer. Kazak people living in cities therefore like visiting their relatives in pastoral areas in summer to drink kumis. People in pastoral areas also present kumis to their urban relatives as gifts.

The “food” referred to by Kazak people is mainly stewed mutton served with hands. When they have distinguished guests, Kazak nomads would slaughter lamps. This is especially true in the summer pasture. Lambs are always slaughtered for festivals, weddings and funerals. Before a lamb is killed, it is led into the yurt. The distinguished guest or the oldest man holds a ceremony called “duwa” to offer best wishes and prayers. It does not take long for a lamb carcass to be cut up properly. A part of the lamb is usually set aside, salted and dried on the yurts railings to make dried mutton. The head and trotters of the lamb are ridded of their hair and cooked with mutton without salt. And then they are served together with salt or salted sauces. When stewed mutton is served with hands, the lamb head will be served first. The distinguished guest, the oldest man or someone else will cut it and share it with others. The mutton on the lamps left cheek should be presented to the distinguished guest or the oldest man as a sign of respect, and lamp ears should be given to young children so that they will be obedient to their elders. There is also a rule for distributing other parts of the lamb; it is distributed to people by their status. Sometimes fat is smashed, and the host will hold it in both hands and feed it to their guest. In some areas, Kazak people cook noodles or dough strips and mix them with stewed mutton. Hot mutton soup is also delicious at the feast. On many occasions, Kazak people treat stewed mutton or beef to their guests. At present, many nomads buy fresh vegetables from commercial outlets or peddlers in their pastoral areas and cook them with dried or fresh mutton, and their main food is flat cakes. Cooked dried mutton is a delicacy.

Kazak people believe in Islam and follow Islamic customs in their everyday life and in their weddings, circumcisions and funerals. Kazak religious service providers are called maulas who are well versed in Koran and provide daily religious services. However, you can hardly see any mosques in pastoral areas. Only small mosques can been found in areas close to agricultural settlements or in large settlements. Nomads do religious services five times a day facing Mecca usually in their yurts. At circumcisions and funerals in pastoral areas, there will be a big gathering of nomads. They may also great together to do religious services at a high and vast place. It is mostly elderly people who keep doing religious services every day. On Friday, the Islamic Djumah, some of these people may do religious services in nearby mosques. Some maulas who serve pastoral areas are nomads themselves, and it is therefore very convenient for them to host religious activities for nomads.

It is in this way that Kazak nomads in northern Xinjiang, China, continue and constantly upgrade their traditions, retain the lifestyle that is of great significance for human existence and add glory to the great family of Chinese ethnic groups.