How Were Horses Camels And Other Animals Important In Silk Road Trade

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Animals

by
Elmira Köçümkulkïzï   and   Daniel C. Waugh

Domesticated animals are central to the lives of pastoral nomads. Which animals would exist of import would vary depending on local geography and environmental. Central Asian nomads normally kept four or five kinds of animals--horse, sheep, goat, camel, and cow. The Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz even have a special term for them, tört tülük or besh tülük. In some areas of Eurasia other animals also were important. Nomads living in high mountainous regions raise yaks. Even though the ass is normally associated with towns and agricultural regions in Cardinal Asia, donkeys likewise are quite common in some mountainous regions and historically accept been an important beast of burden.

The Chinese annals some two g years ago described the role of animals amongst the nomads to the north of People's republic of china:

The majority of their stock consisted of horses, oxen and sheep; just in smaller numbers they bred also camels, asses, mules, horse-ass hybrids, wild horses and hybrids of the same. On reaching manhood, when able to bend a bow, they were fully equipped and mounted on horseback. In time of peace they hunted for their living; but when harassed by war, they cultivated martial exercises, to fit them for invasion or attack, which was agreeable to their disposition. The taller troops were armed with bows and arrows; the shorter with swords and spears.

The Chinese, who were settled in towns primarily in agronomical regions, had a hard time appreciating the nomads' lives. The nomads continually moved, generally along predictable routes, in order to ensure that their animals e'er have pasturage and be most a source of water. The regular patterns of nomadic movement oftentimes included contacts with people of towns, with whom the nomads would substitution goods. This exchange, which brought silk and other products to the nomads and horses to the Chinese, helps explain the beginnings of the "Silk Road."

Nomads' economical and social life very much depended on their livestock. Their herds provided food such equally meat and dairy products, wool and leather from which they made clothes and all kinds of other household items such as felts, quilts, pillows, and mattresses and necessary decorations for their yurts. Animals were also the about important exchange article. In the past, qalïng (kalïm), bride price, and qun, blood price, were paid in cattle. Today, in some rural regions of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyz republic, the bride cost is still paid partly with cattle in add-on to money. Horses, oxen, yaks, and camels served as the means of transportation.

The importance of the animals can be seen in traditional greetings. Among the nomadic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz it is common to enquire, Mal-janïngar amanbï? i.eastward., "Are your cattle O.K.?" and follow that question by another traditional inquiry of well-existence, Bala-çaqangar menen tinç jatasingarbi? i.e., "Are y'all living a peaceful life with all your children?" When 2 young people get married, the most important blessing or wish the Kyrgyz, especially the elders, express is the expression, Aldïngardï bala, arqangardï mal bassïn! i.east., "May you have a lot of children running in front end of y'all and a lot of cattle behind you lot!" (lit.: May your front exist filled with children and may your dorsum exist filled with cattle!).

Among the five domesticated animals listed in a higher place, Primal Asian nomads prize horses the about, for they have a lot of value in terms their use and role. Hither, along the main highway from Osh to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan we meet herds of mares about the yurts or standing side by side to their foals which are tied from their head to a jele, a strong rope with its ii ends tied a curt iron qazïqs. Today, the semi-nomadic Kyrgyz, who settle in the Suusamïr Valley through which the highway passes, make money by selling koumiss [fermented mare's milk] to travelers. Mares are milked several times a day. Their foals are tied to the jele and then that they do non suck their female parent's udder. However, every time the mares are milked, the foals also get to potable some of the milk. Later on they are milked the mares go away for grazing and when their udder is full over again they come themselves to their foals. Every herd has a male person stallion called aygïr. In this picture the white equus caballus which standing lonely on the left is the aygïr.

The value of horses to the nomads historically goes well beyond koumiss which is important both for food and for ritual purposes. Horses are relatively piece of cake to accept care of; in dissimilarity to other animals, they can survive through common cold winters. They are also the fastest moving animals. The Primal Asians have a maxim, "The equus caballus is the wings of the human existence." The mountain pastures and grasslands of the steppes were particularly suited to raising horses. Equally Marco Polo put it when traversing the Pamir Mountains, "A lean animal grows fat here in ten days." To the Chinese, the Fundamental Asian horses were far superior in quality to those which could be raised in the Chinese lowlands; the "heavenly horses" which "sweat claret" were the prized trade object sought from the nomads.

The horse is the animal which fabricated possible the cosmos of some of the great nomadic empires such every bit that of the Mongols. The horse seems beginning to have been used in warfare to pull chariots, prove of which can be plant all beyond Eurasia. The saddle and mounted archery developed some fourth dimension after thou BCE. It was the invention of the stirrup (allowing an archer to steady himself while riding) betwixt 200 BCE and 200 CE which really made the difference in the nomads' power to wage war from horseback. Since their lives were then closely continued with their animals, the nomads became the neat specialists in cavalry warfare. Hunting from horseback adult skills such equally the power to shoot accurately from powerful bows when galloping at full speed. The ancient rock carvings in the northern valleys of inner Asia oft show such hunting scenes. Nomads' horses were hardy. Compactly congenital (shown here is a Mongol horseman lassooing), they could travel long distances without tiring and survive in wintertime by earthworks down through the crusted snow to find grass. The Franciscan monk, John of Plano Carpini was brash when setting out to Mongolia in the 13th century not to take his European horses: "They would dice, for the snow was deep and they would not know how to dig up the grass from under the snow like the Tartar horses." In fact, there were limits to the effectiveness of the nomadic armies--their size and how long they could stay in a given region very much depended on the availability of pasturage, since, as Friar John noted, "the Tatars have neither straw nor hay nor fodder." Sven Hedin, the famous Swedish explorer of Inner Asia in the early on twentieth century, plant that his near reliable mountain in the loftier country of Tibet was his Ladakhi pony (hither is i today used every bit a pack creature), a breed well acclimatized to travel abpve 12,000 anxiety.

Although horses would not normally exist ridden just for recreation, the nomads' skill on horseback also was developed in various traditional games. These include races, mounted competitions involving struggling for possession of a headless goat carcass and carrying it across a "goal line," and some traditional courtship competitions pitting men against women to make up one's mind who was most deserving of the future bride. The sport of polo adult out of traditional riding competitions of the horse nomads and somewhen spread from Central Asia both east and west to become a popular pasttime of the urban center elites. Nosotros know that polo was all the rage in Communist china betwixt the seventh and tenth centuries; players of the game included women and members of the imperial family. The photo hither is of the polo grounds in Leh, the uppercase of Ladakh in Northern India.

Horses were important in the rituals of nomadic hospitality both because of their fermented milk (koumiss) and equally gifts that would be presented to honored guests along with full harness. Mirza Muhammad Haidar, from 1 of the important sixteenth-century Central Asian families, desribed vividly a scene of such hospitality in which the local tribal leader Kasim Khan entertains a much more than prominent khan or ruler:

On meeting, Kasim Khan approached and said: "Nosotros are men of the desert, and here there is nothing in the way of riches or formalities. Our most plush possessions are our horses, our favourite food their mankind, our virtually enjoyable drink their milk and the products of it. In our land are no gardens or buildings. Our chief recreation is inspecting our herds. Therefore allow united states of america go and charm ourselves with looking at the droves of horses, and thus spend a short time together." When they came to where these were, he examined them all, and said: "I have two horses which are worth the whole herd." These two were then brought forward; (and the Khan used to say that never in his life had he seen such beautiful animals every bit these two). Then Kasim Khan resumed: "We men of the desert depend for our lives upon our horses; and personally I put my trust in no others than these two. I could not bear to part with either of them. But you are my esteemed guest, so I beg you to accept whichever of them appears to you the better, and to leave the other for me." Having examined the points of each, the Khan chose i which was called Ughan Turuk; and truly such another horse was never seen. Kasim Khan then selected several others from his droves, and gave them to the Khan.

He side by side offered the Khan a cup of the spirit koumiss, saying: "This is ane of our forms of hospitality, and I shall esteem it a neat favour if you will drink information technology." Now the Khan, a brusque time before this, had renounced all intoxicating liquors; and then he excused himself, saying: "I accept foresworn such things as this: how tin I break my vow?" To which Kasim Khan replied: "I have already told you that our favourite potable is mare's milk and its products, and of these this [koumiss] is the pleasantest. If you exercise not accept what I now offer y'all, I am totally at a loss to know what to give yous in its place, in performance of the duties of hospitality. Years must expire earlier such an honourable guest as yourself over again enters the firm of your humble host; and now I am incapable of entertaining you. How can I make reparation for this?" So saying he hung down his head with shame, and marks of sorrow appeared upon his face up. Thereupon, for his host'south sake, the Khan drank the spirit to the dregs, to the groovy joy of Kasim Khan. Festivities then began, and during twenty days they connected to indulge together in quaffing cups of the spirit koumiss.

Although this may seem odd to Western sensibilities, the respect accorded to horses every bit the most important animal would extend to their sacrifice for religious and other rituals such as marriages, funerals and memorial feasts. Aboriginal burials of of import people often included many horses, so that their owners exist equipped for travel in the afterlife. Friar John described in some detail the rituals for a Mongol burial:

...They bury with him a mare and her foal and a horse with bridle and saddle, and another horse they eat and fill its peel with straw, and this they stick upwards on ii or four poles, and then that in the next world he may have a abode in which to make his abode and a mare to provide him with milk, and that he may exist able to increase his horses and have horses on which to ride. The bones of the equus caballus which they eat they burn for his soul...

Nosotros know from burials of Mongol notables in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that the harnesses and saddles would be often be decorated with costly gilt and silver. Information technology is a mark of particular honor to cede an animal equally valuable as a equus caballus; this practise continues in Central Asia today. Whereas people in other societies more often than not consider horse meat to be something inferior (the very thought of eating information technology is offputting), Central Asian nomads consider horse meat a delicacy, and are specially fond of horse sausage.

Another indication of people's dearest for horses tin be establish in oral epics of Key Asian nomads. Almost all epic heroes possess a equus caballus with which they grow up together. For case, in the Kyrgyz ballsy Manas, the hero Manas' horse Akkula is born at the same fourth dimension when Manas is born. All the horses in epics have special names which are related to their quality and color. In some older epics horses have the ability to talk and fly, for they advise the hero on making sure decisions and save them from dangerous situations. It is important to annotation that the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz use the term janïbar, i.e., "ane which has a soul" only in reference to a horse.

Many societies decorate their riding and piece of work animals presumably both equally a mark of their respect for them and also equally a marker of the owner's wealth and gustatory modality. In the past, it would be mutual at to the lowest degree for the wealthy to busy their horses with cute leather coverings and harness with silver designs. Some of the most beautiful traditional textiles were woven or embroidered to be used on animals, among them caput decorations for camels, saddle bags and saddle cloths. In Primal Asia today, one is much less probable to see such decoration, although applied items such as the qurjun, a saddle handbag, are still very common, even if the designs now are not ever the traditional ones. The qurjun is made from sheep or camel's wool, or occasionally from cotton. The designs on and the color of the qurjun vary from region to region. Ordinary white qurjuns do not usually have designs. In the by, among the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz, a qurjun was part of the daughter's dowry when she got married. Parents would ship their daughter to her married man's domicile on a nicely decorated horse with a special saddlebag which was filled with various gifts to be given to her husband'due south relatives.

Central Asian saddles (eer) are fabricated from hard wood such as walnut and juniper tree. Equally this example shows, their shape is similar to that of the "Western saddle" known in the United States, which makes it easy for the rider to keep his or her seat if the hands are occupied. These saddles are quite comfortable, something that is very important where nomads may exist on horseback for long periods of time. In the past, but jïgaç ustas, "carpenters" were able to make good saddles as well as yurt frames. Nearly often saddles were decorated with silvery ornaments and nails.

A köç, i.e., nomadic movement from pasture to pasture was a special occasion among the Central Asian nomads and a pregnant enough part of nomadic life to be described in some Kyrgyz oral epics. The scene here shows Kyrgyz in Western China returning in late summer from their pastures; it is non uncommon still in Mongolia to see caravans following the seasonal pattern of movement between permanent winter residences in towns and the mountain pastures in the Altai. Such migrations traditionally were quite festive. The caravan of animals would be loaded with yurts and other holding and covered with colorful felts and carpets. The people, specially women, wore their squeamish colorful clothing and also decorated their horses and camels.

In the by people moved in larger groups with all the clan or tribe members. Commonly the tribal leader or the aksakal, a white bearded elderly man, led the köç on horseback. In some wealthy families, where the man had ii wives, the first wife, baybiçe, led the köç while the married man rode at the very end to make certain that no one was left behind. Equally in this picture show, women carried their babies in front of them. Children were taught to ride horse at the very immature age of iv to 5 years. Those immature children who could not ride the horse alone during long movements sat behind on their mother'southward or begetter'south or other relative's horse. The kid would sit on a special seat called böktörünçök made of a rolled blanket or mattress. On their long journey to their new encampment, people get through several summer pastures of other tribes and clans. When the köç passes past other encampments, people offer them food and drinks such as bread, ayran (yogurt), and koumiss to show their hospitality and wish them safe journey.

Of course in many areas where modernistic transportation is available and a network of roads has been built (1 sees this, for example, in some regions of Fundamental Kyrgyz republic), trucks may be used at the outset and end of the flavour to transport family goods and even the smaller animals. It is not uncommon in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia to come across vehicles parked aslope the Mongols' gers (yurts).

Camels

The camel conspicuously was the most important animal for the development of the long-altitude overland merchandise across Asia. It was first domesticated between 4000 and 3000 BCE, either in southwest Arabia or northeast Africa. The Bible indicates that past yard BCE camels were considered to be valuable animals in the Near East, and past around 100 BCE the Chinese had become aware of the camel'south value thanks to the interaction with the steppe nomads. The caravan trade along the Silk Road tended to involve the one-humped dromedary in western Asia and the two-humped Bactrian camel in the higher and colder regions of central and eastern Asia (the ones shown here are in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia). The evidence about the importance of the Bactrian camel along the trade routes coincides with our other information about the opening of the "silk routes" across Eurasia.

Send by camels was really quite cost-effective. They do not require roads, as would carts, and can carry loads averaging as much as 500 pounds. Camels can survive on the sparse vegetation in dry regions, and are known, of course, for the fact that they tin go for days without drinking. They do not shop water but rather are very efficient in using it. The camel's value for inner Asian merchandise continued into the twentieth century, when travelers would notwithstanding come across extensive caravans plodding beyond the desert. Joining them was at times the only style for an outsider to penetrate regions far from urban centers. In settled regions, camels occasionally are used to pull plows, and it is adequately common to see them hitched to carts. The one here is in Agra, Republic of india, nearly the Taj Mahal. European explorers traveling across the deserts of the Central Asian regions of the Russian Empire in the tardily nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sometimes rode in wagons pulled past two or iii camels--an interesting variant on the equus caballus-fatigued stage-coaches familiar in the American Due west.

The camel is probably the second almost respected animal for the nomadic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. There are some legends and folktales well-nigh camels in Central Asian oral literature. The birth of an ak taylak, white baby camel, was and notwithstanding is considered equal to the nascency of a human being infant. Traditionally, among the Key Asians when a baby is built-in the person who hears the news starting time informs the relatives by saying the give-and-take Süyünçü! (lit.: süyün - to be happy, i.eastward., "Happy news!") And people requite him or her all kinds of gifts. Well-off maternal grandparents usually give the person a sheep or calf. In the same style, when a white baby camel is built-in, the person who sees it starting time, informs the owner by saying Süyünçü! Then the owner should give the person a gift depending on his wealth. If the possessor is wealthy, he usually gives a sheep or horse. Women tie a white scarf around the head of the mother camel afterwards she gives nascency. They too put may, butter, in the baby camel'due south mouth.

While those who grow upwardly in societies far from camels would accept a hard time romanticizing what seem at first glance to exist ungainly beasts, since they are so valued camels are in fact the field of study of lyrical songs and poetry in many cultures. A third-century Chinese author wrote how the camel "swiftly dashes over the shifting sands. It manifests is merit in dangerous places; information technology has secret understanding of springs and sources; subtle indeed is its noesis." Chinese verse contains numerous allusions to camel caravans, and in that location were legends near flying camels somewhere in the mountains of the Western Regions. Glazed ceramic statues of camels, often accompanied past their drivers and loaded with goods, have been found in many Chinese tombs; conspicuously they were perceived equally playing an important role in the afterlife. The image here is a rubbing from a tile in a Chinese tomb.

Like other animals of the nomads, camels provide some essential products for daily life. The thick camel wool is used to make ropes, fabric and felt. The Kazakhs brand a drinkable called shubat from camel's milk, and camel milk yougurt and cheese are consumed even today by the Mongols living in the northern regions of the Gobi desert.

Oxen

For many centuries, oxen were amidst the draft animals used by nomadic Mongols and Kazakhs to draw carts. Travelers in the Mongol Empire such as the Moroccan Ibn Battuta in the fourteenth century rode in carts. He wrote: "These people telephone call a waggon araba. They are waggons with four big wheels, some of them fatigued past two horses, and some fatigued by more than than ii, and they are drawn also past oxen and camels, according to the weight or lightness of the waggon." Marco Polo described how big yurts might be transported on such carts, rather than dismantled. The ox-carts in Mongolia today are still constructed by traditional methods and are quite suitable for movement across flat grasslands such equally the area near the historic capital of the Mongol Empire, Karakorum. The Kyrgyz, on the other paw, did non utilise carts at all because the rough terrain was not suitable for them.

Yaks

Yaks have traditionally been the master animal for nomads in many parts of Tibet, since they adapt uniquely well to altitudes of 14,000-eighteen,000 anxiety. Not knowing their limitations when he tried somewhat foolishly to climb 24,700-ft. Mt. Mustagh Ata in the 1890s, Sven Hedin complained that his yaks transporting his camping gear had conked out at about xx,000 feet! Yaks' coats are long and shaggy, and the wool particularly warm; their milk is especially rich in butter fatty. Shown here is a yak being milked in Ladakh, the Tibetan culture surface area of northern India. In some areas (for instance in the Karakorum Mountains of Northern Pakistan, a cross between a yak and a cow (known as a dzo) is common. Yaks may be seen in the Pamirs, where they are raised and even ridden past Kyrgyz herders in Western Xinjiang. Yaks would seem to rival donkeys for stubbornness. Although bulky animals, they bear witness some agility on steep slopes, to the extent that one of the local guides in the Pamirs even tried to persuade a presumably gullible European that yaks negotiated bad-mannered places on narrow paths by walking effectually them on their hind legs. Despite their somewhat intimidating advent, well-nigh domesticated yaks are quite shy. The early European explorers of Inner Asia such as Sven Hedin, who liked to dramatize the dangers they experienced, reported dangerous encounters with wild yaks though. Even though the main herding animals in the Pamir-Alai mountains of southern Kyrgyzstan today are sheep and cows, yaks may likewise exist constitute in that location in the pastures below the imposing stone faces.

Sheep, goats and wool products

The economical life of nomads across much of Eurasia often has depended above all on flocks of sheep or goats. Here we run across them in pastures in the Pamirs, in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, and in the Gez River valley s of Kashgar in Xinjiang. They supply milk and meat; the fat of the tails of certain varieties of sheep is an essential part of many diets and may commonly be seen in butcher shops of markets such as the boutique in Kashgar. In economic terms, sheep and goats are prized above all for their valuable wool. In regions such as southern Tibet and Ladakh in northern Bharat today, raising goats is very lucrative, their hair existence used to weave gossamer-thin shawls of groovy value. Historically the trade in that wool and the weavings from it formed a very significant office of the economy of Kashmir (hence the term "cashmere" used to refer to fine woolen garments today).

The shearing of sheep usually is done in early leap earlier people leave for the mountain pastures, although one besides sees shearing being done in the mountains in late summer. Much of the raw wool is sold in towns, merely many objects needed for everyday life are withal fabricated by the herding families. For example, the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz notwithstanding make felt in traditional manner. After the wool is sheared people soften it by beating difficult with special smoothened sticks called saboo (from the verb saba - to trounce; "beating [stick]") which are about one and a half meters long. A certain amount of wool is placed on a tarp and several people sit in a circle and start beating it very hard with ii sticks to make information technology soft and to get rid of its dirt and dust. Then the wool is done and fix to make felt. The felt is produced by rolling up a mat of raw wool and pressing information technology. Felts are valued for their insulating properties in covering yurts and are used as well for rugs and saddle cloths. Many are decorated either by pressing into the wool colored designs or sewing them on. The antiquity of such techniques can exist seen in the beautiful felts excavated from frozen tombs in Mongolia that date dorsum more than 2000 years.

To make wool threads for decorating shïrdak felts, the wool is spun by paw with the help of iyik, a spindle which is to be seen in this flick taken amongs the Kyrgyz in the mountains of Western Xinjiang. In the given example, the spindle curl has been made from the knee os of a yak. In other areas, some people use a modern spinning wheel operated by a foot pedal. The wool thread is too used to weave carpets and cloths such equally the long, narrow decorative strips used to wrap the frame of a yurt. While spinning is commonly washed by women, in some regions such as Ladakh the men both spin and weave.

Central Asians usually make their own quilts and pillows rather than purchase factory-made ones. In cotton-producing regions (this generally ways the lowland river valleys) people normally utilise cotton for making quilts and pillows. In other regions of Cardinal Asia, people still use wool to make quilts. Hand-made quilts are even so popular because every girl is given a dowry when she gets married and the main dowry consists of hand-made quilts, mattresses, and pillows blimp with wool or cotton and covered with colorful soft textiles. When the coverings get dingy or if the wool or cotton gets besides thin, people but have them apart, launder the coverings and put in a new stuffing. The photo here shows quilts being stuffed past Kyrgyz women in Western Xinjiang. During the day the sleeping quilts will exist advisedly stacked at one side of a hut or yurt.

From brute pare nomads made clothes such equally pants, vests, hats, shoes, horse harness and various household items including dishes. çanaç, a long leather container in which the mare's milk is fermented is usually made from the goat's skin. The pare is softened by spreading bitter ayran (yogurt) on it. So ii people soften it by stretching by the edges which makes it easier for removing whatever remaining flesh from it. In rural Primal Asia people all the same apply supras, a special round shaped "table cloth" made from leather which is used for storing some flour. When women make and roll dough they spread the supra underneath the large bowl so that the flour does not spill on the ground. Unlike çanaç, from which all the hair has been removed, the exterior side of supra has wool. Traditional dowries also included a supra, a large wooden cut board, ash takta, and curt and long wooden rollers chosen ubölük and oktoo.

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© 2002 Elmira Köçümkulkïzï and Daniel C. Waugh.

Silk Road Seattle is a projection of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities at the Academy of Washington. Additional funding has been provided by the Silkroad Foundation (Saratoga, California).

Source: https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/culture/animals/animals.html

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