Contents Preface ix AcknowledgMenTs xiii Accessing Music ExaMples Online xv A NoTe on Music TerMinology xvii Guide To TransliTeraTion xix TiMeline of CenTral Asian HisTory xxi Part I. Music and Culture in Central Asia ChapTer 1 Music in CenTral Asia: An Overview 3 Theodore Levin ChapTer 2 Musical InsTruMenTs in CenTral Asia 26 Theodore Levin Part II. The Nomadic World Prologue Who Are The NoMads of CenTral Asia? 41 Theodore Levin ChapTer 3 InTroducTion To CenTral Asian Epic TradiTions 43 Elmira Köchümkulova ChapTer 4 The Kyrgyz Epic Manas 52 Elmira Köchümkulova Copyrighted material - Indiana University Press Levin_FM.indd 5 23/11/15 6:41 pm ChapTer 5 Oral Epic in KazakhsTan: Körughly and a DynasTy of GreaT Jyraus 69 Uljan Baibosynova ChapTer 6 Music of The Karakalpaks 79 ParT 1 The Epic World of The Karakalpaks: Jyrau and Baqsy 79 Frédéric Léotar ParT 2 Qyssakhan: PerforMer of Written and Oral LiTeraTure 88 Kalmurza Kurbanov and Saida Daukeyeva ChapTer 7 The ArT of The TurkMen Bagshy 109 Jamilya Gurbanova ChapTer 8 The TurkMen Dutar 131 David Fossum ChapTer 9 Kyrgyz WisdoM Songs: Terme Yrlary 139 Elmira Köchümkulova ChapTer 10 Aqyns and IMprovised PoeTry CoMpeTiTions aMong The Kazakhs and Kyrgyz 149 Elmira Köchümkulova and Jangül Qojakhmetova ChapTer 11 Singing TradiTions of The Kazakhs 179 Alma Kunanbaeva ChapTer 12 Kyrgyz Funeral LaMenTs 198 Elmira Köchümkulova ChapTer 13 Kyrgyz Wedding Songs 217 Elmira Köchümkulova ChapTer 14 NarraTive InsTruMenTal Music 234 ParT 1 Kazakh Küi 235 Saida Daukeyeva ParT 2 Kyrgyz Küü 265 Nurlanbek Nyshanov ChapTer 15 Kyrgyz Jaw Harps 282 Nurlanbek Nyshanov VI CONTENTS Copyrighted material - Indiana University Press Levin_FM.indd 6 23/11/15 6:41 pm ChapTer 16 The Kazakh Qobyz: BeTween TradiTion and ModerniTy 287 Saida Daukeyeva ChapTer 17 Dombyra PerforMance, MigraTion, and MeMory aMong Mongolian Kazakhs 302 Saida Daukeyeva Part III. The World of Sedentary Dwellers Prologue Patterns of CulTure: SedenTary Dwellers 317 Theodore Levin ChapTer 18 Maqom TradiTions of The Tajiks and Uzbeks 321 Will Sumits and Theodore Levin ChapTer 19 The Uyghur Muqam 344 Rachel Harris ChapTer 20 New IMages of Azerbaijani Mugham in The TwenTieTh CenTury 354 Aida Huseynova ChapTer 21 Popular Classics: TradiTional Singer-SongwriTers in UzbekisTan and TajikisTan 367 Theodore Levin ChapTer 22 Religious Music and ChanT in The CulTure of SedenTary Dwellers 379 Aleksandr Djumaev ChapTer 23 SufisM and The CereMony of Zikr in Ghulja 399 Mukaddas Mijit ChapTer 24 Dastan PerforMance aMong The Uyghurs 406 Rahile Dawut and Elise Anderson ChapTer 25 FeMale Musicians in UzbekisTan: Otin-oy, Dutarchi, and Maqomchi 421 Razia Sultanova ChapTer 26 Music in The CiTy of Bukhara 435 Theodore Levin and Aleksandr Djumaev CONTENTS VII Copyrighted material - Indiana University Press Levin_FM.indd 7 23/11/15 6:41 pm ChapTer 27 Music and CulTure in Badakhshan 461 Theodore Levin ChapTer 28 The Maddoh TradiTion of Badakhshan 470 Benjamin D. Koen ChapTer 29 Qasoid-khonī in The Wakhan Valley of Badakhshan 485 Chorshanbe Goibnazarov ChapTer 30 Falak: SpiriTual Songs of The MounTain Tajiks 504 Faroghat Azizi Part IV. Central Asian Music in the Age of Globalization ChapTer 31 ReviTalizing Musical TradiTions: The Aga Khan Music IniTiaTive 521 Theodore Levin ChapTer 32 CulTural Renewal in KyrgyzsTan: Neo-TradiTionalisM and The New Era in Kyrgyz Music 541 Raziya Syrdybaeva ChapTer 33 Popular Music in UzbekisTan 555 Kerstin Klenke ChapTer 34 InnovaTion in TradiTion: SoMe ExaMples froM Music and TheaTer in UzbekisTan 577 Aleksandr Djumaev ChapTer 35 TradiTion-Based Popular Music in ConTeMporary TajikisTan 586 Federico Spinetti Musical InsTruMenT Glossary 597 Glossary of TerMs 609 InvenTory of Audio and Video ExaMples 621 EdiTors 633 ConTribuTors 637 Index 645 VIII CONTENTS Copyrighted material - Indiana University Press Levin_FM.indd 8 23/11/15 6:41 pm Chapter 1 Music in Central Asia AN OVERVIEW Theodore Levin Geographical and Cultural Boundaries Central Asia suggests by its very name a region with imprecise bor- Russia ders. What constitutes the “central” portion of the huge Asian land- mass? And “central” viewed from whose perspective? Indeed, the Europe notion of Central Asia as a coherent geo-cultural region is a European invention, and a relatively recent one at that. (It fi st appeared in the CENTRAL ASIA title of a book published in 1843 by the German explorer and sci- China 1 entist Alexander von Humboldt. ) Indigenous inhabitants had their Middle East own mosaic of names for the territories in which they lived, and the India Russian, British, and Chinese imperial powers that jousted for con- trol of the region in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries used still Central Asia is a region other names: Turkestan, Tartary, Transoxania, Xinjiang. Today, no people goes by defined by a mixture of the ethnonym “Central Asian,” and linguists have not posited a language group geographical, political, and called the “Central Asian” languages. Rather, the peoples, languages, and territories cultural boundaries. of Central Asia represent identities whose domains are both larger and smaller than the region itself, however it is defi ed. One fascinating aspect of Central Asia is the multitude of overlapping ways in which its inhabitants have identifi d them- selves and the way these identities have been perpetually in flux as a response to historical events and social change. Central Asia as commonly understood at the beginning of the twenty-fi st century is a region defi ed by a mixture of geographical, political, and cultural boundaries. Most defin tions of the region would place its western extreme at the shore of the Caspian Sea, a geographical demarcation. In the southwest, however, the conventional boundary is a political one: the border between Iran and Turk- menistan. By contrast, in the east, the distinct political border represented by the 3 Copyrighted material - Indiana University Press Levin_Chapter 1.indd 3 20/11/15 4:21 pm Atyrau K A Z A K H S T A N Taldykorgan Aral Qyzylorda Sea Syr Darya Almaty Kuqa Jambul Bishkek Caspian Nukus Aksu K Y R G Y Z S T A N Sea Urgench Tien Shan Mts Khiva Tashkent U Z B E K I S T A N Osh Baku Kashgar Bukhara Samarkand C H I N A T U R K M E N I S T A N Amu Darya T A J I K I S T A N Karshi Dushanbe Ashgabat mir P a m i rP Ma t s Mazari Sharif Tehran Mashhad I R A N Kabul Peshawar H i m a l a y a s Herat Hindu Kush Mts Srinagar A F G H A N I S T A N Islamabad Esfahan Amritsar Kandahar Lahore Russia PA K I S T A N INDIA Europe Quetta New Delhi AREA Indus OF China MAP As a coherent cultural zone, Greater Central Asia arguably spans Middle all or part of 11 countries, from Azerbaijan in the west to China in East India the east. Chinese frontier is often disregarded in favor of an imagined cultural boundary farther to the east that crosses into China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the traditional territory of the Uyghurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people. The northern and southern flanks of Central Asia are the most problematic. In the south, cultural coherence would argue for the inclusion of Afghanistan north of the Hindu Kush Mountains. However, the geographical boundary formed by the Amu Darya, the river that also serves as a political frontier between Afghanistan 4 THEODORE LEVIN Copyrighted material - Indiana University Press Levin_Chapter 1.indd 4 20/11/15 4:21 pm and its northern neighbors Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, is frequently given priority, thus excluding Afghanistan altogether. In the north, the political border between Kazakhstan and Russia is a commonly used demarcation, but from a demographic point of view, the north of Kazakhstan, with its considerable Russian population, many of whom are fi st- or second-generation citizens of Kazakhstan, seems much like an extension of the Siberian frontier. Conversely, the Altai region of south- ern Siberia, which lies northeast of Kazakhstan and whose indigenous population speaks Turkic languages such as Tuvan, Khakas, and Altai, has strong ethnolin- guistic links to Central Asia. Finally, Tatarstan, the autonomous republic within Russia situated north of the Caspian Sea that is the traditional territory of the Turkic-speaking Tatars, has never been included in geographic or political defin - tions of Central Asia, but on the basis of ethnolinguistic and cultural ties, perhaps it should be. Even if Central Asia’s conventional boundaries vary in type, and though there is not consensus about their location, the region itself displays four kinds of broad coherence and commonality that represent defini g features of society and culture. First, over many centuries, Central Asia has developed along two great axes of civ- ilization that, while preserving their own trajectories, have maintained a close and symbiotic relationship. One of these axes represents the culture of nomads, and the other, the culture of settled peoples, or sedentary dwellers, who live in cities, towns, and rural villages or settlements. The interaction between nomads and sedentary dwellers has been shaped over time by a complex of geographic, environmental, economic, cultural, and political factors, which in turn have influenced the devel- opment of music and musical life in Central Asia. A second kind of coherence is that an overwhelming majority of the popu- lation identifies Islam as its active religious practice, cultural legacy, worldview that informs everyday social life, or all of these. Most Central Asian Muslims trace their lineage to the Sunni branch of Islam, while Shi‘a Muslims comprise a small minority represented principally by Ismailis, a Shi‘a sect and community that es- tablished settlements in the mountainous Badakhshan region of Tajikistan and Af- ghanistan beginning in the eleventh century.