Karakalpak

By VICTOR L. MOTE

Kalpaks, Karalpaks.

Russian names: Chernyye klobuki, Karakalpaki

Karakalpaks speak a Central Turkic language, live primarily in the Turanian (Aral Sea) Basin of Central Asia, and are by tradition Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. “Karakalpak” means “black hat” and identifies the former Soviet republic (ASSR) of the people of the same name.

The Karakalpak Republic is an amalgamation of the old Khivan Khanate (1811-1920) and the Khorezm People's Republic of the early 1930s, makes up the eastern third of the Uzbek Republic, and is located between 41° and 46° N and 55° and 62° E. The Karakalpak people are heavily concentrated in Uzbekistan (98 percent), with most (93 percent) being located in the delta country of the Amu Darya (Oxus River). Their homeland includes sections of both the Kyzyl Kum (Red Desert) and Kara Kum (Black Desert). The region is extremely arid, rarely receiving more than 12.5 centimeters of precipitation per year, over half of which falls from February to May. Diversion of rivers for irrigation, both within Karakalpakia and upstream, have radically depleted the water that reaches the Aral Sea, which has lost 40 percent of its surface area since 1960. Nukus is the capital of the republic.

In 1990 the Karakalpak population was estimated at 380,000. Of this, 350,000 lived in the Karakalpak ASSR, 16,000 resided in other parts of Uzbekistan (the provinces of Bukhara, Tashkent, Fergana, and Samarkand), 3,000 in Turkmenistan (Tashauz Province), 2,500 in Russia (mainly Moscow), and 2,000 in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Beyond the Soviet border, there were at least 3,000 in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Within the republic, population density averaged 7.9 persons per square kilometer and population was growing at 3.4 percent per year. Some 52 percent of the republic's inhabitants and 70 percent of the Karakalpaks were rural. In 1979, 62.6 percent of the republic's population was nearly evenly split between Uzbeks and Karakalpaks, followed by Kazakhs (26.9 percent), Turkmen (5.4 percent), Russians (2.3 percent), and others (Dagestanis, Tatars, Ukrainians, and Koreans). The Central Asian groups (Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, and Turkmens) are more than 60 percent rural, whereas nonnatives are more than 80 percent urban.

The national language is Karakalpak, which belongs to the Kipchak or Kipchak-Nogay Linguistic Subgroup of the Central Turkic Group of the Altaic Language Family. It has two primary dialects: northeastern, closer to Kazakh, and southwestern, closer to Uzbek, and a number of peripheral subdialects, which are hybrids of Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkmen. Nonliterary until 1930, the Karakalpak language was first unsuccessfully rendered into Arabic, next endowed with a Latin alphabet, and lastly (in 1940) provided with a Cyrillic script. The Soviet Karakalpaks were still semiliterary in 1990, and their written literature is insignificant. The oral traditions are richer and similar to Kazakh, Crimean Tatar, Uzbek, and Nogay epics. Karakalpak is the native tongue of 96 percent of the Karakalpak people. Russified Karakalpaks are a meager 0.5 percent of the population.

The Karakalpak people are the culmination of 2,700 years of ethnic mixing of indigenous Iranians of the Mediterranean Caucasoid race (Sacs) with invading Altaic-speaking peoples of Mongoloid extraction, among them Huns and Oguz Turks. The latter, including the Pechenegs, who themselves had mixed with Bashkirs and Ugrians (of Magyar lineage), reached western Central Asia in A.D. 500. In the eleventh century a faction of Karakalpaks joined the Seljuks in the latter's invasions south and west, but the majority remained behind in the Aral Sea Basin. It was these Karakalpaks to whom the twelfth-century Russian chronicles alluded as “Chernyye klobuki” (Black Hats). The western Pecheneg-Karakalpaks entered into an alliance with the Kievan princes against marauding Kipchak (Polovtsian/Cuman) tribes. In gratitude, the Kievan princes rewarded the Chernyye klobuki for their bravery in battle with appanages along the Dnieper River. The Black Hats ranged from the Dnieper to the Aral Sea. They did not use “Karakalpak” as their self-name until after 1500. The Kipchaks, despite their adversarial relationship with the Karakalpaks and, indeed, with most of the Trans-Uralian steppe dwellers, Turkicized these peoples between the years 1000 and 1300. In the 1200s Karakalpakia became part of the Golden Horde, and, as the latter weakened during the next two centuries, the Karakalpaks became more closely allied with the Nogay Horde. During the 1500s, while living in the delta regions of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes River), the Karakalpaks began to be alluded to by name and became virtually independent, albeit not united: each tribe was governed by its own leaders ( bijs and batyrs). Independence was short-lived: over the next 200 years, the tribes became subjects of the Bukharans, Kazakhs, and Dzungarians, the last of whom caused the Karakalpaks to migrate in two directions. One group went up the Syr Darya to the Fergana Basin (“upper Karakalpaks”), and a second moved closer to the Aral Sea (“lower Karakalpaks”). After 1750 the lower Karakalpaks again migrated, this time to the Amu Darya Delta, which in 1811 became part of the Khivan Khanate. Over the next seventy years, the Karakalpaks revolted against Khivan rule several times. In 1873 the right-bank Karakalpaks were annexed by Russia; those on the left bank remained subjects of Khiva. After the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), the struggle for Karakalpak autonomy was tortuous both in design and jurisdiction; however, on 5 December 1936, Karakalpakia was recognized as an ASSR within Uzbekistan.

The Karakalpaks are a distinct minority in their own republic. Uzbeks prevail in the south, Kazakhs in the east and west. The republic is the most Muslim and the most Turkic of all former Soviet administrative units. The Russian population is less than 3 percent of the total and their influence is hardly felt, except for decisions emanating from Moscow. In this regard, economic decisions pertaining to the expansion of irrigation for growing a nonfood, cotton, have resulted in considerable environmental degradation and have stimulated the formation of an environmentalist movement. Karakalpaks almost never intermarry with Russians, who, according to one mythical tradition, have a common genealogical origin with the Karakalpaks.

Karakalpakia exhibits an arcuate settlement pattern that corresponds to the fanlike combination of the main channel, distributaries, and irrigation canals of the Amu Darya Delta. In 1983 the republic had twenty-five settlements large enough to be included in the Atlas SSSR (Atlas of the USSR): nine towns, thirteen urban settlements, and three large nonurban settlements. Settlements that did not conform to the drainage pattern were along the Kungrad-Makat (Trans-Aral) Railway, along the old shoreline of the Aral Sea, or on isolated oases. Villages ( kishlaks) of fifty or more houses are typically part of a system of more than 100 state and collective farms. Although modernized during Soviet rule with (broad streets, new houses, schools, stores, electricity, and natural gas), the villages are still characterized by small, enclosed, clay-walled cottages with dirt floors. These villages are nestled in the shade of Lombardy poplars along irrigation ditches lined with mulberry trees. In the rare cities and towns, the adobe construction of the native Turko-Muslims contrasts with the wood and prefab construction of the nonnatives (Russians, Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, Koreans, and others).

Subsistence occupancy no longer exists in the Karakalpak Republic. Under socialist domination, especially since the 1930s, all land and means of production belong to the state. Private plots (0.6 hectares, or 1.5 acres per household in Central Asia) are actually leaseholds. Agriculture dominates the economy, and all the cultivated land is irrigated. Locals say that without irrigation, agriculture, “indeed life itself,” would not exist in Karakalpakia. Thus, in a drive to maintain self-sufficiency in cotton production, the Soviet regime doubled the consumption of irrigation water from the Amu Darya between 1960 and 1990. If agriculture dominates the economy, then cotton dominates agriculture, accounting for at least 65 percent of the arable land and up to 90 percent of the income of the republic. Farming is conducted on more than sixty state farms (sovkhozy) and some fifty collective farms (kolkhozy) with an average of 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of arable land per farm. Grain, 90 percent of which is rice, accounts for 10 to 15 percent of the farmland (sorghum and wheat are also grown). Feed crops, especially alfalfa, compose 20 to 25 percent of the sown area; indeed, Karakalpakia is today the leading producer of alfalfa in the former USSR. Less than 5 percent of the croplands consists of specialty crops like the Khorezm muskmelon, watermelon, grapes, apricots, apples, pears, plums, new potatoes, and other vegetables. On the berms that parallel the irrigation canals, silkworms are bred in mulberry trees. Livestock are raised for their meat, milk, wool, pelts, eggs, and cocoons. Half of the inventory consists of sheep and goats (Karakul sheep are raised for Astrakhan pelts). Other animals include cattle, 40 percent of which are dairy cows, and, for a Muslim region, a surprisingly large number of hogs (178,000 in 1979). Poultry are raised on private plots, and muskrats are nurtured commercially (the Karakalpak Republic is one of the largest muskrat producers in the former USSR). Apart from agricultural resources, the republic is deficient in raw materials, especially in evaporites, natural gas, building materials, and other nonmetallics. Local industry, therefore, depends heavily on agriculture for its inputs. The republic boasts seven cotton-ginning and three cottonseed-oil factories. While the Aral Sea yielded twenty-four different fish species and 3 percent of the Soviet annual catch, the Muynak cannery flourished. With the shrinkage of the sea, Muynak stands starkly 50 kilometers from the seashore and relies on imports of frozen fish from the Barents Sea 2,000 kilometers away. Light industry prevails in all the major cities (Nukus, Khojeyli, Takhiatash, Muynak, and Chimbay).

Although machines have rapidly replaced handiwork, Karakalpaks have a history of expert craftsmanship. Unlike their neighbors, they adorn their homes and yurts luxuriously with decorative carpets, wall hangings, macramé, and wide-fringed belts, currently stressing brown, green, and blue patterns on a red and yellow backdrop. The tribespeople are also recognized for their excellence in work with leather, wood, and bone.

Kolkhoz production is procured through state agencies, the profits and bonuses from which are distributed to farmers by the collective-farm management; salaries are based on the amount of work performed by each person. In contrast, sovkhoz production belongs to the state, and state-farm workers receive a standard wage. Both state and collective farmers are eligible for private plots, the yield from which may be sold for extra income in collective farm markets in the towns and cities.

Even through the Soviet period, Karakalpak household duties remained distaff work. Women and adolescents are largely responsible for the harvest. Men do the planting, herding, fishing, and heavier industrial and bureaucratic work. Women do light industrial—especially textile—work.

The heavy emphasis on cotton and rice leaves little room for adequate crop rotation, which accounts for the reported soil erosion, in particular by wind. Ordinarily, Soviet farmers use seven-or nine-field crop rotations, but Karakalpaks lack this variety. Alfalfa and pasturage have been introduced to diversify the plantings, both of which replace the nitrogen extracted by cotton and rice.

Large families are a Karakalpak ideal: four children are common, and eight or ten are not unusual. The nuclear family is enhanced by as many as four generations in the same household. Descent is patrilineal. Beyond the extended family is a subclanic formation called the koshe, consisting of a group of families claiming descent from a common male ancestor over four to five generations. To the Karakalpak, the koshe is a psychological reality, with its own claim to territory and close kinship. Under Soviet rule, koshe integrity has been maintained on the kolkhoz, the members of which usually correspond to an uru, or clan. Each clan therefore is made up of several koshe. Upward of twenty-one clans can trace their origins to a dozen or more ancestral tribes that today are ethnographic groups of the Karakalpak nation. According to Bennigsen and Wimbush (1986, 114), they still consider themselves members of a tribe and have an acute sense of kinship with others of the same tribe elsewhere in Turkic areas of the former Soviet Union. Prior to the Revolution, the tribes represented a loose confederation, divided into two Karakalpak federations of separate Turkic and Mongol origins.

Karakalpak girls are expected to marry young. During the 1960s, one-third of them married between 16 and 19. Although allowed to attend middle, technical, and, occasionally, higher schools, many girls withdrew at age 18 to be married. Men are expected to pay a brideprice ( kalym). Although discouraged by Soviet mores, marriage by prior arrangement (i.e., child marriage) sometimes occurred. Wives were expected to move into the household of their fathers-in-law. They had few rights and privileges except the dowry, which was not illegal in the USSR. What was illegal was the marriage of minors. Muslim families often concealed the ages of their daughters through outright chicanery, for example, by refraining to register their girl infants or by sending them away to relatives in districts where their ages were not known. Where clans are concerned, exogamy is strictly observed. Divorce among Karakalpaks is as infrequent as it is easy; the rate is much lower than that of Soviet Slavs. The typical Muslim divorce was illegal under Soviet law. Legal divorce, however, was simple, especially where childless couples were concerned: at most, it required an hour before a procurator for the division of property. Divorces of parents with children could take several weeks, but the wife invariably got the children and a portion of the husband's wages, which the state garnisheed for her.

Dining at the same hearth keeps the Karakalpak family united. To avoid eating “forbidden” Russian fare, the families generally dine at home. Some families continue to eat at low tables and to sleep on the floor.

Sons receive the bulk of the father's wealth. Widows are entitled to one-half the amount inherited by the sons and are subject to levirate.

Karakalpaks, like all Soviet citizens, were subject to Soviet, not Muslim, law. Corporal and capital punishment, especially for theft of state property, were legal. Crime rates typically were low, but under the Gorbachev reforms they rose.

Under the Soviet system, the Karakalpak ASSR was a dual hierarchical socialist republic. Until the Gorbachev reforms, the republic was governed by a unicameral Supreme Soviet and an overlapping “shadow government” composed of the republic's Communist party leadership. Members of the Supreme Soviet were elected for four years; there was 1 deputy for every 3,000 people.

Apart from the extant inequality between the genders, there were at least two classes within Karakalpak society: the Communist party nomenklatura and the average citizen. The latter disparity may change in the future.

The republic is subdivided territorially and economically into raions (districts). Political representation is based on the raion, gorod (city), poselok (settlement), kishlak (sedentary village), or aul (semisedentary village), each of which has its own party executive committee and governing soviet.

The Supreme Soviet of the ASSR elected the Supreme Procuracy, which was composed of two judiciaries, for a period of six years: one was concerned with criminal cases and another with civil cases. Under the Soviet system, the republic was controlled by its militia, the KGB, local branches of the armed services, party volunteers ( druzhiniki), public opinion, and Islamic mores.

In the past, related auls and kishlaks would unite under the names of illustrious patrilineal ancestors, in whose names Karakalpak clans went to war. The recent peaceful outcry against environmental depredation, the result of overirrigation, has inspired a quasi-Green Party. The Karakalpak tribes have not taken up arms since the Basmachi revolts on their territory in 1918-1920.

Since the Karakalpak sense of nationhood is said to be the weakest among Central Asian groups, Islam is a major unifying force, especially unofficially. The republic had 553 mosques in 1914; today there are less than 10. In the mid-1980s, Bennigsen and Wimbush (1986, 112) located 5 working mosques in Nukus (2), Turkjul, Khojeyli, and Chimbay.

Officially Hanafite Sunni Muslim, Karakalpakia, especially in its northern part, is a major center of Central Asian Sufism. Estimates for the Karakalpak Islamic faithful in the 1970s were: firm believers (votaries), 11.4 percent; believers by tradition, 14.4 percent; hesitant believers (interested parties), 13.6 percent; indifferent believers (part-time Muslims), 39.1 percent; and atheists, 21.5 percent. Kurban Bayram (Sacrifice of Abraham) is the most important holiday. Fasting at Ramadan persists despite official condemnation.

The music of the Karakalpaks reflects an ancient oral tradition that was preserved by tribal bards and instrumentalists. Native songs are diverse in type and theme. They are basically diatonic with melodies that are rich in glissando, grace notes, and other embellishments. The most popular instruments are the two-stringed dutar (a pizzicato instrument) and the kobuz (a kind of fiddle). Reed pipes, flutes, and mouth harps are also used. Since the 1940s national symphonic compositions have been produced, including the symphonic poem Karakalpakstan. Although amateur theatrics, maintained by goliards, preceded the 1917 Revolution, a formal dramaturgy dates from the 1920s. The first national plays, originating during that decade, were The Girl Who Found Equality and Yernazar, the Camel's Eye. In the seventy years since, dozens of other dramas have been created.

Modernization has meant general access to Soviet medical care; however, the health of the Karakalpaks, especially near the retreating shore of the Aral Sea, has deteriorated. Because of the salty grit roiled up from the dry lake bed, throat cancer rates have soared, respiratory and eye disorders have increased markedly, rates of infancy and childhood anemia are extraordinary, and local infant mortality is the highest in the former USSR (60 per 1,000). Pesticide and fertilizer use (DDT and butifos) have polluted drinking water and traces of the same have been found in the milk of lactating mothers. Sanitary conditions, even in hospitals, are deplorable.

Karakalpak believers are convinced that on the Day of Judgment, Allah will weigh their good and bad actions, which are recorded during their lifetimes in the Book of Deeds, and decide their final destination—paradise or hell.

Akiner, Shirin (1986). Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union: An Historical and Statistical Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: KPI.

Bennigsen, Alexandre, and S. Enders Wimbush (1986). Muslims of the Soviet Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Ellis, William S. (1990). “A Soviet Sea Lies Dying.” National Geographic Magazine 177(2).

Gaisford, John (1978). Atlas of Man. New York: Marshall Cavendish.

Weekes, Richard V. (1984). Muslim Peoples: A World Ethnographic Survey. 2nd ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.