This document discusses the Qashqai people, a Turkic-speaking nomadic tribe living mainly in southern Iran. It provides background on the Qashqai's origins, history, and culture. The Qashqai traditionally engaged in pastoral nomadism, migrating between summer and winter pastures in the Zagros Mountains. However, in recent decades many have become more settled. The document explores the Qashqai's music, traditions, rituals and beliefs, as well as their political tendencies. It also examines their integration of other ethnic groups and ongoing connection to traditional ways of life despite modern influences. Videos are included showing Qashqai cultural practices and life in their mountain regions of Iran.

1. Κασκάι: η Μουσική,
τα Ήθη και τα Έθιμα
τους, οι
Μεταναστεύσεις τους
στα βουνά του Νότιου
Ζάγρου – Ιράν
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/0
9/09/κασκάι-η-μουσική-τα-ήθη-και-τα-έθιμα-το/
==============
Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής –
Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη,Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή
Αυτοκρατορία
Σε πρότερο κείμενό μου έχω αναφερθεί
στους τουρκμενικής καταγωγής Κασκάι που
ζουν στο Νότιο Ιράν και, όντας ένα από τα
πιο ξεχωριστά σιιτικά έθνη, αποτελούσαν κι

2. αποτελούν την ραχοκοκκαλιά των
Κιζιλμπάσηδων. Το κείμενο αυτό βρίσκεται
εδώ:
Τουρκία, Ιράν, Κιζιλμπάσηδες, Κασκάι:
Υπόγεια Κυκλώματα ανάμεσα στις Δύο
Χώρες
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/20
19/09/05/τουρκία-ιράν-κιζιλμπάσηδες-
κασκάι-υπ/
Σήμερα θα παρουσιάσω ένα βίντεο με
τυπική μουσική και τραγούδι από ένα

3. Κασκάι, και θα παραθέσω αρκετές
πληροφορίες αναφορικά με την καθημερινή
ζωή των νομάδων Κασκάι, τις
μεταναστεύσεις τους από κοιλάδα σε κοιλάδα
του Νότιου Ζάγρου, τα ήθη, τα έθιμα, τα
τυπικά και τις παραδόσεις τους. Οι Κασκάι
και όλες οι φυλές και τα έθνη, τα οποία
απάρτισαν κι απαρτίζουν τους
Κιζιλμπάσηδες (Αφσάρ, Σαχσεβάν, κα),
έχουν μεγάλη εξοικείωση με τον
εκσυγχρονισμό, οπότε μπορείτε πολύ
εύκολα να εξαπατηθείτε ότι έχετε να
κάνετε με μοντέρνους ανθρώπους.
Αυτό θα ήταν λάθος. Μπορεί να
εμφανίζονται μοντέρνα ντυμένοι στις πόλεις
και στις μεγαλουπόλεις αλλά παραμένουν
πάντοτε πιστά προσηλωμένοι στις
παραδόσεις, τα ήθη και τα έθιμά τους.

4. Αυτό το φαινόμενο παρατηρείται όχι μόνον
στο Ιράν αλλά και στο Αζερμπαϊτζάν και
στην Τουρκία. Πολιτικά, οι Κασκάι και
γενικώτερα οι Κιζιλμπάσηδες έχουν τάση να
στρέφονται στον νεωτερισμό και να
απορρίπτουν κάθε συντηρητική κρατική
πολιτική. Στην Τουρκία για παράδειγμα
υποστηρίζουν το κεμαλικό αντιπολιτευτικό
κόμμα κι απορρίπτουν τον Ερντογάν, όπως
πιο παλιά καταψήφιζαν τον συντηρητικό
Ντεμιρέλ και υπερψήφιζαν τον
κεντροαριστερό Ετζεβίτ.
Όλα αυτά δεν πρέπει ποτέ να τα
παρερμηνεύει κάποιος. Είναι εξωτερική
συμπεριφορά και δεν αφορούν την έντονη
προσήλωση στις παραδόσεις που τους
διακρίνει.

5. Δείτε το βίντεο:
Qashqai, their Music, Traditions, Rituals
and Migrations in South Zagros, Iran
https://vk.com/video434648441_456240
300
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Кашкай, их Музыка, Традиции,
Ритуалы и Миграции в Южном
Загросе, Иран
https://www.ok.ru/video/150202247025
3
Δείτε το βίντεο:
Οι Κασκάι, η Μουσική τους, και τα Βουνά
του Νότιου Ζάγρου όπου ζουν στο Ιράν

6. Περισσότερα:
Approaches to the Origin and History of
Qashqai Tribe
By Şenay Yanar
Throughout history, especially since late
Medieval times as recorded in sources Iran
has been a suitable life space as a
migration land for nomadic and semi
nomadic groups from foreign territories.
With 9th and 10th century Oghuz
migrations Turkish tribes were enlarged
to the Arab and Kurdish tribes which
came and settled to the area before
Seljuks. This new nomadic groups
intensively gathered in Khorasan and
Fars provinces has been in interaction
with the local population since that time.
So diversity of the population has been
enriched ethnically and culturally by
this new element. Even today, the
generations of this tribes are spread as

7. sedentary or semi nomadic clans in all
around Iran land. Our subject of study is
on the origin of Qashqai tribe which is
among Fars province tribes also includes
Khamsa, Kahkuliya and Mamasini tribes.
Survival of most of this tribes from being
a small branch of a tribe to be a big tribe
is considerable. Between the dates 9th
century when migrations began and 19th
century one can see that the population of
the tribes in Fars province is increased
double or triple. Two out of three of Fars
land is settlement of various tribes. Except
Kahkuliya land Qashqai is as the most
crowded and most ascendant tribe
occupying west and Northwest part of the
Fars province.
Today, Qashqai tribe as the second biggest
tribe of Iran has five big and some small
clans. Among neighbour tribe
confederations of Khamsa Turks and
Bakhtiyari Turkmens Qashqai tribe, is a
group consisted of Kurdish, Lor, Arab and

8. Turkish elements. The majority of the
tribe is of Turkish origin and most of the
relatives speak western Guz dialect.
Although there are so many studies on
contemporary history of Qashqais the
studies of the period between Safavids
and Kajars are scarce. One can see that
unless they involved to political events
tribes are rarely referred in sources.
With this study it is tried to be explained
the known assertions, objections and
outcomes on the origin and history of
Qashqais with the help of the sources and
studies.
http://dergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr/vakanuvis
/article/view/5000201336

9. =============================
Διαβάστε:

10. Qashqai, Qashqa’i,
Ghashghai, ‫قاشقایی‬ , ‫قشقایی‬
By Manouchehr Shiva
The Qashqai compose a community of
settled, semi-settled, and pastoral
nomadic households who reside mainly
in the Fars region of southern Iran.
They speak Qashqai Turki (Turkish). Most
of them also speak, at least, Persian
(Farsi). They are Shia Muslims.
The nineteenth century Fars velayat
(region or province) covered the present-
day provinces of Fars, Kohgiluyeh, and
Bushehr.
For centuries Fars had been a multi-
ethnic region in which tribal and
pastoral nomadic groups composed a large
part of the population.
Turkic-speaking pastoral nomadic tribal
groups began entering central and

11. southern Iran, at least, during the
eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Historical movement of larger and smaller
groups of pastoral nomadic households of
different ethnic backgrounds, including
Turks, into and out of Fars continued up
to the nineteenth century.
The Qashqai, as a large tribal unit or
tribal administrative unit, composed of
pastoral nomadic households, dates back
at least to the early eighteenth century,
when some Turkish(Turki)-speaking
tribal groups in the Fars region existed
under the name Qashqai and leadership
of the head(s) of a certain lineage called
Shahilu.
During the nineteenth century the
Qashqai was transformed into a very large
tribal unit or confederacy composed of
mainly Turkic-speaking pastoral nomads.

12. Their summer pastures stretched to areas
in central Iran, and their winter pastures
to areas close to the Persian Gulf.
Many Turkic (Turkish)-speaking tribal
groups, as well as groups belonging to
other ethnic groups in the region, were
integrated into the Qashqai.
The non-Turk groups, in time, adopted
the language and other ethnic identity
markers of the Qashqai.
Since the 1960s the general trend has
beed a sharp increase in sedentarization
of Qashqai nomads and involvement in
non-pastoral and non-traditional
economic activities.
Presently the Qashqai form mainly settled
and semi-settled households. Qashqai
population of today is estimated between
one and one and a half million.
http://qashqai.net/the-qashqai-turks-of-
fars-southern-iran/

13. —————————————————-

14. Ritual and Social Drama
Among The Qashqai
By Manouchehr Shiva
Below, I review anthropological studies of
ritual among the pastoral nomadic/tribal
communities in Iran, and provide my
own ideas about different rituals among
the Qashqai. By relying on works of Victor
Turner and Catherine Bell, I emphasize
looking at political conflicts as social

15. dramas, or ritualized processes, through
which various forms of tribal, ethnic,
national, class, and gender identities are
constructed, imposed, resisted, negotiated,
and reconstructed.
Ritual and the Middle Eastern Pastoral
Nomadic Tribal Communities
Barth’s (1961) study of the Basseri tribe
of Fars introduced a new genre of studies
on pastoral nomadic tribes in the Middle
East in which the topics of ritual and the
related concepts of the religious, the
symbolic, and the meaningful were
underemphasized. A variety of factors
might have influenced such neglect.
There were the cultural peculiarities of
the Basseri, and many other pastoral
nomadic tribes in the Middle East, who
did not emphasize the practice of public
Islamic rites, or at least the way these rites
were practiced in urban and urban-
dominated rural communities. There were
the peculiarities of anthropological

16. research of the time, practiced in a
context of limits posed by theoretical
perspectives (in this case what is usually
called “cultural ecology”), and
personalities.
There was a definition bias, based on
strict delineation of the sacred and the
profane that central to the emergence of
social anthropology as a discipline. There
was also a Durkheimian propensity,
again central to traditional social
anthropology, by which researchers
searched for rituals representing
structural cohesion of the groups, as
opposed to practices that represented and
reconstructed conflict.
Barth’s fieldwork among the Baseri was
limited in time. In the appendix to his
book, he pointed to an apparent ritual
poverty among the Basseri and a peculiar
disconnectedness and irrelevance in the
tribe’s impoverished ritual activities
(1961:135). In order to take account for

17. the “oddity” of the Basseri case, Barth
proposed a reformulated adoption of
Leach’s (1956) definition of ritual.
In the Leachian (then alternative)
approach, sacred and profane were
regarded as two aspects, rather than two
types of actions. On the basis of such a re-
examination, Barth brilliantly suggested
considering the annual spring migration
as the central rite of the Basseri nomadic
society.
It should be noted that Barth’s fieldwork
among the Baseri was limited in time,
and, as such, he was not able to observe
the range of ritualized practices among
the Basseri.
Works on relation between religious
practices and local level political and
social structures and processes among
Middle Eastern pastoral nomadic groups
are limited, and studies of religious
discourse among these communities are

18. not extensive. There are, however, a few
exceptions.1
Tapper’s study of the Shahsevan of
Iranian Azerbaijan (1979) is unique in
addressing three less studies aspects of
Middle Eastern pastoral nomadic groups:
a) characteristics of grazing rights;
b) structure of local nomadic
communities; and
c) rituals.
Tapper aims to analyze the internal and
synchronic relations among the above
three aspects of the Shahsevan society. He
supports Douglas’s (1973) view that the
existence of closed social groups, where
group boundaries are associated with
power and danger, is the most important
determinant of a bias for ritualism.
In support, Tapper characterizes three
Sunni groups –the Cyrenaican Bedouin,
(Peters 1976), the Al-Murrah Bedouin

19. (Cole 1975), and the Yomut Turkmen
(Irons 1975)–, as well as the Shia
Shahsevan, as examples of more
religiously orthodox Middle Eastern
groups that emphasize religious rituals,
and identifies them as also having the
most corporate local communities.
Not only do the Shahsevan have well
defined local communities, but, due to
their system of grazing rights, Tapper
argues, the internal relations of their
communities are more complex than those
of similar populations in the Middle East
(1979:17).
Tapper’s reading of the Shahsevan ritual
scene is unique in another major sense.
Among the Shahsevan Tapper finds
religious rituals that, in a Durkheimian
fashion, define and consolidate groups.
His study of Shahsevan public rites is not
confined to their Islamic public rituals, it
also includes those of an individual’s
life-cycle, and the spring migration.

20. Tapper describes the Shahsevan as a
group whose “public ritual life is
unusually rich for a Muslim nomadic
society” (1979:176), and argues that the
differences between the Shahsevan and
the Basseri in this respect are related to
differences in social structure. The
Basseri, by being able to express and
resolve hostilities by change of allegiance
from one community to another, are not
threatened by structural conflicts.
However, among the Shahsevan, where
the community is organized on
conflicting principles, and residential
flexibility is non-existent, hostilities
within the community are expressed
during the ritual of nomadic migration.
But the solidarity of the community is
further ritualized by the Ramazan
(fasting month) and the (Shia) Muharram
rites, which the Shahsevan, unlike the
Basseri, observe with enthusiasm
(1979:253-54).

21. The Muharram rites signify the Karbala
tragic sacred narrative, in which Imam
Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet, and
the third Shia Imam, and many of his
companions were martyred. Karbala is
located in the present day Iraq.
Muharram is the first month of the
Islamic lunar calendar.
Later, Bradburd (1984a, 1990), based on
his studies of the Komachi of Kerman,
stated that practice of public religious
rituals is more widespread among pastoral
nomadic/tribal groups in southwest Asia
than previously indicated. He showed
how unity, hierarchy, and divisions of
the Komachi community are represented
in their Muharram and life-cycle rites.
Bradburd’s general remark, that the
participation of the area’s pastoral
nomadic/tribal groups in Islamic public
rituals needs to be (empirically)
reevaluated, is well taken. Nevertheless,
one could say that in Fars, perhaps

22. somewhat similar to Kerman, Muharram
public rituals were more practiced by its
(Shia) settled, non-tribal or Tajik
population.
This could be regarded as one of the
ethnic or cultural markers differentiating
the settled Tajik (or “Persianized”) urban
and under-urban-influence communities
from non-Tajik (tribal/nomadic Turk,
Lur and Arab-Basseri) backgrounds.
There might be an “ethno-linguistic
twist” to participation of the Shahsevan
and Komachi nomadic communities in
Muharram public rituals. Though the
Shahsevan differentiate themselves from
non-tribal rural and urban populations,
Azerbaijan’s population is, like the
Shahsevan, predominantly Turki
(Azerbaijani) speaking. In Kerman, too,
the Komachi, as Persian speakers,
resemble the predominant Persian
speaking population of the region.

23. One could also consider the possibility of
Shahsevan’s participation in Muharram
rituals during the time of Tapper’s
research, among other things, as an effort
to claim their Islamic identity in the
context of bordering the (then) atheist
Soviet Azerbaijan state.
Qashqai and Muharram Public Rituals
Still, it could be said that, generally
speaking, during the decades preceding
the Islamic revolution of 1978-79, when
the above studies by Barth, Tapper and
Bradburd were carried out, such rites

24. were more characteristic of the Shahsevan
and the Komachi than the Qashqai and
the Basseri. And, in the same period in
Fars, the Qashqai in general were perhaps
more involved in these rites than many of
the Lur tribal groups of west of the region,
or those of the Arab and the Basseri of the
east.
There is a geographical connection. The
Qashqai are more centrally located in
relation to the major urban centers of the
region, than many of the the groups of
western and eastern Fars.
It should be emphasized, however, that
the Qashqai constitute a complex and
differentiated community in many ways,
and their religious discourses and
practices were, and are, multiple and
diverse.
Practicing Muharram public rites varied
over time and across different Qashqai
communities. Many previously nomadic
communities, as they settled, started

25. practicing the rites as they were practiced
by the peasants and town dwellers in the
region. During the sixties and seventies
there were some nomadic Qashqai
communities who did organize and
participate in Muharram rituals–mainly
composed of processions from camp to
camp, singing Muharram-related
lamentation poetry (noheh) in Turki
(Qashqai Turkic), and given food by the
camp leaders. These were usually
nomadic communities with more contact
with settled people.
Again among the variety of factors that
could be studied as influencing the
practice of Muharram rituals in different
Shia pastoral nomadic communities, one
could look at a historical connection. The
sixteenth century expansion of Shiaism
in Iran, and its transformation to the
official, the state and the majority faith,
was heavily based on conversion and
military support of Turkic speaking tribal

26. groups, like so many that were later
incorporated into the Qashqai.
The nomadic Qashqai may reason that
the scattered pattern of households in
pastoral areas, the necessities of
pastoralism and nomadism, and their
general way of life was such that they did
not often hold Muharram public rituals–
the way they are practiced by the settled
people. There are, however, certain
Muharram-related practices which were
specific to a nomadic mode of living.
Camps refraining from migrating during
the two main days of the Muharram
rituals (the ninth and the tenth of the
month), is an example.
And, if the tenth of Muharram (based on
a lunar calendar) happened to be the
same day that a nomadic camp has to
make a migratory move, rather than
starting the move very early in the
morning, in the customary fashion, the
camp postpones its move until “the blades

27. have been drawn,” that is, in the
afternoon of the tenth, or after the tragic
climax of the sacred narrative of Karbala
is over.
Previously many Lur, Turk, and Arab
populations in the Fars region who settled
took part in such public rituals as part of
their process of ethnic transformation
(“Tajikization” or “assimilation”). In
settled urban and rural areas the
expenses of the public rituals were
provided by state authorities, merchants,
landlords, neighborhood and guild
leaders, rural community leaders, by
whole communities, or a combination of
these.
Among those Qashqai communities which
did practice in such rites, usually, it was
the camp leaders who offered the food
and tea. Having a religious vow was part
of this pattern of exchange.
The Qashqai, similar to the tribes of
eastern and western Fars, consider

28. themselves Shia Muslims, part of the
region’s and the country’s Shia
community. They venerate Shia saints.
Among Shia saints, how they specially
revere Hazrat-e Abbas, a brother of Imam
Hussein, who is particularly famous for
his bravery, to a certain degree,
differentiates between their dominant
discourse on Shia saints and that of a
more urban-based discourse. In this
regard, the Qashqai are more similar to
other tribal populations in the region.
Another point of qualification also needs
to be made. Muharram rituals, as well as
discourses on them, took a historically-
specific political dimension in the
immediate pre-revolutionary period. With
the expansion of contemporary radical
political discourse(s) on Islam among
urban populations during the seventies,
Muharram rituals became a major vehicle
for, and focus of, mass politics.

29. With the rapidly expanding ties between
the urban and non-urban populations
during the sixties and seventies, many of
the region’s rural and nomadic
populations, and especially its youth, also
took a new look at these rituals and the
ideas they could represent.
The (re)emerging discourse on Shia Islam’s
revolutionary potentials, popular among
the politically engaged youth of the
expanding urban centers and educational
system, was also communicated among the
Qashqai youth.
In the post-revolutionary period, with the
Islamic state in power, Muharram public
rituals have acquired still more complex
and changing, but nevertheless telling
dimensions and relations with the
changing local and larger social context
of their performances.
During the post-revolutionary period the
Qashqai and other previously tribal
groups in the region have intensified

30. their already rapid processes of
sedentarization, migration to urban
centers, and, for many, acculturation to
the changing dominant urban, and state
sponsored or supported public Muharram
rituals, though in such rituals those
(men) who participate represent
themselves in the larger urban public
spaces as the Qashqai.
Pasture Rights and Community Rituals
The Qashqai nomadic population was
class-based, and its nomadic communities
were organized on various principles.
Their system of grazing rights was very

31. complex. A variety of patterns according
to which grazing rights were controlled,
owned, allocated, rented, and exchanged
in either summer or winter quarters
existed among various Qashqai nomadic
communities, and across time.
The integrative and conflictual processes
within Qashqai local level nomadic
communities could not be reduced to the
peculiarities of the Qashqai systems of
pasture control and the necessities of
pastoral nomadism. There is more than
one type of Qashqai nomadic community,
and forms of pasture ownership and
control varied over time and space.
The form of pasture control and
ownership is not the only factor shaping
the type and dynamics of nomadic
communities. Control and ownership of
other pastoral productive factors –
animals and labor– are also important as
factors shaping various local level
nomadic communities.

32. Moreover, if we include semi-settled, and
also settled (rural and urban) Qashqai
communities in our inquiry–in contrast
to solely nomadic cases recorded among
the Shahsevan–we encounter a
constellation of various structural forms,
and of integrative and conflictive
processes. Still, our list could be enlarged
and take on an added complexity if we
include the micro-historical, and
possibly macro-historical changes of
Qashqai local-level community types.
A host of internal as well as external
economic, and also political, factors could
be discussed as having a role in the
dynamics of a given Qashqai local-level
community at a given time period. On the
whole, it could be said that various forms
of solidarity and tension, and multiple
forms of domination and cooperation are
characteristic of the Qashqai local
communities–whether nomadic, semi-
nomadic, settled, or, as at present, mixed.

33. Flexibility and multiplicity of structural
forms is a general feature of the Qashqai,
but it is not a feature confined to them.2
Social groups are formed and re-formed,
some on more and some on less flexible
grounds. The point to ask is how
communities are ritually enacted,
recreated, and communicated.
Rituals are representative as well as
reconstructive of social relations and
groupings. At least for few decades, the
history-making, as opposed to structure-
preserving, aspect of rituals have been
discussed by anthropologists.3 Ritual or
ritualized practices could emphasize
conflict, and not necessarily solidarity. Of
course, public conflict becomes possible as
alliances are formed internal to each of
the parties involved.
Such alliances could themselves be
flexible, or subject to reconstruction. We
may ask how social relations and groups
are represented and reconstructed in

34. ritualized ways that are central,
culturally valued, or elaborated, but may
represent or promote conflict and
rebellion, in contrast to, or in addition
to, integration and compliance.
Migrations, life-cycle ceremonies, and, for
some, Muharram rites were central to the
Qashqai repertoire of public rituals
practices.
Marriages and Weddings
A marriage marked a reconstruction of
relationships between individuals and

35. between local level groups; some marriages
involved larger level units. One dominant
discourse on marriages regarded it as
exchange of women: this
individual/group gave/received a woman
to/from that individual/group. Giving
and receiving wives among tribal leaders
was, proportionally, a more significant
event.
Marriages brought people together. Many
marriages were acts of re-alliance:
between two sublineages of a larger
paternal lineage, or two lineages related
to each other through previous marriages
but not as a larger patrilineage. Marriages
were also performed to make new
alliances, changing non-kin to kin. Made
to bind and rebind, marriages could also
provoke conflict.
They brought groups of people together,
but they also could be relied upon to
differentiate (e.g. status groups, or allies

36. and non-allies). There were rules of
marriage: strict marriage taboos (Islamic
prohibitions), and preferential rules–
preferences for father’s brother’s daughter
and other forms of cousin marriage, and
status-related rules (one gives women to
men of similar status or higher, but not
lower).
It has been pointed out that marriage
preferential rules are possibilities that
can be adducted or ignored (Eickelman
1979, Rosen 1979, Bradburd 1984), and
that they are part of the strategic social
resources the actors may rely upon to
make a “good marriage.” I would like to
emphasize, however, that every good
marriage, according to some parties, could
be potentially regarded as a “bad
marriage” by others.
In delicate, complex, and flexible series of
alliances and counter-alliances at local
and regional levels, every (re-)alliance
through a new marriage was a

37. reconstruction of micro-level local (or
larger level) political make up, and there
was always a potential for others to
challenge it, or enact their challenge
during the wedding.
In a situation where political dynamics
was the result of hierarchical, as well as
reciprocal relations, a marriage had the
possibility of being questioned by others
at the higher or the same level of political
hierarchy. Marriages involved
reconstruction of political, economic and
status relations, they brought about
fusion, but also, potentially, fission.

38. Ritual and Ritualization
Catherine Bell’s book, Ritual Theory,
Ritual Practice (1992), put forward a
new framework for understanding the
nature of ritual. Bell’s insight was that
ritual is better understood as strategy, or a
culturally strategic way of acting in the
world.
She covered a host of academic work on
defining and studying ritual, and
contended that few, if any, of theories of
ritual avoid a rather predetermined
circularity.

39. This circularity constitutes ritual as an
object of analysis in such a way as to
mandate a particular method, expertise,
and way of knowing. In order to break
free of the circularity, she abandoned the
focus on ritual as a set of special
practices, and put her focus on strategies
of “ritualization,” defined as a way of
acting that differentiates some acts from
others.
Ritualization is a form of practice
through which a “socialized body”
strategically demarcates and privileges the
meaning of some acts over others within a
“symbolically constituted spatial and
temporal environment to achieve a
“desired social effect” (1992: 93).
By acting ritually, embodied agents
‘wield, physically, a scheme of
subordination or insubordination’.
(1992:100)
Thus, practices such as pilgrimage,
dividing food at a formal gathering,

40. choosing a place to sit, hunting events of
the tribal elite, swearing to affirm that
something is the case, or asking for
forgiveness, in addition to a host of
health-related practices, all could become
publicly ritualized, depending on the
way they are acted or interpreted as such.
Social Dramas and Ritualization
Social dramas should also be added to the
list of the major rituals provided by
Barth, Tapper, and Bradburd. My
emphasis on social dramas as ritual
events, and their related ritualized
practices, is, among other things, related
to a major characteristic of the Qashqai
society: flexibility and multiplicity of
sociopolitical relations and discourses on
them.
Groups, identities, and sociopolitical
relations are reconstructed, imposed,
contested, and negotiated in multiple and
flexible ways. They are periodically
(re)formed in extra-ordinary dramas of

41. social conflict, but are also perpetually
reshaped in ordinary daily activities.
As studies of everyday forms of resistance
have shown (e.g., Scott 1990), acting in
conflict is not confined to extraordinary
times of strife and rebellion. More subtle
forms of discord and fighting back are
commonplace in daily local-level
activities, and ritual plays a major part
in these practices, as well. These later
major domain(s) of ritualized acts – those
that include ordinary or not overtly
extraordinary forms of presentation,

42. rejection, and negotiation of identities
and relations – are not discussed here.
Examples for the Qashqai are variations
in attire worn, places offered (or chosen)
to sit, gifts exchanged, visits made, food
divided and offered, and language used.
Of course these could be done or
performed as part of a larger ritual, such
as a wedding, a mourning, or a feast.
One should also add that during the last
few decades, with rapid transformation of
Qashqai political structure and cultural
practices, and integration of masses of the
Qashqai in larger changing national
political field, a host of new symbols and
discourses related to modern state and
civil society are used in daily
communications.
Ritualization is an aspect of political
conflicts, and Bell’s insights can bring a
new light on applying Turner’s ideas
about social dramas.

43. Victor Turner in several works (1957,
1967, 1968, and 1974) reflected on
social drama as ritual-like processes of
political conflict.
These occur in small-scale communities,
as well as in complex societies. He has
analyzed such processes as having a phase
structure.
These phases are breach, crisis, redress,
and either integration or a recognition of
schism.

44. By looking at political conflicts some
major aspect of Qashqai socio-political
relations and grouping are better
appreciated; that they are multiply
reconstructed, are flexible, contain
conflict as well as consensus, and that
they are reconstituted in ritual-like ways.
It is interesting to study a given social
drama (or a set of interrelated dramas)
because it as a whole, and its sub-
processes of breach and crisis, discloses
and reconstructs the pattern of prevailing
struggles, as well as the more underlying,
but nevertheless changing sociopolitical
characteristics of the political field.
In Turner’s words, “conflict seem to bring
fundamental aspects of society, normally
overlaid by the customs and habits of
daily intercourse, into frightening
prominence” (1974:35).

45. Turner’s model of the phase structure of
social dramas, however, needs to be
modified somewhat. His model is based on
rather neatly differentiated phases. But a
drama’s phases, necessarily, could not be
uniformly distinguished. This could be
due to purposeful actions by the agents
involved.
Among the Qashqai, for instance, the
situation at the every-day practices of the
groups and individuals involved could be
one of neither reconciliation nor
permanent cleavage, but rather a
blending of the two.
The same groups and individuals could
present texts of reconciliation in some

46. contexts and those of cleavage in other.
These are texts which could be read as
complementary and/or contradictory to
each other, communications using
creative forms of political and cultural
etiquette, where reconciliations are
presented and cleavages perpetuated.
Social dramas, in contrast to weddings or
religious rites, have a much higher degree
of improvisational possibilities. When a
drama is characterized by complexity
and multiplicity of groups, individuals,
and voices, and when there are a variety
of public and private stages, there could
be various interpretations of the drama
itself and its phases. Furthermore, there
are inter-mingling of dramas, and there
are dramas within dramas.
During the liminal period between the
Monarchic and Islamic regimes, for
instance, the Qashqai were involved, as
agents and active and critical viewers, in
a variety of intertwined local, regional,

47. and national dramas. Dramas could be
mixed at the same level, for instance those
of two local communities. And, as local or
regional dramas that also deal with
larger national issues, they could be
mixed vertically.
The importance given to social dramas
here is also a reflection of the importance
given to conflicts in narratives gathered
among the Qashqai and throughout the
region. Narratives of social dramas are a
major mechanism by which people
remember and reconstitute their past, as
well as reconstruct their present.
Narratives of social dramas provide a
vehicle for the construction,
dissemination and negotiation of
historical knowledge.
Narratives of social dramas, parts and
pieces of dramas, or allusions to dramas,
constitute some everyday forms of political
practice regarding local as well as larger
regional and national concerns. Political

48. imageries are made when historical
imageries are presented. Through the
course of social dramas, and by telling of
their narratives, tribal, ethnic, and
national communities and identities are
reconstructed anew.
Social dramas share a certain similarity
with other types of rituals: ritualized,
representative, or socially communicative
movements between times, political,
cultural, social, and spatial categories
create meaning and reconstruct social
relations. The idea dates back to van
Gennep’s seminal work on rites of passage
(1960), but it has been developed by
Turner in his various works on rites of
passage as well as on pilgrimages (for
instance, Turner 1974).

49. Anderson (1983:55-57) has pointed out
how journeys of state functionaries in the
absolutist state apparatus in Europe
helped to create a model of the state
different from the previous feudal states.
And Geertz (1983) has described the
symbolism of campaigns, or symbolic
movements in space, by political leaders
in Morocco, England, and Java as
meaning creating practices.
Various authors have also reflected on the
creative aspects of pilgrimages and
migrations by Muslim travelers
(Eickelman and Piscatori 1990).

50. Movements between socio-spatial and
politico-cultural categories by
individuals and groups in the course of
social dramas could be underscored in
terms of their ritualistic aspect as well.
Other rituals could become extremely
potent events when they are enacted
during social dramas. A marriage
ceremony could itself become a dramatic
event, or a phase of a social drama
between two groups.
A marriage could also become the final
act of a peaceful resolution of a social
drama.
Another example is the social drama of
the revolutionary years of 1978-79,
during which Muharram rituals were
reconstructed in particularly forceful,
dynamic, and persuasive, yet multiple
ways.
During years of the liminal period
between the rules of the monarchic and

51. the Islamic states, local and regional
dramas that constructed and contested
social class, tribal, ethnic, and political
identities were variously interwoven with
the larger national revolutionary drama.
In sum, I argue that, based on ideas of
Turner and Bell, conflicts among the
Qashqai (and similar groups in the Fars
region) should be added to their list or
repertoire of major rituals, by studying
them as social dramas, or ritualized
practices, through which various forms of
tribal, ethnic, national, class, and gender
identities are constructed, imposed,
resisted, negotiated, and reconstructed.
The handwritten text on the history of
the Qashqai (A Qashqai Historigraphy)
contains plenty of examples of social
dramas (within the Qashqai and between
the Qashai and the state or/and other
tribal groups).
Some of the dramas the occurred during
the liminal revolutionary period of late

52. 1970s and early 1980s had strong class
identity construction aspects.
NOTES
1 – Tapper (1979) gives a short review of
this limited literature. Major examples
are Barth/Pehrson (Pehrson 1966), Cole
(1975), Peters (1976). Tapper (1979) and
Bradburd (1984a, 1990) have
specifically dealt with the subject among
Iranian Shia tribal/nomadic groups.
2 – Based on my historical and short
ethnographic studies of some other tribal
populations in Iran, I would say that
such structural flexibility and
multiplicity is a widespread feature of
many Iranian pastoral nomadic/tribal
populations.
3 – Constitutive or constructive aspects of
rituals were shown in studies by the
Manchester school of social anthropology
(Turner, Gluckman, et al.).

53. Some other earlier studies in this respect
are Kertzer 1974, Cohen 1977, and
Moore and Myerhoff 1977.
Recent genre of studies known as the
anthropology of resistance, and
contemporary works on verbal arts,
rituals, and other forms of expressive
culture which look at such practices in
terms of their combined semantic-
pragmatic or representative-constitutive
characteristics, emphasize the constructive
or history making aspect of ritual-like
practices.
Τις βιβλιογραφικές παραπομπές μπορείτε
να βρείτε εδώ:
http://qashqai.net/ritual-and-social-
drama-among-the-qashqai/

54. ——————————————————-

55. A Short Historical Overview
By Manouchehr Shiva
(A Meta-narrative?)

56. For centuries the Fars region had been a
multi-ethnic region, in which tribal and
pastoral nomadic groups composed a large
part of the population.
Turkic-speaking pastoral nomadic tribal
groups began entering central and
southern Iran, at least, during the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. Historical
movement of larger and smaller groups of
pastoral nomadic households of different
ethnic backgrounds, including Turks,
into and out of the Fars region continued
up to the nineteenth century. The
Qashqai, as a large tribal unit, dates back
at least to the early eighteenth century,
when some Turkish(Turki)-speaking
tribal groups in the region existed under
the name Qashqai and leadership of the
head(s) of a certain lineage called
Shahilu.
In addition to pastoralism for use and
exchange, various nomadic households of

57. the Fars region during the nineteenth
century relied on different combinations
of a variety of economic activities–such as
agriculture, handicrafts production, and
gathering; for use and exchange.
Exchange of labor (in a variety of
contracts with property owners), trade,
providing protection and transportation
facilities for traders, and, for some,
banditry and raiding, were other
potential household economic resources.
During the nineteenth century the
Qashqai was gradually transformed into a
large tribal confederacy composed of,
mainly, Turkish-speaking pastoral
nomads. Their summer pastures stretched
to areas in central Iran, and their winter
pastures to areas close to the Persian Gulf.
Many Turki (Turkish)-speaking tribal
groups, as well as groups belonging to
other ethnic groups in the region, were
integrated into the Qashqai. The non-
Turk groups, in time, adopted the

58. language and other ethnic identity
markers of the Qashqai. Perhaps more
than a quarter of the region’s population
was pastoral nomadic about mid
nineteenth century.
Generally speaking, during the
nineteenth century the Qashqai became
increasingly, though with ebbs and flows,
hierarchical and centralized. Its official
political hierarchy was part of the
regional state structure for purposes of ‘tax
and order.” Growth of political
centralization and expansion of Qashqai
population and territory in this period
paralleled changes in the larger regional
political economy. There was an
increasing articulation of the region’s
political economy with the world market.
This process included rise in production
of agricultural and pastoral products for
the market and consumption of imported
goods, growth in monetization of the
administrative system and the economy,

59. relative centralization of the state
apparatus, spread of private forms of land
ownership, and expansion of mercantile,
financial, and landed capital.
Though Iran never became an official
colony of either Russia or Britain, Fars
and other regions in southern Iran were
under the economic and political
influence of Britain during this period.
The economic changes mentioned above
were unevenly effective among the region’s
various local communities, including
various Qashqai groups. The whole
nineteen century transformation process
was complex, uneven, and paradoxical.
Alongside Western political and economic
sway, the modern Iranian nation and
nationalism gradually emerged.
Likewise, parallel to the emergence of the
Iranian nation, some modern Iranian
ethnic groups took their beginnings. In
Fars, abreast the general trend of
expansion and centralization of the state

60. and some tribal groupings, dispersion of
some other larger tribes, internal tribal
strife and acts of rebellion, brigandage,
and “lawlessness,” especially in certain
periods, intensified.
The Qashqai as an Ethnic Group
The Qashqai are distinguished from other
ethnic groups in the region by
identification as Turk, or Qashqai, by
themselves and others. Their identity
includes a common political history,
present social ties, and a shared cultural
and linguistic heritage. Most Qashqai are,
at least, bilingual in Persian (Farsi).
Other major ethnic groups in Fars in the
nineteenth century were the Tajik (non-
tribal and Persian speaking villagers and
city dwellers, also called Tat, or
sometimes referred to as Fars), and the
Lurs, and the Arabs (or later the Arab-
Basseri). The Lurs and the Arabs were also
considered “tribal.”

61. There are other non-Qashqai but Turki-
speaking communities in Fars. Three out
of five large tribal groups that were
formed into the Khamseh confederacy of
eastern Fars in the second half of the last
century are Turki-speaking, so are many
smaller settled and semi-settled
communities throughout Fars.
These three Turki-speaking tribes of
eastern Fars (sometimes referred to as
“Turk-e Arab”), regarded themselves as
culturally close to the Qashqai, and
generally sided with the majority of them
in some of the major social dramas of the
region’s history during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.
There were many small Turki-speaking
settled rural communities scattered
throughout Fars, but for many Qashqai
these were not considered to be “Turk
proper,” and in some context referred to
them as Tajik or Tat (non-tribal
peasants). Ethnic and tribal affiliation

62. shifts were common historical
phenomena, so were nomads becoming
peasants or peasants becoming nomads
and joining tribal groups.
Premodern Social Structure
I view the Qashqai “premodern,” or
“traditional” tribal social structure as
characterized by a variety of interrelated
“aspects.”
We may call these aspects “structures” and
“models” of, or “discourses” on, the
Qashqai “traditional tribal society.”
(i) There was a hierarchical formal
administrative structure which integrated
the Qashqai with the state structure (for
taxing and “order” purposes).
There were also the hierarchies of (ii) the
status groups and of (iii) the socio-
economic classes.

63. There was also (iv) a segmental or
branching structure to the whole
confederacy and its divisions.
Heads of bandits and raiding groups were
also men of power, or, to use Tapper’s
(1983) phrase for tribal societies of Iran
and Afghanistan, there existed (v) a tribal
chief/bandit-rebel dialectic.
Qashqai heads of groups of bandits,
rebels, and raiders, similar to the tribal
chiefs, were engaged in appropriation and
distribution of surplus, and punishment.
Typically, tribal rebels could become
chiefs; the reverse was also the case.
(vi) Individual and group networks
constituted another major aspect of social
life. These networks brought individuals
and groups across tribal groupings
together. They also brought individuals
and groups from pastoral, rural, and
urban background in social contact.
Regional alliances included urban,
rural, and nomadic/tribal forces.

64. (vii) The political field at local, regional,
and national levels was characterized by
a flexible system of alliances and
counter-alliances. Over time, many
individuals and groups changed their
political and even tribal and ethnic
affiliation.
Flexibility of alliances was even practiced
during the course of social dramas,
sometimes suddenly in the climax of
dramas. Narratives of so many social
dramas point to moments of impromptu
change of political side, not only by main
actors, but also by the larger population,
who are the audience, but also actors.
Regional alliances normally contained
urban, nomadic, and rural forces.
The Qashqai were active participants in
the country-side political space. Their
migratory routes pass by the region’s
capital, Shiraz. In many regional and
national upheavals, both during the
nineteenth and modern (twentieth

65. century) eras, the Qashqai also took part
in the dramas staged in urban political
space.
Modern Period
A transitional or liminal period, covering
the first quarter of the twentieth century,
dramatically divided the Iranian
“premodern” and “modern” historical
periods. The economic, political, cultural,
and social backgrounds for such a
transformation were set in the nineteenth
century, particularly its later decades.
But, it was during these dramatic
quarter-of-a-century-long years of the
Constitutional revolution and the First
World War, that Iranian nationalism was
communicated to larger segments of the
society. In Fars and among the Qashqai,
during the nationalist and anti-British
movement of the war years modern ideas
on national identity were disseminated,
contested and reconstructed among the
larger population.

66. During much of the twentieth century,
the expanding and centralizing modern
nation-state dominated the Iranian
political field. Populations with a tribal
and/or minority ethnic background were
diversely reconstructed and transformed
in a context characterized by various
discourses on nationalism–combined with
new ideas on the state, ethnicity, Islam,
popular participation, social justice,
gender relations and progress.
This trend, part of a larger process of
change usually termed “modernity” (or
rather multiple and contested
modernities) intensified and expanded
since the sixties. Similar to many other
dominantly non-urban populations in
the country, incorporation of Qashqai
masses in the national politics as Iranian
citizens has further augmented during
and after the Islamic revolution of 1978-
79.

67. Sedentarization of Qashqai nomads, and
rise in their involvement in non-pastoral
and new economic activities, has
intensified since the nineteen sixties.
Presently, the Qashqai form mainly
settled and semi-settled households.
Settled Qashqai are dispersed throughout
the region, but mostly in rural and urban
locations in north-, mid-, and south-
central Fars. There are some Qashqai who
reside outside southern Iran, and indeed
throughout the global village.
With the dissolution and transformation
of tribal hierarchies and groupings in the
last few decades, the importance of social
networks in the way Qashqai construct
their daily lives has increased.
Transformations of the last few decades
have brought new channels of
establishing networks in urban areas and
in the state apparatus.
Qashqai population of today is estimated
to be over two millions. The definition of

68. who could be, or is considered Qashqai, is
contextual, multiple, and variable in
time and space. This estimate is based on
a more inclusive definition. There are no
“reliable” statistics on the changing
divisions into settled, nomadic and semi-
nomadic components.
http://qashqai.net/a-short-historical-
overview/
Ιράν 1814

69. ——————————————–
Σημείωση:
Όλοι οι παραπάνω πίνακες ζωγραφικής
απεικονίζουν στιγμιότυπα της
καθημερινότητας των Κασκάι στον Νότιο
Ζάγρο και όλοι έχουν φιλοτεχνηθεί από τον
Μπιτζάν Μπαχαντορί Κασκολί (Bijan
Bahadori Kashkoli / ‫كشكولي‬ ‫بهادري‬ ‫)بیژن‬.
Σχετικά με τον καλλιτέχνη:
http://jomaonline.blogspot.com/2009/01/
dental-extraction-bijan-bahadori.html
—————————-