Ghorbat

ETHNONYMS: Ghurbat, Gurbet, Qorbat

Orientation

Identification. The term "Ghorbat" is applied to several non-food-producing, itinerant populations of fairly low status throughout the Middle East and even beyond, in parts of formerly Soviet Central Asia and the Balkans. These peripatetic populations have usually been dubbed "Gypsies." In prerevolutionary Afghanistan (i.e., prior to 1978) "Ghorbat" was the self-applied ethnonym of a predominantly itinerant and endogamous community of artisans and petty traders; nongroup members were, however, often unaware of this ethnonym and classified this population as "Jat" or, in Pashto-speaking areas of the country, as "Jat." In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, all those who were neither Pashtun, nor Baluch were contemptuously termed "Jat" by members of these two communities. Even in the 1970s in Afghanistan, "Jat" and "Jat" were pejorative terms and subsumed six distinct endogamous, itinerant communities, whose members offered goods and services for sale; the Ghorbat were one such community. The etymology of the term "Ghorbat" is uncertain, but it could derive from the Arabic/Persian words for "stranger," "exile," "the west," or even "poverty."

Location. In the 1970s the Ghorbat lived scattered throughout the major part of Afghanistan; 51 percent of the families were entirely nomadic, and 32 percent were entirely sedentary; 17 percent were partly sedentary—in the summer months, while the men migrated, women and children stayed home. For migration, pack animals had been very largely replaced by state bus transport. The migration pattern of the itinerant Ghorbat was seasonal: in winter, movement was from colder to warmer regions; it followed the agricultural cycles—in particular, the wheat-harvesting cycles of various regions. After the harvest of wheat, millet, and rice, the sieves manufactured by the Ghorbat were required by farming households. Following the harvests, marriages and other life-cycle festivities were performed in rural areas, which increased the demand for cloth, tambourines, and other products sold by the Ghorbat. In former times, before the Afghan government prohibited it, the Ghorbat also practiced bloodletting in autumn; they still offered traditional cures for petty ailments, especially those commonly contracted in winter. There was a shortage of ready cash in the Afghan countryside, and, after the harvests, villagers were in an easier position to pay the Ghorbat for their goods and services with agricultural produce. Some of these products, such as wheat, rice, and raisins, were partly consumed by the Ghorbat over the rest of the year; the excess, as well as products that they could not process themselves—such as cotton—or products that could not be conserved for long—such as cherries—were resold at a profit in urban centers. In the 1980s the location of the Ghorbat within Afghanistan was not known, but some families were reported to have been seen in Pakistan.

Demography. In 1976-1977 the Ghorbat community in Afghanistan consisted of roughly a thousand nuclear families, of which some six hundred were nomadic or seminomadic; average family size was 5.0 individuals. They thus formed the largest nonpastoral, itinerant community in the country.

Linguistic Affiliation. All Ghorbat spoke Qazulagi (also called Ghorbati), their mother tongue, in addition to the two most commonly spoken languages of Afghanistan—local variants of Persian—and sometimes Pashto. Qazulagi shares its basic structure with Persian; its vocabulary and syntax also contain numerous elements of rural Persian as spoken in various parts of Afghanistan. The vocabulary also includes a large number of Persian words incomprehensible to the normal Afghan, owing to a manipulation of phonemes, as well as words of Indic, Arabic, and Turkish origin. Some 60 percent of the vocabulary is of an as yet unknown origin. About one-third of it also has also been recorded by various scholars among other peripatetic communities elsewhere in the Middle East and in Soviet Central Asia.

History

Ghorbat history is based entirely on oral traditions. These stories invariably point to an Iranian origin, and, like the folk histories of many other peoples of the region, that of the Ghorbat posits a link with Sāssānian epic heroes and royalty. The ancestors of the Ghorbat are said to have been gold- and silversmiths who, for political and religious reasons, fled eastward into Afghanistan at a mythical point in time located simultaneously in the Sāssānian era and at the time of the prophet Mohammed. In the 1970s they were Afghan citizens, held identity cards, and were conscripted.

Settlements

The Ghorbat had two basic types of settlements—camps and houses. Nearly half of the itinerant families spent five to seven months in houses and the rest of the year in tents; fewer than 10 percent lived in camps throughout the year. Ghorbat tents were formerly stitched by the women; since the 1960s, however, they have been bought at intervals of three to four years and were, in principle, indistinguishable from the white canvas cloth tents used by other peripatetics, as well as by migrant labor in Afghanistan. Each tent was occupied by a nuclear family and surrounded by a low mud-and-stone wall, which helped keep out rain. Although a camp could include up to twenty-six tents, the commonest were those with two tents; whatever their number, the tents were positioned in such a manner as to leave some space free for communal use in the middle of the site. In all circumstances, the back flap of each tent was visible from at least one other tent. This was a security measure—household goods and equipment were stored in the back quarter of tents. Depending on the size and the duration of the camp, up to seven temporary structures could be constructed by the Ghorbat on their campsites. These were for common use and included a garbage pit, a place for prayer, and sometimes an oven for baking bread. Camping regions did not vary over the years, but precise camping sites depended in rural areas on the availability of fallow fields, as well as on the requirements of a family's eventual pack animals. In the vicinity of towns, government wastelands were used as campsites, but after 1975 camping in these areas was prohibited, and it was increasingly difficult to find suitable sites. Houses inhabited by the Ghorbat usually belonged to a group member. These houses were situated in specific areas of some of the larger towns, and always several families lived in two or more contiguous houses. Architecturally, these houses were not substantially different from neighboring ones occupied by non-Ghorbat.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The itinerant Ghorbat manufactured mainly sieves and tambourines but also bird cages and some traditional cosmetics; the peddling of these products in addition to cloth, haberdashery, trinkets, and certain services ensured their subsistence. Four major types of sieves (with eleven subcategories) and three sizes of tambourines (of three different qualities each) were made. Rattle-drums were also made. The sieves were for agricultural and household use and consisted of a circular frame of willow wood over which thongs of sheep- or goatskin were interwoven; the tambourines were also made of willow and sheep or goat hide. In addition, the Ghorbat often also stretched the skins over clay arm-drums made by potters. The bird cages were made of cedar and either split bamboo or long olive twigs. The entire manufacturing process was manual. Increasingly, industrially manufactured imported sieves tended to reduce the demand in urban kitchens for the traditional flour sieve made by the Ghorbat. In the early 1970s a few young men abandoned these traditional occupations and took lowwage labor, opened small shops, or sold their services as carpenters or other sedentary artisans. An entire section of the long sedentarized Ghorbat of Kabul city worked as animal traders and cobblers and did various other jobs. No Ghorbat owned agricultural land, and the only domestic animals were a few dogs, hens, and, decreasingly, donkeys as pack animals.

Division of Labor. Ghorbat men were in charge of manufacturing sieves, tambourines, and cages. Women were traditionally responsible for peddling these and other goods and services (including, at times, matchmaking and moneylending) from door to door; they sometimes lent a hand in making tambourines too. Women and men shared a large number of household chores.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. The Ghorbat were divided into three major lineages, which were further divided into a total of eighteen patrilineal descent groups. Following the principle of segmentary systems, each of these descent groups was further divided on an average every second generation.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Ghorbat lineages are, on the whole, endogamous. In keeping with the general Middle Eastern pattern, patrilateral parallel-cousin marriages as well as exchange marriages between sibling pairs were preferred, but in reality such unions constituted only about 17 percent and 18 percent respectively of all marriages. In such marriages, bride-price was lower than usual. In accordance with Islam, marriage was considered a contract, and divorce and widow remarriage were permitted, although not frequent. Cases of polygyny were extremely rare. The vast majority of marriages were arranged by the parents, and the residence pattern was virilocal.

Domestic Unit. The nuclear family was the minimal unit of production and consumption. It usually consisted of a married couple with their two unmarried children.

Inheritance. The Ghorbat followed fairly strictly the Islamic laws of inheritance prevalent in Afghanistan regarding the disposal of almost all of a man's personal possessions (clothes, tools, cash, etc.); a woman's jewelry was distributed equally among all her living children. The tent of a Ghorbat was inherited by his child/ren living in it at the time of his death; his widow had the right, if she wished, to continue to live in it—she would then have to be cared for by the inheritor(s). The same applied, in principle, to a house and its parts. The clientele a woman peddlar had built up over the years, and which was the major source of subsistence for her family, was "inherited" equally by all her daughters.

Socialization. Infants and children were raised by both parents (although more by the mother), siblings, and other members of the camp and/or extended family. Among the nomadizing families, physical punishment was never used in child rearing.

Sociopolitical Organization

The Ghorbat community was, in principle, egalitarian, although, in exceptional situations, hierarchical feelings could develop between lineages, and even within lineages between descent groups. There was no superordinate political structure and no permanent or hereditary positions of leadership or decision-making power at any level; the only few commonly recognized offices of authority were temporary and specifically goal oriented.

Social Control and Conflict. Social control was maintained by a value system that placed a premium on compromising, and thus minimizing conflict. Institutions of mutual financial and social help gave additional support to this system. Given the marginal socioeconomic position of the community as a whole, the Ghorbat were also obliged to avoid conflicts with the greater society; this was achieved largely by acquiring locally influential rural and urban clients, who, on occasion, interceded on their behalf and helped in other ways. The go-betweens in such situations of potential conflict with outsiders were usually Ghorbat women.

Religion and Expressive Culture

The Ghorbat were Shia Muslims, except for those in Kandahar, in the south, and some in Mazār-i-Sharīf, in the north, who were Sunni. Apart from Islamic ceremonies, and festivals, they also celebrated Nawroz, which was commonly marked in Afghanistan as New Year's Day (21 March).

Arts. Tattooing was fairly common. The Ghorbat painted their tambourines with various, predominantly floral, motifs and then sometimes decorated them with little jangles or bells.

Death and Afterlife. Beliefs and practices did not diverge basically from general Islamic patterns in the area.

Bibliography

Olesen, Asta (1977). Fra Kaste til Pjalteproletariat? Etnisk erhvervsspecialisering i Østafghanistan, belyst ved udviklingen i kornrenseres, sigtemageres og småhandelsfloks vilkår. Århus: Århus University.

Rao, Aparna (1982). Les Gorbat d'Afghanistan: Aspects économiques d'un groupe itinérant "Jat." Paris: Eds. ADPF/Institut Français d'Iranologie de Téhéran.

Rao, Aparna (1986). "Roles, Status, and Niches: A Comparison of Peripatetic and Pastoral Women in Afghanistan." Nomadic Peoples 21-22:153-177.

Rao, Aparna, and Michael J. Casimir (1988). "How Non-Food-Producing Nomads Obtain their Food: Peripatetic Strategies in Afghanistan." In Coping with Uncertainty in Food Supply, edited by Igor De Garine and G. A. Harrison. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

APARNA RAO