The Kirgiz Falconers

WANG YING

THE majestic grasslands, rugged deserts and snow-capped mountains of western Xinjiang have been home to Chinas largest community of ethnic Kirgiz for centuries. A Muslim Turkic people, Chinas Kirgiz are the linguistic and ethnic brethren of the Central Asian Kirgiz that constitute the majority population of the bordering Kyrgyz Republic.

Herding and hunting have always been the traditional means of livelihood for the nomadic Kirgiz.

In the warmer months, Kirgiz would move their herds from one patch of land to another in the perennial hunt for fresh pasture. In winter, hunting became the main occupation. Day in, day out, hunting parties headed out into the Gobi, a barren desert of shifting sands, rugged outcrops and low shrubs. Hunts featured a twofold attack: mounted Kirgiz men flushed out game, leaving whirlwinds of dust in their wake, while trained hawks prepared for an aerial kill.

Falconry is believed to have originated in either Mesopotamia or Mongolia and China some 4,000 years ago. Today, it is an essential part of Kirgiz traditions and culture. In Akqi, a frontier town near the Chinese-Kyrgyzstan border in the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, almost every Kirgiz family keeps a hawk. As they watch over their grazing flocks, locals take time out to train hawks on nearby Kokshal and Karateke Mountains and along the Toshigan River.

The hawk variety on the Pamir Plateau is medium-sized and gray with short, rounded wings. The hawk joins hounds as essential companions to local hunters.

I arrived at Yalangqi, a village a few miles from Akqi Town, in late winter, and found accommodation with the Biekes. Makar Bieke, 50, and his seven brothers are said to be among the best horsemen and hunters in the region. Makar tells me his eldest brother, now in his 60s, can still ride like the wind with his hawk firmly perched on his shoulder.

Although traditional lifestyles are still very much alive in the remote Kirgiz community, modern amenities have trickled in, which ensure locals have access to the world around them. Almost every household has a motorcycle, and some have cars. A few years ago, a bridge was built over the river that lies between Yalangqi Village and Akqi Town, cutting the motorbike ride between them from four hours to 30 minutes.

Local homes are small, detached cab-ins made of adobe and hay. The design is a homage to the nomads traditional dwelling, the tent. Adobe and hay dont support large structures, and the smaller rooms of the cabins inhibit heat loss and are more resistant to strong winds. Makars cabin has three bedrooms, the eastern one for guests. A brick bed takes much of the space in the room and is covered with an ornately embroidered felt blanket.

While locals have their own unofficial timezone, the official time in Xinjiang is still on par with Beijing, and the first rays of sunshine dont strike the window until close to nine oclock.

My hostess had already made breakfast by the time I woke up to my first full day in the village. I was shown to the bathroom. Though running water had been piped into the village several years ago, locals havent forgotten their past, and value every drop. For washing hands and faces, taps are never left running; residents prefer to pour a small amount of water into their palms and scrub. Not a milliliter is wasted.

Local breakfast is tea and homemade bread. Makars eldest daughter Guli served our tea and cut the bread. In Kirgiz homes, its the respected role of the women of a household to prepare food and attend to the dining table. Makar has four children, but Guli is the only one who lives with her parents. She works in the town, while her younger siblings attend a boarding school.

Soon after breakfast Gulis aunt, cousin and another cousins wife come to help her with some embroidery work to be done for her dowry. Every Kirgiz family has a slim stand for needlework beside a brick bed. Embroidery is a lot of work: the chosen pattern is first chalked on a piece of cardboard before being impressed onto a black fabric. These marksare then redrawn with yogurt smeared on the tip of a slender rod. Once the yogurt dries, the cloth is placed on the stand, and stitching begins with the yogurt lines as guidelines. The thread is tied after each piercing through the foundation fabric, creating a bulging effect on the surface.

As Guli and her visitors concentrated on the intricate stitching, her mother baked Nang, the local variety of the circular flatbread found throughout the Muslim world. It is the Kirgiz peoples staple food. Villagers bake a big batch every two or three days. My hostess took some dough which had been left to rise for several hours, and fashioned it into small buns. She then pressed the buns flat and placed them in a flat-bottomed wok over a pit in the earthen floor. She lit a brick of dry cattle dung – a popular, convenient fuel source among nomadic people everywhere. Half an hour later the bread was ready.

To honor me – the guest from far away – Makars extended family, including his 83-year-old mother, converged on his house for a lunch banquet. It was the weekend, and children were back from school. Makar kissed the cheek of his seven-year nephew after shaking hands with him, a traditional greeting among Kirgiz men.

Talk at the lunch table soon drifted to falconry. The Bieke brothers told me the bird of prey locals used for hunting– we lazily call it a hawk – actually has as many as 60 sub-species. The differences between them are subtle nuances, such as wrinkles on their claws, stripes on beaks and plumage or the shape of feather. The males are generally smaller than females. Older birds are darker, while younger ones have white down under their wings. The birds live a long time. Their life span ranges from 40 to 60 years.

Hawks nest in the mountains around Akqi. Kirgiz people climb to their nests on the rocky bluffs to capture fledglings, but take no more than two in each brood to ensure they dont decimate the local population.

Trapping is another way to get the bird. A captive hawk is tethered to a stump with a rabbit on a clamp near it. Seeing the decoy making attempts to capture the rabbit lures hawks flying by to swoop down at the bait. They are caught as they reach it.

A third and arguably crueler method is to erect four poles in the desert. A green snare is set up between them, with a rabbit or another small animal tucked beneath. A rope is tied to the baits leg, and a man in camouflage squatting nearby holds its other end. The rabbit leaps as the hunter pulls on its leg, and the movement catches hawks attention. As the King of the Birds discerns no colors other than white and black, it cant see the green net and doesnt know its there until it becomes entangled.

“Manning – accustoming a hawk to the presence of men – is a critical period in hawk training,” says Makar. In his backyard is a swing-like installation hung between two trees. A recently caught wild bird is tethered to this swinging perch for seven to ten days. During this time it gradually grows used to seeing humans, and its new master often approaches the bird to build trust.

“Having the bird tethered to such a swaying perch for several days is to prepare it for the jolts of horse riding in future hunting trips,” Makar explains. “If it cannot perch firmly on a galloping horse, it wont be able to pounce on its targets swiftly and precisely when instructed.”

Hawks are smart and courageous; falconers should be too. Only men who can dominate a hawk earn control over them. Once a bird detects apprehension or hesitation in the trainers eyes it wont bow its head to him.

To ensure a hawk remains fit, its diet must be closely monitored. The bird cannot be fed till full, or it will flee. Hunger, to some extent, keeps it mentally sharp and alert. To decide how much food is needed for each meal, the trainer must learn to understand the birds eye expressions and examine its posture and weight. Felt has to be added to the diet regularly to promote excretion of parts of the animals prey, such as chickens claws and hares teeth, which can cause indigestion.

A hawk can eat several kilos of mutton a day, and this requires big financial outlays from the families that keep them. The 60 or so falconers in Akqi receive a monthly subsidy of RMB 500 from the town government as an incentive to keep the ethnic tradition alive. But its not enough, and they still have to top up the food budget with money from their own pockets.

An adult falcon weighs eight or nine kilograms – a big load for its carrier during hours-long hunting excursions. Kirgiz hunters have a bracket on their horse saddles on which they rest their rights arms – the hawks perch during the ride. For gamehawking, horses must be hardy, speedy and agile. Horses lacking endurance dont cut it in the rough mountainous terrain where Kirgiz hunters roam for up to days at a time on each journey. Makar has 16 horses, only four of which are suitable for gamehawking.

During my five-day stay in the village Makar and his brothers hunted three times. Both riders and horses were in their traditional best for the missions. Men were clad in hats rimmed with fox furs and heavy woolen overcoats woven from camel hair, and their steeds were covered in brilliantly emblazoned rugs, hand-embroidered by their ownerswives.

Together with seven local men with five hawks, I headed across the village toward the Toshigan River valley. A dust storm smeared the skyline, and the clack of hoofs treading on pebbles on the shore echoed around the great emptiness of the barren land.

The rivers watermark was much lower than its summer peak, but was still at the height of a horses belly. Fording the river, my horse stumbled several times, and my heart jumped into my mouth. Mid-river, the sight of the raging rapids made me dizzy with fear. I forced myself to stare at the riverbank in front of us, and my riding partner helped me steer my horse onward.

As our horses ambled down the valley the head of our party suddenly signaled us to stop. He had spotted a fox whose fur was almost indistinguishable from the reddish rocks around it. It couldnt fool experienced hunters, but in the end it was too high above us on the craggy bluff, and sneaked away before we reached it via a trail on a milder slope. We went on with our search, and soon came across a pheasant. We spurred our horses when we were close enough, and the hawk resting on Makars arm shot into the air, swooped and snapped it up.

In old times hunting was the main food source for nomadic Kirgiz tribes. Tribes began settling into more sedentary modes of living as modernization and industrialization have swept the steppe lands over the last couple of decades.

Hunting these days is more about fun than survival, and trips are organized at celebratory events like weddings and family gatherings. Though hawks are no longer relied upon to bring in food, they remain close friends of the Kirgiz. By keeping falconry alive, this desert people continue to pass on their culture of respect for natures creatures.