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TurkoTek Discussion Boards

Subject	:	Is it a bird?
Author	:	Marvin Amstey
Date	:	09-11-2000 on 08:27 p.m.

mamstey1@rochester.rr.com Dear Steve, and all, Needless to say, I am familiar with the baluchi piece having slept with it (so to speak), and I have looked at it long and hard. I am not convinced this is a bird. It could be a beast-of-burden with the vertical stripes (best seen in the central white figure) representing the "burden". The shape of the "head" makes me think of a horse or donkey first. (If the weaving came from South America, it looks most like a llama.) Appropos of a string of earlier discussions, one sees what one wishes. Therefore, I would like to see some "hard" evidence that says this is a bird. For example, is there anything written in the ethnographic literature; writings of travelers who talked with 19th c. weavers about design; art history that deals with Eastern Persia? I look forward to the "evidence". Best regards, Marvin

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-11-2000 on 10:35 p.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear Marvin, I certainly can't prove that this is a bird, although a llama seems very unlikely. There are differences in the drawing in different specimens, although they are all obviously variations on the same thing. In some, the tail is unambiguously a tail - the ones on the cover of Boucher's Belouch Woven Treasures, for instance. The length of the neck varies, as does the length of the legs. The projections on the legs, which I interpret to be spurs, are also always present. Thacher's book has a khorjin with a similar layout to the one I show here. The critters on it have stubby legs and Thacher thinks they are ducks. I think ducks are unlikely inhabitants of a desert environment. No example I've ever seen has the legs at the ends of the body, and none has more than two legs. If it's a mammal, I'd expect those characteristics to appear from time to time. The crested head is another consistent feature, and that's not something I'd expect to see on a horse or a donkey. Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Filiberto Boncompagni
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 02:53 a.m.

filibert@go.com.jo Dear Steve, In Boucher's "Baluchi Woven Treasures" there are two plates (#48 and #61) showing the same "bird" of your Salon. Plate 12 (the book dust cover shows a detail of it) has another depiction of birds: they are similar BUT different, a variation as you said. The attribution of the relative rug is late 19 century. Legs and heads are almost identical. On Cyber Rug (may I say it? No commercial promotion...) there is a small Baluch bagface with a bird in the center. It is almost like the ones in your Salon, but the body is much slimmer (diet rooster?) and without hooked diamond-shaped devices in the body. On James Opie’ s "Tribal Rugs", plates 13.8 and 13.9 (pg. 234-235) you can see other birds drawn in a less stylized - or more pictorial way (especially plate 13.8). What do you make of that? Perhaps "your" bird belongs to a sub-tribe. Regards, Filiberto Boncompagni

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Filiberto Boncompagni
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 03:20 a.m.

filibert@go.com.jo Oops I forgot… On "Tribal Rugs" (pg.232-233) plates 13.6 & 13.7 we can see the same animal WITHOUT cockscombs and without spurs - the feet are L shaped, here. Sorry I do not have a scanner. It doesn’t look very much like a bird after all. Filiberto Boncompagni

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Marvin Amstey
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 08:08 a.m.

mamstey1@rochester.rr.com The "crested" head on Steve's bagface looks like ears to me. Regards, Marvin

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 08:38 a.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear Marvin, Maybe they are ears, and maybe the critter is a pack animal. If so, it's an odd pack animal with 4 ears and 2 legs. Something about that is unsettling to me. Regards, Steve Price

Subject	:	Some Images of Belouch Birds(?)
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 06:35 p.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear Everyone, For your convenience, here is an assortment of Belouch birds(?), all in one place. I begin with the one that is in the Salon:

Next, plate 13.7 from Opie's Tribal Rugs:

Then two fairly closely related depictions of birds(?) from Boucher's Belouch Woven Treasures, plates 48 and 61:

Finally, a somewhat different rendition, also in Boucher's book, plate 12:

Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Mark+Hopkins
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 06:40 p.m.

mopkins@shore.net Another consideration: geometric representations in tribal weavings always seem to be pretty literal in their depiction, and I would propose that these things are birds simply because they have two legs. If they were animals they would have, as anyone knows, FOUR legs, a configuration also found in Baluch weavings. Best Mark

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Marvin Amstey
Date	:	09-12-2000 on 07:30 p.m.

mamstey1@rochester.rr.com I like some of the arguments, but I am underwhelmed by evidence that these are birds. Assuming, for a moment that they are birds, what kind of bird? Someone mentioned a duck, and, indeed the Boucher 12 might approach a duck image. However, 3 of the 5 images posted by Steve look like ostrich-type birds to me. I don't think there were any ostrich or emu types in Eastern Persia or Afghanistan! Any other ideas? Regards, Marvin

Subject	:	Software Glitch
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-13-2000 on 06:15 p.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear People, The mysterious glitch that periodically replaces everything in one of our active threads with a single character, a vertical line, struck this thread this morning. I had a backup of the file containing it, but there were a few messages posted after I made the backup that ae simply gone. The most significant one was from John Howe, with a series of points related to the tests of truth used in generating the assertions from which the Salon proceeded. I apologize to all, especially to John. Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	R. John Howe
Date	:	09-13-2000 on 07:29 p.m.

Hi Steve - Actually a post of mine "getting lost" might be the most appropriate thing that might happen it from the perspective some quarters of our discussion. But let me try to recap a bit. I was not alluding to anything approaching proof but was triggered by your restatement of your core question to ask about the anthropological perspective your were suggesting. It seemed to me that it was known in your examples that the Africans who made the items emphasized and de-emphasized certain parts of the body in their sculpures for reasons known in their culture. And we apparently have access to them on the basis of the Africans own reports. The program recommended by your question seems similar but distinctive in that it appears to suggest that we, non-natives of the Balouch culture (an interesting notion in its own right), examine these birds and see whether there are similar emphases and de-emphases visible to us and to suggest what they might mean. This program seems much more problematic since the emphases and de-emphases in these "birds" may be neither fully visible to us as non-natives and we are likely to mistake any meanings assigned to them seriously. It is an old debate in anthropology whether a "verstehen" perspective must be adopted to understand such meanings in any culture or whether outside observers can say useful things in such areas. It is certainly true that we are seriously handicapped in such interpretation if we do not have access to the "meanings" (if any) that the Balouch weavers were expressing in their drawing. And unless I am mistaken we usually do not. I also said that if such analysis were taken in another direction it might briefly explore the differences visible in two distinct seeming renditions of the "tauk naska" gul in Central Asian weavings. Since "tauk" is said to mean "chicken" these figures are also apparently intended as birds. But most Turkmen tribes draw this figure in side profile with two crested heads, one forward, one to the rear of a connecting body and entirely without tails. The "Karakalpak" version of what seems to be this same device has only one forward head and a "tail" that looks much like the rear heads on the other rendtion, since it is held "gayly" over the back of the creature. Perhaps the Western Turkmen were so "heady" that they denigrated "tails," while the Karakalpaks were less heady but more insistent that "tails" were important. This distinction might be described in somewhat more colorful language but I have resisted. Third, I suggested that this sort of analysis could also be pursued with regard to the lions often found on SW Persian rugs. While they vary quite a bit, they do have some interesting emphases in their features, e.g., some have human faces. They seems a fairly rich ground for speculation of this sort. Finally, I apologized for not being able to provide images of these instances since my rug books are in boxes thru November. Regards, R. John Howe

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-13-2000 on 07:45 p.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear John, Thanks for restoring some of your thoughts. They take this thread fairly far afield in many directions, and I followed one line in a new thread entitled something like, "The epistemological problem." Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-14-2000 on 06:15 a.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear People, This thread vanished again last night, and I've replaced it again from a backup. I don't know the reason for this bizarre phenomenon, but I assume there's corrupted code in it someplace that causes it to happen. My apologies again, Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	Yon Bard
Date	:	09-14-2000 on 08:34 a.m.

Steve, I think it's the Big Baluch Bird taking his revenge on those who doubt His identity! Regards, Yon

Subject	:	RE:Is it a bird?
Author	:	R. John Howe
Date	:	09-15-2000 on 06:37 a.m.

Yon - Could be. It seems to happen just after I post. John Howe