Steve Price

Hi People

If a group of 18th century Turkmen got caught in a time warp and landed in the 21st century in North America, how completely could they come to understand the artifacts that have special significance to us? Let's make them unable to interact with any of us except to observe us on the street, illiterate, and without access to TV. That is, their information about our artifacts can only come from seeing the artifacts themselves and their physical arrangement on people, and from noticing what kinds of people (men, women, children are the "kinds") have them. They're intelligent and creative.

Just for starters, consider two categories of artifacts that are common and that have significance in our society. One is crucifixes hung as a pendant on necklaces worn by some people. The other is gold rings worn on the third finger of the left hand by some people. To what depth can they figure out the meanings each of these has in our culture? How?

This, of course, is the mirror image of us trying to understand the artifacts of 18th century Turkmen entirely on the basis of information intrinsic to those artifacts plus a handful of photos and drawings made by western visitors.

Regards

Steve Price

Paul Smith

Hi Steve--

I too was intrigued by this reversal, proposed in another thread.

It may seem like a stretch, but I think that I have experienced time-warp meetings of this sort in getting to know a Native American shaman with whom I shared an office for several years at a university. I bring it up because I was constantly struck not only by his being surrounded by objects of great significance that he could only with difficulty explain to me, but that our ways of knowing were fundamentally different, so that even the questions I had and ways I was inclined to seek out information were usually irrelevant and often amusing to him. I think that these encounters were not unlike the cultural chasm that would separate us from 18th-c (or even c.1920) Turkmen.

Michael Raysson asked about magic in the other thread, and in general, based on my experiences with my office mate, I would think that without a doubt in my mind that there is "powerful medicine" (as my colleague would say) woven into these trappings, ensis, and indeed a great deal of other tribal weavings that we find so intoxicating. But even with 18th-c Turkmen standing right in front of us, I doubt that we could get a clear picture of this magic might be, what a given design in a particular weaving--which itself is likely to be created in a ritual environment and thus only the physical evidence of a very complicated act--"means." Lacking anything like this kind of source, I think it is still reasonable to intuit that there is great meaning, powerful medicine, and even magic in these things, but it strikes me as hubris of a peculiarly Western sort that we could grasp precisely what that meaning/medicine/magic is.

I think a good modern analogy is the American tradition of carving a jack-o-lantern at Halloween. In November several years ago I was asked by a person newly arrived from Russia what a jack-o-lantern "means." I was utterly bewildered. I said, "I don't know, we just make them." He said, "No, no, you take this squash from the harvest, carve a face into it, and put a candle in it to animate the spirit--this is some pre-Christian harvest ritual, of course." He continued to press me further, to reveal the mysteries of the jack-o-lantern, and seemed sincerely disappointed that I didn't know more about it. He never accepted that most of the eyes were triangles because they were easier to cut that way.

Regards,

Paul

Filiberto Boncompagni

Paul,

I completely agree with what you write above... Especially the part Lacking anything like this kind of source, I think it is still reasonable to intuit that there is great meaning, powerful medicine, and even magic in these things, but it strikes me as hubris of a peculiarly Western sort that we could grasp precisely what that meaning/medicine/magic is.
Regards,

Filiberto

Steve Price

Hi All

Amen!

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

Hi All

Of course it would depend on exactly which kind of group were transported in the time warp - but hybris or not - I would think that they were very strange and lazy humans if they wouldn't by any means desperately try to interpretate the strangeness they had landed in. Curiosity is a fundamental human drive.

A group of 18th century Turkemen would probably make tons and tons of misinterpretations in the set-up Steve puts up. But perhaps the analog is not quite fair:
I suppose we agree that the rugs were the main visual expression in the Turkmen society. Then if we should time warp some Turkmen into our own times main visual expression, then we shouldn't dump them on a random street, but perhaps exactly in front of a TV
They might of not be able at first to even see the screen, and probably wouldn't be able to understand the fundamental narrative structure, perhaps only seeing loads and loads of images mixed on top of each other. But certainly if they took real interest in the stuff, and perhaps started collecting the TV-shows, or even started discussionforums about it - i would say they would have a pretty good chance of getting, perhaps not to the truth, but to some kind of understanding of our culture.

best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Martin

You make good points, and although most people don't have anything approaching your level of curiosity (see footnote), some do. That's why I specified that the visitors were intelligent and creative.

I selected two artifacts (wedding ring and crucifix necklace) because both have considerable informational content in our culture, that content isn't obvious from their appearance or physical properties, and both can be seen in situ on any American street or in nearly any building the visitor might enter. I don't think access to a TV would help much with interpreting either of them or even making the visitors aware of their common occurrence. I agree that TV access could get them to a reasonable understanding of our culture and customs.

Regards

Steve Price

Footnote: Although I'm not a Christian, I've read a little about Christianity, especially its historical roots. Conversations with Christian friends, colleagues and students make it clear to me that most intelligent, well educated American Christians have little understanding (or curiosity about) the historical roots of their deeply held beliefs. This isn't intended to be a criticism of them or of their religion, but simply an observation that suggests that it's unlikely that most 17th or 18th century Turkmen knew or cared much about the roots on which their beliefs were based. I find it more than slightly ironic that some ruggies think that by studious attention to Turkmen artifacts they can reach an in depth understanding of Turkmen beliefs and of the roots of those beliefs.

Please note: this is not going to turn into a debate about the merits of any religion.

Martin Andersen

Hi Steve

I certainly agree that probably also a lot of our contemporary wouldn't actually know or care about the symbolic content or roots of a ring and a cross. But that do not mean that the roots and content are not inherent - and cultural and historic facts. Thats the beauty of collective cultural expressions, people can carry them, interact with them and pass them on - in a multitude of different levels. Collective culture is not necessarily dependend on self-awareness.

I still think what your are giving our time-warped Turkmen a too limited material with the ring and the croos if they should have any chance of specific interpretation, at least compared to the totality of the rugs or the TV

But perhaps they could come to some general conclusion, perhaps something like that our religious beliefs are based on values (the gold) of eternity (the ring) and a focus-point between heaven and earth (the horisont and vertical of the cross). A conclusion they would of course formulate in their own Turkmen vocabulary (and not in my broken english). They would of course be both wrong and right, and hopefully they would suspect they were both.

best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Martin

Those artifacts are examples in our culture that seem to have much in common with the artifacts (include motifs, layouts, designs, color etc. in the term "artifact") in Turkmen culture that we try to understand. And even without TV, I've given the itinerant Turkmen much more opportunity to gather evidence than we have when we try to learn about their artifacts.

I see things pretty much the same way as you do: put into an alien culture with very limited information sources, our itinerant Turkmen would learn some things, miss a lot of things, have many errors mixed in with what they learned and no way to even know that those are errors. What I am trying to show by this is that it's probably self-deception to believe that we can do much better in our quest to learn to understand Turkmen cultural artifacts. Many ruggies believe they not only can do much better, but that they can achieve nearly perfect communion with the Turkmen weaver of some artifacts and have done so. I don't begrudge them their beliefs, but such beliefs don't withstand any objective test of truth with which I'm familiar. Incidentally, I hold lots of such beliefs myself (see Footnote), but I recognize that my faith in their correctness isn't much of a reason for someone else to abandon his and adopt mine.

Regards

Steve Price

Footnote: Among my library of beliefs that don't withstand any objective test of truth is that everyone else has such a library, too.

Martin Andersen

Hi Steve

I know of course that any interpretation in the cultural field by definition also reflects itself and its own time and values into its subject. But on the other hand the Turkmens were not alians from outer space. The way they organized their society, culture and religion may of course differ in a multitude of nuances from other societies, but personally I don't believe that the basic structures in which these social phenomenons are organized are arbitrary and random. We have sources, and the possibility of looking up comparative material from a lot of neighboring cultures, and we have rather good access to their main visual expression - the rugs. Compared to looking at other perhaps more isolated or older cultures, I would say we have a rather good material on which to interprete. We shouldn't underestimate what we already know.

It is not that I am saying I have special insight in this (I am certainly only an amateur in this field) but in principal I would say that serious research should be able to move further than it has done in the Turkmen area. Hopefully perhaps one day the Turkmens themselves will fell obliged to take this up. Well time will tell if it possible, the rugs will stay here some centuries more, if we keep taking care of them. And for me personally a part of taking care of them is also trying to understand them beyond their apparent aesthetic appeal, even though I may fail in my attempts.

best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Martin

There has been serious research in the field of Turkmen ethnohistory done by serious anthropologists. Peter Andrews comes to mind as an example of one. His wife is Turkmen (Yomud, I believe), which probably gives him easier access to parts of their society than others have. There is some serious scholarly work on the question of whether motifs crossed from one tribe to another mostly through intermarriage or mostly by diffusion of items between groups. I'm sure people like Peter Andrews could give us a pretty long list of subjects that have also received attention, and it probably wouldn't take a heroic effort to find lots of original literature in any university library. On the other hand, like all academic professional writing, the language is full of jargon with little meaning to outsiders. Academics who study central Asian ethnohistory or material culture don't publish their original work in HALI or as Salons on Turkotek. I guess that my point is there's a lot more known about the Turkmen than what any of us knows. But, I doubt that it includes the ability to read motifs, layouts or knowledge of their origins. At least, I can't think of any ways those things could be known.

Regards

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

Hi Steve

I must admit that I haven't tried reading up on the academic anthropological material, which I am sure your are right does exist, and I am sure your are right that their main focus is not the focus we discuss here.

But I would think that a transversal study including f.ex anthropology, semiotics (with a perspective on signs and art), linguistics, and history should be able to open up a multitude of interesting aspect of the rugs as a language of signs. The result maybe wouldn't be regarded hard edge science from an anthropologist point of view, but compared to much art-history (which in its nature perhaps is more interpretative) it certainly could have a potential of a serious academic study, based on the material we have. If I where running a university in Turkmenistan I sure would start up a department with a program on this focus

For me Turkoman Studies I by Pinner and Franses is an example which shows how much material could be followed up in both specific analyzes and broad interpretations. And how this material could be disseminated beyond academic circles. And if ones goes trough the archive on this forum the topics are piling up.

Well I might be rug-centric, and perhaps there are other forums around, f.ex philatelic, were people could have the same crazy ambitions on behalf of their hobby
But still I think we shouldn't restrict ourself from trying to understand the rugs by whatever means we have. And Steve I of course know that we agree on that.
It is probably when the esoteric or subjective readings sets in that we have rather different levels of tolerance. Personally I want rule out that optics that differs totally from my own, or general consensus might help us see things that are otherwise overlooked.

But anyway, it sure is always an interesting challenge to have an exchange of viewpoints with you.

best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Martin

There are three universities in Turkmenistan, and it would be astonishing if none of them have departments in which Turkmen history, ethnography, arts, etc. are major foci. Their publications are a problem for us, though, because of the fact that the country was part of the USSR for so long. First, because they will almost surely be in Russian. George O'Bannon was able to deal with that problem (he edited Moshkova's book), but most of us can't. Second, because the organization of scholarly activity in the USSR had some peculiarities that require great caution in evaluating publications from Soviet institutions. I can go into some of that if it's relevant, but I'm not sure it is.

Regards

Steve Price

Steve Price

Hi Martin

Here's a link to an article in Journal of Anthropological Archeology. It took me hours to get a handle on it. The take home message for me is that the recurrent discussions on Turkotek about transfer of motifs from one Turkmen group to another has been the subject of serious scholarship, and there's plenty of room for disagreement among the professionals who've studied it.

Regards

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

Hi Steve

Thanks for the link. Has the article from Anthropological Archeology been discussed at Turkotek before? I have seen it some years ago, not sure if it was here. It is very interesting (and rather difficult reading), very ambitious also in its attempt on establishing (at least as I understand it) a new methodology by directly crossing terminology from biology with anthropology. Not sure but perhaps its a bit more ambitious on its experimenting with the methode than with its subject?

For me the academic dream team would still be something like anthropology, history, art history, linguistics and semiotics. (and it would of course be wonderful if they were able to conclude and summarize in a language that also reached outside the academic), well perhaps, as you suggest, it is out there already working on new perspectives.

By the way I am contemplating on a art study trip to central asia, perhaps Uzbekistan + Turkmenistan in 2011 (if only I can get my students convinced its also relevant for them). If you, or anyone else, has any rug-interested english speaking contacts out there that you would like share I sure would be very grateful (this is of course a topic for another forum section)

best Martin

edit: I forgot someone in my dream team, someone with precise capacities in the technical aspects of weaving (of course Marla Mallet comes to mind, even though I suppose she is not much in favor of the speculative aspects of interpretation)

Marla Mallett

Hi Martin,

I'd love to be part of your Dream Team. I've never been in Turkmenistan, but many years ago when I began gadding about in the backwoods of Anatolia, I had endless questions for the nomadic and semi-nomadic Turkic weavers I visited--those who were still producing ethnographic weavings, rather than products for the market. From my perspective at that time as a textile artisan with about 20 years of studio experience, I felt that many of the assumptions expressed in rug books about tribal weavers' attitudes toward their work were just not believable. I was eager to share both technical and creative experiences with the women I met--the nitty-gritty details and attitudes that folks don't normally articulate. I found absolutely NO surprises, only continual affirmation that our attitudes were so similar--on questions of creativity, personal artistic development, quality judgments, and the importance of the work, as well as attitudes of others in the community toward the work. Although I also tried my best to uncover meaningful clues to the importance or significance of specific motifs, I elicited only occasional satisfactory answers in that regard--only occasional tidbits to nourish Speculative Interpretation.

Best,
Marla

Steve Price

Hi Marla

Although I also tried my best to uncover meaningful clues to the importance or significance of specific motifs, I elicited only occasional satisfactory answers in that regard--only occasional tidbits to nourish Speculative Interpretation.

There are two pretty obvious possible explanations.
1. The weavers know a secret woven language, never revealed outside the local community. The consequence of violating the code of secrecy is public loomotomy, which is why the secret has not been shared even once in millennia.
2. The weavers have no idea what most motifs mean or what they meant in the past, and find the question odd enough to wonder why anyone would ask. A few will tell you what they think you want to hear.

Regards

Steve Price

Paul Smith

Hello, all--

Steve, I agree with you on your second explanation, though I wouldn't rule out a less extreme version of #1 with isolated communities. They could tell you what it meant, but you wouldn't understand, or perhaps they have ideas or feelings about the design that they would have trouble articulating. But the more likely second explanation, reversed in the spirit of this thread, is very close to the jack-o-lantern analogy I gave awhile back. I think my Russian friend was right in his analysis of our Halloween ritual; if I agree with him I am not entirely "telling him what he wants to hear," but seeing that he had a point. If I disagree because I have adequate personal reasons for making a jack-o-lantern, or I have religious views that make his explanation uncomfortable (I'm thinking Islam for the Turkmen here, or Christianity in conflict with the pre-Christian Celtic Samhain traditions for the pumpkin), that doesn't mean that the outsider isn't onto something. My personal guess is that weaving cultures had very complex relationships with the designs they used.

When I was learning traditional Turkish music from "city" musicians, they knew all the "makams" and their associated qualities and characteristics, but when I heard the same musical ideas in the improvisations of rural musicians and asked if they were playing "makam nihavend" or whatever, they invariably laughed and said they didn't know anything about makam, they "just played." From the other side of Central Asia, a Kirghiz musician I knew would play beautiful improvisations on her komuz before she sang a song, not unlike the "taksim" the Turkish musicians would play, but when I asked her about it, she wouldn't acknowledge that it was part of the music, it was just getting her mood "in tune" with the song. That I perceived connections between these traditions is a reflection of my own agenda, no doubt shaped significantly by my own music culture, and it is very difficult to ascertain its relevance to the music cultures I was learning from. If you hear skilled recitation of the Qur'an, it may strike you as being musical, but it isn't music and it could get you into trouble to say otherwise.

Paul

Marla Mallett

Steve,

My point was that IDEATIONAL CONTENT in this visual art form has seemed of minimal importance to the tribal weavers I've gotten to know over the years in Turkey--with few exceptions. At least compared with other aspects of their work. Inquiring about literal meanings incorporated in their products came to seem as nonsensical as pressing a 19th century landscape painter for the "meaning" of objects in his work, or a cubist painter to explain the "symbolism" in his imagery. Aspects of the formal expression seemed paramount with these weavers in nearly every instance--and ALWAYS with the best and most serious artists. Less talented women who tended to be mere copyists occasionally pointed out small personal amulets in their kilims or rugs.

Best,
Marla

Martin Andersen

Hi All

A possibility #3 could perhaps be that they had no, or only a very vague, external language outside their creative practice by which they could re-articualte it into something translatable and comprehensible in our terminology. That is certainly not uncommon in non-verbal artistic practice and collective culture. And I would suspect this especially in cultures which are being eroded, as so many have by western massculture.

But, as with the cross and ring, that dosen't mean that there is no possibility of inherent cultural, symbolic historic content which could be interpreted beyond the language, knowledge or awareness of either the person how wear the cross, or the weaver who weaves the rug. Collective culture is by definition deeper than the individuals who lives it.
And of course interpreting it is not living it, and in that sense I agree with Paul Smith that we will never get the precisely living grasp of the possible original content by interpreting.
But If we are talking Turkmen rugs, we are of course talking a culture which is gone, and which content have been eroded for more than a century. I don't think it will helps us putting up a weave copying Gulls. And personally I am not quite satisfied by just agreeing that the rugs are mysterious and beautiful, but I of course accept If others are.

But who knows perhaps there is something in the tidbits still around which could open up new perspectives. When it comes to interpreting signs and meaning I would say the devil is often in the detail - or perhaps in the tidbits.

best Martin

Steve Price

Hi Marla

That's pretty much what i meant by possibility number 2; I guess I didn't express it clearly. Possibility number 1 has some adherents, but I don't take it seriously. My thinking is that if Yomud women had a secret language that they used in their weavings, Mugul Andrews would have told Peter. He would have told the world, and he'd be rich and even more famous than he is.

Regards

Steve Price

Martin Andersen

Hi Paul

I think you have some very fine analogs from the music (and re-reading your post I think we agree a lot)

best Martin