Steve Price

Hi Louis

Two motif types that are just about universal in folk and tribal iconography are birds and flowers. Your essay mentions a number of possible reasons for this. One is obvious; aesthetics. Many birds and flowers have beautiful colors and graceful forms. Another is the relationship to fertility and to rebirth of the world every spring.

Birds, as you point out, can also symbolize a connection between the earth and the heavens. I'd add another thing: they can do something no man can do except in myths, they can fly. Many animals do things that humans can do, but are much better at it. Some are stronger, faster, more fecund, better natural killing machines, and so on. But flying is something humans can't even do badly, and it takes little imagination to see how much being able to fly would enhance a society's ability to find and capture food and to overcome its enemies.

Regards

Steve Price

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Louis & Steve,
Highly interesting thread!

It is perhaps a mere coincidence, but another branch of the Oghuz, the Konya Seldjuks, wove some rather similar birds in their rugs, about 6 centuries earlier.





I am not aware of any explanation accepted by all experts. A rather popular one is that the Seldjuk bird is an eagle. More fitting for a victorious clan than a chicken, of which however the bird has the profile.

Regards
Pierre

Steve Price

Hi Pierre

Just a few words in defense of chickens: fighting cocks are valued in many parts of the world, including central Asia. I'm told that they were a symbol of authority in some Belouch groups, and the birds on Belouch bird bags may be fighting cocks. The crest, fan tail and spurs are prominent in their drawing.

Eagles have symbolized power in many cultures. Although the bald eagle beat out the turkey as the USA bird symbol in the 18th century, it was supposedly a very close contest.

Regards

Steve Price

Louis Dubreuil

Bonsoir Pierre

The motifs you show here are from borders of "pseudo-kufic" rugs from the seldjukid period (TIEM museum). It is not easy to see birds in those shapes that are very stylized and geometric. In other ex from the same period one can see with a great imagination some double-headed eagles (???). But it is very difficult to see anything very realistic in those geometric and quite abstract motifs. The geometry of the design of those carpets has its origin in the islamic decoratif art which is purely geometrical without any realistic rendering. In some ex of seldjuk carpets one can see hooked medalions that are the only geometric forms that can be interpreted as "animal heads medalions", following OPIE. But the meaning of these medalions as "animal" forms was likely forgotten of the weavers, this was just for them an old traditional geometric motifs.

A suivre

Frederik May

Hi Louis,
I really ejoyed reading your essay. It was very informative to me. The idea of the coherence between the engsi and sufism in Central-Asia is fascinating.
Do you think one could construct a link between sufism, the expansion of islam and the geral design structur of the engsis as well, which had let to the idea that engsis were prayer carpets? I am talking of the vertical pole and the center panel. We don´t see those on many Yomut or Ersari engsis. Maybe these are part of the pre-islamic tradition. In short form: Did sufis ad a prayer rug design to door carpets?

Regards

Frederik

Steve Price

Hi Frederik

Richard Wright's research report on the subject is probably the best account of what we know about how ensis were used and, especially, what the bases of that knowledge are. Here's a link to his article. He points out that at least until the late 19th century, Turkmen didn't practice the traditional form of Islam: they built no mosques, did not perform ablutions, and didn't use prayer rugs.

It's not clear how the belief that ensis were prayer rugs came about, although you don't have to travel very far into the past to find fairly wide acceptance of the notion that any rug with an arched form at one (or both!) ends was woven for Muslim prayer. My guess is that this is the route through which ensis came to be called prayer rugs.

There is historical evidence for Suni interaction with Turkmen, most likely including some influence, as Louis points out in his essay. As Louis also emphasizes, whether that influence included affecting the motifs on ensis is a matter of conjecture, but it is plausible that it did.

We also ran a Salon on ensis about 7 years ago. It's also a good source of information, but doesn't deal with Louis' main topic, the origin and meaning of the kush motif. A link to that Salon is here.

Regards

Steve Price