Eric Trowbridge

I have an old, 7' x 8'6" Chobash. This piece's wool and colors are very nice (the second picture represents them better than the first one), so I assume it dates to the last quarter of the 19th century or so.






I've washed it, replaced the selvages, and secured the ends.

I've been able to find only a couple of comparable examples online and in books since I purchased the rug. Kizil Ayak pieces are much more common. Moreover, I haven't been able to learn much about the Chobash - not even Parsons says much about them. I've read that, at least before 1979, they live near the Kizil Ayak (which probably explains the similarities in the two groups' work), and that they might be a Chodor offshoot. And, that's about it. So, I was wondering what site visitors might know about the tribe and its weavings. Thanks in advance for any insight you may have.

Steve Price

Hi Eric

Nice rug; pretty clearly from someplace in Ersariworld. You seem fairly sure that it's Chobash (I've seen a number of spellings). What are the identifying characteristics? I'm not expressing doubt, just curious.

Regards

Steve Price

Eric Trowbridge

Steve:

The guls. Eiland's "Oriental Carpets" (the one source I can name off the top of my head) shows an illustration of the gul and labels it a Chobash - though there are no Chobash rugs in the book. I've also seen a handful of contemporary Ersari Cultural Survival Project pieces with very similar guls and borders that are sold as historic reproductions of old Chobash rugs.

Chobash = Chub Bash. Those are the two ways I've seen of spelling it.

Regards,

Eric

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Eric,
For whatever it is worth, S. Azadi, citing a certain W. Merk, claims that the Chubbash are a part of the Ulu Tapa clan of the Ersari.
Nice rug!
Regards
Pierre
WAMRI. S. Azadi. Carpets from Turkmenistan.
Primary source W. Merk. 1855
Secondary source: Historical and political Gazetteer of Afghanistan. Vol. 4. p.83.

Eric Trowbridge

Pierre:

Thanks for the info.

After trying to do some research, it seems that the Chobash are pretty obscure. I've had almost no luck finding rugs like mine or even ones with a Chobash attribution. I've located only two examples that aren't contemporary reproductions (not that there are many reproductions, either).

Rippon Boswell auctioned this one (dated to the mid-19th c.) several years ago.



Sotheby's auctioned this one (dated to the 1880s) several years ago.



The borders on both resemble those on Kizil Ayak pieces, but the guls are almost identical to the ones on mine.



So, I guess these types of rugs aren't very common?

Chuck Wagner

Hi Eric,

It's an interesting contrast to move into the mid-twentieth century and see the continuing evolution of motifs - in this case, the morphing of the borders. This piece was purchased in the early 1980's while I was in Saudi Arabia; the dealer's father owned a modest hotel in Kabul and this was in one of the lobby alcoves. It is known to have been in the family since the WWII period, and it definitely shows all the elements of a modern rather than more traditional (as is yours) construction, although design elements other than the end borders are quite in line with the older pieces pictured above.

It's from the Mazar-i-Sharif area (note the green in the borders). Parsons shows a similar, later, piece in his book with design elements moving even further from the historical norm - particularly in the details of gul centers and minor guls:






Regards,
Chuck Wagner

Chuck Wagner

Eric,

Can you post a closeup of the back of the rug, and another of the selvage from the back ?

Regards,
Chuck

Eric Trowbridge

Chuck:

I've seen a couple of more recent Chobashes like the one you posted. They appeared to be well made, though they had a very different look and feel to the one I posted at the start of this thread.

Here are some pictures of two contemporary Ersari Cultural Survival Chobash rugs (which themselves have a very different feel to the examples we've posted so far).










I assume that these kinds of rugs are simply what they're advertised to be: historical replicas without any real tribal affiliation. (Then again, I suppose Chobash COULD have made them.)

... Which leads to a question, initially for Pierre, but also for others who are monitoring this conversation: What has happened to the sub-tribes and clans since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Where did they wind up (and how many of them stuck it out and stayed put)? Did they disperse en bloc as clan units or were they separated from each other? And, do the old affiliations even mean anything anymore, or has identity morphed into a self-identification as just Turkmen? It's interesting to see where past migrations led, but what about the migrations (forced or otherwise) that have taken place in our lifetime?

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Eric,
I have focused my interest so far on the 16th to 19th century, but you are right it would be interesting to get better information on the 20th century as well.
According to the ethnologist B. Bouchet (1), the largest tribes (in decreasing order of size Tekke, Ersari, Yomud) and even some smaller ones (Saryk, Salor, Gôklen) living in Turkestan have kept to these days a strong tribal identity, with a tendency to endogamy, no doubt facilitated by the concentration of each tribe in a small number of areas in their large country. Their main locations are quite unchanged since 1885.
About the smaller tribes, or those aoul-clusters settled far from their tribe's main habitat, I have found no information so far. Perhaps their social structure has suffered more from the forced integration in large soviet kolkhoses.

During the 20th century, emigration has been important, of course. The main cause having been Stalin's purges around 1930, but before that crisis, there were at least two other waves. My impression (perhaps unfounded) is that the middle Amu-darya communities were the ones who moved the most over the border, in that case to the Afghanistan northern piedmont. Judging from the names of their new villages (identical with the names of the Turkestan village they left in Turkestan), some smaller communities moved obviously "en bloc". By the way, there is a modern Afghan village, just after the border, called Chub-bash, perhaps related to this group).
It is certainly true for the Ersari as well, who later also moved in number to Peshawar, Pakistan, when the Russians invaded Afghanistan.

Sorry for not having much info.
Best regards
Pierre

Bertrand Bouchet. Tribus d'autrefois, kolkhozes d'aujourd'hu. RE. M.M.M. 1991/1992. Pages 55-69

Eric Trowbridge

Pierre: There are a couple of Afghan carpet dealers in the Baltimore area, one of whom is Turkmen. I'll try to ask at least the latter what's happened to his compatriots over the last 30 years. I had read that, after the fall of the Taliban, large numberrs of Afghan refugees headed back home, but details were scanty.

I have a Beshir main carpet which I acquired from the other local dealer (a Pashtun); he said he'd had it and several other old pieces repaired in Peshawar before he put them on the market here.

Chuck: I'll try to take a picture of the back and post it sometime soon. Again, the selvages are new. The rug didn't have any when I acquired it.

Rich Larkin

Hi Eric,

There’s no doubt the more recent manifestations of the Turkoman tradition of weaving give the impression they are homogenized versions of an older , more varied tradition, in terms of design and also in terms of fabric type and quality. However, it should be kept in mind that the divergence, if we can call it that, from purer early paradigms may be older than we typically think, or seem to think. The idea that the Turkoman groups were monolithic and closely knit down through time, and each of them holding strictly to specific characteristic rug designs until relatively recently (ca. late 19th century), probably isn’t accurate.

A reading of the various Central Asian articles in the Richard E. Wright Research Reports gives a very interesting glimpse into the complicated questions of what weavings came from whom and where. Wright is admirably reluctant to jump to popular conclusions in these matters, as in the following excerpt from “The Khiva Khanate and the Chodor.”.

Murray Eiland, Jr., is also a skeptical observer in the rug world, but mentioned in his Comprehensive Guide that someone identifying himself as Chub Bash had told him your gul was the original tribal gul of that group. Alas, we will probably never fully understand what impulses led to the implementation of specific guls on rugs like yours.

Rich Larkin

Pierre Galafassi

Hi Eric, Richard,

A friend of mine lived many years in Peshawar, prevalently working with Ersari weavers. He might have some informations about smaller tribes as well.

I do share your and Wright’s skepticism, Richard. Not only about the most preposterous claims, like the well known one below,
«...we can then date their woven objects simply by considering which regions made use of what color patterns. The oldest Tekke tribes, who came from the Balkan region, made use of dark-brown-red and reddish brown colors. Their rugs from the Akhal region tend to show a yellowish to light-brown red. The rugs of the Merv Tekke were characterized by a bluish red tint. Those of the Tajand area display a dark violet-brown. The far more rarely encountered light violet-brown rugs come from the Tekke of Khiva.....», but even about broadly accepted identifications.
Do we really have proofs? Is the usage of several such «brand names» much more than a mere convenience?

It is indeed possible, as you suggest, that « the divergence, if we can call it that, from purer early paradigms may be older than we typically think,...»: An article by R. Wright (1) contains early (1869) illustrations of what looks to me like «.. homogenized versions of an older, more varied tradition, in terms of design..». Found in the Tashkent bazaar some of the examples are close to what we would call a «Beshir». (Fig.#4). They all have the stiff look of modern commercial production. Ditto for illustrations #8, #9.

(1) The Richard E. Wright research reports. Bukhara and its Ersari.

Best regards
Pierre

Steve Price

Hi Pierre

You left out the source of the fairly lengthy quotation in your previous post. It comes from an article entitled, Carpets from Turkmenistan by Siawasch Azadi, on the Weaving Art Museum and Research Institute website (a great source of fantasy; some insight for the uninitiated can be found here and here).

Regards

Steve Price

Eric Trowbridge

Chuck:

Here are close-ups of the rug, front and back:





All:

One thing that always strikes me in discussions of Turkmeniana is how little we really know, and how much we try to classify things based on incomplete and/or unavailable information and conjecture. That's not a criticism of anyone interested in these matters (either on or off TurkoTek), just a statement of how it is. But, I suppose the fact that there may not be any ultimate knowledge is what attracts many people to reflect on the Turkmen and their creative offerings.