Buzkashi - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Buzkashi or Kok-boru or Oglak Tartis or Ulak Tartysh (Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, Urdu: بزکشی bozkæšī; Tajik

Tajik language

Tajik, Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, is a variety of modern Persian spoken in Central Asia. Historically Tajiks called their language zabani farsī , meaning Persian language in English; the term zabani tajikī, or Tajik language, was introduced in the 20th century by the Soviets...

: бузкашӣ buzkašī, "goat dragging"; Uzbek

Uzbek language

Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...

, Tatar

Tatar language

The Tatar language , or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkiria...

: kökbörü, kök "blue" + börü "wolf"; Kazakh

Kazakh language

Kazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....

: көкпар; Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz language

Kyrgyz or Kirgiz, also Kirghiz, Kyrghiz, Qyrghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...

: улак-тартыш or көкбөрү; wuzloba, "goat game"; Turkmen

Turkmen language

Turkmen is the national language of Turkmenistan...

: owlakgapdy; Uyghur

Uyghur people

The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...

: oghlaq tartish; ) is a traditional Central Asian team sport played on horseback in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

, Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

, Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...

, Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...

, northern Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

and Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

. The steppes' people were skilled riders who could grab a goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

or calf

Calf

Calves are the young of domestic cattle. Calves are reared to become adult cattle, or are slaughtered for their meat, called veal.-Terminology:...

from the ground while riding a horse at full gallop. The goal of a player is to grab the carcass of a headless goat or calf and then get it clear of the other players and pitch it across a goal line or into a target circle or vat.

Sport of Central Asia

Buzkashi is the Afghan

Afghanistan

national sport. It is also a popular sport among the south Central Asians such as the Uzbeks

Uzbeks

The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China...

, Hazaras, Tajiks

Tajiks

Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of Persian-speaking people of Iranic origin, with traditional homelands in present-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan...

, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

, Turkmens and Pashtuns. The Turkic name of the game is Kökbörü; Kök = "blue", börü = "wolf", denoting the grey wolf—the holy symbol of the Turkic people. Other Turkic

Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...

names of the game are Ulak Tartish, Kuk Pari, Kök Berü, and Ulak Tyrtysh. Kökbörü is the most popular national sport of Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan

. In the West, the game (Turkish: Cirit) is also played by Kyrgyz Turks

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

who migrated to Ulupamir village in the Van

Van, Turkey

Van is a city in southeastern Turkey and the seat of the Kurdish-majority Van Province, and is located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. The city's official population in 2010 was 367,419, but many estimates put this as much higher with a 1996 estimate stating 500,000 and former Mayor Burhan...

district of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

from the Pamir

Pamir Mountains

The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains and since Victorian times they have been known as the "Roof of the World" a probable...

region.
Competition is typically fierce. Prior to the establishment of official rules by the Afghan Olympic Federation the sport was mainly conducted based upon rules such as not whipping a fellow rider intentionally or deliberately knocking him off his horse. Riders usually wear heavy clothing and head protection to protect themselves against other players' whips

Whips

Whips may refer to:*Whip plural.*Political Whip.*An acronym: WHIPS, Whiplash Injury Protection System....

and boots. The boots usually have high heels that lock into the saddle of the horse to help the rider lean on the side of the horse while trying to pick up the calf. Games can last for several days, and the winning team receives a prize, not necessarily money, as a reward for their win. Top players, such as Aziz Ahmad

Aziz Ahmad

Aziz Ahmad is a professional Buzkashi player from Afganistan.Ahmad was born in a farming village in northern Kunduz to a poor family. He began playing Buzkashi at age 15...

, are often sponsored by wealthy Afgans.

A Buzkashi player is called a Chapandaz. It is mainly believed in Afghanistan that a skillful Chapandaz is usually in his forties. This is based on the fact that the nature of the game requires its player to undergo severe physical practice and observation. Similarly horses used in Buzkashi also undergo severe training and due attention. A player does not necessarily own the horse. Horses are usually owned by landlords and highly rich people wealthy enough to look after and provide for training facilities for such horses. However a master Chapandaz can choose to select any horse and the owner of the horse usually wants his horse to be ridden by a master Chapandaz as a winning horse also brings pride to the owner.

The game consists of two main forms: Tudabarai and Qarajai. Tudabarai is considered to be the simpler form of the game. In this version, the goal is simply to grab the calf and move in any direction until clear of the other players. In Qarajai, players must carry the carcass around a flag or marker at one end of the field, then throw it into a scoring circle (the "Circle of Justice") at the other end. The riders will carry a whip, often in their teeth, to fend off opposing horses and riders.

Buzkashi is often compared to polo

Polo

Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team. Sometimes called, "The Sport of Kings", it was highly popularized by the British. Players score by driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal using a...

. Both games are played between people on horseback, both involve propelling an object toward a goal, and both get fairly rough. However, polo is played with a ball.. Polo matches are played for fixed periods totaling about an hour; traditional Buzkashi may continue for days, but in its more regulated tournament version also has a limited match time.

The calf in a Buzkashi game is normally beheaded and disemboweled and has its limbs cut off at the knees. It is then soaked in cold water for 24 hours before play to toughen it. Occasionally sand is packed into the carcass to give it extra weight. Players may not strap the calf to their bodies or saddle

Horse tack

Tack is a term used to describe any of the various equipment and accessories worn by horses in the course of their use as domesticated animals. Saddles, stirrups, bridles, halters, reins, bits, harnesses, martingales, and breastplates are all forms of horse tack...

s. Though a goat is used when no calf is available, a calf is less likely to disintegrate during the game.

Rules introduced by Afghan Olympic Federation

The ground has a square layout with each side 400 meters long.
Each team consists of 10 riders each.
Only five riders from each team can play in a half.
The total duration of each half is 45 minutes.
There is only one 15 minute break between the two halves.
The game is supervised by a referee.
Based on the referee's decision a rider can be substituted during the game.

A similar game is "kokpar", a traditional Kazakh

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

game played on horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

back in which 2 teams of players compete to carry a headless goat

Goat

carcass into a goal.

Sports of China

In China, there is not only horse-back Buzkashi, but also yak Buzkashi among Tuziks.

Ban in Afghanistan

Buzkashi is the national sport and a "passion" in Afghanistan where it is often played on Fridays and matches draw thousands of fans. Whitney Azoy notes in his book "Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan:.... (that) leaders are men who can seize control by means foul and fair and then fight off their rivals. The Buzkashi rider does the same"
During the rule of the Taliban regime, Buzkashi was banned in Afghanistan, as the Taliban considered the game immoral. But since the Taliban regime was ousted the game is being played again.

Kav Kaz

A mounted version of the game has also been played in the United States. In the 1940s young men in the Cleveland area of Ohio played a game they called Kav Kaz. The men - five to a team - played on horseback with a sheepskin-covered ball. The Greater Cleveland area had six or seven teams. The game was divided into three chukkers, somewhat like polo. The field was about the size of a football field and had goals at each end: large wooden frameworks standing on tripods, with holes about two feet square. The players carried the ball in their hands, holding it by the long-fleeced sheepskin. A team had to pass the ball three times before throwing it into the goal. If the ball fell to the ground, the player had to reach down from his horse to pick it up. One player recalls, "Others would try to unseat the rider as he leaned over. They would grab you by the shoulder to shove you off. There weren't many rules."

Popular culture

Buzkashi is portrayed in several books, both fiction and nonfiction. It is shown in Steve Berry's book, The Venetian Betrayal, and is briefly mentioned in the Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini , is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician of ethnic Tajik origin. He is a citizen of the United States where he has lived since he was fifteen years old. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide....

book The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it is Hosseini's first novel, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007....

. Buzkashi was the subject of a book called Horsemen of Afghanistan by French photojournalists Roland and Sabrina Michaud. Gino Strada

Gino Strada

Gino Strada is an Italian war surgeon and founder of the UN-recognized Italian NGO Emergency. Emergency has operated in thirteen war-torn countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and the Central African Republic.- Biography :Dr...

has written a book named after the sport (with the spelling Buskashì) in which he tells about his life as surgeon in Kabul in the days after 9-11 strikes. P.J. O'Rourke also mentions the game in discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Foreign Policy section of Parliament of Whores

Parliament of Whores

Parliament of Whores is an international best-selling political humor book by P. J. O'Rourke published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1991. Subtitled "A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire US Government", Parliament is a scathing critique of the American system of governance from a right...

, and Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart

Roderick 'Rory' James Nugent Stewart OBE FRSL MP DUniv is a British academic, author, and Conservative politician. Since May 2010, he has been the Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border, in the county of Cumbria, North West England.- Overview :Stewart was a senior coalition official in a...

devotes a few sentences to it in "The Places in Between

The Places in Between

The Places in Between is a travel narrative by Scottish author Rory Stewart about his solo walk across north-central Afghanistan in 2002. Stewart started in Herat and ended in Kabul following the Hari River from west to east. Along the way he travels through some of the most rugged, isolated and...

."

There have been two books written about Buzkashi that were later turned into movies. The game is the core and subject of a novel by French novelist Joseph Kessel

Joseph Kessel

Joseph Kessel was a French journalist and novelist.He was born in Villa Clara, Entre Ríos, Argentina, because of the constant journeys of his father, a Lithuanian doctor of Jewish origin. Joseph Kessel lived the first years of his childhood in Orenburg, Russia, before the family moved to France...

titled Les Cavaliers (aka Horsemen) as well as of the 1971 flick The Horseman

The Horsemen (1971 film)

The Horsemen is a 1971 film starring Omar Sharif, directed by John Frankenheimer; screenplay by Dalton Trumbo. Based on a novel by French writer Joseph Kessel, Les Cavaliers shows Afghanistan and its people the way they were before the wars that wracked the country, particularly their love for...

which is directed by John Frankenheimer

John Frankenheimer

John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...

and Omar Sharif

Omar Sharif

Omar Sharif is an Egyptian actor who has starred in Hollywood films including Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Funny Girl. He has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won two Golden Globe Awards.-Early life:...

played the lead role. This film shows Afghanistan and its people the way they were before the wars that wracked the country, particularly their love for the sport of buzkashi.
The game is also a key element in the book Caravans
Caravans (novel)
Caravans, a novel by James A. Michener, was published in 1963.The story is set in Afghanistan immediately following World War II. The protagonist, Mark Miller, is stationed in Kabul at the American embassy and is given the assignment of an investigation to find a young woman, Ellen Jaspar, also...

by James Michener and the film of the same name starring Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

. A scene from the film featuring the king of Afghanistan watching a game included the real-life king at the time, Mohammed Zahir Shah

Mohammed Zahir Shah

Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning for four decades, from 1933 until he was ousted by a coup in 1973...

. The whole sequence of the game being witnessed by the king was filmed on the Kabul Golf Course, where the national championships were played at the time the film was made.

The game also is mentioned in several movies. In Rambo III
Rambo III
Rambo III is an American Action film released on May 25, 1988. It is the third film in the Rambo series following First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II...

, directed by Peter MacDonald

Peter MacDonald

Peter MacDonald may refer to:* Peter Macdonald , Canadian Liberal MP for Huron East, Ontario, first elected in 1887* Peter Macdonald , MP for the Isle of Wight...

, released in 1988, John Rambo

John Rambo

John Rambo is an iconic fictional character and the basis of the Rambo saga. He first appeared in the 1972 novel First Blood by David Morrell, but later became more famous in the film series, played by Sylvester Stallone...

(played by Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone

Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...

) was shown in a sequence playing Buzkashi with his mujahideen

Mujahideen

Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...

friends when suddenly they were attacked by Russians

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

. The 1983 Tom Selleck

Tom Selleck

Thomas William "Tom" Selleck is an American actor, and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum on the 1980s television show Magnum, P.I.. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B....

film High Road to China
High Road to China
High Road to China is a 1983 adventure-comedy film, set in the 1920s, starring Tom Selleck as a hard-drinking biplane pilot hired by society heiress Eve 'Evie' Tozer to find her missing father . The supporting cast includes Robert Morley and Brian Blessed. The Golden Harvest film was directed by...

features a spirited game of buzkashi. Buzkashi is described at length in Episode 2, "The Harvest of the Seasons," of the documentary The Ascent of Man
The Ascent of Man
The Ascent of Man is a thirteen-part documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first transmitted in 1973, written and presented by Jacob Bronowski...

by Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski was a Polish-Jewish British mathematician, biologist, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor...

. It is put in the context of the development, by the Mongols

Mongols

Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

, of warfare using the horse and its effect on agricultural settlements. The film includes several scenes from a game in Afghanistan. The opening scenes of the Indian film Khuda Gawah
Khuda Gawah
Khuda Gawah is a 1992 Bollywood film directed by Mukul S. Anand and starring Amitabh Bachchan, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Sridevi , Shilpa Shirodkar and Danny Denzongpa.Amitabh plays the role of an Afghan , who travels between Afghanistan and India.Khuda Gawah had lavish...

, which was filmed in Afghanistan and India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, show actors Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades...

and Sridevi engaged in the game. The game is also mentioned briefly in John Huston

John Huston

John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

's film The Man Who Would Be King
The Man Who Would Be King (film)
The Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 film adapted from the Rudyard Kipling short story of the same title. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Saeed Jaffrey, and Christopher Plummer as Kipling .The film follows two rogue ex-non-commissioned officers of...

, the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, commonly referred to as simply DodgeBall, is a 2004 American sports comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox and Red Hour Productions, written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and starring Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, and Rip Torn...

during advertisements for the fictional ESPN 8 (El Ocho) television channel, and the Bollywood movie Kabul Express
Kabul Express
Kabul Express is a Bollywood film that was released on 15 December 2006. The film stars John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Pakistani actor Salman Shahid, Afghan actor Hanif Hum Ghum and American actress Linda Arsenio...

. Composer Scott Fields

Scott Fields

Scott Fields , is a guitarist, composer and band leader. He is best known for his attempts to blend music that is composed and music that is written and for his modular pieces...

recorded a piece called Buzkashi on the Clean Feed Records guitar compilation "I Never Meta Guitar."

External links