Afghanistan

Two tiger bells, A type

In furniture shop 'Aarde, werelds wonen' (Amsterdam), together with other bells, all from Pakistan. Shop owner Marcel van den Burg gave the following details:

I bought the bells from an Afghan trader in a bazar in Peshawar. According to the trader the bells come from the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. and are 10 to 20 years old. In certain areas, such as Kailash, where islam is not the major religion, the bells are used as a personal adornment on clothes, such as a head dress (I have not seen this myself). In other areas the bells are used as animal bells (goats, sheep). This I have seen but never just one bell, but several on a belt. The bells are supposedly made in a local Afghan foundry.

The tiger bells are similar to the tiger bells from Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Marcel van den Burg travelled to the area again in June and July 2005. His report is on the Comments page.

The two bells from furniture shop De Wereld
Photograph: courtesy Dolf Heubers


Top view of the bell on the right on the upper picture.

The bell has is 3,4 cm. wide and is 2 cm. high.

Reported in 2005, by Dolf Heubers. Donated to the author in 2006.

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Later, in the same shop, Dolf Heubers found another tiger bell. This bell too was acquired by shop owner Marcel van den.Burg in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The bell is a fine example of an A-type tiger bell and identical to some of the bells seen in Mongolia and Siberia. The bell is therefore most likely not locally made but must have arrived into the region from East Asia.

A-type tiger bell from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area,
identical to some tiger bells from East Asia.

The bells is 3,3 cm. wide and 2,4 cm. high.

Reported and donated to the author in 2006 by Dolf Heubers.

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In a paper titled Malang, Sufis, and Mystics, the author dr. Muhammad Humayun Sidky describes the arrival of shamanism in Afghanisan:

In Central Asia, shamanism was once prevalent among the Turkic peoples, originally occupying the area of the Altai mountains. By the sixth century the Turks had invaded the Central Asian steppes, bringing with them their shamanistic beliefs along with cults of ancestors, stones, mountains, and the earth goddess Otukan. Such beliefs seem to have been shared by the Uzbeks of the Oxus delta, and the Mongols and Turkmen. The concept of Tanggri, the heaven or sky deity, along with associated shamanistic beliefs, was brought to Central Asia by the Hsiun-Nu. These people originally occupied the Mongolian steppes to the northwest of China but, in the middle of the sixth century, were able to conquer the Central Asian steppes and defeat the Hephthalites of Afghanistan. Schurmann reports that the term "Tanggri " still appears in the phrase Tanggri ta' ala', used in the present Ghorat region of Afghanistan to describe the omnipotent God of Islam.

Note: The 'Hsiun-Nu' are also known as the Huns.

The full paper can be found at:

http://www.khyber.org/publications/041-045/afghanshaman.shtml

The title is: Malang, Sufis and Mystics; an ethnographic and historical study of shamanism in Afghanistan and is published in the Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 49, No. 2 (1990), 275-301

The relation beween the presence of tiger bells in Afghanistan, and possibly with the Hazara people, and the arrival of shamanism in the region seems obvious and supports the idea of the tiger bell being a migration tracer. I'm trying to contact the author to hear his opinion on this (so far without succes; May '10).

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