Social Relations of the Kyrgyz
COMMUNITY
The community, as one of the main traditional institutions, played a key role in the social structure of the Kyrgyz. Alongside the family and tribe, it served as the basic social structure upon which the entire system of social relations was built. This type of community of people had both social and economic functions aimed at ensuring the production process for obtaining life-sustaining products and maintaining strong human connections. The manifestation of continuity of cultural traditions, most clearly expressed within the community, was also of significant importance.
The nomadic community of the Kyrgyz consisted of individual families, which were the basic economic and social units. This included newly formed households that emerged from the separation of married sons into independent households with corresponding land allocations (enchi) while their father was still alive. They had a certain degree of autonomy in managing their household and in fulfilling mutual obligations to close relatives and neighbors; however, parental influence and the role of the "big house" were significant.
In particular, this was manifested in the organization of collective feasts and gift exchanges within the community.
The community was characterized by a complex composition, hierarchical structure, and mobility, determined by the lifestyle of mobile pastoralists.
The nomadic aiyl was the foundation of the community organization, serving as the most stable unit. It typically consisted of an average of 5-6 families. "The aul usually consists of 5-15 yurts, and rarely more" (Notes on Land Use... No. 62, p. 191). This small community, based on a family-kin group, included the father's family and the families of his children who had separated into independent households. In the aiyl, there could be relatives both on the husband's side and on the wife's side. "Sometimes such first-order communities, which can be called nuclear nomadic communities, coincide with family-kin groups. But this is not always the case. They often consist not only of agnates and their families but also of cognates, in-laws, and individuals connected only by distant kinship, and not always" (Hazanov, 2002, p. 235). Nevertheless, the small community predominantly included the closest relatives united by common family interests—joint pasturing, protecting the herd from encroachments, and fulfilling common economic tasks.
The next, more expanded level of the nomadic community was formed by integrating several small communities. Members of the community at this level jointly used pasture and water resources during certain seasons and carried out migrations. There were close production, social, and domestic ties between the households within such an association, and mutual material and labor assistance was widely practiced (Hazanov, 2002, p. 235). Various forms of cooperation and mutual aid in such associations manifested only when necessary; overall, it was significantly weaker than in small communities. When using seasonal pastures, all members of the second-order community could not always settle compactly in one place; rather, they occupied areas somewhat distant from each other, but within the same space. Several nomadic groups within a more extensive community jointly used pastures, the actual ownership of which was not so easy to determine. Typically, the migration routes of several subdivisions intersected, and adjacent areas were considered their joint ownership (Ploskikh, 1972, pp. 27-29).
Third-level communities, which included several second-order nomadic communities, occupied significant territory, and their members had weak and unstable connections with each other. In the context of a mobile lifestyle, such a community was characterized by the greatest dispersion and instability of composition. There were many cases when communities of a lower taxonomic level left it for various reasons, while others joined it. Sometimes groups of families migrated to the territories of other administrative units for political and other reasons. Overall, such a community chon aiyl (large community) represented an amorphous entity with insufficiently strong economic and social ties.
In medium-level communities, representatives of one tribe predominated, considering themselves descendants of "one father" ("tulku atasy bir"); nevertheless, their ethnic composition was often heterogeneous: it included outsiders and families with their separate, non-kin origins unrelated to most members (Dzhamgerchinov, 1959, p. 67; Ilyasov, 1963, p. 345). S.M. Abramzon did not fully agree with this assertion; he only allowed that "in some cases, individuals from another (still related) lineage could be part of the aiyl" (Abramzon, 1971, p. 200).
"Outsiders" found protection, patronage, and enjoyed all basic rights here. The community was the institution that could more gently and painlessly incorporate representatives of other lineages into its composition than tribal structures. The community among the Kyrgyz in the 19th century, as V.M. Ploskikh writes, did not represent a primitive tribal organization but acted as an economic and administrative unit (Ploskikh, 1972, p. 24).
Large communities did not have a stable composition; their sizes fluctuated, with livestock grazing being either joint or separate, and migrations occurring in large or small groups. The ease of forming new communities and the significant fluidity of their composition were distinctive features of this structure. Its growth inevitably led to the segmentation of individual parts, which in turn could form a new community. Due to the peculiarities of pastoral farming and a mobile lifestyle, an individual family or group could easily leave their community and join others in a new location. The fragmentation of nomadic communities appeared to be a natural phenomenon and was conditioned by the necessity of maintaining optimal grazing loads.
Ethnography
