PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT
1Osh District
Ray Kuvaev
Kudaiy — a prayer with sacrifices is performed both to prevent misfortune and after a happy outcome. Nazyr — a vow made in difficult moments of life.
Sherne — organized by members of the community, who are obliged to treat each other in turn; random guests are present.
Ulush — organized spontaneously by several people, and participants are not obliged to reciprocate with a treat.
Osh District, Aktor Kumbel
Sherne — a feast is organized in summer by adult men. They prepare kumys and meat.
Sherne — is organized by wealthier people, while the poor come of their own accord. It is held every two to three days.
The same applies to gapa.
Gap — is organized in winter. They prepare meat and tea.
Joro — is organized in winter: buza (and meat? — F.F.).
Ulush is done when a large group goes to the summer pasture (relatives — top). They bring kumys to one place, slaughter many rams, and pray for the well-being of all livestock (no libations on jelly are made during this).
Zher-Suu tai is not practiced.
Koburgambel
Ulush is organized within the top. The organizer slaughters two or three rams, i.e., more than his neighbors-bai, who give one, for example. The time is chosen when a lot of kumys can be accumulated, i.e., they agree five or six days in advance. It is organized four or five times in summer (there is no agreement on the number among participants). Games, goat pulling, wrestling, etc., take place during this. They do not know any other holidays besides Muslim ones.
Sherne — cheerful gatherings that are organized in turn by members of a certain society (20-30 people). The menu is diverse. Sherne-bashi — is the usual chairman, elected by the society. They accept those who wish into their circle.
Joro is mainly organized by the poor, as food does not play an important role at this gathering. Buza is made from millet — a product available even to the poor. "The poor are glad to drink, while the bai fears this, as he will lose the money in his pocket," they say. Therefore, wealthier people prefer to organize gap. Debauchery occurs at joro. Nothing alcoholic is drunk at gap; they eat meat and other dishes. There are also joro-bashi and gap-bashi.
They are grouped by age: bearded men, youth, children. The latter feast on their fathers' funds. Women also used to hold similar gatherings.
From ataliks, sol ataliks, biy, etik aga — officials at joro. Biy — is the chairman, from and sol ataliks — assistants, eshik aga — a duty jigit under the biy, watching over order.
Sherne — in summer, groups of 20-30 people gather: young beardless guys; middle-aged people; old men; all women and girls together. Each of these groups gathers in turn every day at someone’s place, who treats them with a ram and kumys provided by the aul, engaging in conversations, songs, etc., until evening. If the group consists of 60 people, they slaughter a mare, add one or two rams, winter meat, sausages, etc.
Participants in sherne register in advance; young participants are accepted from about 14 years old. Everyone must observe good behavior rules. Those guilty of violating the rules must drink mod ayak2 — a large bowl of kumys, otherwise, it will be poured over them in a tebetei.
Joro — occurs in winter and proceeds approximately the same way, but they drink suzm maksym3, and also eat meat.
Suzm maksym — although not buza, is also an intoxicating drink (suz — "to strain") and differs from simple maksym in that the barley used to prepare the drink is strained. They gather every three days, also in turn, in the same groups. The leaders-organizers are erke bala and biy (from the elders). In the morning before joro, when everyone has already gathered in the next yurt, someone is sent to erke bala and biy with two jars of buza to invite them; all participants obey them. The group gathers for the season. These two, when it is their turn, provide a more abundant treat than others.
Dingen — in autumn and spring, young men sometimes gather in groups of 10-12 from less wealthy families, buy a ram or goat together, cook it, and treat the whole community.
Ala-Midin
solto - bolokbay
Uy sherne — a form of feast. Instead of a public feast, women forming a temporary club take their portion of raw meat (? — F.F.) from someone's house and carry it home.
Talas
kainazar
Joro is organized in winter, in September-October. 25-30 people agree, choosing a biy and erke bala from among themselves. The biy, when it is his turn, besides buza, also organizes a better treat with meat and other things than others.
They gather either in turn at all club members' homes or hire one person who takes millet from the duty member and prepares buza. He receives payment for his work and for hosting, as in this case, they always gather at his place.
The biy manages everything and even takes millet from the duty member and hands it over to the one who has taken on this task. Only young people gather.
Talas
kainazar
Sherne is organized in summer (in June-July). Men gather either all together or in groups: youth and adults. An initiative group is formed, they agree to hold sherne and discuss whom to include in the club's membership. At the very first sherne, from the composition of all members, they elect a biy, from chiny and sol chiny4. The menu for these feasts is firmly established in advance. No one can offer less than agreed for the feast; the opposite is quite permissible. Mandatory items are kumys and a ram. Kumys is either provided entirely by the duty organizer's household or collected by him on the side.
Sherne is held every day, with the turn assigned two days in advance (today for the day after tomorrow), so that the duty member has time to prepare kumys and meat. Since the series of feasts begins immediately after the agreement, the first sherne usually takes place without kumys, which could not be stocked up in time, thus serving as a kind of privilege for the organizer (p. 108). It is given to a poorer person, who does not have and cannot have kumys in sufficient quantity. This organizer provides a ram (his own or buys one), tea, boorsak, sugar, if that was the promised menu, and limits himself to this.
A normal, even mandatory item in the day's program is kok boru. If the next club member is a wealthier person, he organizes both sherne and provides a goat for the game (if desired). Sometimes this issue is resolved by the entire community, which considers that this person is wealthy enough; after drinking kumys, everyone performs batu and demands more kok boru from him. Refusing to provide a goat is the right of a person who has fulfilled his duty in the form of a feast, but still, it would be shameful for him, and he would be known as a miser, so usually, the community's demand is fulfilled. A poor person, for example, may be offered kok boru instead of sherne. A normal phenomenon can be considered when a club member organizes sherne, and his younger brother provides a goat for kok boru.
The number of participants is about 20-30, and they can be from different auls. They arrive in turn in the yurts of the duty members. Only one representative of the family can be a member of the club (? — F.F.).
The feast begins with kumys, and such an abundance of this drink is prepared that the meat served afterward is very little eaten by the participants, and most of it remains for other food lovers.
They entertain themselves from morning until evening; kok boru is organized in the second half of the day, after the feast and other games (see below).
The biy is the head at sherne, but only during the drinking of kumys. His assistants — ong chyny and sol chyny — sit respectively to his right and left. The biy leads the drinking, indicating who should be served the bowl of kumys, requires that the bowl be emptied, imposes penalties on those who do not finish it, forcing them, for example, to sing a song or drink another full bowl in one go (temalmas). In case of a fight, he separates the fighters, calms them down, punishes them. The biy himself is moderate in drinking, and when electing a person to this position, this and other good qualities of his character are taken into account, as well as his wealth (expectation of good hospitality), since the last person to organize sherne is the biy, and he must treat his voters better than anyone else. Ong chyny and sol chyny treat directly before him, and also wealthier ordinary club members.
The executors of the biy's orders (the order of serving kumys, for example) are the organizer and his family; they also prepare, divide, and serve the meat.
Meat is served on dishes by groups, with one of the senior club members sitting at each dish. The head of the oldest present (not the biy and his group) is served the head of the ram. The biy receives zhambash, kuymulchak, etc. He no longer plays the role of chairman here.
In the games that sometimes follow sherne, all willing, even outsiders, participate. They are divided into two parties and compete without a prize.
Susamyr
Chim Mollo
During sherne, there were games: tenga engish (to pick up a coin from horseback placed in a shallow hole in the ground); it tartish — a long, doubled lasso is put around the neck of two opponents, who are on all fours, turned back to back so that the lasso passes between their legs5; kuros — wrestling on feet. There were two parties: sherichis and those who challenged them, salamchis, i.e., those who enter the yurt of the feasting with a greeting (salam), uninvited, challenging to a game.
Sarybulak
Alimbek
buku
Sherne can also be mixed (male and female).
Satyvaldy
In sherne, the number of participants depends on the size of the ram that is slaughtered — how many people it will suffice for. If the number of possible participants is small, then two or three people from a family can participate.
Comments:
1 This topic is covered in G.N. Simakov's work "Public Functions of Kyrgyz Folk Entertainment in the Late 19th - Early 20th Century" (L., 1984), which presents a large amount of material collected by the author during field studies, as well as extracted from archives and literary sources. However, the records of F.A. Fielstrup on this issue are not only interesting but also valuable. The names of many games and entertainments provided by him more accurately convey their essence: "Yelden yeldenel chapgir" instead of "Ak-terek, kok-terek," cited by G.N. Simakov, or "It tartysh" instead of "Arkan tartysh," and others (see below). In addition, F.A. Fielstrup recorded a number of games and entertainments that may have been forgotten by the population over time, and therefore we do not find them in G.N. Simakov's work: kiyiz toy, oru luk, toguz korgol, oyun toda, chuko, tash bor-kok, and others.
2 Too ayak — (from mod — "camel; huge, large"; ayak — "bowl, cup") a large bowl.
3 Suzm maksym — (from suz — "to strain, filter, separating the squeezings — the last stage of preparing buza and maksym — "sour drink made from crushed barley without malt") an intoxicating drink.
4 Ong chyny, sol chyny (from ong — "right" and sol — "left," chyn "truth, true, real, actual") — apparently something like "right and left judicial assessors," since one of the meanings of the word "biy" is judge, whose assistants they are and are responsible for the discipline of the gathering participants. According to G.N. Simakov, these biy's assistants are called ong atalyk and sol atalyk, i.e., "right side" and "left side" (Simakov T.N. Op. cit. p. 161).
5 It tartysh — from it — "dog," tartysh — "pulling," i.e., "pulling the dog." In G.N. Simakov's work, this game is called arkan tartysh — "pulling the rope" (Simakov T.N. Op. cit. p. 99), which is actually correct, but it tartysh sounds more expressive, as the game consists not merely of pulling a rope, but of pulling it while on all fours.
Sacrifices and Magical Actions of the Kyrgyz in the Early 20th Century