Anthropology Pt. 01

Introduction

This story is set in Kushtia, a narrow strip of a country that runs along the northern edge of the Hindu Kush. If you've read other tales of mine you'll know about Kushtia from "Market Forces" but if not here's a short introduction....

Once part of the Russian empire, Kushtia is now, after a series of coups and counter coups, a (sort of) democratic republic. The Kalinin, the hereditary ruler, presides over a ruling council of elected representatives in the capital Kolin. The deep respect for tradition within the country means that almost all those elected to council are from the families that furnished the tribal leaders that had dominated Kushtia before the Russian era. Kushtia is a secular state with a slowly growing economy but still follows many of the traditional ways of its pre-Russian past. Women are largely disenfranchised and subject to men in most matters. Men may have several wives and often have concubines as well although in reality only the wealthy or tribal leaders can afford to. Kushtian society is organised around the household, a grouping of family and servants presided over by the man of the household.

Last year Dr Karen Armstrong, an American anthropologist, wrote an article on the way of life in some of the Kushtian hill tribes. It was published in National Geographic Magazine to much popular interest. Armstrong had smuggled herself into Kushtia, disguised as a boy. Travelling across the border from the north with a trading caravan, she had taken some extraordinary photographs of the life of the women of the northern tribesmen. The article described the life of the tribesmen; a very similar society to that in Kolin but without the sophistication of city life. Armstrong speculated that the growth of urban culture in Kolin would eventually dilute the primitive, traditional ways of the tribes and the change from the soviet command economy to a western market economy together with the growth of democracy would also lead to emancipation for the hill tribeswomen.

Armstrong's article gave rise to a great deal of interest in the west for women seeking a different lifestyle and looking to discover whether the Kushtian way had value for them. One result of this was that the Kushtian Government approached UNESCO with the idea of establishing a "world heritage culture" within Kusthia. (A guide for participants in the programme is exclusively available in my Yahoo Group)

In the mean time, Dr Armstrong has been back into the Kushtian wilderness to pursue her studies further.....

Chapter 1 : First Day - Homeward Bound

Dr Karen Armstrong dropped down from the battered, lurching, bus as it slowed passing the small temple at the end of the road where she was staying. She just missed a deep pothole in the road and swerved between two bicycles following the bus to make the relative safety of the roadside. She hefted her bag onto her back and edged her way through the group that were making their way down to the temple for evening prayers. They seemed to take no notice of her, ignoring what looked to them like a travel stained young man, clad in the turban, felt coat, waistcoat and breeches of the local peasants. The village here had proved ideal for her purpose. It was less than ten miles from the border but that was far enough to mean that she could come and go here as she pleased.

She walked between the small, mud brick, houses. The leather roof coverings on their wooden frames creaked as the stiff wind swept across the village. Her path took her towards a hut that stood a little separate from the others. She pushed back the flap of leather that served as a door and went inside.

"Home," she thought as she sat down gratefully on the straw packed mattress that was her bed. Home it was, or at least as near to home as she could be; 8,000 miles from the University of Michigan where she taught anthropology.

She pulled off the heavy, grey, woollen turban and shook loose her long blonde hair. She took off the heavy grey coat and the pouch that she wore diagonally across her chest shrugged off her waistcoat, unfastened the toggles of the coarse undershirt and pulled it off too. She was tired. It had been an exhausting five days. Now all she wanted to do was sleep. She looked down at herself. Her chest was bound with strips of cloth wound around her body in an attempt to conceal her breasts. It had allowed her to pass as a young lad of the hill farming people for five days but for those five days she had been in permanent fear of discovery. Five days continuously having to watch her every move, her every word. Five days of trying to maintain the coarse accents and grunts of the local dialect. Five nights terrified in case she talked in her sleep or woke up suddenly to cry out in English.

She unwound the cloth strips, freeing her breasts. The relief was extraordinary but suddenly there were these things on her chest. It was as if they had just grown there in the instant. It was a peculiar sensation that took her back to puberty and the time when she had first realised that her body was changing from that of a girl to that of a woman. It called back all the uncertainty, all the confusion of that time. She shook her head as if to dislodge the memories. She pushed off her breeches and lay back on the mattress. There was a large embroidered woollen rug beside the bed. She pulled it over herself. It was time to sleep.

It was still dark when she woke. She suddenly realised that she had no idea if she had slept for two hours or ten, she hadn't taken a watch with her and she couldn't remember where it was now. She fumbled around at the head of the bed, finding the small stub of candle that she kept there. She pulled the Zippo lighter from the pocket of her breeches and lit the candle. The Zippo had been the one piece of western technology that she had permitted herself. It was possible that a young hill farmer might have such a thing she'd argued to herself. It hadn't attracted any attention from anyone except from Ternet, the young man that had acted as her guide. She could tell by the way that he looked at it every time she took it out. She'd decided to leave it with him when she left.

The light of the candle guttered for a moment in the draft from the door. She hunched her shoulders and then stretched her arms. Her chest still felt as though the binding cloths were wound about it. The roof the hut was creaking in the wind, the leather roof covering stretching and rubbing across the timbers, the stone weights that held it down, clacking against the walls as they swung with the motion of the roof. Apart from that it was quiet. Quieter here in the village, she thought, than on the hill side. There, at night, she had always had the bleating of sheep or goats, even in the dark of the night.

She found her watch. Two in the morning. She needed to be on her way by ten. There'd be a bus about then. Back into town. Then she'd find a taxi. Out to the airport; well, airstrip. She wondered what they would be using this time. A Dakota if she was lucky. There were a few of those around. An An-2 if she wasn't. They were the worst.

She fumbled in her pouch and pulled out the camera. These digital cameras had made things so much easier, she thought. This tiny box with maybe 1500 pictures in it and a lens every bit as good as the Leica she used to use. Tiny, silent, easy to conceal, simple to use and such great pictures. The editors had been so pleased with her last trip. "Veiled and In Chains" the article had been titled. Sensationalised, of course, Dr Armstrong thought. But if it got people's interest, helped them realise there were still people out there that didn't live life in quite the same way as they did in Champagne Urbana, then it was all to the good. And the paper she had delivered had been well received in the faculty. Plus she'd had her chance to tell her story all over the place – even Europe!

There would have been no problem getting the funding from the university for this trip but she'd wanted to do it herself. That way she'd have the freedom to negotiate on the best price for the pictures. And beside it was her vacation, why shouldn't she take it where she wanted?

She flipped on the camera's power switch. It gave a quiet ping and pushed its lens forward. The glow from its tiny screen was brighter than from Karen's candle. There was hardly any power left in the battery but that didn't matter now. She thumbed the buttons that allowed her to scroll through the pictures stored in the camera's memory.

It was hard to tell on the screen, it was so small, but Karen thought she'd done a good job. They looked every bit as good as the last ones but this time the subject was more powerful yet. The pictures showed a traditional Kushtian wedding with the gift of the wife to the husband. There were shots of the wife before the ceremony and after; shots that showed that Kushtian wives were viewed as little better than slaves and shots that showed unmarried women were treated worse. What was more puzzling though, she thought as she zoomed in on one of the frames, behind the veil she was sure that the bride had quite western looking eyes and, come to that, so did her maid servant. It would be easier to tell on a bigger screen, she thought. It was funny she hadn't noticed it while she was there. She guessed she'd been concentrating so much on taking the pictures that she hadn't been looking at the wedding ceremony in the dispassionate, focused way that she encouraged her students to adopt.

She flicked off the switch. The glow of the camera's screen faded, leaving the light of the candle as the only illumination in the room. She blew out the candle and turned over to sleep again.

She was woken again soon after by a voice outside calling her name. "Dr Armstrong, I must talk to you."

She recognised the voice. It was Ternet, the guide that had travelled alongside her over the border into Kushtia. They'd shared working with the goats and sheep that were her camouflage and his livelihood. And he'd shared her secret. She pulled her undershirt on and went to the door of the hut. She pushed her head around the edge of the leather flap. It was still pitch dark outside. She looked up at a sky pierced with stars made all the brighter by the dark of the surroundings. "Ternet?" she called.

Something heavy hit her on the back of her head. She slumped to the ground, half out of the door of her hut, unconscious.

Chapter 2 : First Day - In Transit

She recovered stretched face down across the back of a horse. Her hands and feet were tied. Something hard and rough was tied across her mouth preventing her crying out. A tall man emerged from her hut clutching her saddle bag. He tossed it across the back of a second horse. She saw Ternet and tried to call out to him but whatever it was that gagged her choked back her cry. The two men exchanged words. As he started to lead the two horses away from the village she saw the tall man toss something to Ternet. The young man waved. She watched him fumble with it and she saw the flicker of light. He'd given Ternet her Zippo.

They got as far as the last hut and the village well. The tall man stopped the two horses, dropped two leather bottles down into the well and pulled them up again, filled to overflowing. He slung them across the back of the second horse, much as Karen herself was strung. He returned to the first horse, She watched as he groped in her saddle bag. He pulled out her camera, snarled and tossed it into the well. Seconds later she heard it fall into the water far below. Her long, uncomfortable, ride into the dark of the night began.

The ride seemed endless. They were following the track that she had used only days before through the narrow pass that led to the Kushtian border. Her head was aching from the blow, her mouth sore from the gag, her wrists and ankles raw and bruised by the combination of the ropes and the movement as the horse stepped its way uncertainly through the dark up the rocky track. Slowly she felt she could see the approach of dawn. The darkness seemed not quite so black. There were the anticipatory calls of the mountain vultures in the hope that daylight would reveal some new pickings for them. The horse stopped. The man led the two of them off of the track and began to pitch the wooden hoop frames of a small dome shaped tent. Pulling the tent's canopy over the frame he weighed each corner down with rocks from the surroundings. Karen watched as the man returned to her horse. Untying the rope that linked her wrists and ankles under the belly of the horse, he pulled her from her mount and carried her to the tent.

He picked up a heavy rock, hefting it in his hands as he approached her. She looked up at him, terrified, as he brought the rock down again and again, only inches from her, using it to hammer a steel spike deep into the ground. He grinned at her fear and pulled her across to the spike, chaining her wrists to it. He hammered another spike into the floor near her feet. He stretched her out full length and chained her ankles to that.

He left her for a moment. She tried to pull at the chains and the pegs but with no effect. He came back carrying one of the leather bottles. He bent down alongside her and undid the rope that held her gag in place. As it fell from her mouth she saw that she had been gagged with a thick stick, a gnarled joint between two branches; a woody ball that had been pushed into her mouth and held there by a leather thongs tied behind her head. She gasped her gratitude, trying to say "thank you" in both the local dialect and the Kushtian tongue. "Thanark, Thaknarish," uncertain of the nationality of her abductor.

The man ignored her but pressed the bottle against her lips. She took a deep drink, the cold water stinging on the cuts and grazes in her mouth. He let her drink, trying to avoid spilling too much of the water on the floor of the tent. He took the bottle away, picked up the stick gag and wedged it back into her mouth, tying it in place. Karen shook her head in desperation. The man pushed her down to the floor and pulled a blanket over her. "Sleep," he said, in a deep growl. "Travel later."

Outside the tent the brightening sky was heralding yet another day of scorching temperatures and skin drying winds. She tried to sleep, knowing that whatever was to come she would need her strength, dreading the rape she felt certain would come, fearing what else could be her fate.

Chapter 3 : Second Night, Third Day - Only Meat

The rape never came. She slept fitfully, jerking awake from fear or her dreams or the pain from the bruise on her head or the aching from her mouth.

She woke again as it was getting dark, the glow of the setting sun visible through the door of their tent. She felt a heavy weight across her belly. She looked down to see her captor's head resting on her, using her as a pillow. He rolled towards her as he began to stir, grunting as he saw she was awake. He took off her gag and gave her more water. It was warm now even though the tent had protected them from the worst of the day's heat. She drank what she could. He put the gag back, tying the stick in place even more tightly. She cried out in pain as the stick cut into the corners of her mouth again. He ignored it.

Night had fallen. He took the tent down around her, loading the horses and leaving to the last the release of his captive from the spikes that held her. He lifted her up, seemingly without effort and put her across the back of the horse, tying her in place as she had been before. She wriggled to try to turn her head to see what she could of where they were. Featureless scrub and a few rocks gave her no indication. There was no sign of their camp apart from the dieing embers of the fire that her captor had lit. She realised he had used it to burn her belongings. Nothing remained except a charred corner of the waistcoat she had been wearing when she had returned. She was angry. He'd wanted her to see this. He came into her view, grinning at her as he crouched down beside the fire, poking the un-burnt corner of waistcoat back into the fire. It smouldered and flared. He took something from his pocket, holding it towards the flames. She realised it was her passport. He laughed as he let it fall into the fire.

He watched it burn and then said nothing but began to lead the horses off again, trudging slowly towards the mountains along the track that they had been following before.

She tried to keep track of time, jarred and bruised by every step of the horse she was tied to. Her only view of the passing miles was the stones and dust of the track a few feet below her face and the belly of the horse.

They stopped. She tried to turn her head to see what was happening but could see nothing except the flank of the animal that was carrying her. There was the sound of voices, the guttural tones of the dialect of the town where she had been staying. Two men talking; greeting one another. Her captor asking the other if he was ready. The other saying yes, she can join the others.

Dawn was breaking, the soft pink light that heralded another day of hear and dust. Her captor came back to her horse and released her from it, sitting her down on the ground. The other man came to join them. He crouched down beside her, taking her by the hair and turning her face towards him. He nodded. Stood up again and reached into his coat, pulling out a wad of the local currency. She watched as her abductor stood waiting, licking his lips as the bills were counted. The two men shook hands and her abductor reached down to pick her up once more. As he carried her around the horse she saw the waiting truck.

It was an old, weather beaten truck with a canvas cover over the rear. She was lifted up and pushed into the back over the back board of the truck. Inside were three other girls, each bound and gagged like herself, and a guard sat holding a machine pistol. The guard leant across, pulled a length of chain from the floor and looped it around Karen's neck. A heavy padlock fastened the chain in place. The truck moved off.

She groaned as the truck bounced over the ruts and pits in the unmade road. "Signechi," the guard barked, jabbing the barrel of his gun into her ribs. He was speaking Kushtian, she thought, signechi – silence. She tried to sit back against the side of the truck but every lurching bound of the vehicle tossed her to one side or another, bruising her. She tried to look around at the other bound and chained women. Their gagged cries of discomfort had now subsided to a disconsolate silence as they stared at the floor of the truck avoiding the eyes of one another and their guard. Two of the other three were of Asiatic origin, Japanese she thought. The other looked European or American. Probably a back-packer that had found her way up here and then fallen in with the wrong crowd. Just like she had, she thought. They all looked tired, frightened, resigned. The two Japanese girls wore short, pale coloured dresses, the European jeans and a t-shirt. They all looked bruised and beaten.

The truck bounced on. Every so often there would be the piercing honk of the truck's horn, intended, she presumed, to clear livestock from its path. But then the truck slowed and finally stopped.

There were more voices. Official sounding. She assumed they were at the border. That was good. They'd be bound to search the truck. They'd all be rescued. She strained her ears to hear what was being said. "Warodny carbech?" asked an unknown voice, "what are you carrying?" She heard the voice of the man that had taken her from her abductors. "Tores carnachy," he said. "Only meat."

"Signechi," the guard hissed again. She heard booted steps outside the truck, walking towards the back. The flap in the trucks cover was pulled back. A uniformed man put his head into the gap. "We're saved," thought Karen.