Pamir Peoples | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

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Geography of Tajikistan Summary

Pamir Peoples

The Pamirs (Mountain Tajiks) dwell in a high-altitude, mountainous knot located mostly in Tajikistan, on the disputed frontiers of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the former Soviet Union. Within Tajikistan and these neighboring political states, the mountains are home to six million Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and numerous other ethnic groups (Uygurs, Kazakhs, Russians, Jews, and Wahkis). The name Pamir Peoples, however, normally applies only to those Tajiks who live east of the Pamir crest in the Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), a poor, sparsely populated, and semiautonomous administrative unit with little political influence (not to be confused with the even poorer Badakshan Province in adjacent northeast Afghanistan).

Tajiks descend from the old pre-Turkic Iranian population and are one of the most ancient ethnic groups in Central Asia. Their language belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family and is a dialect of Persian. Persians first settled this region in 500 CE and were eventually absorbed into the Sasanid dynasty (224/228–651 CE). A succession of Arabs, neighboring Uzbeks, and Afghans overwhelmed them between 500 to 1400 CE. During this time, they developed a sedentary agricultural lifeway, the only Central Asians that were not primarily animal herders. Initially, Tajik indicated all "settled people" but evolved to distinguish the Iranian (Tajik) from Turkic (other Central Asian) subjects of the Arab empire that stretched from North Africa to Central Asia. Western penetration began in the late 1700s and forthe next two hundred years, imperial Britain, czarist Russia, and China played the great game of political and military maneuvering for control of Central Asia. The struggle ended in the 1890s with Russian ascendancy of the Pamir. Through eons of political change in Badakshan, the Pamir became a cultural refuge where ancient habits and beliefs persevered.

A man on a horse below Mustagh Ata mountain in the Pamirs in western China. (GALEN ROWELL/CORBIS)

In the early 2000s, five million ethnic Tajiks live mostly in Tajikistan as two distinct cultural groups: the majority lowland Tajiks of western Tajikistan, and the minority Mountain Tajiks who settle the deep canyons of the eastern Pamir and the north bank of the Pianj River (which later becomes the Amu Darya/Oxus). Interspersed with and included among Mountain Tajiks are six Pamiri clans (Iagnob, Iazgulem, Rushan, Shuganan, Vakhan, and Vanch) of almost pure ancient Iranian heritage. Collectively, they number 170,000 people and use Mountain Tajik, Pamirian ( pomir), or Badakshani to describe their ethnicity. Relative to lowland Tajiks they are of fairer skin and taller. They follow Ismaili and Zoroastrian religious beliefs, while the western Tajiks are predominantly Sunni Muslims.

GBAO is an enclosed geographical dead end. Political restraints forbid travel into adjacent China and Afghanistan all year, and from October to March winter snows block the road to western Tajikistan. There is intermittent winter road access to Kyrgyzstan (Osh), but for the most part, GBAO is totally isolated for the six to seven winter months each year. Farming (wheat, barley, maize, apples, pears, walnuts, and apricots), animal husbandry (sheep and goats), mining of piezooptic quartz for jewelry, and the production of woolen products (socks and scarves) are the main economic pursuits.

Following Tajik independence in 1991, sharply reduced subsidies from Moscow triggered acute shortages of food, medical supplies, and fuel. The education and agricultural sectors also declined precipitously so that this region is among the poorest in the former Soviet Union. The recent Tajik peace accords, a new road project between China and Eastern Tajikistan, and direct aid from the nongovernmental Aga Khan Foundation should provide some immediate relief and promote long-term economic development.