Figure 1.--Here is an Uzbek boy performing for a group of men. The photograph was taken in Kokand a town in Uzbekistan, probably during the late 1920s.
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Figure 1.--Here is an Uzbek boy performing for a group of men. The photograph was taken in Kokand a town in Uzbekistan, probably during the late 1920s. |
A HBC reader has provided some information about dance and song in Usbekistan
and parts of Turkestan and North Afghanistan among the Uzbeks and other peoples of central Asia. Boys might be sent by their fathers to become dancers. Boys were normally sent at ages 12-16, but there were bos as old as 18 years of age. They are reported from late 19th century on by Western and Soviet travellers. They were thaught by masters and there would be bets to them in an event called bacabozlic (boy game) from the male audience. Although it was officially not allowed a quarter to a half of the male population visited by Baldauf took part in it. The boys songs dealt with love (there were different versions during performance and aggressive ones). One author believes this was because boys couldn't cope beeing dressed up like girls. [Bladauf]. These dancing boys were last reported in northern Afghanistan during the 1970s.
A HBC reader has provided some information about dance and song in Usbekistan
and parts of Turkestan and North Afghanistan among the Uzbeks and other peoples of central Asia.
Boys might be sent by their fathers to become dancers. Boys were normally sent at ages 12-16, but there were bos as old as 18 years of age. They are reported from late 19th century on by Western and Soviet travellers. They were thaught by masters and there would be bets to them in an event called bacabozlic (boy game) from the male audience. Although it was officially not allowed a quarter to a half of the male population visited by Baldauf took part in it. The boys songs dealt with love (there were different versions during performance and aggressive ones). One author believes this was because boys couldn't cope beeing dressed up like girls. [Bladauf]. These dancing boys were last reported in northern Afghanistan during the 1970s.
The Uzbek folksong was strongly linked to it One observer describes bacabozlic., [Baldauf] There was also a form that had poetic language describing the beauty of dancing boys and their cruelity and remoteness when they danced for the betting men. These song might be sung by the men who were unable to obtain a dancing boy.
They wore a wide (usually white) trousers, a multicoloured calflong robe with long sleeves, a sewed small hat, a broad belt around the waist, on the ankles bells, some wore corcksrew-like curls, which were thought to be frivol. In short, they were made up and dressed like small girls. But they danced differently than women: they whirled with sided arms and stamped strongly with their feet to
lute and small cymbals.
When the boy had accepted the bit men they lived in a relationship together, the man payed for the boys edcation. The boy lived with the man's family, but also had to spend time with his friend and entertain him on festivals. And very often the boys became a man who bet later on, or a dancer or singer. They were called among many other terms younger brother (for the boy) and older brother. Sometimes the man ruined himself financial or there were arguments between men when both wanted the same boy. In return the boy had to dance on other events of the same kind. Sometimes there were intimate reklations, although it is not clear how common this was. After the Russuian conwquest of central Asia, this was picked upon by the Western-oriented press and a campaign was begun to abolish this custom. Western observers saw it as thinly veiled boy prostitution. In North Afghanistan it is most likely no longer in use, too. A wife of a betting man (when he was married) thought of the dancing boy as rival, but not as much as of the other wives of her husband. To compare this custom with others like Anccient Greek Pederasty, Pederasty in China, Pederasty in islamic mystic is difficult because of the limited information (except on Greek Pederasty).
The information here was contributed by a German reader. We have a number of questions that remained unanswered. We believe that the fathers who had their sons learn dancing were poor and without realistic expectitations to educate the boy or prepare him to make a living. These children may have been esentialy sold by poor parents. We are also not sure what was meant by "betting men:.
Baldauf, Ingeborg. Die Knabenliebe in Mittelasien (Bacabozlik. Berlin, 1988).
Macuse, Max. Handwörterbuch der Sexualwissenschaft (Berlin 2001. (Reprint of 2nd. Edition of 1926) 'Päderastie' written by Paul Brandt S. 541.
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