Kashgar Tribal Artifacts - Life for the Modern Nomad | Handmade Jewellery, ethnic handicrafts, antique furniture

The custom of taking multiple wives, or polygyny, is well known. The opposite custom, the taking of two or more husbands or polyandry, is rather less well known, and is becoming a very rare practice indeed in the modern world...

Tibetan polyandry. Picture courtesy of the Tibet Travel Centre

A visitor to the smaller towns and villages of Bali would be forgiven for thinking that temples adorn every street corner and all of the spaces in between. High walls with the smallest of doorways allow only the briefest of views by passers-by, while above the walls there are tantalizing glimpses of exquisitely carved shrines, some no larger than birdcages. However, these are all in fact private residences, more properly called compounds or karangs, which may house several generations of Balinese families at one time.

The Uyghur people originated in Mongolia, and over the ages moved slowly westwards until they settled in the Taklamakan Desert region of China's far north west.  Centred in and around the city of Kashgar, smaller communities can also be found today in Turkmanestan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia.  Today most Uyghurs are Muslims and practice Sufism.  They have developed a strong tradition of story telling, and their fables reflect their rich and varied cultural history.  Here we present a Uyghur folktale, called The Clever Young Man, which is brimming with heroes, evil villains, ogres and princesses, for your reading pleasure. Our thanks to Alip of the Kashgar Caravan Travel Agency for this translation.

The Yao are a Hill Tribe success story. More affluent and outgoing than any of the other upland peoples, the roots of their cultural confidence and commercial ability are founded in a long tradition of literacy and close association with things Chinese. The Yao have a very clear idea of who and what they are - aristocratic nomads of the hills, subject to none, but deeply committed to the traditional Sinitic world-view of which they form part...