Only Rule of the Game: Don’t Drop the Headless Calf
Somehow, amid the thrash of whips and hail of hooves, the team from Parwan discovered an interloper, an extra rider who had sneaked onto the field to aid the losing Kabul side. In an instant, the Parwan team set upon him, lashing and pummeling the man as he spurred his horse desperately to get away.
The would-be savior’s soldiers leaped from the bleachers and began running to the aid of their commander, their AK-47s at the ready. Spectators dropped to the ground, taking cover.
Buzkashi, the wild, ruthless and sometimes deadly national sport of Afghanistan, has returned to the capital after a six-year ban during the reign of the Taliban regime.
Played by horsemen who battle for control of the carcass of a decapitated calf, the game has apparently lost none of its power during its absence--power that is physical, political and endlessly metaphorical in its parallels to Afghan life.
A ritual that appears little more than unadulterated mayhem, with different horsemen frequently taking hold of each of the calf’s legs and pulling in different directions, buzkashi is in fact much more than a game. It often illuminates the influence, or lack thereof, of its sponsors, for only the wealthy can afford to organize a buzkashi, only the most powerful a particularly successful one.
The game also is a chance for everyone from powerful commanders to lowly tribesmen to demonstrate their bravery. Chapandazan, or riders, seldom go home without having shed blood, and sometimes lose their lives beneath the horses’ hooves.
“I have been shot five times just in this one hand,” said Noor Habib, a renowned moujahedeen and Northern Alliance commander, and the leader this recent day of the Parwan team. He held up his left hand, mangled during more than two decades of war. “What is buzkashi to me?”
The fact that this visceral game has returned to Kabul--and that players and sponsors can’t comprehend why humanitarian organizations won’t help fund it--goes far in illuminating the still-vast chasm between Afghanistan and much of the world.
The stadium teemed this day with more than 10,000 fans. Six months ago, 10,000 spectators meant only one thing: the Taliban was meting out punishment, executing adulterers with a shot to the head, hacking off the hands of thieves.
“I saw them chop off a hand once,” said 24-year-old Omar, whose first year of life was his only year without war in Afghanistan. “I was OK until they walked through the stands, holding the hand up. Then I got sick.”
An early form of buzkashi (pronounced BOOS-kah-shee) was likely developed soon after the first domestication of the horse by Central Asian tribes and introduced in what is now Afghanistan by Turk and Mongol invaders. Precisely when and where are not only unclear but unimportant in this land of oral history.
The most primitive and essential form of the game, known as tudabarai, is still practiced in the north of the country and is a near-perfect symbol for the chaos of Afghanistan. Some matches involve 1,000 players or more. There are no boundaries in tudabarai, and no teams. Every man rides only for himself--for money and honor.
To score, a chapandazan must simply break away with the calf, if only for a second, wresting the carcass from the hundreds of other hands seeking to control it. Whether a horseman acquires sole control of the carcass, and is indeed free and clear of the other riders, is endlessly subjective and the cause of many a fight.
Game Reflects Nation’s Struggles
The other version, played here in the capital and other cities, could be viewed as an athletic microcosm of the repeated attempts, and ensuing failures, of regime after regime to bring order to this hard land.
Qarajai, the version molded by 20th century governments that sought with very limited success to organize the game and popularize it in the outside world, is played by two teams, made up of 10 players each. Each team has a goal, a circle drawn with stones or lime, in which the calf carcass is to be deposited. A team can also score when a rider rounds a flag located at the far end of the field while carrying the calf. There are two 45-minute halves to the game, with a short rest period in between.
Despite the more elaborate rules and the limit on the number of riders, the basic premise of qarajai is essentially the same as that of tudabarai: Seize the carcass by nearly any means and ride away.
“Allahu akbar!” (God is great), the announcer shouted like a shot to begin this recent game. “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar!”
With the call, the horsemen laid their whips to their mounts, as well as the mounts of others, and galloped toward the dead calf. Holding on with only their legs, riding at top speed, the chapandazan reached all the way to the ground in an effort to hoist the calf, this carcass weighing more than 60 pounds, alongside their horses.
A member of the team from Parwan, an area of the Panjshir Valley, where boys grow up dreaming of being chapandazan like American boys dream of being professional football players, seized the carcass. A teammate grabbed the horse’s harness and tried to drag them both out of the melee and toward the flag.
The horse, its eyes wild with pain and fury, bit at the necks of other steeds, as well as the calf.
After a minutes-long scrum, which is how the majority of any buzkashi is spent, another Parwan rider snatched the calf from his teammate and broke free. He galloped away and rounded the flag, earning one point. Then he headed back toward the Parwan goal, dropping the calf inside the circle for two more points.
The literal translation of buzkashi is “goat-dragging” or “goat-lifting,” but the etymology of the word is, again, mysterious. The “goat” may have once been a goat, but for generations it has usually been calf, perhaps because a calf carcass holds together better during play than a goat carcass, some elders say.
It is not without ceremony that the buzkashi calf is dispatched. The sacrifice, however, is but a small part of a buzkashi. Traditionally, games are held to celebrate a marriage, or a circumcision, or another rite of passage.
The day before the recent game, riders, horse owners and organizers pinned the black calf to the ground, pointed its head west, toward Mecca, and slit its throat. Then they removed its head, cut off its hooves to help protect players’ hands, and used its body for practice.
“Safdar!” the announcer cried over a tinny public address system, announcing the name of another Parwan rider who had scored. The rider collected a fistful of 10,000-afghani notes, bills from various commanders who had helped sponsor the game, as well as donations from the crowd. He stuffed the bills, worth about 35 cents each, into his pockets before heading back onto the field to rejoin the game.
This buzkashi was sponsored by the nascent Afghan government, with help from several powerful commanders. The government had neither the resources nor clout yet to mandate order at the event, however, and the commanders would not benefit by acknowledging governmental power.
The riders complained because only a few were paid; the commanders complained that they couldn’t afford to feed their horses and their soldiers.
There were fights over rules, accusations of game-fixing. And then, with Parwan stomping Kabul 10 points to 2, the extra man on the Kabul team was discovered.
Members of the Parwan team snatched their woven-leather whips from between their teeth and swung them across the man’s head and face. They hit him with their wood-and-steel whip handles. He spurred his horse and tried to fight back.
The horseback brawl made its way around the field--a soccer field in this case, but a tudabarai field has no set size--and returned to near the goals, where the governor of Kabul and other dignitaries sat on a maroon sofa looking disdainful. The chase came to a halt, and the game’s referee kicked out the extra Kabul player.
That’s when the man’s soldiers rushed from the stands with their guns. The match stopped for 15 minutes, but no shots were fired.
Match Evokes Different Feelings in Watchers
Hamidullah Hassanyar, who oversees government-sanctioned buzkashis and was a member of the Kabul team, quit in disgust. “This isn’t buzkashi,” he said.
Some fans also walked out, not because they were appalled by the behavior of the riders, but because they believed that the match was fixed by bettors, guaranteeing a Parwan win.
The rogue Kabul rider agreed to leave the field. His soldiers returned peacefully to the stands, and the game resumed.
Parwan continued its romp. Half an hour later, with the stands half empty, the announcer delivered the final score: Parwan 18, Kabul 5.
One of the first state-sponsored buzkashis since the Taliban seized power in 1996, the game was over. It had brought little glory to the interim government of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, and, in the psychology of the game, suggested that his influence here was minimal.
Shakir, 16, rushed to his horse. The horse’s mouth was bleeding badly. He threw a wool blanket over its back.
Shakir had rented his horse to Safdar. Safdar had scored three points, bringing honor to them all.
“This is our sport,” Shakir said, proudly slapping his horse on the neck. “You must be a wrestler to play buzkashi. I am not yet strong enough. One day I will be.”