Publisher's Synopsis
This book provides a window to the life and culture of the Kazakh people who live in China. The work summarizes Kazakh political history, social organization, ethnographical aspects of nomadism, linguistics, and Chinese national policy. To this array of information, the book brings humanity and cultural depth, revealing how Kazakhs bless and obliquely curse, and how they experience life's joys and sorrows together with the fate and the work they share. We learn about their wedding customs and their poetry of marriage; about their involvement with the religion of Islam, and about their enduring habit of occasionally having recourse to the ancient rites of shamans. In brief, this book presents glimpses of Kazakh culture and life, ranging from the joys of being born and married to the sorrows of death.
