Geography and Destiny For centuries, scarce resources and difficult terrain have required people in the Hindu Kush region to develop unique solutions to survive. But while geography has brought challenges, it has also offered opportunities. In Afghanistan, geography is a multi-sided destiny.
Identity and Perception Local, tribal, and religious identities in the Hindu Kush region have always shifted depending on one’s point of view. As Afghanistan decides what it means to be Afghan, it faces a kaleidoscope of moving perspectives.
Tradition and Modernization Afghans have always had to be flexible. At times, this flexibility has brought people together, and at other times it has torn them apart. Reconciling tradition and modernization means making sense of what’s at stake when people change--and when they don’t.
Traces and Narratives History is not always written. Much of what we know about Afghanistan comes from scattered artifacts, symbols, and oral traditions. Understanding these traces means piecing together the narratives that history leaves behind.
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Geography & Destiny
Tradition & Modernization
Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East. "Khidad Udruh Qanat 1." Digital image. APAAME's Flickr Photostream. Accessed August 11, 2010. https://www.flickr.com/photos/apaame/4194201875/.
Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en
Arbob. "Untitled Mouth Music." Lorraine Sakata, 1966.
Paindagul mouth music recorded in Urozgan Province, Afghanistan. © Sakata Music Collection
Bailey, Samuel. "Qanat Diagram." Chart. December 2, 2009. Accessed March 23, 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qanat_cross_section.svg.
Edited by Asia Society.
Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Dupree, Nancy. 49-58. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.
Dupree, Nancy. 50-60. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.
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Dupree, Nancy. 61-355. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.
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Edited by Asia Society.
Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
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Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
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Producer: Grace Norman
The natural environment has always shaped human lives and societies. So, too, did humans shape the natural environment.
In the Hindu Kush, one ancient invention changed the landscape forever. It was so effective that the idea spread throughout the region, and perhaps as far as the Americas centuries later.
Most of the land in the Hindu Kush is not suitable for farming. Water is a constant and vigorous demand of a thirsty landscape trying to produce crops. Early settlers in the region figured out how to quench that thirst.
The qanat were irrigation canals that brought water down from the mountains to the agricultural settlements that were founded in Afghanistan.
We don’t know exactly when the idea of qanat developed, but it must have been very early because there is a need for irrigation in most regions of Afghanistan. And this is a style of irrigation, a type of irrigation, particularly characteristic of Central Asia and particularly in parts of Southern and Western Afghanistan. It’s very, very common.
The qanat system is a unique form of irrigation in which the irrigation channels, the main ones, are actually under ground. And what they do is they dig a tunnel from the area that you want to irrigate at a shallow angle all the way up to the water table at the foothills of the mountains.
In order to do this you need to sink shafts that look like wells, maybe every hundred meters, sometimes less so that you can pull the soil out and so you can get in and clean it.
But what it means is that when you’re finished you essentially have an irrigation channel that’s tapping underground water and bringing it underground to a valley. That’s a way to irrigate areas that have no surface water, the lack of rivers or streams.
They’re quite distinctive, particularly from the air. You just see these long lines of what look to be like well holes you know prairie dog holes you know crossing the landscape.
But the capital investment as you might imagine is quite large. Also technically this is not an easy thing to do. The angle has to be right. You have to have specialists that know how to do it and you also have to have usually someone who puts up the money to have it dug in the first place.
And then you have to have it pretty much constantly maintained over time.
But the investment has its pay-offs.
Afghanistan has a very demanding environment. Only about 12% of the land is cultivable. And so of that amount, even of that 12%, only 20% is dry farming; the other 80% requires water through the irrigated agriculture and qanat system.
Just as water has flowed through the qanats, the concept, too, flowed from one people to another. Throughout history other farmers of parched lands also adopted the method.
It appears likely that a similar development occurred in Northwest China, what is now Xinjiang, where you have the so-called kariz, which are similar to the qanat, and probably the qanat did influence the development of the kariz in Northwestern China. There is also some feeling that the qanat influenced irrigation patterns in Central Asia–that is still undetermined–but it’s certainly possible.
Others like it spread throughout the Hindu Kush region–and beyond to the East and West. Eventually, with Arab conquests and Spanish colonization, a descendant of the qanat found its way to the Americas.
But just as humans have created this life-nourishing invention, so too, have humans found a way to destroy it. There have been recent reports that combatants have used the qanat tunnels as passage ways and for storage. Other reports claim that several have been destroyed due to armed conflict. Newer technologies, such as the water pump and large-scale dams, have found their way to Afghanistan in the last century, but with mixed success.
It’s unclear whether the ancient ways or new technology will win out. But just as the agricultural lands are parched, so, too, are the people in those places thirsty for solutions.
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