THE Afghan-Soveit war has produced changes throughout Afghan culture and this extends to carpet weaving. Refugees in Iran and Pakistan have continued weaving rugs, often producing non-traditional designs, perhaps to appeal to Western consumers.
A subset of these are pictorial rugs including the popular "war-rugs", but others may show images with more subtle hints about the psychological
struggles confronting them as refugees of war.
One such pictorial rug that is new is collected by a Pakistani exporter from Afghan weavers in the Peshawar area. It is a
wool pile carpet that measures 3'8'' by 6'9'', including the fringes.
There are repeated images along the length of the rug forming an unusual design. At the center, we see a
mounted horseman in a colorful costume looking at the scene of a bull which has been freshly killed (it is shown in brownish-red) by a large feline carnivore (with brown chevron flecked fur). Its jaws are open and it has begun eating the hind quarters.
By appearance, this may be a lion -- non-existent in this part of Asia for the last thousand years, but alive in the myths and ancient folklore.
Immediately next to this group is another man who has wrapped himself in the predator's pelt(brownish and chevorn flecked) while the lion below is shown all in white and thus stripped of its fur coat. Numerous filler images of colorful birds and flower motifs surround these larger figures, giving a background of blooming life.
If this is a fertility scene, it is a complex one since it is the intervening lion that has killed the bull and then is itself slain (being flayed of its skin). Often in folklore, such human intimacy in the death of an animal (here a lion) may symbolize regaining contact within the self with instincts characteristic of that animal, as opposed to "higher" intellectual or cultural qualities. I suspect that this is in some way true here as well.
The iconography of horse and rider might represent the centaur-like character of a human awareness with the horse - the "lower" unconscious
instinctive part guided by a "higher" consciousness.
The horseman is witness to a drama where the absence of lion-killing weapons (gun, sword or spear), and the contorted facial expression on the man in the fur pelt all point to an inner psychological struggle. Just as there is a transformation in the lion (a symbol of raging aggression and desire) we may suspect that the two human figures are representations of a psychological turmoil within a single man. He is of two minds (one detached and observing, the other deeply immeresed) about expressing his "animal aggression" once he comes in contact with it. Notice also the colorful costume on the observer figure and the tri-color banner held up by the lion slayer. The predominant colors (deep blue, greenish brown and brownish red) are similar, perhaps attesting to a close link between the two figures.
Other details may reflect ancient symbols and mythology from this part of the world (such as the Shahnama or Book of Kings by Ferdowsi). There is a similarity in the shape of pointed tri-color banner held on a staff by the lion slayer, and the mounted observer's three multi-pronged shafts decorated across the front of his body. Their bright colors may disguise a darker origin. The trident (a spear with a three pronged head) is the identifying symbol of the Hindu God Shiva, the archetypal destroyer in the cycle of countless rebirths that constitutes life. His traditional "vehicle" (animal symbol placed beneath him testifying to his energy) is the bull.
The joined imagery of horseman and bull is also an old one. From the 8th to the 15th century in Afghanistan and Northern India, a common coin ("jital") showed a reclining bull on the obverse and an advancing horseman on the reverse. These figures were intermingled with inscriptions and other details including what looks like the head of a trident drawn in the hind quarters of the kneeling bull. Into this traditional imagery, our Afghan refugee had added the lion as destroyer, and the unusual detail of a human figure who puts on the clothing of the beast.
There is at least one mythological precedent. A heroic myth describes how Shiva conquers an evil demon who had confronted him in the form of an elephant (Zimmer, 1946). He does not use his trident or other weapon but entices his foe to move with him in a frenetic dance until it drops exhausted from the destructive energies released. He then flays the beast and wraps himself in its skin. We may search for meaning from this ancient myth. Perhaps a beast's (and therefore man's own) destructive evil energies are something which is best not met directly with a show of equal brutality or repression. Flaying and wearing the skin of a raging beast may mean both to "lay bare" beast-like impulses and to expreience the sensations of this "hair-shirt" by trying it on for size...finally incorporating intense aggressive feelings in a way that allows self-examination into the depths of violence within. Yet, Shiva as mythological God and product of the imagination, may show omnipotent behaviors that are beyound our grasp.
Certainly, the use of such symbolism to explore human destructiveness is an ancient task. Without knowing whether the Afghan rug weaver was literate or not, he or she was probably aware of the emotional consequences of war. Such timeless archetypes may form an unconscious reservoir in the psyche of war's survivors that is operative alongside feelings of terror and retaliatory anger. I believe that these symbols can emerge in the iconography of a contemporary Afghan weaver, an observer and perhaps a victim of war and its aftermath. Yet, the final outcome of such a psychological struggle with elemental anger, of the man wrapped and immobilized except for a grimace, remains uncertain.
Other work by Charles Lewis, Ph.D :
