Andis - Economy



Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The foundations of the traditional economy of the Upper Andis were terrace farming, specialized gardening (in the villages of Muni and Kvankhidatl), and livestock herding, with the animals being driven to alpine pastures in the summer. The Andis have practiced all of these agricultural activities since antiquity, and they are all complementary. Some Andis have taken jobs in the modern industrial and agricultural sectors (as workers on collective farms and in factories, etc.).

Andi apparel and cuisine are little different from those of the Avars. One exception is the traditional woman's costume, which consists of a tuniclike long dress with a tight waist, wide pantaloons, and distinctive leather shoes. The costume is completed by a headdress, chukhtu, in the form of a half-moon with the "horns" pointing downward. The portion of the chukhtu worn over the forehead is adorned with bright gold embroidery or brocaded fabric. Upper Andi women also wear a long white kerchief ( kazi ) wrapped about their heads. Lower Andi women wear a black kerchief without the chukhtu. The chukhtu was worn regularly up to the 1930s; now it is worn mainly on ceremonial occasions.


Industrial Arts. Traditionally the Andis manufactured noteworthy Caucasian felt cloaks ( burkas ) of long, durable black or white wool, shorn from a local (Andian) breed of sheep. This craft was practiced by women, whereas the men were responsible for the dyeing and merchandising of the cloaks. The manufacture of burkas goes back to ancient times. Historical records mention black felt cloaks as part of the battle garment of mountaineers at the time of the campaign of Alexander the Great in the Near East. There was an especially great demand and consequently increased production of burkas during the frequent warfare of the nineteenth century. The Andis considered them a specifically masculine garment, an important component of a warrior's equipment in both the cavalry and infantry. In the 1930s the production of burkas declined as a result of changes in fashion, the decreasing role of the cavalry in the army, etc. Local demand is presently supplied by the burka artel of the village of Rakhata. In only one Andi village, Gagati, is the manufacture of burkas preserved as a minor form of domestic industry. In the Lower Andi village of Kvankhidatl table salt was extracted from nearby mineral springs and refined; this enterprise continues but only to a limited degree because of the reduced demand for the salt.


Trade. The Andis were traditionally considered to have an inclination for trade, deriving from the production of burkas. At one time they manufactured and sold 80,000 burkas per year throughout the entire Caucasus and Russia. Merchandisers would buy burkas from the villagers and sell them wherever it was profitable. Businesspeople organized the production of cloaks by hired laborers. By the second half of the twentieth century the burka trade was in decline. The villagers of Kvankhidatl deal in the salt they produce, which sold especially well during the economic blockade of Daghestan in the nineteenth century, at the time of the Caucasus Wars. The Lower Andis traditionally engaged in specialized gardening, all of the produce of which went to the markets to be exchanged for the products of animal husbandry and agriculture. In the past a weekly bazaar was held at the village of Andi, attended by villagers from the Andi territory and neighboring communities. At the present time the bazaar is held at Gagati. Cooperative stores are now found in all of the Andi villages.

Division of Labor. Work was strictly apportioned according to age and gender among the Andis, a practice continued up to the present time. Agricultural labor, except for plowing and the grinding of grain, is given over to women; they are also responsible for dairy production, handicrafts, and housework (cooking, cleaning, sewing, child care). The women also engage in small commerce; one can see as many women as men buying and selling at the weekly bazaar. The heaviest labor was reserved for men: woodcutting and construction, plowing and threshing, driving and tending livestock in the alpine meadows, driving sheep to winter pastures, mowing and transport of hay from distant hay fields, etc. Well-to-do Andis employed hired laborers from neighboring Avar and Chechen villages for these tasks. Division of domestic and agricultural labor by gender is still practiced today. According to tradition, men were supposed to be left free to devote their time to martial training and sports and social and political affairs, a belief deriving from the life-styles and social conditions of the past.


Land Tenure. Historically, arable land, a portion of the hay fields, and certain pasturelands were privately owned, alienable property—that is, they could be bought, sold, inherited, given as gifts, etc. Some agricultural lots and other items were placed at the disposal of the mosque for charitable purposes. (Such items were known as waqf. ) The property of each settlement was also precisely known to those living in the area, either through written documents or collective memory. A portion of these territorial holdings might be bought, sold, leased, or yielded, as agreed upon by the negotiating communities and in accordance with traditional property law. Private and communal ownership of land and the buying and selling of it were abolished with the nationalization of the land and the establishment of collective farms under Soviet administration. Recent reforms and economic restructuring will doubtless lead to further changes regarding landownership.


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