Description:
The Japanese ethnographer Takuya Soma is the first and only English-language academic, it seems, to ever publish on Central Asian falconry. After living in Sagsai, Mongolia for five months in 2011, Soma went on to publish a series of insightful articles in the following years. This first article, published in Volume 7 of the International Journal of Intangible Heritage, is attractively designed and well-organized. One wonders, however, about the premise of “Altai-Kazakh” as a research subject - might this draw confusion with the Altai people of Russia, and ignore the existence of falconry amongst other Kazakh tribes next door in Kazakhstan? I’m thrilled to see a study of this population’s tradition, but we should be careful of compartmentalizing a geographically fluid phenomenon.
