Karakalpak Folk Tales

About the Book

(From 'The Witty Boy')

They tribal leaders asked the boy if he could show them the way to Khiva, the boy answered: 'There are no settlements in these areas. You'd better stay at my place this night and be my guest.'
'What will slaughter for the guests? A sheep or a goat?' asked the tribal leaders and laughed at the boy.
'I will slaughter one goat if I find one. Or, perhaps, I will slaughter two goats if I find none,' the boy answered.
'Are you all right, boy? How can you slaughter one goat, if you find one, and two goats if you find none?' one of the tribal leaders asked the boy. The boy did not say anything.

(From 'The Old Woman Wearing a Skull on Her Neck')

The young man sit by the side of the old man and looked around. He saw two old women sitting in the other side of the yurt. One of the old women was wearing a skull on her neck. The young man did not understand why she was wearing a skull. In a few moments, the meal was ready. The meal was served in two trays: one was served for the old man, one of his wife and the young man, the other was served for the old woman wearing a skull. As the old woman wearing a skull said: Qumay, please come here. The meal is ready, a dog with shining fur came out from behind a curtain and both ate from the same tray. When they finished eating, the old man asked the young where he was coming from, what he was doing in that area and where he was going.

About the Author

Quatbay Utegenov, born in 1960 in a rural village of Karakalpakstan, northern Uzbekistan in Central Asia, to the family of ethnic Karakalpaks. Went to a Karakalpak-language school and studied at the English Language department of Tashkent Foreign Languages University between 1983 and 1988. Between 1988 and 1994 he was a teacher of English at Karakalpak State University. From 1994 to now, a Kazakh and Russian language monitor at the BBC World Service Monitoring Central Asian Unit in Tashkent.