Daughter of Nomads (20 page)

Main Characters

Kingdom of Hazara

Jahani (14)

Hafeezah Gulzar, Jahani's mother

Sameela Malik Habib, Jahani's friend (15)

Azhar Sekandar, Jahani's protector (18)

Persia

Kifayat Ullah, former wazir of Nagir

Bilal Abdul, former wazir of Hahayul

Kingdom of Hahayul

Dagar Khan, former army commander of Hahayul and self-appointed mir of Hahayul

Pir Zal, a seer

Kingdom of Kaghan

Anjuli Singh (10), village girl

Rasheed and his son, Mikal, living at Lake Saiful Maluk

Baqir Abbaas, a landlord at Naran

Zarah Baqir, Baqir's wife

Saman Abdul, commander of Baqir's troop

Kingdom of Skardu

Muzahid Baig, a war lord, who also has a residence in Kaghan

The Nomads

Tafeeq Baseer, the nomad chieftain

Rahul Tafeeq, Tafeeq's son, the nomad prince (20)

Yasmeen Baseer, a pir, Tafeeq's sister and Jahani's nomad mother

Neema and Arifah, nomad widows

Kamilah, Neema's daughter

Animals

Chandi, Jahani's mare

Rakhsh, Azhar's stallion

Sitarah, Hafeezah's mare

Zadi, Yazan's mother

Yazan, Jahani's leopard

Bili, Yazan's sister

Layla, Rahul's dog

Farah, Rahul's mare

Bibi, Rahul's hawk

Other

Shamsher, Jahani's scimitar

A Note about Languages

H
industani was widely spoken in the seventeenth century in the Mughal Empire, though Persian was used in the Mughal Courts and by officials. Burushaski was spoken by many in Hahayul (modern Hunza). The nomads knew Hindustani and Persian, but their mother tongue was Gujjari.

Since Hindustani was widely spoken, this is what most people in
Daughter of Nomads
speak, either as a mother tongue or second language. Jahani and Hafeezah speak Burushaski as a mother tongue, but they only speak it to each other until Azhar shows that he knows it also. Azhar has been brought up with Persian and he speaks this with his foster father, Kifayat, and also Bilal, the former wazir or prime minister of Hahayul. They all know a smattering of Arabic (except Anjuli) as this is their religious language.

The complexity of life living in many little kingdoms can be shown by the use of language but, besides a few Arabic words, I have chosen to use only three languages in the prose: Hindustani as the main one, Burushaski from the northern kingdoms, and a little Persian. Azhar's words for the carpet are Urdu words derived from Persia. I have used alternate and older spellings for some placenames, such as Hahayul (Hunza), Nagir (Nagar), and Gilit (Gilgit), Hemalleh (Himalaya), and used the older spelling using ‘q' instead of ‘k' for Qurraqoram, Hindu Qush & Qashmir.

Thus words in the glossary are Hindustani (Urdu) or common to other languages, unless otherwise marked.

Glossary

Acknowledgements

D
aughter of Nomads
grew from stories I told my children when we lived near the Pakistani Karakoram Mountains, that we loved very much. It was also the original project that won me the Asialink Fellowship to Pakistan in 2006, and so I wish to thank Asialink and also Arts SA who helped finance that wonderful time of research and collecting of ideas which grew into many books.

My sincere thanks go to author Azhar Abidi who has given permission for me to use his idea of how a carpet flies, which I found in his creative essay, ‘The Secret History of the Flying Carpet' in
Meanjin
63:2, 2004, pp. 141–148. The story of Mustafah and his flying carpet also comes from this essay.

Rumi excerpts from ‘To Take a Step Without Feet' and ‘Song of the Reed', translated by Kabir Helminski, from
Love is a Stranger
, © 1993 by Kabir Edmund Helminski. Reprinted by arrangement with The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com.

Thank you to Michael Hawke for giving permission to use his poems, ‘Tales of Jahani', ‘Gold Bangles', ‘Anjuli's Song' and prophecies in
Daughter of Nomads
. Thank you for the workshopping and great advice with plotting and the character agency charts. To Makayla and Amelia for listening to drafts and wanting more. You inspired me to keep writing.

Thank you, Lenore Penner, for your constant encouragement to write this story, brainstorming ideas and reading drafts. You've been waiting for this one a long time.

Thank you, Catherine Wood, for your inspiring photographs of Hunza. And thank you to Jacinta di Mase, the best agent ever, and the delightful and clever team at UQP for your creative and happy work on this book: Kristina Schulz, Kristy Bushnell and designer Jo Hunt. You are brilliant! And special thanks to D.M. Cornish for his amazing artwork for this book.

I also gained inspiration from the following:

Ferdowsi, A, 2006, Trs Dick Davis,
The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings,
Penguin, New York.

Gascoigne, B, 1971,
The Great Moghuls
, B.I. Publications, New Delhi.

Laird, E, 2012,
The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
, Frances Lincoln, London.

Luchsinger, M & Obersteiner, M, 2003,
Cooking in Hunza
, Aga Khan Cultural Service, Pakistan.

Manucci, N, n.d. pre 1950, Michael Edwards Ed.,
Memoirs of the Mughal Court
, Folio Society, London.

Shaw, I, 1989,
Pakistan Handbook
, The Guidebook Company, Hong Kong.

Ullens de Schooten, M, 1956,
Lords of the Mountains
, The Travel Book Club, London.

Willson, S R, 2002,
A Look at Hunza Culture
, National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan.

First published 2016 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

www.uqp.com.au
[email protected]

© Rosanne Hawke 2016

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Cover and text illustrations © D.M. Cornish 2016
Map © D.M. Cornish 2016
Cover design by Jo Hunt
Typeset in 12.5/16.5 pt Perpetua MT Std by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

The researching of
Daughter of Nomads
was assisted by an Asialink Fellowship to Pakistan and financed by Arts SA.

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

Hawke, Rosanne, author.
Daughter of nomads / Rosanne Hawke.

ISBN 978 0 7022 5393 5 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5636 3 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5637 0 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5638 7 (kindle)

For primary school age.
Children of nomads – Juvenile fiction.
Pakistan – History – Juvenile fiction.
Adventure stories.
A823.3

University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.