Title Image: The Ritual Begins- Rapakan Aidarkulova, a 63-year-old woman from Karakol is a traditional Kyrgyz healer.
A crowd patiently waits, snaking around the dark halls of a small office. Some pace nervously while children bounce in laps. One’s first guess of this being an underequipped doctor’s office isn’t so far off. Actually, this busy room filled with clients who quickly enter and exit a small examination room, waiting for some mysterious physician are turning to the traditional Kyrgyz practice of healing that was once forgotten during Soviet times Rapakan Aidarkulova, a 63-year-old woman from Karakol near Lake Issyk Kul is just one healer playing an active part in this countrywide resurgence of traditional knowledge within Kyrgyzstan.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union more Kyrgyz are rediscovering once rigidly controlled and often forbidden traditional practices turning to ancestral knowledge as a key to the past. These practices include pilgrimages to sacred sites known as Mazaars, soothsaying, treatment from traditional healers, and the reciting of oral histories in the form of the world’s large epic -Manas.
During the Soviet Union, traditional practices were heavily restricted and believed to be strong expressions of nationalism that threatened stability within the republics. Under Party control, healers, soothsayers, and other traditional practitioners were forced to hide their abilities, practicing behind closed doors away from prying eyes.
“Returning to traditional knowledge, isn’t a surprise, because it’s our mentality, our lifestyle, we remain Kyrgyz, despite what regime we follow,” said healer Rapakan Aidarkulova.
At the moment, Aidarkulova who is also a soothsayer reading into the futures of others is mainly practicing traditional medicine, seeing a nearly endless stream of individuals at her office. She uses massage therapy and other methods to tap into her clients’ consciousness to solve their personal problems ranging from infertility to impotence. Through the use of stones, pungent roots, old fashioned fire and a variety of other traditional healing tools, healers like Aidarkulova continue to treat believers the same as their ancestors have for hundreds of years.
As she starts her fertility ritual: Rapakan lights seven candles -a sacred number for the Kyrgyz people. Then forming a ciricle with the candles she beings saying a prayer, asking for spiritual guidance. As she finishes, Rapakan opens her eyes and takes her stones into her hands; she throws stones at the surface of the table and starts telling what is bothering her client and how the problem could be solved. Unlike ordinary doctors Rapakan isn’t a formally trained medical specialists, but she works with dozens of health problems, such as fertility issues, blood pressure, long-term illnesses that clients report to be oddly successful.
Through what she believes to be gifts from a higher power Rapakan has treated thousands of clients and continues to read the future of many.
“My visions of the future that I have thought as of intuition in the beginning have rapidly grown more, and I could even fell into a trance while having lunch with my family, people around me were afraid of consequences,” says Rapakan.
Spirits of my ancestors and great Kyrgyz people speak about unity and friendship, which are so necessary for our nation,” she added.
Editor’s note: Nargiza Ryskulova is a student contributor to Sonsofhedin.org
