Kashkai

Kashkai

Qashqai people (pronounced [ɢæʃɢɒːˈjiː]; Persian: قشقایی; Kaşkayı in Turkish) are a Turk tribal confederation in Iran. Almost all of them speak a Western Turkic (Oghuz) language known as the Qashqai language — which they call "Turkī" — as well as Persian (the national language of Iran) in formal use. The Qashqai mainly live in the provinces of Fars, Khuzestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Bushehr and southern Isfahan, especially around the cities of Shiraz and Firuzabad in Fars. The majority of Qashqai people were originally nomadic pastoralists and some remain so today. The traditional nomadic Qashqai traveled with their flocks twice yearly between the summer highland pastures north of Shiraz roughly 480 km or 300 miles south and the winter pastures on lower (and warmer) lands near the Persian Gulf, to the southwest of Shiraz. The majority, however, have now become partially or wholly sedentary. The trend towards settlement has been increasing markedly since the 1960s under government pressure, and encouragement, which has built housing for those willing to settle, starting in the early 20th century during the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty; However, for those who continue their migratory lifestyle, the Iranian government maintains and controls travel corridors for the Qashqai and their livestock, and other populations practicing pastoral migrations. The Qashqai are made up of five major tribes: the Amale (Qashqai) / Amaleh (Persian), the Dere-Shorlu / Darreh-Shuri, the Kashkollu / Kashkuli, the Shishbeyli / Sheshboluki and the Eymur / Farsimadan. Smaller tribes include the Qaracha / Qarache'i, Rahimli / Rahimi and Safi-Khanli / Safi-Khani.

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