Caspian Tigers and Loptuq Activity Contexts in Eastern Turkestan
Abstract
Until a hundred years ago, Caspian tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) shared habitat with the Loptuq people who lived along the Tarim River, and lake Lop Nur in Eastern Turkestan. Although their paths crossed, humans and tigers avoided each other and did not compete for resources; only occasionally did a tiger kill cattle and horses or humans kill a tiger. The tigers fed mainly on wild boar (Sus scrofa nigripes) while the Loptuq, for religious reasons, rejected it as food. Intensified contacts with the outside world at the end of the nineteenth century changed this situation. Tiger parts, for medicinal purposes, were in high demand among itinerant peddlers, and the state authorities required furs as tribute, causing some Loptuq men to hunt tigers on a larger scale. The Caspian tiger became extinct in the Tarim Basin, most likely in the 1920s, and during the following decades, it disappeared completely throughout its former range in Central Asia. In the mid-twentieth century, ecological and hydrological changes implemented by the Chinese government destroyed the unique fishing and gathering economy of the Loptuq, and the whole group was displaced and forcibly assimilated. Fragmented information about the activity contexts between the Loptuq and Caspian tigers exist now only in older sources and scholarly publications, which are reviewed here.
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