A ‘Tribal Afghan’ Carpet Story

In May 1989, traveling overland toward the Hindu Kush of northern Pakistan, I had stopped in urban Rawalpindi to catch a van that would take me north to the Karakoram Highway. One morning, stepping out from my modest hotel, I was approached by a young man dressed in a shalwar kameez and a prayer cap carrying a rolled object in his arms. With what seemed like a practiced motion, he quickly unfurled a carpet — this carpet — at my feet and asked what I would offer.

I recognized the piece, broadly, as an Afghan tribal work. At the time, Afghanistan was in the grip of war, and many refugees had crossed into Pakistan. Carpets—portable, durable, and culturally resonant—were among the goods they carried and traded. This one, with its bold geometry, saturated reds, and muted blues, seemed to speak of both tradition and displacement. I quickly made an offer and then found myself carrying a rug back to my room.

The Carpet Itself

This carpet is hand-knotted wool, with a short, resilient pile and a wool foundation. Flip it over and the technical story comes into focus: asymmetrical knots typical of Afghan practice, and a knot density in the range of roughly 100-150 knots per square inch, and slightly depressed warps—all signs, so I’ve read, of village or camp production rather than urban workshop refinement.

Three large medallions stand within the darkened cream field. My research suggests that these have some similarity to Turkmen guls but with adapted motifs. The structure and colour palette align with apparent Ersari Turkmen ethnic traditions, found in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan. The freer drawing of the medallions suggests Uzbek or mixed village influences—typical of northern Afghan weaving in the late twentieth century. The natural wool ground is supposedly notable, less dense than classical Turkmen all-over patterning.

The colours in this rug are classic vegetable dyes: madder reds, indigo blues, browns and greens drawn from natural dye mixes, and undyed wool. The tones are softened rather than vivid, consistent with age and use—exactly what we might expect from a rug woven in the 1970s or 1980s and acquired in 1989.

Wear and Use

The carpet shows the marks of a working life. Frayed edges and a reduced pile indicate it was used underfoot rather than preserved as a decoration. (I’ve had this rug on the floor of homes in four countries!)

Subtle abrash—the gentle variation in color caused by small-batch dyeing— runs through the whole field, a sign of traditional production rather than factory uniformity.

Context and Continuity

By the late twentieth century, many weavings described as “tribal” were already being produced in settled or semi-settled village or refugee camp contexts, often for sale rather than solely for the weaver’s domestic use. In moments of upheaval, that production had moved with the weavers themselves.

Seen this way, the carpet belongs not just to a particular place, but to a pattern: of human movement, adaptation, and continuity. Designs shift, materials change, and markets intervene, but the practice of weaving persists.

An Object That Remains

Thirty-seven years after my on-the-street Rawalpindi purchase, this piece is more than a souvenir. It is a record of both my journey and broader movements—of people, of craft, and of history carried in wool. The carpet’s wear does not diminish it but gives the thing context.

So this ‘tribal Afghan’ carpet remains what it has always been: a functional object, yes, but one shaped by human hands, bearing the imprint of a particular moment in time and then quiet endurance beyond it.

Vestiges of Memory: Portuguese Azulejos Now in Bohol

In August of 1979, I stepped away from graduate studies at Ohio State and set off on a backpacking trip across Europe. With a Europass in hand, I traveled solo to the UK then by train from London to Athens, where a chance encounter at the port changed the course of that journey and my life. There I met Sofia, a young Portuguese traveler bound for Mykonos. We became fast friends, and over three weeks of shared adventures she planted the seed: “Go to Portugal. Meet my family. See what you might do there.” (Sofia was working as an au pair in London, but advised me to visit her parents, which I did, and who graciously took me in for several months.)

By December of that same year I had left graduate school and the USA behind, carrying with me my experience teaching Russian and a desire to live and work abroad. England was my first stop, but by early 1980 Portugal became my home for the next two and a half years. I rooted in 'Lisboa' and started tutoring English, while I also traveled the country, learning the language and culture, absorbing the country's rhythms, its history and traditions.

It was during a visit to Coimbra, the country's capital until the 13th century and a cultural hub, that I found the blue-and-white tile among the photos below. In an amazing circumstance of luck, while I was staying in a rustic inn near an old building demolition site, I spotted a fragment of history among the rubble: a broken tile with its orange tree motif still vivid despite cracks and chips. This was no simple decoration — it was an antique azulejo, and from what I learned from an expert, likely from the mid 18th century. It might have once been part of a grand wall panel. Salvaging it felt like rescuing a piece of Coimbra's architectural soul.

Some time later, in a shop in Lisbon that promised vintage and antique wares, I acquired the floral tiles shared in this post. From the nature of the colour palette and the brushwork, these were probably hand‑painted in the late 18th to early 19th century, rustic and imperfect, yet alive with tradition. Their designs carry forward centuries of Portuguese ceramic artistry, classic objects that embody continuity with designs refined over time.

Together, this small set of tiles tells a layered story. The Coimbra fragment speaks of endurance, survival, and the persistence of beauty through ruin. The floral tiles -- including two that I have added to the cornerstone of a bamboo shed recently built on my property -- illustrate growth, natural development, and the artisans’ ongoing dialogue with heritage. Side by side, they remind us that legacy is not only preserved in intact monuments but also in fragments and reinterpretations. My own journey — from Ohio to Athens, from Sofia’s invitation to Portugal, from rubble to rescued tile, and now around the world to 40 years in Asia — mirrors the same themes: creative initiation, continuity, and stories carried forward.

In Bohol, these azulejos rest far from their Portuguese origins, yet they remain vessels of heritage and memory. They are bridges across time and place, reminders that even fragments of embossed blossoms and fruit can speak of legacy, resilience, and the enduring beauty of cultural tradition.

 

The Parrot Pot -- In Flight Across Time

 

This Colima parrot vessel was made nearly two thousand years ago in western Mexico, part of the Shaft Tomb tradition (c. 100 BCE–250 CE). These sculptural tripod jars were often placed in deep shaft funerary chambers, accompanying the dead into the afterlife. I once saw one just like this in the Los Angeles County Museum.

I’ve read that parrots in Mesoamerica symbolized vitality, sunlight, communication, and the lushness of the tropics — fitting guardians for a journey beyond the physical world.

This vessel was not thrown on a wheel; the potter’s wheel was unknown in ancient West Mexico. Instead, it was shaped entirely by hand all those millenia ago by a Colima artisan working within the Shaft Tomb tradition. Clay gathered from local riverbeds would have been tempered with sand or crushed volcanic grit to strengthen it. The rounded body was built up slowly through coiling and modeling, each layer pressed and blended into the next, the form rising not from rotation but from touch. Even now, with its balanced weight and quiet symmetry, we can feel the intelligence of hands that shaped this clay.

I’ve also learned that the three parrot heads and solid tripod legs were sculpted separately and attached while the clay was still leather-hard, the joins smoothed so that structure and sculpture became one.

Once assembled, the surface was carefully burnished with a polished stone, compressing the clay to create its soft sheen. A red wash — made from iron-rich minerals — was then applied to give the vessel its deep reddish earthen color and its strength. It was fired not in a kiln with gauges and controls, but in an open-air or pit firing fueled by wood, where temperature was judged by flame, smoke, and long experience. The mottling and tonal shifts across the surface are part of that process, the trace of fire itself.

Of course, noone knows the name of the person who made this pot. Colima artisans remain anonymous, their identities folded into time. But this was no casual maker. The confident modeling, the stability of the tripod stance, and the assured sculpting of the bird form suggest someone who was deeply practiced, working within a family workshop, passing knowledge across generations.

The pot began as earth gathered by hand, was shaped by skill and memory, and was fired by flame. That it still stands — and has crossed continents — is a testament to the culture that created it and to the artist who first gave it form.

I bought this piece in 1993 from a certified pre-Columbian antiquities dealer in Tucson, the friend of a friend. It had come from a substantial private collection of Colima material assembled decades earlier. At the time, I justified buying it because of its story, its beauty and my thought that it would be an investment. I also wanted it to join the collection of Indigenous artifacts I'd inherited and collected — objects that felt alive with continuity and presence.

I did not yet realize I was beginning a shared migration.

From Tucson it traveled to my home in rural Akita prefecture, Japan, where it became a fixture — and a conversation starter — for more than a decade. Its rounded, ribbed body and grounded stance seemed to always anchor the room, even as snow fell outside for months each year.

It was then crated and shipped to Kuala Lumpur, and later to Singapore, where it lived with me in four different residences. In our last apartment there, beside the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, we would often watch flocks of parrots early in the evening as they would sweep across the sky and, squawking to high heaven, settle into the rain trees for the night. The ancient bird-form vessel sat quietly indoors, while its living counterparts crossed through the twilight — a reminder that motion and continuity are part of the same story.

On my first trip from Singapore to Bohol, I hand-carried the pot on the flight via Manila, just to make sure it would be safe. After decades of careful packing and shipping across continents, it made its most recent journey not in a crate but under my arm.

Created as a ceremonial object for a shaft tomb nearly two thousand years ago, this vessel has already traveled across time. Its own modern migration — from Mexico to Arizona, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and now the Philippines — feels strangely appropriate. Like a small flock of parrots in flight, it has moved through geographies while retaining its essential form.

Originally acquired as an artifact, it has become something more personal. I now intend to keep it in the family, eventually as the repository for a bit of my own earthly remains — a quiet echo of its first purpose. In that sense, its long journey may come full circle.

An object made to accompany the dead has instead accompanied the living — across oceans, climates, and chapters of life — before returning, once again, to its ancient role.

Postcards from the Edge: First Steps Toward Becoming a Global Citizen

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 My First Postcard Home — from Moscow, USSR March 1977

An Overview

Today Russia is always in the news. Thanks to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, many Americans and people the world over can make comments about Russian military aggression or the sad plight of Ukrainians.

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the focus on the Russian threat — then characterized as the Soviet nuclear and ideological / communist threat — was just as powerful if not moreso. As an elementary school student I experienced bombing drills where we kids had to either kneel under our desks or be dispatched to the school basement in an ‘evacuation exercise.’

That experience was my first awareness of the Soviet Union. By the time I was in 6th grade, I could have been conditioned to have fear and hate toward the Russian empire. In fact, the opposite was true. I wanted to know what the full story was. For that reason, when our teacher Mrs. Redd announced that to better understand the unit in our social studies book about life in the USSR we would have a visitor to our class who would show us a slide show about Russia, I was fully onboard. When she called for a volunteer to assist the gentleman in bringing his equipment into the auditorium and in the set up, I raised my hand. As it happened, the visitor would turn out to be our local high school’s Russian teacher, Mr. Ed Taylor.

And that was the start of my journey. Mr. Taylor’s slides showcased his own journey to Russia, and inspired by the vibrant human images and the man who shared them, from that point forward, I would take every opportunity to learn more about Russia, its culture and people.

I studied basic Russian language both in 9th and 10th grades in high school and also learned something about its culture and history. My most vivid memory of the classes was memorizing dialogues and practicing those with my classmates.

By the time I entered university in September 1974, the die had been cast: I would be studying Russian language and Soviet Area studies as my major and, if the stars aligned right and I did well, maybe I could teach Russian in the future and inspire students just like Mr. Taylor did, or perhaps I could even score an analyst job with one of America’s intelligence services.

Lucky for me, once I was enrolled in Ohio State University, I learned that the uni had one of the only study abroad programs in the USSR that existed for students in the USA. I was in solid.

That brings us to this postcard. In March 1977, nearly through my 3rd year at OSU, I had left Columbus as a naive but wide-eyed 21-year-old, bound for Moscow and a term at the renowned Pushkin Institute of Moscow State University.

Though I had already studied Russian for two years in high school and had learned a lot about the country's history and people through eight trimesters at Ohio State, such an immersion was something else entirely. I would be living in the capital city of the USSR and we would not be allowed to speak English, which was both daunting and exhilarating. Alongside language practice, we had to attend lectures on Soviet culture and history, gaining clearer glimpses into daily life and government policy decisions under Brezhnev’s USSR. At the same time, I'd have a chance to get to know real Russians, which I had not done in Columbus save for the professors I'd met.

My journey to Moscow was itself a rite of passage: Columbus to JFK, Icelandic Air to Luxembourg via Reykjavík, bus to Frankfurt, flight to Berlin, crossing through Checkpoint Charlie into East Germany, then eastward by train through Poland and Belarus. Finally, we reached Moscow — a city that seemed impossibly romantic and mysterious.

On my very first night, a few American companions and I descended into the Moscow metro and emerged into Red Square. That moment — stepping onto the cobblestone of the city I'd learned so much about and which had played a central role in global geopolitics for 60 years — sealed my fascination with travel and cross-cultural discovery. There I was, standing in the heart of Russia, hooked.

Looking back now, half a century later, I feel that this postcard was more than a note home to my family. It’s a snapshot of my transformation: the moment I stepped beyond borders and began to see the world not as one simply divided by ideology, but as a place connected by our common values, dreams and interests in bonding. It was when I first truly sensed our shared humanity.

The Postcard’s Visual Imagery

This postcard pairs two powerful symbols of Soviet identity. In the background stands Moscow State University, one of Stalin’s monumental “Seven Sisters" skyscrapers, its soaring spire and wings embodying the intellectual ambition and disciplined grandeur of the Soviet state.

In the foreground rises a World War II memorial: two stark, tapering obelisks with a commemorative plaque and wreath at the base. Red flowers soften the austerity, but the monument’s purpose is clear — honoring the students and staff of Moscow State U. who died in the Great Patriotic War (our World War II).

Together, the university and the memorial present a carefully composed narrative of Soviet endurance, achievement, and national pride.

Stamp Imagery

The stamps themselves carry ideological weight. One depicts Sergei Korolev, chief architect of the Soviet space program, surrounded by rockets and medals — a celebration of cosmic ambition and technological prowess. Another commemorates the 60th anniversary of 1917's October Revolution.

Even ordinary mail at that time was infused with meaning: these stamps projected the USSR’s identity as a scientific, historical, and ideological superpower. Against this backdrop of monumentality and state symbolism sits my handwritten message — personal and tentative.

Postcard Text (1977)

Hi, well, I finally made it. It’s really unbelievable. So different.

The food has been different but good. We aren’t allowed to speak English and that’s pretty hard but I like it. I’ve already made many new friends, many from our group and a few from other groups who are staying here but not many Russians yet.

Well, I plan to write a letter soon so I’ll say more then.

Hope everything is OK.

Brad

---

Closing Thought

That spring in Moscow sparked a lifelong pursuit of cultural understanding. It led to further study in Russian language and literature, travel across Europe and Asia, and eventually to a career shaped by and for global engagement. This postcard — tentative, wide-eyed, and sincere — was the first step on a path that continues to unfold. It reminds me that even small messages sent from the edge can carry the weight of a mind beginning to open.

🚂🏷️ Two Symbols of Transport, Two Symbols of Legacy

Among the heirlooms passed down from my grandfather, Jerry Blackstone, two small objects have carried extraordinary weight in my life. They may seem modest at first glance, but together they embody the story of my family’s enterprises, my own childhood memories, and the broader arc of the social mobility that shaped us.

The National Molasses Train Car Paperweight

This miniature bronze tank car, engraved with National Molasses Co. (and added info: N.Y.Y.D. and Bird’s Eye View Sugar Water), once sat on the wooden counter of the Thornville Elevator in Thornport, Ohio. To a young boy, it was more than a desk ornament; it was a symbol of the bustling grain business my grandfather owned and my father managed. I remember its weight in my hand, the feel of the metal, and the way it seemed to echo the larger rail cars lined up outside the nearby rail depot.

By my teenage years in the late 60s summers at the mill were filled with the dust of wheat harvest, the clatter of boxcars, and the camaraderie of my brothers and me as we helped probe the incoming wagonloads of wheat and how we would then prepare train cars for shipments. That tiny train car became a stand-in for the industry itself: the movement of grain, the rhythm of commerce, and the family labor that connected the Blackstone family into the fabric of our small-town's economy.

The 1915 Ohio License Plate

The second artifact is a weathered black-and-yellow Ohio license plate stamped 1915 — two years after my grandfather was born. I found it nailed to a wall in the back room of Thornville Hardware, my grandfather’s other enterprise. Even as a boy, I felt the metal plate’s resonance. I could imagine it affixed to a Model T, rattling down dirt roads where horses still trotted. For Grandpa’s generation, such plates marked modernity and progress, a tangible sign that the world was moving forward.

For me, the plate symbolized Grandpa's own remarkable journey: Leaving home in Carroll, Ohio, at 17, because of disagreements with his own father, Grandpa worked on local farms then became more settled under a local doctor and businessman, proving himself through smarts and diligence. His acumen and hard work eventually earned him ownership of both the grain mill and the hardware store, which were staples in my boyhood experience. It was this story of mobility — from humble beginnings to respected entrepreneur — that inspired me to make my own way in the world when I became a young man.

Legacy in Small Things

Together, these two artifacts — one tied to rail, the other to road — remind me that history lives not only in grand narratives but in the quiet endurance of people’s everyday objects. They carry the weight of family, community, and the inviting possibility of movement forward. Though Thornville Elevator and Hardware has been gone for over 30 years now, these simple items endure, whispering lessons about resilience, progress, and family legacy across the generations.

Amber Echoes from the Past: Medicinal Whiskey Bottles

 

The Ravine Find

On a quiet Sunday morning back home in rural Thornville, Ohio, 55 years ago, I joined Wirt and Judy Barrera—friends of my parents and our neighbours —for what we called a “dig.” Somehow the Barreras learned I had an early interest in antiques, a passion likely nurtured by my great-grandfather Ira Cooperrider and his daughter, my grandmother Carrie Blackstone, both collectors in their own right.

That morning, after we had walked a short ways through a fallow field just on the south edge of Thornville, we entered a wooded ravine and found the traces of a half century old dump. Among the twists of rusted farm machinery and kitchen appliances, I caught the glint of something reflecting the morning sun. Gloves on, I scraped away an inch or so of the hardened top soil around what appeared to be a small circle of darkened glass, and then below that, I carefully peeled away half a foot of earth from around the length of a fully intact glass bottle.

What I unearthed that day those many years ago was a pristine amber glass container embossed with the words “Belfast Malt Whiskey – For Medicinal Use.” It was crowned by a bold BM monogram. What a find! everyone exclaimed.

The bottle’s thick amber glass and pre-screw-top form placed it squarely in the 1890s–early 1900s, a time when whiskey was prescribed for everything from indigestion to nervous exhaustion.

The whiskey once held in this bottle was — as I learned later — marketed less as a spirit and more as a tonic. Produced in the late 19th century, it was a malt-based whiskey fortified with hops, intended to be smoother than grain spirits. Advertised for “nervous conditions,” indigestion, and general weakness, it was sold through pharmacies as a medicine rather than being poured in saloons. In practice, the 'medicine' straddled the line between remedy and indulgence (like ganja today), reflecting an era when alcohol was still widely prescribed by doctors as an actual treatment.

I've read how period advertisements for similar brands to the Belfast Malt, like Duffy’s Malt Whiskey, claimed it was “beneficial in old age, for illness and weakened vitality.” By 1907, federal regulators were already calling these medicinal whiskey promotions “gigantic frauds.” Belfast Malt Whiskey lived in that same cultural moment, sold as a cure-all in pharmacies across the Midwest.

Lucky for me, I developed a taste for straight whiskey back in the day, so this bottle carries meaning beyond the history. It has traveled with me ever since the early 70s, across decades and continents, a tangible link to my childhood and to the era before America's Prohibition in the 1920s and the introduction of municipal trash collection in the 1950s, back when rural ravines served as silent archives of everyday life.

The Collector’s Legacy

The second, shorter bottle in the first photo below, also amber glass and embossed, but with the added paper label, comes from my great-grandfather Ira Cooperrider’s collection, which was an assemblage of antiques and artifacts housed above his garage in rural Thorn township. Grandpa’s collection included dozens of period bottles and, literally, thousands of Native American stone tools and other materials he had gathered over many years.

This particular bottle bears the name of The Wendt-Bristol Drug Co., a Columbus pharmacy that operated, as stated on the label, opposite the McKinley Monument. With its cork top, prescription serial number, and illustrated label, it likely dates to the early 1900s, reflecting the transition from hand-blown to semi-automatic glass and the rise of branded pharmaceutical packaging.

Amber Echoes

Together, these bottles tell a story of medicinal whiskey practice, regional commerce, and my own family legacy. The taller artefact was unearthed when I was a curious teen, guided by neighbours who encouraged my budding passion for collecting. The other was preserved by my great-grandpa, a man who saw value in the everyday artifacts of Ohio’s past, and it was passed down as an heirloom. Both bottles now stand as amber echoes—reminders of where I came from, how far I’ve come, and what treasures and habits I’ve managed to hold on to along the way.

A Betel Nut Basket from Upper Reaches of the Rajang River

 Upper Rajang River, Sarawak, Malaysia -- May 1986

In 1986, while travelling up the mighty Rajang River in central Sarawak (Borneo), I stopped at several longhouses to meet village elders and learn something about their way of life. At the time I was on term break from teaching in an American university program in (West) Malaysia, and some of my Iban and Kenyah students encouraged me to visit the tribal communities they’d grown up in.

In one longhouse where I had been entertained, I interacted with a man who spoke good English and whose elderly mother sat near us casually chewing betel nut during our mutual sharing. The lady’s lips and teeth seemed to be dyed deep red from her habit, so when I was offered the opportunity to try chewing the nut, I had to politely decline. However, as we talked about the struggles that the family had economically, I made an offer to purchase the woman’s betel nut basket in an exchange that felt like a gesture of trust.

Description of the Basket

According to what I have read, the baskets themselves can be a fine example of Dayak craftsmanship—light yet sturdy, woven from rattan, and darkened by years of handling and hearth smoke. This one shows a tight weave and symmetrical form that reflects skills passed down through families for generations. Such baskets typically held:

• Betel nut (areca nut)

• Sliced betel leaf

• Lime paste (kapur)

Similar baskets were used for tobacco or small personal items.

The one in my possession also includes a well carved face. For me the most amazing aspect of the image is that it seems to change character depending on the light. (Look at the various photos and see if this idea works for you as well.)

The Carved Face: Guardian and Marker of Identity

The stylized human face carved into the wooden lid of the basket transforms it from a utilitarian object into something animated, and more intimate—maybe even sacred. With its prominent eyes, full lips, and earthy palette accented by red and green colours, the face evokes both watchfulness and a certain contentment. It may represent a guardian spirit, a revered ancestor, or simply the artisan’s way of imbuing the basket with personality and presence.

In many Dayak traditions, faces carved into household items or ritual objects serve as protectors or reminders of kinship. They mark the basket not just as a vessel for betel, but as a 'companion' in daily life—one that watches over its owner, travels with them, and holds the rhythm of their routines.

The wear and patina of this one suggest long use, and the face—now softened even moreso by time—feels less like a mask and more like a memory. It’s easy to imagine several generations of elders having carried it, each person chewing betel while seated by a hearth, the carving resting as a face.

Using a betel basket like this was a daily ritual for many of the village elders, many of whom were women--much like a tobacco pouch or pipe is used in other cultures.

Betel Chewing Among the Dayak Peoples

From what I have read, betel chewing—called 'mama' or 'nyirih'—was widespread across Borneo long before European contact. Among the Iban, Kenyah, Kayan, and other Dayak groups, it served more than a functional purpose:

1. Social Bonding

Offering a betel to a guest was a gesture of welcome. Accepting it began the conversational ritual that built trust. (I guess I blew that bit in my encounter.)

2. Daily Stimulant

Betel sharpened alertness, warded off hunger, and provided warmth on damp river journeys or after fieldwork.

3. Status and Identity

For elders, the betel set signified adulthood and social standing—deeply personal and always close at hand.

4. Ritual and Symbolism

Betel nut featured in marriages, negotiations, healing rituals, and peacemaking, symbolizing sincerity and binding agreements.

Historical Context

Betel chewing in island Southeast Asia dates back at least 3,000 years. Stains have been found on ancient teeth from the Philippines, Indonesia, and coastal Vietnam. By the time the Dayak peoples settled Borneo’s interior rivers, betel was already woven deeply into daily life.

According to what I’ve learned, while the practice of chewing betel nut has waned among younger generations, many elders in upriver communities still chew it, maintaining a ink to ancestral tradition.

A Personal Note

As I reflect on this basket, on this face, I see it as more than a crafted object—it’s a reminder of the warm welcome I had received in those longhouses, numerous rice wine - inspired conversations, and the small rituals that knit a community together. It holds the colour and texture of a time when travelling up Sarawak’s jungle rivers meant entering a world shaped by kinship, tradition, and the natural world of the Rajang highlands.