A Kyrgyz man's family tree, if you ask him to draw one, will start at the bottom of the page, and then shoot up seven generations on his father's side, to his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. He will not hesitate a moment when naming his seven fathers. This intimate knowledge of his elders has been drilled into him his whole life.
I learned about this when my Peace Corps Language and Cultural Facilitator (LCF), Temerlan, mapped out his family history during a culture session in our classroom in Novo Pokrovka. We were all told to draw our own family trees, actually, to illustrate how, compared to Kyrgyz people, Americans don't really know from whom they come.
I know that I am part German, part Dutch, because that is what I was told when I was young. Kyrgyz boys, in comparison, are sometimes stopped on the street by older men, who they call ''Beike'' (older brother), or ''Chong Ata'' (grandfather), and questioned. If they can't name their seven fathers, they are assumed to have come from slaves.
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