An anthropological analysis and study of the traditional clothing of the Bakhtiari people

Bakhtiari people or Lorhai Bakhtiari or Ill Bakhtiari are Iranian people who live in the southwest of Iran, including the west of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, east of Khuzestan, south of Lorestan and west of Isfahan. Bakhtiari speak the Bakhtiari dialect, which is one of the dialects of the Lori language. The Bakhtiari clan consists of two branches, Chaharlang and Haftlang, which is divided into ۵ chapters and Haftlang into ۴ chapters, and each chapter consists of several clans. These divisions, which are called the organizational chart of the Bakhtiari clan, go back to the ۱۶th century AD and are organized based on the special class and tax system of the Bakhtiari clans. Clothing, through a set of material signs of a system, establishes a cultural connection among the people of the society. Deciphering these signs and understanding the meanings and concepts of the language of signs in any social group and society requires understanding the social and cultural behaviors of the people of that group and society and knowing the religious-ideological systems and beliefs that have taken their symbolic values from them. These values play an important and prominent role in maintaining the social and cultural identity of the people of the society and its continuity in the historical life of generations. Clothing, like language, defines the ethnic, social and geographical identity and trade, political, religious affiliations and the social and economic dignity of the people. In order to find out the social and cultural function of clothing in giving identity to the members of the society, it is necessary to examine and analyze people's clothing as a set of material linguistic signs. For example, as much as the language of the Kurdish, Ler, Baloch, Turkmen and Fars ethnic groups separates and distinguishes them from each other, the native and traditional clothing of each of these ethnic groups also distinguishes them from each other. The rites of passage are the customs of passage from one social situation to another one that can be different based on various tribes and cultures. Different tribes exist in Iran with various customs in their rites of passage. The present study focused on the customs of Bakhtiari people to analyze the girls’ clothing in three stages of pre-marriage, during the marriage, and post-marriage in the form of rites of passage theory. The results indicated that Bakhtiari girls find a new identity by changing their clothing style at any stage of life and obtain a new status in their socialization process. The color of dress and style of Bakhtiari girls and women at any stage of life indicate the responsibilities and expectations they feel according to their natural and biological conditions. The clothing style of Bakhtiari girls and meaning of different colors in these dresses show their culture different from other Iranian tribes.

Keywords:

Rites of passage , Bakhtiari tribe , clothing , girls , women.