They drive their herds to highland grazing grounds in early summer, return to harvest the crops in autumn and then spend winter at home, leading a semi-nomadic life. Men wear collarless long jackets with belts, on top of which they add sheepskin overcoats in cold weather. They wear tall lambskin hats lined with black velvet and decorated with lines of embroidery. The flaps can be turned down to protect ears and cheeks from wind and snow. Women wear dresses.
Married women wear back aprons, and their embroidered cotton-padded hats also have back flaps.
Women usually tie a white square towel on top of their hats when they go out, but brides like red ones. Both men and women wear felt stockings, long soft sheepskin boots with yak skin soles, which, light and durable, are suitable for walking mountain paths. The Tajik herdsmen enjoy butter, sour milk, and other dairy products, and regard meat as a delicacy. It is a taboo to eat pork and the flesh of animals which died of natural causes. Most Tajik houses are square and flat-roofed structures of wood and stone with solid and thick walls of rock and sod.