Who are the Kalasha? Richard Strand says the term is a catch-all used to describe the many people in the area. His description goes into terrific detail, though the linguistic lingo can be a bear to understand for the layperson. They are supposedly refugees of sorts from the Ghaznavid empire:
According to their traditions, the Väi fled the Ghaznavid invasion of Kâma, following the Kunar up to mâdeš and samâlâm in the Shigal Valley and thence over the watershed to their main community of väigal. Accounts of the Gahwâr people state that the Väi expropriated the current site of Väigal from the Gahwâr, who fled to the Kunar Valley. As the Väi expanded, they established the communities listed above…
Because the appellation “KalaSa” applies to peoples of diverse origin over a wide area, we may infer that the name originally designated some multi-ethnic regional political movement. It may have been that “KalaSa-ism” originally represented a cult of the Hindu god Indra, centering on sâma with its famous orchard reputedly planted by Indra himself, in contrast to a northern cult of the god Yama Raja (Kâmviri imr’o) with its center at üš’üt in Vâsi Gul (Pârun). Both these cults may have been millenarian responses of refugee Hindu communities to the impact of Islâm brought by encroaching Afghâns. “Kalasha-ism” may then have been carried from its Pech Valley homeland into the southern Wâigal basin by the Cima-Nišei, and thence to the Väi…
The Väi expanded eastward to Veligal and apparently into the LanDai Sin Valley as far as the present site of Pitigal, judging by the distinctively KalaSa-alâ sounding place names in that region that begin with the prefix a- ‘at’ or end with deš ‘community’. Such expansion put them in direct contact with the ancestors of the present-day Indo-Aryan speaking KalaSa of southern Chitrâl, who were exploiting upland portions of the LanDai Sin basin for summer pastureland. One group of KalaSa from Väigal apparently invaded lower Chitrâl in the fifteenth century A.D. and set up a ruling dynasty that gained hegemony over the indigenous population, imparting to them the name kalaSa, which in the local Indo-Aryan language came to be pronounced with accent on the second rather than the last syllable. The names kâsv’o and kâsi’o, used respectively by the Kâta and Kom for the KalaSa of Chitrâl, may reflect an earlier name (*kâs’ivo) of those people before they became “KalaSa.”
Chitral? Like in Pakistan?
McClatchy just happened to have sent a correspondent into Chitral to see what’s up with the Pakistani Kalasha. It is a bit short on the history, but the picture Saeed Shah paints of their culture is vibrant, and fascinating:
Last month, the Kalasha celebrated their spring festival, Joshi, with a verve and passion that few cultures could match, ancient or modern. Men and women danced tirelessly to a pounding, primeval drumbeat, haunting singing and rituals so old that their meaning is almost lost.
The Kalasha women wear long black dresses with vividly colored embroidery, their hair in long plaits and regal headdresses decorated with shells. Garish belts and layers of brightly colored necklaces add to their exotic appearance. This isn’t a special costume for Joshi; it’s what they wear every day.
And so on. Shah also wrote an article exploring the possibilities of the rumors of Osama bin Laden’s Kalasha refuge. It seems he finds them somewhat uncredible, especially considering their much more liberal sexual politics.
In a different time, David Edwards wrote of the Kalasha’s home valleys in Nuristan, and the roles they’ve traditionally played in rebelling against central authorities. This is also worth reading in full.
Where is this going? Nowhere. It is just an interesting people group, vanishingly small, and one of the many reasons Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan is so damned interesting. They represent the incredible diversity of the country, and the dangers of considering the country as a single indistinguishable mass of crazy Muslims—something far too many commentators and journalists do.
And a thousand apologies to Ghosts of Alexander for being unable to match his exploration of the Pashai. I lack the access to an academic library and the sources on hand there. But I at least tried to highlight something interesting.
Update: Don’t forget these portraits of the Kalasha.
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Great post. I want to go to Chitral now.
Richard Strand has done deeper analysis on the ethno-linguistic groups in the region than anyone else. Sadly, there continue to be fanciful stories in semi-serious publications that attempt to link these groups to the Greeks. Such nonsense isn’t helped when the Greek government has jumped on board, sponsoring a school in the Kalash valleys of Chitral, based on this supposed association.
The notion that bin Laden would hang out in Chitral’s Kalash valleys is absurd. There are plenty of places such as in Dir, lower Chitral, or Kohistan which would be far more hospitable to him and also where there are far fewer foreigners and presence of nosy outsiders.
The link today between the Kalash of Chitral and the Kalasha who reside mainly in the Waygal valley of Nuristan province but also in some smaller valley systems to the east, west and southeast of the main Waygal valley is nil.
The Waygal valley Kalasha express no affinity for the population in Chitral although they do for Kalash-ala speakers in Tregam and Ghaziabad district of Kunar.
Within the Waygal valley the people formerly referred to themselves as the “seven village Kalasha” to describe the communities in the valley as they defined themselves. But within the Waygal valley they further distinguished between the Vai who now reside in the northern villages of the Waygal valley and the Chimi-Nishey dwellers or the four villages of the lower valley. Beyond a dialectical variation between the two regions of the valley there was also different economic practices that were reflected in the types of cheese that were produced. Today, these people often refer to the division between the northern communities and the southern ones based on the types of cheese that they formerly (and may still) produce.
To make the situation even more complicated, in the Waygal valley and central Pech remain scattered households of the populations who resided before the Vai and Kalasha moved in.
Georg Morgenstierne, the great Norwegian historical linguist visited the area in the early and middle 20th century and managed to collect linguistic data on many of the small populations of autochthonus peoples who could be found in the middle Pech and some of the side valleys.
And even today the range of cultural, linguistic and political diversity in both the lowlands and highlands of Kunar and Nuristan is far, far greater than appreciated by the practitioners who are operating there.
One is hard-pressed to understand how much positive can be accomplished without an appreciation of this diversity and the factors that promote the continued salience of these ethnic, linguistic and political distinctions.
Thanks a lot for the posting! What an interesting group of people! I also found a few sources on Internet including youtube.
I guess it is hard to figure out now whether these people are of the Greek origin or their ancestors are the arians from the north unless conducting genetic research. But here is what I found: their supreme god is called Khodai and that is simply a word for God in Kazakh language (Khodai, Khudai, Kudai) and not only in Kazakh but in many other asian languages. I always thought that it referred to Allah but now I realise that it could be originated from some pre-muslim source as a name of a certain pagan god, may be even non-Tengrian.
Pari’s (or Peris) or elves are also very common, but of Persian origin although in Kazakh folklore Peris are refferred to angels.
The post and photo are very good!
Sorry, I wanted to say Peris sometimes referred to angels (perishte)sometimes to some kind of fairy, elf like creatures.
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