The
Kalash People: A Tribe Lost and Found
Parwana
Jan, 23, a native of Kalash, moved out of the picturesque valley when he was 18
years old to pursue an education in Peshawar. Now he studies film making in
Lahore and visits his family back home in the Hindu Kush mountain range in
Chitral once every three months. “What I miss the most is a dish my mother
makes from clarified butter and cottage cheese,” he chuckles, as he reminisces
about the traditional savoury speciality his mother cooks.
Jan
addresses some of the problems that people from his indigenous community
endure. Today there are only about 4000 Kalash – the country’s only pagan tribe
– in Pakistan, perhaps the world.
Once
a flourishing community, over the years the population of Kalash has seen a
gradual decline. This owes in part to the rise of the Taliban – the Kalash’s
neighbours across the mountains in the Afghan province of Nuristan – whose
threats have compelled them to slowly join other Muslim tribes in the area or
face death. Also, it is believed, due to inbreeding and the resultant health
issues this can engender, the Kalash population is fast dwindling.
Jan
says that the Kalash are a small community with big problems. “Roads are a huge
problem. Commuting to schools and hospitals is a major task, especially when
rain hits the area and roads remain blocked for weeks,” he states.
Although
schools have been built there over the years, Jan says that English medium
schools remain a rarity, due to which people like him have trouble when they
move to the city and do not even have the basic English language skills with
which to communicate and write. Similarly, he adds, “We have a hospital but
even basic amenities such as X-ray and ultrasound machines are not available.
So people have to commute for hours to reach a hospital that offers those things.”
Siraj
ul Mulk, who runs the Hindukush Heights hotel in Chitral along with his wife,
says that until Kalash is made a heritage site – something he has asked members
of UNICEF working in the area to look into – the Kalash people won’t be able to
endure. “Recognition by the UN would be crucial to sustaining them as a tribe,”
he says.
And
there are endless other problems as well. Mulk relates how a few years ago he
went to the army commander in Chitral and asked him to enrol men from Kalash in
the forces so they could have a viable source of livelihood. Five years later
when he asked the same officer how the recruits were faring, he was told that
the army had stopped hiring Kalash men as they were being influenced into
converting to Islam, and –surprisingly– they wanted to prevent these
conversions. The officer told Mulk that other jawans would mock the
recruits because of their unusual names or outfits, and in such circumstances
the boys found it more “convenient to just become Muslim.”
Forced
conversions to Islam are still prevalent in the valley. On May 16, residents
clashed in Chitral over the forced conversion of a Kalash girl to Islam that
sparked a clash between a group of Muslims and members of her community.
Mulk
continues that Christian and Muslim missionaries who had come to the Kalash
lands in the past had not succeeded in converting the locals. Now, however, he
says things have changed. “Their own customs are increasingly working against
them. According to Kalash tradition, if a member of their family dies, they
have to slaughter 20 to 25 goats. Goats have become really expensive now, so
they take loans to purchase them and then cannot repay the debt,” says Mulk,
adding “hence a lot of Kalash people just find it easier to become Muslim.”
The
conversions are usually accompanied by new Muslim names. The Kalash seemed to
have a penchant for quirky nomenclatures. For example, the manager at Mulk’s
hotel goes by the name Quaid-e-Azam. A woman in his tribe is called Edinburgh
Khan, and another man named himself Zardari. Mulk recalls the first female
pilot to come from Kalash who was called Election Bibi. The ridicule she
encountered forced her to change her name to Lakshan Bibi. But others adopt
more run-of-the-mill Muslim names.
Ansari,
aka Bugi, a Holland-based painter who has lived and worked among the Kalash off
and on for many years, campaigns to preserve the heritage of the people of
Kalash. It is a heritage that is rich in tradition and folklore. There is a
season for example, when the young men of the Kalash valleys take to the
mountains to perform the rites of passage which will earn them their manhood.
If they survive the harsh climes and return to their villages, they are fêted
and celebrated. At the Joshi or Chilim Josh festival that
follows, there is music and dance and the young men choose the girls of their
choice to partner with.
Another
tradition, akin to some ancient Hindu customs, is the seclusion of women in a
“bashali” – a house where women are required to stay during their menstrual
cycle as they are considered “impure” during their periods. When they go into
retreat to “bashali,” they are off-limits to men.
Ansari
is enamoured by the Kalash customs, lifestyle and attire: the feathers on their
hats, their chunky necklaces made of shells and beads – a mystery, for where it
is often wondered, do the denizens of landlocked mountains, acquire the shells
from – and their neon-coloured outfits that complement their light eyes and
pale skin. “I have yet to see another tribe, which is more beautiful and
colourful,” he says. “Because of their beauty, at the time of the Greek and
Persian empires, the Greeks paid a sizeable bounty to mercenaries to kidnap
these women and bring them to the Persian kings in return for favours.”
Ansari
also pays tribute to the Kalash’s creativity and indigenous artistic orientation.
But he laments, “It is heartbreaking: until just a few decades ago, the Kalash
tribes had 106 statues and wooden figures created by their legendary artists
and artisans. But over the years, all those masterpieces have been taken away –
stolen by people from outside.” Furthermore, certain traditions are on the
decline due to increasing outside influences. But the Kalash people still erect
totem poles in their ceremonial grounds on the upper valley slopes, to honour
those who have died and they make wooden statues of their ancestors. These
statues, locally calledgandao, can be seen erected over graves in the three
Kalash valleys of Birir, Rumbur and Bumburet.
And
perhaps to reintroduce them to their own aesthetic and inspire them to keep
creating, Ansari relates how he has taught five generations of Kalash to paint
and sculpt. He says he listens to their folk tales and creates paintings around
them and even held an exhibition of his Kalash work in 1989.
Ansari
says that the Kalash people lived in peace and harmony with each other and
their environs until 1977, when the Tableeghi Jamaat entered the
valley. The Jamaat took over the hotels and land from the people and in just a
short span of time, 50 to 70 per cent of the ancestral Kalash land was gone. He
also tells how before the Russia-Afghan war of the early ’80s the Pakistan
government had allocated funds for a museum to be developed in Kalash, but
then, when the refugee crisis erupted, those resources were diverted to help
the Afghan refugees settle in the Kalash valleys.
“It
is still paradise on earth,” says Ansari, “but polio has even come here. One
Kalash girl has polio.” He continues, “Marsia Bibi, the victim, is the daughter
of a friend of mine who used to be my carpenter. I met her in 2008 and was
astonished to see how she was treated – like an animal. The family would go to
the fields to work and just dump her outside their house, leaving her to fend
for herself.” Appalled by her situation, Ansari contacted some friends and
family members who collected money to buy a wheelchair for Marsia.
Ansari
is not the Kalash’s sole protector. Many organisations, both local and foreign,
along with several individuals, have gone to Kalash on their own to draw
attention to the situation there, but it is not an easy undertaking. Ansari
recalls a volunteer from a Greek NGO who once came to Chitral and was told of a
tribe nearby called ‘Alexander’s Army.’ He went and met them and when he
returned to Greece, he asked school children to collect money for the tribe. He
came back to Kafiristan, and while living there, built a museum in the area,
but in 2009, he was kidnapped and taken across the Afghan border to Nuristan.
Ansari and some associates worked for eight months behind closed doors to
collect money to pay the ransom demanded for his release.
In
the late 1980s, a Japanese woman, Akiko Wada, came to visit Kalash as a tourist
and was so captivated by their simple, self-sufficient lifestyle that she
married a local man there and never left. She learnt the language, adopted
their dress and became one of them. She was welcomed by the community and she
now regularly hosts activities for children at her place.
Maureen
Lines, a British woman, meanwhile, has written a wonderful book on the
Kalash, The Last Eden – Living With the Kalash of Pakistan, introducing
this magical, mystical civilisation from another age to the world.
Mobeen
Ansari, known for his portrait photography has taken some of the most famous
portraits of Kalash women, including that of Bibi Kai, a famous face in Rumbur
valley. Islamabad-based photographer Sara Farid, captured the valley of
Bumburet in December 2015 after it was hit by floods and an earthquake.
Bugi
Ansari has now filed a petition with the United Nations to help turn Kalash
into a heritage site. But like the land itself, the route to attain this is
“lonely, dark and deep”…..”with miles to go before” those fighting for the
Kalash can sleep.
