Monday, June 27, 2011

Kalash: Culture shock

Sunday Magazine Feature

By Obaid Ur Rehman

Published: June 26, 2011

The reason that traditionalists have threatened the Kalash in recent years is that the Kalash adhere to a polytheistic tradition based on ancestor worship.

“Every week we get threats from people who ask us to abandon our traditions,” says Fida, a resident of Bamorat village of the Kalash Valley in Chitral. This is one of the realities that the Kalash have to face every day, a reality that is at odds with the serene beauty of the valley.

The Kalash live in about 12 villages in the valley, which is full of lush green fields and natural springs. The Kalash villages are accessible from Peshawar and Gilgit over the Lawari Pass and Shandur Pass, located at a distance of 365 kilometres and 385 kilometres respectively, a 12-hour journey in either case. However, tourists prefer to travel by air via the daily flight operated by Pakistan International Airlines from Islamabad or Peshawar to Chitral.

The origins of the Kalash tribe are shrouded in doubt and speculation. Some historians believe that these people are the descendants of Alexander the Great. Others say the Kalash are indigenous to Asia and come from the Nuristan area of Afghanistan. Some say the Kalash migrated to Afghanistan from a distant place in South Asia called ‘Tsiyam’, a place that features in their folk songs. However, it has been established that the Kalash migrated to Chitral from Afghanistan in 2nd century BC, and by 10th century AD the Kalash ruled a large part of present-day Chitral. Razhawai, Cheo, Bala Sing and Nagar Chao were famous Kalash rulers in the 12th- 14th centuries AD. Their fellow tribesmen in Afghanistan were known as Red Kafirs.

But by 1320 AD, Kalash culture had begun to fall. Shah Nadir Raees subjugated and converted the people to Islam, with the villages of Drosh, Sweer, Kalkatak, Beori, Ashurate, Shishi, Jinjirate and adjacent valleys in southern Chitral among the last subjected to mass conversion in the 14th century. By the time the Amir of Afghanistan forcefully converted the Red Kafirs on the other side of the border to Islam in 1893, the Kalash were living in just three Chitral valleys, Bhumboret, Rumbur and Birir. The villages of the converted Red Kafirs in Chitral are known as Sheikhanandeh — the village of converted ones.

Today, the Kalash are popular with domestic and foreign tourists because of their unique culture. The Greeks have recently shown great interest in the area and one NGO reportedly funded by the Greek government is doing a great job protecting this ancient civilisation. Unfortunately, according to a survey conducted by an NGO, the Kalash population decreased from 10,000 inhabitants in 1951 to 3,700 in 2010, motivating conservation experts, development workers and anthropologists to put in greater efforts work to preserve Kalash culture. The Kalasha Dur — the “house of the Kalash” — is the outcome of these efforts: a museum which houses artifacts from Kalash culture.

The reason that traditionalists have threatened the Kalash in recent years is that the Kalash adhere to a polytheistic tradition based on ancestor worship. They also worship 12 gods and goddesses dominated by the main god Mahandeo. Their myths and superstitions centre around the relationship between the human soul and the universe. This relationship, according to Kalash mythology, manifests itself in music and dance, which also contribute to the pleasure of gods and goddesses. In their festivals, music and dance are performed not only for entertainment, but as a religious ritual. The Kalash celebrate four major festivals commemorating seasonal change and significant events in agro-pastoral life. These festivals are Joshi or Chilimjusht, Uchal, Phoo and Chowmos. The Kalash celebrate these festivals by offering sacrifices on altars, cooking traditional meals and dancing to traditional music during the week-long events.

The Kalash have kept alive their ancient traditions, including superstitions about menstruation and pregnancy. During these times, women are secluded, and live in a place called Bashali. Each Kalash village has a Bashali outside the settlement, and though women are allowed to work in the fields they are not allowed to go home. The Betaan or Shaman plays an important role in Kalash culture. He makes prophecies during religious rituals, and seeks the help of fairies to make prophecies come true. Another important practice in Kalash mythology is astronomy. The Kalash believe that a new sun is born on December 21 and that the new sun affects the flora and fauna of the land.

This civilisation is now wasting away as some Kalash families have either gone underground or left the area. This may be a great blow to Chitral which pockets millions of rupees from tourism every year.

“We don’t want to leave this land,” says Gollaya, a villager in Bamort. “But we are afraid of people who threaten us if we do not bow down to their wishes. The government and local
administration is protecting us, but we still feel insecure.”

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 26th, 2011.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/194101/kalash-culture-shock

Colours of the Kalash

Sunday Magazine Feature

By Cheree Franco

Published: June 26, 2011

My journey officially begins at the Chitral police station, where Pakistani friends sip sweet green tea while Shane and I try to argue our way out of 24-hour armed escorts.

“I was here just last July, and I didn’t have a guard then,” says the adamant Irishman, a five-year resident of Islamabad and a seasoned traveller in the northern areas.

Apparently, since October 2010 — a point in time that seems completely arbitrary to us — all foreigners are assigned guards. Will the guards fit in our Landcruiser? Okay then, not a problem. They’ll send a separate truck. So the next afternoon, we begin the treacherous uphill chug into what was, until recently, the North West Frontier, following a pick-up packed with cops — at least seven at last count.

The midsized Kalash valley of Rumbur is the land that time — and electricity, mobile service and hot showers — forgot. It’s less commercialised than Bhumboret, the larger valley, and its population is almost purely Kalash — a tribe of Indo-Aryans who consider themselves the progeny of Alexander the Great. Rumbur has five villages of between 10 to 50 families each.

It’s twilight when we arrive in the largest village, tumbling out of the Landcruiser like clowns on parade. Women stand on low roofs, their gazes fixed and expressionless. Men and boys crowd the road to witness the spectacle. The girls — miniature copies of their mothers in regal headpieces and baggy black, neon-trimmed dresses — scatter like minnows as we approach.

We are staying at The Kalash Guest House, operated by Engineer Khan and his family. A wooden structure that stacks level upon level, the Guest House is set apart from the main village, nestled opposite a bend where the river opens to misty-soft mountains. It’s ramshackle and cosy. The fresh, pungent waft of burning cedar drifts from the cooking fire, and I think we have come to the most pacific place on earth . . . for about six minutes. Then my reverie is interrupted by angry voices. There’s a confrontation playing out between my travel companions and the cops.

My friend Tazeen fills me in: “They want to sleep in our rooms, but we said no, that we have women, for one.” It seems the police have been sent with nothing more than knapsacks of clothes — no plans and no funds for room and board. Finally, we reach an agreement. We’ll pay for our guards’ meals, and Engineer will pitch a tent so they can sleep in his yard.

Harmony restored, Engineer breaks out a recycled Pepsi bottle of home-brewed grape wine, and we sip from mismatched cups and quiz him on Kalash culture. As the first college graduate in the village — Chitral Degree College, 1990 — Engineer is a local activist for education. He teaches English, among other subjects, at the Rumbur government primary school. His daughter, Shazia, is pursuing a master’s of philosophy at Punjab University, and his 18-year-old son is studying engineering in Chitral.

Despite their exposure to urban life, Engineer is convinced that his children will choose to follow Kalash traditions. And Shazia, a woman with an open face and wry wit, agrees: “I miss it here, I miss my family when I’m in Lahore,” she says. She hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps and teach the Kalash children. But at 22, she’s past the traditional age for marriage, and Kalash men don’t understand her ambition. “It’s strange for a woman to be educated, and there are valleys with mountains on either side. So people don’t have anything to do but talk,” she says, offering a candid half-smile.

The next night we split a bottle of local moonshine with Comeo, a hardcore Japanese backpacker who rode down from Gilgit atop a Jeep. It’s a thrilling experience that he doesn’t recommend: “Very cold,” he says dryly.

Comeo came for Joshi, but he is leaving the next day, before the festival even begins. “I can’t take this security thing anymore,” he says. “I’m going to Peshawar.” Less fortunate than we’ve been, Comeo is sharing his bedroom with a guard.

We wake to a full guesthouse — there are journalists and tourists from Peshawar and one guy, a Danish trekker, even slept on the open-air porch. Despite the fact that we freeze all night, I envy him the experience. The night before, I huddled under a blanket on that same porch and watched the planetary sideshow — roughly a shooting star every four minutes.

We amble about the main village, watching women wash clothes in the river, and men pat out flat circles of walnut bread. In the evening we meet Engineer’s nephew, Ahmed Kalash (“It used to be Ahmed Ali, but I changed it to sound less Muslim,” he explained matter-of-factly). Ahmed is 28 and lives in Lahore. Despite the fact that he holds a law degree from Peshawar University, he works at a call centre that dispatches limos to New York airports — a quirky mish-mash of globalisation that seems misplaced in Rumbur.

Ahmed invites us to his father’s house, leading the way across the rapid river, hopping on rocks and a rickety board. There used to be a proper bridge but, like the hydroelectric generators, it fell victim to last August’s floods. Once across the river, we are greeted by a fairy-tale scene — low-roofed houses with womblike interiors, piled atop each other in a precarious pyramid and reached by a series of makeshift ladders and narrow paths that wind through bright fields and tiny irrigation channels. Everything’s shrouded in the purple mist of evening. I feel like I’ve stepped into a Tolkien novel.

“Ispata, baba, babyan,” we say to everyone. “Hello sister, brother!”

The next morning, the main day of Joshi, Engineer serves goat cheese at breakfast. “At Joshi we ask for good cheese, good food, good crops, all these things,” he tells us.

The previous day his wife, Zamgulsa, sent someone to Chitral to get new shoes for the children, and today she shakes out the dresses that she and Shazia stitched through long winter evenings. Their black sheen will soon be dulled by fine dust.

We step through the metal-detector, a new festival accessory, and begin our steep ascent up the mountain.

The sun is nearly unbearable, but soon we are distracted by hundreds of ecstatic, dancing women. They link arms and step firmly to the beat of the men’s drums, emitting ethereal siren calls from open throats.

From my perch above the action — the rooftop of a building that serves as teahouse and convenience store — I marvel at the complex, archetypal symbols they form — spirals gyrate and helixes unfold. The men bounce in the center, pummeling the sky with hats and fists and fragrant juniper branches. Boys laugh and roughhouse on the fringes, tumbling like puppies on top of the world, as close as they can get to their gods. “Our religion says to us you should gather. You should try to be happy with each other, and, in a really practical way you should enjoy the happiness,” Ahmed tells me.

According to Engineer, Joshi honours three sentiments, dictated by the various drumbeats. The Kalash offer prayers of thanksgiving and petition, they honour those who have died in recent years — occasionally transmitting via song the dream messages that come from deceased love ones — and finally, they celebrate the universal rebirth of spring through romantic invitation. During the festival, Kalash are free to choose spouses, even if they are already married. Young men, emboldened by wine, chat up girls who rebuke them flirtatiously or sometimes, with genuine annoyance. The Kalash have no holy book, so the festival is also a means of orally passing on tradition, and some of the songs recall the glory days of famous ancestors.

The festival grounds are muddied, as men spray spring water, channeled through a pipe, to ease the dust. Sometimes they playfully target specific people. But the stream is no match for the clouds rising beneath busy feet. Many of the women tie kerchiefs around their noses as they dance.

The festival is a whirl of stampeding kids, faces stained from sucking on sugary glacial ices. It’s teenagers stealing away behind the shop, and wine-happy women grabbing each other’s shoulders and pledging sisterhood and affection. It’s bossy little girls in circles on the ground, distributing bracelets and necklaces — signs of material wealth — among friends. It’s the raucous, rollicking life-and-death ritual that happens each Joshi, as everyone forms a looping chain, grasping ceremonial woven strips, and snakes full-speed around the mountaintop to a frenzied drum accompaniment. This is the most breathless ritual of the day — the Kalash seem shocked each time they’re jerked around a corner, open-mouthed laughter mixing with dismay whenever someone is unfortunate enough to lose grip. Woe to the person who breaks the chain, because this indicates probable death in the coming year. There is another strange ritual, a festival addition in recent decades. It involves corralling all the outsiders (journalists, tourists and police) on the shop roof while elders and teen boys chuck rocks at us. We are warned that this will happen, but I don’t think we believed the Kalash hold this sort of violence or anger until the rocks start flying. We scatter from the edge of the roof, but there is nowhere to go. Kalash boys run up the exit path, and the roof is small. Luckily, the rocks are also fairly small — they have to be, to be launched by hand — and it all ends after about 10 minutes.

More dancing, more brandishing of the cleansing juniper branches and then suddenly, without any sort of prelude or gradual denouement, the drumming stops and the dancers move towards the exit path.

And that’s it. Joshi is over. Or at least until it starts again tomorrow, one valley over, on a different mountaintop.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 26th, 2011.

URL: http://tribune.com.pk/story/194100/colours-of-the-kalash

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Pakistan's valley of wine: Free Women

Nosheen Abbas Kalash valley

During festival time in

Pakistan

's Kalash valley, almost anything is possible for women.

They can declare their love for a suitor and end their marriages, as long as the community knows about the impending split in advance. They can even elope.

It is a far cry from large swathes of Pakistan where a conservative Islamic outlook dictates how women behave and the rights they have.

“Women are considered impure, but women are highly respected in society” Yasir Kalash man

But in the Kalash valley a more liberal approach prevails, partly because of its unique religion and culture. The Kalash people are not Islamic - they worship a pantheon of gods and goddesses and hold exuberant festivals inspired by the seasons and the farming year.

"In our religion, you can choose whoever you want to marry, the parents don't dictate to you," says Mehmood, a 17-year-old Kalash girl who accompanied me as we scaled a labyrinthine puzzle of small houses set into the mountain face.

In this close society, one person's roof is somebody else's veranda. Little staircases connect one house to another and it felt like climbing into a tree house in the clouds.

Through the wooden window frames and ladders of the houses were panoramic views of immense jagged stones and gloriously green mountains surrounding this secluded valley.

Festival elopers

Sahiba, a happy-go-lucky, 20-year-old with two children, lives in one of these houses and she told me about how she ran away with her husband during one festival.

Sahiba says she was able to run away with the man she loves

"I met my husband the way I'm talking to you... I got to know him for three years before marrying him," she said.

"When there is a festival whoever the girl is in love with she can run away with him... and that's how I left with the man who is now my husband."

She explains how after they ran away together they went to stay at his parents house.

"You can stay for as long as you want, there's no specific time, but finally after two months we got to my parents house and after that we got married."

It's an unconventional courtship but this is an unconventional place. Certain tasks are still segregated. Women generally do the housework while the men do trade and labour work. Both men and women farm.

The Kalash attitude to gender is also defined by notions of purity. Some rituals can be executed only by men. The temple itself near the area of the seasonal spring festival is off-limits to women as well as Muslims.

Women must wash clothing and bathe separately. And during their menstrual cycle and in pregnancy women live a separate house outside the village. They can go to the fields to work, but they are not meant to enter the village.

Yasir, one Kalash man, said: "Women are considered impure, but women are highly respected in society.

"There are only a few things women are not meant to do."

Bold women

Indeed marriage and divorce is simpler for women than for men. Jamrat, 22, left her husband after a year and now lives with another man at his parents' house. Her ex-husband converted to Islam, re-married and moved to a neighbouring village.

But there are financial considerations too.

"The second husband needs to give double the amount of money the first husband gave at the time of the marriage because for the first husband it's like he lost his money AND his wife," she says.

If the woman does not re-marry, the ex-husband has the right to retrieve the money from the bride's father. Although Jamrat is technically not married to her new partner, he nonetheless had to give 60,000 rupees ($700; £425) to the first husband.

The Kalash women I met in Rumbur and Balanguru are bold and outspoken. They look you in the eye when talking and do not hesitate to speak their mind.

In this small village - far above the hot chaos of

Pakistan

's main cities and towns - the patriarchy that informs most aspects of life in the rest of the country is clearly non-existent.

Source:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13469826

21-05-2011

an>An intelligence agent, who wished to remain unnamed, was also present at the festival - he said the Taliban had been a threat for the last two or three years.

Security guards were visible everywhere during the festival

Love and conversion

At the foot of the entrance to the festival in Rumbur was a mosque, which was in the village next to Balanguru. The increasing rate of conversion to Islam is yet another sign that Kalashi culture risks being eroded. A young man with a kind face, a beard and skull-cap stood nearby.

"I don't go to the festival anymore. I think it is wrong and according to Islam it is not good," Muhammad, a converted Kalash, told me.

In the Bumburet valley, Sunni Muslims are now a majority. According to Ishfaq Ahmed, Muslims and Kalash co-exist peacefully.

"It's a brotherly relationship and Muslims are OK with their festivals." But, he says, "there are some who don't like the Kalash and tell Muslims not to attend the festivals."

“The younger generation is not into the traditions” Luke Rehmat

Love and marriage appear to dictate the ebb and flow of conversion. Jawad, a sharp and smiling 21-year-old, told me how while studying in the city of Faisalabad in Punjab province he fell in love with a local girl but was unable to marry her because he refused to convert to Islam. He says he was approached numerous times by evangelical groups trying to push him to convert.

"They tell us we'll go to heaven and it's the right path if we convert. But I've told them that it is all up to God whether I convert or not."

One girl told me that more Kalash girls convert, and it generally happens when they get married. For Luke Rehmat the main reasons Kalash convert is the expense of their culture: funerals are expensive, and although weddings are not, traditional clothes are also pricey. These factors may yet prove a defining force for the future of Kalash identity.

The festival does succeed in creating a sense of pride around the valley in the unique atmosphere of liberation and relaxation. Boys and girls openly spend carefree time together, joking and laughing.

Many warn that the younger generations are not interested in Kalash traditions

Many of the children performed a ritual at their local temple on the night before the festival began. As old women made walnut bread and men adjusted the traditional coloured feathers for their caps, all that was unique and enchanting about Kalash culture was on display for the gathered visitors.

But many people reminded me that some traditions had already disappeared. And one Kalash resident, Luke Rehmat, sounded a further note of warning.

"The younger generation is not into the traditions," Mr Rehmat said. "They don't want to learn songs and take part."

Source:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13466250

21-05-2011

Pakistan's valley of wine: Under Threat

Nosheen Abbas

The Kalash people celebrate their annual Joshi (spring) festival with dancing and wine.

A liberal outlook and festivals where social norms are turned upside down set the Kalash people of north-western

Pakistan

apart from the rest of the country. But their culture is under threat as Nosheen Abbas found out.

“I don't go to the festival any more - I think it is wrong and according to Islam it is not good” Muhammad Kalash convert

Entering the Rumbur valley, Pakistan, with all of its violence and militancy, felt like it was left behind. No electricity, phone signals or newspaper stands are to be found in the village of Balanguru, precarious and beautiful, perched between mountains.

Preparations for the Joshi (spring) festival were well under way when I visited: women and men were sitting chatting together, brewing the wine to be drunk, stitching colourful outfits, and on the eve of the celebrations, beating a drum late into the night while dancing.

"Parents don't let their small children drink, but by 13 or 14 you can start drinking here," said Jamrat, one young Kalashi, while another 18-year-old girl was too drunk on festival eve to give an interview.

Estranged people

This is far removed from ordinary Pakistani life where most people adhere to an Islamic code, shunning drink and dance. The Kalash, on the other hand, worship their own gods.

Pakistanis would view Kalash culture with disapproval but nevertheless many, mostly men, still flock to the valleys from around the country to experience the liberation the festival offers.

The Kalash use the blanket term "Punjabi" for the Pakistani men who suddenly show up in the village staring at women, trying to "chat them up", and making many feel uncomfortable.They do not consider themselves Pakistani. In fact, they call anybody from elsewhere in the country "Pakistani" - as if it that term would not cover themselves as well.

But it was in the heady mix of the festival that the first clues appeared about the pressures the outside world is beginning to exert upon this society.

Security was heightened in the valleys - a sign that

Pakistan

's problems can intrude upon even the most isolated communities. A walk-through security gate looked out of place at the foot of the mountain before a winding staircase that led to the heart of the festival.

Here euphoric Kalash people were dancing and singing and there was a distinct whiff of marijuana in the air. There was a small and unconvincing hand-written sign hanging somewhere, warning spectators that drinking was not allowed.

Militant threat

All the while, the anti-terrorist squad was scattered across the valleys. Every few steps, stood an upright man in uniform, holding a gun to his chest. And new rules dictate that each foreigner visiting the area must have their own security guard.

"It's ridiculous," says Shane Brady, an Irish tourist. "The police were first being put up in our room, then when we refused, they slept right outside our room."

Saifullah Jan, the owner of a local guest house in Balanguru, feels strongly about it too.

"The police are a hassle here. It's ruining tourism," he says.

Foreign visitors are supposed to pay for their guards' food and accommodation, he adds. When they refuse, supporting the guards becomes a burden for the locals.

“They tell us we'll go to heaven and it's the right path if we convert - but I've told them that it is all up to God” Jawad

Ever since the Taliban kidnapped a Greek man in 2009 who had been living and teaching in the Bumburet valley, security has been heightened. And in a country where minorities are increasingly attacked, the authorities are taking extra measures.

Since the kidnapping, people living in the valley have had to be more alert, says one of them, Ishfaq Ahmed. "I don't know if I can call it afraid, because no Kalash will ever leave."

But, he adds, people are aware of the constant underlying threat. He recalls an incident when militants from Nuristan in neighbouring Afghanistan kidnapped six labourers; four were killed and the pictures of their dead bodies released. The other two were set free.

An intelligence agent, who wished to remain unnamed, was also present at the festival - he said the Taliban had been a threat for the last two or three years.