Insensitivity of tourists ‘affecting Kalash culture’

Insensitivity of tourists ‘affecting Kalash culture’

Myra Imran
Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The insensitivity of tourists towards Kalash social set-up is one of the main reasons behind changing culture of Kalash Valley.

The concern was shared with ‘The News’ by Sayed Gul, the first archaeologist from Kalash Valley and second woman in the region who was able to get a master’s degree, while she was attending an international archaeology conference organised in the capital. She said that tourists from other parts of the country fail to respect the privacy of Kalashi women. “The majority of tourists are young. They enter any place without permission and start taking pictures. Sometimes, they harass them by giving remarks or singing songs and laughing every time they spot Kalashi women,” she said.

A resident of Bombort Valley in Kalash, Sayed Gul, said that they could no more move freely in their valley as they used to do a few years back. “Women now prefer to stay indoors to avoid stares and comments of tourists,” she added.

Kalash is one of the most famous tourist sites of Pakistan. The indigenous population of Kalash is considered to be the descendants of Alexander the Great but many scientists and anthropologists dispute the legend, as they believe that no genetic ties between Kalasha and Greeks have been discovered. They believe that Kalash people are actually Indo-Aryans. Decedents of Alexander the Great or Indo-Aryans, the Kalash people have one of the most unique cultures that exist in the world.

The women in Kalash wear vibrant coloured embroidered dresses and beaded headdresses and have always been the centre of attraction of the rich Kalash culture. Young archaeologist from this valley, Gul is determined to preserve and promote the Kalash tradition. She said that brochures are available for the tourists mentioning ‘do’s and don’ts’ while visiting the valley but hardly anyone follow them. “It will be a great help to our culture if these instructions are followed,” she said

The brochure she shared with ‘The News’ strictly forbids tourists to take photographs of Kalasha women without permission. “Do not give payment for photographs. Do not photograph women washing their hair in the river. In bad light or at night be sparing with your flashguns,” mentions the brochure.

It instructs not to distribute medicine or money or other things including unwashed second-hand clothes to women. It also forbids those visiting the place from walking into people’s houses and temples uninvited or park their jeeps in the fields.

Other instructions direct tourists not to disturb the Kalasha working in the fields or harass their women in any way. It also instructs them not to preach any religion or seek to convert. It even asks them not disturb or dance at Kalasha funerals and festivals.

The brochure also informs tourists about a movement among the Kalasha people to ban all paid dances. It restricts tourists to invade the premises of the Bashali (female) Houses built especially for women where they can stay during the days of their special needs.

She said that though Kalashas once numbered in tens of thousands, the current population of Kalash is only 3,000 and not much has been done to preserve the culture. “It is the religious extremism in the adjoining areas, uncontrolled tourism and influence of the media that is responsible for these changes,” said Gul. She agreed to the media reports that Kalashi religion is also under threat due to religious extremism and activities of missionaries in this area. 

“Just recently, the historical horse-shaped effigies that enjoy religious significance for Kalash people were axed and destroyed by unidentified people,” she said. She said that it is unfortunate that Kalashi religion is not recognised in the country. It does not make part of the list of religions when you apply for identity cards and passports. “We have no choice other than selecting Buddhism whereas these are two completely separate religions,” she said. 

Another request she made was that Islamiyat should not make compulsory subject in Kalash schools as a vast majority is non-Muslim. She said that there are almost no health facilities available in the valley. “There is one hospital but there is never any doctor in that facility.”

(Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=87958&Cat=6)

Kalasha Religion

Temple of Imra, Temple of Mahandeu: a Kafir sanctuary in Kalasha cosmology

This article examines the mythical significance of the famous Afghan Kafir ‘Temple of Imra’ described in Robertson's Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush (1896: 389–92) within the cosmology of the Kalasha (‘Kalash Kafirs’) of Chitral in northern Pakistan. It is known as the ‘Temple of Mahandeu’ in Kalasha tradition, and stories about this sanctuary play an important role in the exegesis of all Kalasha rites. It is, indeed, a focal symbol of Kalasha cosmology: the site of an axis mundi linking heaven and earth with the underworld of the deceased, and the primordial domain of major deities. After examining narratives about this temple, I shall discuss several problems in the comparative religions of the Hindu Kush that such traditions help to elucidate. In recognition of the pioneering scholarship on this subject by Wolfgang Lentz (1974) and Lennart Edelberg (et al., 1959), I present here some Kalasha perspectives on an extraordinary Kafir sanctuary (cf. Jettmar, 1986: 50–51). But in discussing its significance in Kalasha cosmology, I also address broader questions about our present conception of religious knowledge in the Hindu Kush, particularly on the comparative ‘mythology’ of the Afghan Kafirs and of their Dardicspeaking neighbours in northern Pakistan

Temple of Imra, Temple of Mahandeu: a Kafir sanctuary in Kalasha cosmology

Peter Parkes (1991).
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 54,
Issue 01, February 1991 pp 75-103
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=3729068

Development among the Kalasha (Research Paper)

A research based article on the development among the Kalasha people of Pakistan.

The last breaths of Kalasha language in Kalkatak

The last breaths of Kalasha language in Kalkatak

Fakhruddin Akhunzada

According to linguistic experts the 6000 languages in our world will be reduced to the half of that number by the middle of this century if language shifting continues at the same rate as now. The speakers of minority languages give up their mother-tongues for the language of the majority. In our country a number of languages are in this situation. The small language Kalasha in Chitral District has been reduced to only a few thousand because the speakers have started using Khowar, the lingua franca of Chitral. The Kalasha speakers of Kalkatak, a tiny village in southern Chitral, have shifted language three times during the last century. They gave up Kalasha, adopted Palula, and then abandoned Palula for Khowar. Nowadays the last remnants of the Kalasha language will soon have disappeared from the village. 

At the beginning of the last century, the language of Kalkatak was Kalasha, an Indo-Arya n language; and the language of an ancient tribe also called Kalasha, which today lives in three valleys in Chitral, Bumboret, Rumbur and Birir. There are only about a dozen elderly people living in Kalkatak who still know Kalasha, but these do not usually like to speak it. The Kalasha language will disappear from the village with the death of this handful of people.

Muhammad Wali Shah, an elderly man of 72, says “People, with whom I used to speak Kalasha in my childhood, do not like to speak it now”. He adds that until the 1960s, he could still find some company with whom to speak the language, but after that no one has been keen on toconversation in this language. 

Kalasha was still dominant in the village in the 1930s. No-one had yet shifted over to Palula or Khowar, and some non-Kalasha speakers had even learnt to speak it. Salah Khan, another elderly man, says “My father was a Khowar speaker who migrated to the village from Madak and married a Kalasha woman in the village. Kalasha was spoken in my home and I learned to speak it.”. 

Rahim Khan, a man in his 40s and a son of Kalasha parents, does not know Kalasha at all, but speaks Palula. He says “I learnt Kalasha from my parents along with Palula and Khowar in my childhood, but later on I forgot the language, since Palula was so dominating.” He speaks Palula with his children. 

The people of Kalkatak gave up Kalasha because they felt inferior, and because it was easy to adopt other languages. In the time of the Kator ruler , all Kalasha of the area were in the Rayat class -- the lowest class. The people of the upper classes were using ‘Kalash’ as a derogatory term for the people. The people were hesitant to speak the language in front of Khowar speakers. The difficulties increased further when a fort was constructed in the village in 1930 for the son of a Khowar-speaking ruler, and many Khowar speakers came to the village along with the prince. 

Wasim Khan, born in 1937, says “The people of Kalkatak gave up Kalasha because they felt inferior. Other tribes in the area considered the Kalasha inferior in status, and because of the Kalasha language this inferiority was more visible. The people of Kalkatak thought that people considered them inferior because they spoke Kalasha.”

The villagers already knew Palula and Khowar along with their mother tongue and they had no difficulty in adopting either of these languages. The interaction and intermarriage of the villagers with Palula speakers from the adjacent Biori Valley had already made them fluent in Palula. For a long time they were speaking these languages along with Kalasha. 

Khoshani, an old lady in the village, says: ”My parents were Kalasha speakers and my mother-tongue was Kalasha. I used to speak Kalasha as long as I was with my parents. I stopped doing that when I married and instead started to speak Palula. My mother-in-law was a Palula speaker from Biori and the language in my in-laws’ house was Palula.”

Muhammad Salim, an influential Kalasha man, migrated to Biori Valley with his family to protect himself from enforced labour under the mehtar. He stayed there for a long time and came back to the village with the Palula language. His children spoke Palula. The summer-pastures of the Kalkatak villagers also lie at the eastern end of the Biori Valley. The people of Kalkatak had to go through the valley with their goats in order to get there. The shepherds of both language communities had a lot of interaction with each other while in the pastures. 

The inhabitants of a small village called Serdur, near Kalkatak, are immigrants from Biori. They have been there for three generations. They still speak Palula, and depend on Kalkatak for many things. Until recently, they had no graveyard or mosque of their own, and they still came to Kalkatak for the Eid prayers. 

To the people of Kalkatak, ‘Kalasha’ was a term not only used for a language but also for a tribe who were considered inferior, and, perhaps more importantly, for a religion which was considered infidel. To them, speaking Kalasha meant being perceived as inferior and infidel. Although the people of Kalkatak had given up the Kalasha religion, they had kept the language.

Meanwhile, the Kalasha of Suwir – a village across the river to the west of Kalkatak – took an oath never again to speak Kalasha. The villagers collectively gave up the language. This must have had a great effect on the people of Kalkatak.

The Kalasha language is drawing its last breaths in the village of Kalkatak. The few remaining speakers of Kalasha in the village are in their seventies. With the death of these people the last symbol of the Kalasha tradition will disappear from the village forever.

Source: http://www.fli-online.org/documents/languages/kalasha/kalasha_in_kalkatak.htm

Kalasha culture feels heat of modernity stealthily making inroads

Kalasha culture feels heat of modernity stealthily making inroads

By Erfan Khan

CHITRAL (Bumburet), Sept 4 (APP): Away from the fevers and frets of life, a strange conglomerate of about 4,000 people dotting the picturesque countryside of Chitral valley, continues discreetly to battle with the temptations of modern life which apparently are impacting the Kalasha culture.  Not far from the main Chitral city which usually keeps humming with life activity, the mysterious people residing in isolation at the mountain tops, obscured by their rites and rituals, are now seen struggling to protect their beliefs, ideology and mode of living constantly at loggerheads with modern life style entailing mundane temptations. These people clinging to their centuries old traditions even are not exactly aware of their ancestry, leaving such a controversial issue for the historians to settle.

However, as the popular legend in the area goes on to say that few soldiers from the formidable legions of Alexander of Macedonia had settled in Chitral during their invasion of Indo-Pak sub continent and this particular sect continued to inhibit the land as their predecessor.

A muddy but atrocious serpentine road leads to the Kalash valley which runs through the town of Drosh and Chitral city and then turn to the left from Ayun village on Kunar river leading to one of the most fabled destination in the world.
These mythical set of people inhibit three villages of Rukmu, Mumret and Biriu, commonly called Rambur, Bumburet and Birir in local Kalashi language.
These villages are situated at the hillside about 100 meters above the river.
The Kalash Valleys have extensive forests of oak and Himalayan cedar growing on hilltops around the flowing streams, while the mouth watering fruits like walnut, apricot, pear and mulberry are found abundantly along these places.

To make the area a safe haven, the forefathers of Kalash people must have chosen the place which could protect them from the invaders and natural calamities.
According to local people and journalists, their population has been shrinking; around 4,000 Kalash populations reside over these three places.

A visitor in these days can find a sharp contrast to what he or she has heard or read as a changing picture will greet them.

After living in obscurity for an unknown period, Kalash children are now studying in local schools, and are well conversant with Urdu and English languages.
The girls are making an extra mile by realizing their plight when juxtaposed with their neighborhood and even prefer to be married in Muslim families.
The basic values the Kalasha people used to attach with conjugal life is also circumventing change as the strong restriction barring females of the tribe from marrying people of other religion especially with Muslim youth has now become a source of blithe and good omen in the tribe.

“In recent past, a number of girls have been married in Muslim families and the Kalash elders did not oppose it rather it was welcomed,” Afsar Khan, a local in the valley informed.
According to local estimates, the ratio of tying knots with Muslim families touches at least four per cent.

Muhammad Hammad Farooqi, a local journalist and guide says that the Kalash girls are embracing Islam and even adopting Muslim names.

“The centuries old names which these people have also underwent a sea change, as majority of girls liked to be called with names of Indian film actresses,” he said.
When asked how it came, Farooqi pointed out to small dish antennas perched on rooftops of wooden houses.

Chinggadi, an old head of tribe with physical features of Greek mythology in Bamburat was leading her dancing troupe and she admitted in her ancient way of conversation a slight change in their life style.

She also blames financial problems a reason slowly and gradually gnawing away the roots of their grandiose civilization erected on centuries old obsolete practices.
“We used to demand Rs 25,000 to Rs. 30,000 for each dance performance but now it has plummeted to Rs 7,000,” Chinggadi said.

The number of visitors especially foreigners have dropped drastically who often were keen to learn about the ancient tribe and paid them for visiting their houses, watching cultural dances, for the unique apparels and even for taking photos.
The younger girls and females are no more shy of being filmed or pictured without their consent. The little girls straightway demand in advance for each snap shot.
Moreover, they have also abandoned the practice of leaving the dead bodies open in the adjacent necropolis having rustic bones of Kalash ancestors.

However, despite these changes, there existed a number of staunch followers of Kalash culture who preferred to wear “The Black Robes” and celebrate Spring season by singing and dancing on the roof tops.

The women still perform other related rituals like Kirik Pushik, the festival of the first flower blooming, the Siu Wajik rite and Joshi, the main spring festival.

Source:

http://ftpapp.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151229&Itemid=57