The Kalasha people of Pakistan

Jodi Hilton - Special to GlobalPost March 3, 2009 14:45 ET

The fate of the Kalasha

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The Kalasha of Pakistan face threats on several fronts.

By Jodi Hilton - Special to GlobalPost
Published: March 15, 2009 10:40 ET

NORTHWEST FRONTIER PROVINCE, Pakistan — High in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, about 25 miles on harrowing dirt roads from the nearest city, Chitral, live the Kalasha people.

Though they once numbered in the tens of thousands, the Kalasha have seen their numbers dwindle over the past century. No census has been performed since 1998, but most experts put the current Kalasha population at about 3,000.

The polytheistic Kalasha — whose women wear vibrant-colored embroidered dresses and beaded headdresses called “susutr" — are viewed with both admiration and suspicion by the Islamic majority. As militant Islam gains hold in regions surrounding the Kalasha — most recently with Pakistan's cease-fire agreement with the Taliban in the nearby Swat Valley — the fate of Pakistan's indigenous tribes hangs in the balance.

The conflict between Islamic militants and the Pakistani military in this region has killed hundreds of civilians and created a refugee situation that Doctors Without Borders put on their annual top-10 list of under-reported humanitarian crisis.

After tens of thousands of Kalasha people, also called Nuristanis, were forcibly converted to Islam during the last century, only a few thousand retain their ancestral religion and traditions.

Wynn Maggi, anthropologist and author of "Our Women Are Free," says they were "brutally and forcibly converted to Islam, horribly persecuted, put in jail ... the Kalasha suffered a lot in their history.” Kalasha women were sometimes abducted and forced to marry Muslim men. Stories circulated of Kalasha men being forcibly circumcised.

With their light coloring — some even have blue eyes — the Kalasha are rumored to be the descendants of Alexander the Great’s army, which conquered the Hindu Kush along with “the known world” in the 4th century B.C. In Kalasha oral history, the people are the children of "Salaxi," their name for Alexander.

Most scientists and anthropologists dispute the legend: No genetic ties between Kalasha and Greeks have been discovered, and scientists believe the Kalasha are Indo-Aryans whose religion has some commonalities with pre-Zorastrian Iranians.

But regardless, the legend once lured busloads of Greek tourists to the valleys, seeking a link to their ancestral past.

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Posted by jamesdelphi on January 30, 2010 07:49 ET

According to the 'Kalasha Dictionary' by the Summer Institute of Linguistics - (Trail and Cooper):

'.......the history of the Kalasha people is surrounded by mystery, romance and myth......... and falls into two main schools of thought that: 1) they are descendants of the Vedic Indo-Aryans, or 2) they are the descendants of the armies of Alexander the Great. If the former is true, their beginnings in the above area would date back to around 1400 BC. If the latter is true, they would have come into existence as a distinct group early in the third century BC when Alexander was known historically to be on his conquests in the area.'

For many people there is no reason why the above two historical schools of thought need to be mutually exclusive. Indeed, both theories can be true to a smaller or greater extent. Certainly, most Kalasha people proudly see themselves as the descendants of Alexander's army - some of whom are known for sure to have settled in the area.

The 3000 or so remaining Kalasha men, women and children are under urgent threat of survival - literally. There is fear in the valleys that they could be completely wiped out on one bloody afternoon in the near future unless they are given real protection by the Pakistan government or UN in these particularly turbulent times in northern Pakistan.

James Head,
Athens, Greece.

Footnote: January 2010
From www.actionkalasha.blogspot.com
..... 1) Firstly, dear Athannassi Lerounis of the Greek Volunteers (an NGO helping the Kalasha people) is still being held hostage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan. A fourth delegation has returned this month (Jan. 2010) from discussions with the kidnappers and reports that Mr Lerounis is alive and healthy (thank God) and is being treated relatively kindly in captivity. Obviously, the Greek and Pakistan governments are working at the highest levels towards a solution of this problem according to a strategy based on local knowledge. The Greek foreign office has indicated that in their view too much high profile media coverage of this situation would be unhelpful and might complicate matters. At this time, we agree with and support that view.

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