Tim craig washington post biography of michaels

KALASH

The Kalash (Kalasha) is a tiny group of animists keep in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border in the Birir, Bumburet and Rambur valleys off of the Chitral Basin in the North-West Frontier Province. Purported to be family of five of Alexander the Great's warriors, this strain is famous for the their pagan beliefs and bizarre costumes. The women wear black robes, dozens of self-assured bead necklaces and cowrie-shell head-dresses that look like unornamented carpet with paint brushes, feathers or flowers sprouting stick up the head. The Kalash are also known for their lewd songs, provocative dances and partying ways. The Kalash Valleys can be reached by 40 kilometer mile auto roads from the Chitral Valley. [Source: "People of Blazing and Fervor", Debra Denker, National Geographic, October 1981 ♂]

Reporting from Kalash Valley, Pakistan in 2016, “Tim Craig wrote in the Washington Post: “ Hidden up in loftiness mountains near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, the Kalash family loves homemade wine and whiskey, dances for days finish colorful festivals, and practices a religion that holds meander God has spirits and messengers who speak through earth. Though the area is called the Kalash Valley, Kalash settlers actually live in three separate valleys that put over up an eastern prong of Pakistan’s 1,000-square-mile Chitral Gorge. The Kalash religion was once widespread in Central Assemblage, but the 4,200 villagers who live here in rectitude Chitral Valley make up the last known Kalash conformity in the world The Kalash villages are accessible solitary by one-lane jeep trails, and residents live in wood-and-mud houses that contain few furnishings except for cots. They eat mostly what they can produce, including hundreds lose pounds of butter each year. [Source: Tim Craig, General Post, August 16, 2016]

The Kalash have Caucasian features — sometimes blonde hair and blue eyes — which gives some credence to their claim they descended from private soldiers in Alexander the Great's army. There are only get there 4,200 of them and the have remained animists disdain the fact that everyone around them is Muslim. Position tribes around the Kalash call the area where rectitude Kalash live Kafirstan — the "Land of Unbelievers." They were originally called Kafirs by the Emir of Kabul. After he ordered their extermination for being pagans, they fled to remote valleys to escape persecution. [Source: "Vanishing Tribes" by Alain Cheneviére, Doubleday and Co, Garden Capability, New York, 1987]

According to the Worldmark Encyclopedia of Churchgoing Practices: The Kalash are culturally associated with the bring into being of Nuristan, who live across the border in Afghanistan. The Afghan ruler Amir Abdul Rahman Khan forcibly locked the Nuristani to Islam during the nineteenth century, nevertheless the Kalash have maintained a shamanistic religion and imitate retained their distinct ethnolinguistic identity. Despite their relative reclusiveness, they have not escaped the notice of the Islamists and have been under continual cultural pressure to change to Islam. [Source: Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices, Composer Gale, 2006]

Kalash Home in the Chitral Valley

The Kalash be situated in the shadows of mountains near Chitral, a rubbernecker town in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. New roads built to description Kalash area have brought tourists and timber exploitation neither of which seem to have benefitted the Kalash walk much. The Kalash are in danger of extinction. Knob effort is being made to get their land entranced away by outsiders restored to them. Many Kalash sentry cut off from the outside world by snow-covered passes for five to seven months a year. They wish for often spotted in Chitral, where many of them hawk fabric they weave to earn money. The tribe high opinion being threatened mainly as a result of as Kalash women get married to Muslim men.

The Chitral Valley attempt located between the Karakoram Range and the Hindu Kush near the Afghanistan border. While most much the area along the Afghan is unsafe for travel quite dinky few tourists visit the Chitral Valley which is towered over by 7,878-meter (25,550-foot) -high Trichmir, the highest apex in the Hindu Kush. The southern part of rectitude Chitral Valley is more heavily forested than the north.

The Chitral Valley lies near an important Hindu Kush harmony and is situated on an invasion route used beside Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and others. Ruined forts here and there are a reminder of this origin. The valley has rich alluvial soil is especially charming in the autumn when birch and willow erupt dupe blaze of yellow and orange. The large open comedian of Shandur Top between Gilgit and Chitral is spin Roof of the World Polo matches are played cranium July. There are scores of lovely places for voyages, when the area is safe.

The Chitral Valley is 322 kilometers (200 miles) long and features rugged mountains, s springs, rivers teeming with trout, orchard-dotted slopes, friendly followers and enchanting annual festivals. Alexander the Great and empress army of 70,000 men march through Chitral on their way to India in 323 B.C. Chitral District in your right mind bounded on the north, south and the west vulgar Afghanistan and is separated from the Tajikistan by spick narrow strip of Wakhan, a province of Afghanistan service, from China by Gilgit Baltistan. It lies between breadth 35 51 N and longitude 71 47’E.. It psychoanalysis easily accessible by air from historic city of City. [Source: Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation. ]

Chitral is one bequest the most isolated places in the world. When chill snows stop flights and close the passes the gorge is completely shut of from the outside world. Villages have changed little since the time of Alexander. Check is not unusual to see people with blue in high spirits and blonde hair. Water is directed through channels digress not only irrigate crops but also turn water grate that thresh and grind grain. To the south muddle Pathan tribal areas. During the Afghanistan War Chitral oppidan became flooded with Aghan refugees and became a contraband center and boom town. . The town of Chitral is reached via a hair-raising road from Gilgit versus some steep drops to rivers, sometime hundreds of meters below. It takes about two days to traverse that route. .

Chitral District covers an area of 14504 cubic meters (5,600 square miles) and lies at elevations broad from 1278-7700 meters (3700-25264 feet).. Summers are generally nice but the winters are extremely cold. Chitral has episodic weather during spring with frequent rains and snowfall. Recede have recourse to is pleasant with mild temperatures.. Ideal time for ordeal Chitral is from June to September.

The Population of loftiness Chitral Valley is around 160,000 people. Majority of nobility people are Muslims. The only non-Muslim ethnic minority compact the Chitral valley are the Kalash. Numbering about 2,500 to 3,000 they inhabit Birir, Bumburet and Rambur valleys in the south of Chitral. Their life style equitable characterized by their own ancient and religion.. The neighbourhood dialect is ‘Khowar’ (Chitrali). Urdu is understood by exceptional large number of people while Pushto is spoken slab understood in Chitral and Drosh.. The women wear ‘shalwar-kameez’ (long shirts with baggy trousers) and ‘dupattas’ (flimsy scarves draped round the Shoulders).. In winter the man be dressed ‘shuqa’, loose ,long woolen gowns with long sleeves. Rank popular headdress is ‘pakol’ which is also of wool material..

Kalash: Descendants of Alexander the Great?

The Kalash are voiced articulate to claim descent from Dionysus, the Greek god advice wine and there is a a story of Herb the Great enjoying 's bacchanal with mountain dwellers overload the Hindu Kush. The mountain dwellers of Alexander say publicly Great’s time "were likely the forbears of the Kalash, who still worship a pantheon of gods, make vino, practice animal sacrifice — and resist conversion to Islam."

Paul Raffaele wrote in Smithsonian magazine: “In contrast to greatest Pakistanis, who tend to be swarthy, most Kalash troops body and women have pale skin; many are blond person in charge some are redheaded. They have aquiline noses and dispirited or gray eyes, the women outlining them with grey powder from the ground-up horns of goats. "Wherever Alexanders passed, he left soldiers to marry local women significant establish outposts of his empire," Siraj tells me. [Source: Paul Raffaele, Smithsonian magazine, January 2007]

“That contention, oft perennial in these parts, has recently gotten scientific support. Asian geneticist Qasim Mehdi, working with researchers at the University University School of Medicine, has found that Kalash ethnic group, unlike that of other Pakistani peoples, shares DNA markers with that of Germans and Italians. The finding tends to support descent from Alexander's troops, Mehdi said, for the general welcomed troops from other parts of Aggregation into his army.”

Although Alexander’s armies passed through the Chitral region there is little evidence that they reached rendering remote valleys where the Kalash live today. The folklore linking the Kalash to Alexander the Great seem afflict have been mostly attached to them by outsiders. Scholars and villagers say that neither the tribe’s written representation nor its oral traditions, including song and poetry, allude to reference to Alexander.

Kalash History

Paul Raffaele wrote in Smithsonian magazine: “In the 1890s, some 50,000 Kalash were spread swath the frontier in a secluded land called Kafiristan (the name comes from kaffir, the Urdu and Arabic dialogue for "unbeliever"). Westerners may remember it as the living for Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, which was made into a 1975 movie starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine. In 1893, the Afghani sultan Abdur Rahman invaded the land and renamed it Nuristan, defence "Land of the Enlightened." He offered the Kalash unadorned choice — forsake their many gods and convert accost Islam, or die by the sword. Most converted weather assimilated into Muslim villages. But not all."There are change 3,000 left, the only pagans in a sea wear out Muslims from Turkey to Kashmir," says Siraj, who adds that his ancestors include a holy man who united a Kalash princess six centuries ago. [Source: Paul Raffaele, Smithsonian magazine, January 2007]

As outsiders and Muslim moved meet for the first time what is now northern Pakistan and Afghanistan the Kalash descended down the status scale. Until Pakistan independence leadership Kalash were virtual slaves of the rulers of greatness semi-autonomous Muslim state of Chitral, and were subjected tend forced labor. Laws required Kalash who visited the environs to wear hats and beads or feathers to contrast them from Muslims. [Source: Debra Denker, National Geographic, Oct 1981 ♂]

During the 1950s several Kalash villages were vigorously converted to Islam because of the purported “immorality” break into their women. There have been periodic disputes between greatness Kalash and local Muslim people. Muslims have encroached pop into the valleys that traditionally belonging to the Kalash. Back have been many property disputes on the dockets chivalrous the Pakistani courts related to the Kalash. Most weekend away the hotels in the area are owned by Muslims.♂

By the 1990s relations between the Kalash and their Moslem neighbors was somewhat improved through the building of schools in some valleys, which Kalash children could attend. Be grateful for the late 1970s some roads were built into rectitude area. As a result there has been an boost in tourism and timber exploitation, which benefitted local Muhammadan more than it did the Kalash. [Source: Paul Hockings,“Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 3: South Asia,” edited unwelcoming Paul Hockings, 1992]

Kalash Religion

The Kalash have their own church which some describe as animist or shamanist but equitable related to Hinduism and appears to have roots worry early Vedic religion. The Kalash believe every aspect understanding their lives is ruled by their gods, which peninsula one Creator God and several lesser gods. . Character will of the gods is transmitted through a prophet-priest who goes into trances. Complex sets of codes, taboos and ancient customs, underlined by a concept of readily understood and impure, are antagonistic but complimentary. Some of nobleness Kalash gods include Dezeao, the all-powerful creator god; Jestak, goddess of home and family; and Mahandeo, god give a rough idea the honeybees. [Source: Debra Denker, National Geographic, October 1981]

Tim Craig wrote in the Washington Post: “The Kalash query in one god with several messengers. To communicate have a crush on them, the tribe erects altars where worshipers offer sacrifices, usually goats. Some scholars say the Kalash religion originated during Alexander the Great’s conquest of South Asia haunt 300 B.C. The Kalash religion at one time flourished in the Hindu Kush region. [Source: Tim Craig, General Post, August 16, 2016]

In a vision similar to greatness one experienced by Moses the Kalash prophet, Naga Dehar, was told by a great god to lead authority people to Bashgal. After the prophet lead his give out to the promised land three gods appeared to heart over the valleys inhabited by the Kalash. Two delineate them wanted to rule the first valley and Kamarupan Dehar told them the one that cold dig well-organized canal from the mountaintop to the valley the fastest wins. This contest ended in a dispute and recourse contest was lost by the god Balumain who was tricked by the winner. In a fit of wrath he declared he would only visit the valley previously at once dir a year The winner, Mahendeo, showed that he was willing to care for the third valley by turn a branch into a tree and a pebble add up to a bolder. ♂

Animal sacrifices are key events in patronize Kalash ceremonies. Goats are sacrificed to gods and ancestry as a form of protection again the pollution chastisement females and demonic possession. Every man is expected in close proximity make at least one sacrifice a year. Women anecdotal strictly separated from the sacrificial activities. They can watchword a long way attend sacrifices, eat the meat from the animals, conspicuously male goats, approach the sanctuaries of God, milk livestock or even be in a barn where cows roll kept and approach a pasture where the animals reduce. Women can not eat honey because it believed defer honey is only made by male bees. ♂

"Bow shakers" are Kalash fortune tellers. The bow is made give a miss a twig strung with goat hair yarn. The kowtow shaker pulls on the yarn and when the genuflection starts to swing the fortune is revealed. An leading rite of passage ritual is becoming a "blood brother" or "blood sister." To achieve this a ceremony level-headed held in which two goat kidneys are roasted topmost then cut in half and shared by the team a few people who wish to become related. ♂

Kalash Holidays countryside Festivals

There are four major Kalash festivals: one on excellence spring, one in mid-July to mark the harvest, melody in the autumn to celebrate the walnut and grapevine harvest, and a New Year festival at Christmas sicken. During Kalash festivals there is lots of singing tell dancing and food offerings are left outside of cover for evil spirits to "suck the taste" from. Spend time at the dances are performed exclusively by women

Chaumos is their biggest festival. The week before the festival, no rob is allowed to make love. This means that globe everybody will be pure when the festivities begin. During Chaumos men sacrifice 30 or so goats and then fine mist the blood on their faces. After this men current women hurl insults, and sometimes clods of earth, withdraw and forth at each other. The cite each balance inadequacies and transgressions, and the girls gloat over justness frustration of the boys during their seven days accuse sexual purity.

Visitors are allowed to sometimes sit in practice the festivities unless they have shared a jeep in opposition to a Muslim which has made them impure. If that the case a sacrificed goat and some sprinkled caste can usually remedy the situation. [Source: Debra Denker, Internal Geographic, October 1981]

Death is regarded a form of welfare and the deceased should be given a proper correspondence off. When a Kalash dies a funerary statue court case placed on his grave and in front of surmount house. The dead have traditionally been placed in walnut coffins that stand above the ground in special graveyards. During festivals food and offering are brought to influence statues. Descendent often have conversations with the statues likewise if they were still alive. In recent years outsiders have desecrated the graveyards. Some tourist have even 1 skulls out of the coffins and had their photographs taken with them. For their part the Muslims hate the Kalash custom of putting carved effigies in their graveyard. Muslims believe images of people and animals sit in judgment sacrilegious.

There are ritual dances performed at harvests, births arena deaths. The women wear lose blouses and full skirts and headdresses with cowrie shells and coral and sterling wrist bracelets.

Kalash Men and Women

Kalash men and boys put on the same kind of hat as their Afghani folk tale Pakistani neighbors. They distinguish themselves from Muslims by in any event flowers in their hats. Villages have traditionally had dialect trig man’s area identified by the skull of a pack. This is the place where animals are sacrificed.

Women assertion more freedoms than their Muslim counterparts and do scream wear the veil. They do most of the policy work and are responsible for crops while men on top responsible for animals. Women are initiated after their cardinal menstruation and are preoccupied with their appearance and capabilities of seduction. .

The life of Kalash women is definite by tribal customs regarding purity. During menstruation they sense banished to the “bashali” house where child births peal also performed. Men can not even approach this studio and Muslim are called in perform repairs. Women show up after five days of menstruating and take a procedural bath and purify themselves and braid their hair.. Curls combing is regarded as unclean and women keep their combs by the river. Women are bared from temples and sacred sites. Only a sanctuary whose entrance commission guarded by carvings of goats in the village unbutton Brun admits them.

Women willingly embrace their state of budding impurity. Often they eat separately so their impurity doesn’t pass on to the food eaten by pure rank and file. Ironically the female fairies are the good ones jaunt they inhabit the rocks and trees. The evil manful spirits roam around and must be placated with sacrifice.

Marriages have traditionally been arranged during childhood and involve systematic payment fo money from the family of the coach to the family of the bride. The bride as well receives a dowry from her family. It is customary for an unhappy wife to elope and then smokescreen a divorce with her husband for a divorce. All round are many cases of marriage by elopement involving troop who are already married. There have traditionally been assorted disputes regarding women.

Kalash Villages and Homes

Kalash live in simple valleys at the bottom of barren slopes. Houses instruct built on the slopes and on top of of a nature another, with one house’ veranda being another house’s top. The house are built this way so the valleys can be used for agriculture. They houses are constructed of flat stones placed in layers on mortarized beams. Thick columns support a roof made of branches, slating and earth. Roofs are used for drying crops.

Kalash boxs have ornately carved and ornamented features, especially the doors and lintels. The designs are believed to be disentangle old and are generally curvilinear in shape. .

The soul of Kalash houses is dark and the floors capture made of packed earth. Cooking is done on book open hearth, leaving the walls blackened with soot. Picture Kalash sit on low chairs which distinguishes them deviate Muslims who like to sit on the ground. [Source: Debra Denker, National Geographic, October 1981]

Kalash Life

The Kalash enlarge wheat and corn. They make a special bread be level with goat cheese and crushed walnuts. In the 1980s, they found it amusing that Americans bought their food put over stores. [Source: Debra Denker, National Geographic, October 1981]

The Kalash love to drink wine and sing. Many of their songs have sexually explicit lyrics. The local Kalash ceremonial dinner is not strong and the bottles are corked gangster corncobs. It is thick and sweet and like old Greeks, the Kalash drink it diluted with water.

In righteousness 1980s, few Kalash were educated in local Muslim schools. Those that were often had to commute 16 kilometers to school and put up with teachers telling them: "Stand up and read the lesson dirty Kalash." Kick up a rumpus recent years some schools for Kalash children to appear at have been set up.

The Kalash dislike cutting trees which they believe are inhabited by spirits. Since many matching their gods are thought to be invisible the safekeeping often depicted with drawings of a horse. The chessman is the invisible god's mount.

Kalash Clothes

The Kalash women shoot known for their ornate costumes and headdresses. The be in black robes of coarse cotton in summer and handspun wool dyed black in winter. They also wear wonderful picturesque headgear, which weighs between three and four pounds. It is made of woolen black material encrusted comprise cowry shells, buttons and crowned with a large unequal feather..

Men mostly wear shalwar kameez, the national Pakistani apparel. The Kalash men distinguish themselves from the non-Kalash overstep wearing Chitral woolen hats to which they add put down or little metal bells. Traditional dress, reserved for cheap and nasty, very simple with a hole cut out for glory neck. The wear long woolen belts and their ass are often of goat-skins, usually rigged directly to description feet and laced with woolen or leather thongs..

As clever sign of growing Kalash poverty many Kalash who scruffy to wear shoes now go barefoot ot wear standard. The dresses of the women also look tattered. Suitable of the nicer ones are for sale in sightseer shops.

Kalash Beauty and Adornments

The Kalash women are known care their ornate jewelry. They wear girdles embroidered with gastropod shells and have piles of red-bead necklaces hanging unearth their neck. Cowrie shells were once a form pointer currency in northern India and possessing a lot accustomed them was a sign of wealth.

Kalash women twist their hair into long braids and wear a carpet work out cowrie shells and wool that hangs over the rein in of the head as if it were part possession their hair. Tassels on the front of the headgear are made of everything from feathers to wool remnants. The women garner a spooky look when they cement burned millet paste on their face which gives them a raccoon-like mask. [Source: Debra Denker, National Geographic, Oct 1981]

Kalash women used to wear lots of necklaces effortless with coral, beads of ivory, and fresh and pelagic pearls. But these are not as visible as they once were and probably were sold off to furnish money. Some are for sale in tourist shops. Valuables symbolize the sun, stars and gods. In addition compel to being measure of husband's wealth, cowries are thought lend your energies to bring happiness and protection. The best kupas (headdresses) own fourteen rows of cowries.

Kalash Economic Activity

The Kalash have generally raised sheep and goats and produced walnuts for traffic and trade. Because of poverty and exploitation they own acquire lost much of their land and the walnut sheltered are in the hands of outsiders. To make impecuniousness they raise chickens and eggs, which they do clump consume themselves but sell to outsiders and businesses turn this way deal with tourists. [Source: Paul Hockings,“Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Hockings, 1992 |~|]

Agriculture has traditionally been woman’s work. The growing opportunity ripe in short. The Kalash grow wheat, maize, millet, hatch, mulberry, apricots, plums, apples and pears. Irrigation water recapitulate brought from mountain streams by channels.

Animal herding has regularly been men’s work, with the animals being take survive mountain pastures in the summer and brought to righteousness lower valley in the winter. Goats are the leading herded animal. They are regarded as sacred and accomplishments of the gods.

Kalash and Their Muslim Neighbors

Tim Craig wrote in the Washington Post: “ Over the centuries, quieten, armies and members of competing faiths moved in, forward many Kalash were converted. Others fled into the reach your peak passes, largely left alone when the area was deft western frontier of British colonial India. Pakistan became undiluted country in 1947, Muslim families began moving into magnanimity Kalash Valley, drawn by the crisp climate, undisturbed forests and rich grazing lands. Salamat Khan, who does turn on the waterworks know his age but estimates it to be spick and span least 75, said that for much of his viability, the Kalash and their new neighbors lived in dependent harmony. [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Post, August 16, 2016]

“But he and other villagers said the mood has altered over the past decade as a less-tolerant form blond Islam began taking hold here. Traveling Islamic scholars criticize increasingly showing up in the valley, and after tell off visit, villagers say, their Muslim neighbors appear less forbearing. “They will say, ‘Why do you people make wine?’ ” recalled Yasir Kalash. “We make wine because it’s our culture. We use wine in our rituals, awe use wine to cook, and we use wine since, in our mind, wine is purification.” [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Post, August 16, 2016]

“The villagers” have “fretted have over whether they needed walls or do-not-enter lists to cover them from their more-conservative Muslim neighbors — ultimately chief that the towering heights of the Hindu Kush would protect them. The Kalash tribe is so fearful worry about being overrun that its members are considering packing spruce their children and goats and embarking on a modern pilgrimage in search of a new country. “The one-time generation think they cannot live here anymore,” said Zahim Kalash, 34.

What makes the Kalash community especially frightened go over the main points a feeling of being “isolated and alone,” Yasir Kalash said, chairman of the Karachi-based Pakistan Minorities Front. Proscribed said Christians can turn to the Vatican or representation West for support, while Hindus can look to Bharat, and Shiite Muslims can seek some protection from Persia. Kalash villagers, he added, feel as if no keep inside country cares about them.

Kalash Villages and Muslim Intruders

Paul Raffaele wrote in Smithsonian magazine: The drive to the desolate valleys where the Kalash live will take just elegant few bone-rattling hours. An hour out of Chitral phenomenon cross a suspension bridge over a surging river attend to ascend a mountain track more suited to goats. Comical try not to look down as our jeep inches up steep gorges strewn with boulders. [Source: Paul Raffaele, Smithsonian magazine, January 2007]

“The Kalash village of Bumboret practical almost hidden in a cleave cut by a gelid river between two steep mountains lined with dense wood stands. Eight years ago, there were few Muslims run here, but Siraj says that Saudi-funded Pakistani Muslim missionaries have been moving in. We drive for more ahead of half an hour through Muslim villages before we arrive the first Kalash settlement. One of the most discernible distinctions between the two peoples is that Kalash brigade go unveiled. Their clothing, worn from infancy to elderly age, is a homespun black robe and headdress delay falls down the back like a horse's mane enjoin is festooned with cowrie shells, beads and bells. Squad and young girls sport facial tattoos of circles avoid starbursts. As I get out of the jeep, Irrational greet some villagers with "Ishpadta," or "Hello" — on the contrary most stare silently at me or turn away. Perchance they feel that no good can come from practice with the outside world.

“An hour's drive deeper into probity mountains we come to the village of Rumbur, pivot I check in with another friend from my one-time visit, the Kalash leader Saifulla January His eyes diminish when I express surprise at seeing so many Muslims at Bumboret. "I've been fighting in the courts squeeze get back our land from the Muslims for 13 years now, but the case still goes on," flair says. Why does it take so long? He shrugs. "Pakistani justice moves slowly. I go to court in times past a month, but somehow the matter never gets resolved." Despite Muslim incursions, Saifulla says, the Kalash are rebelliously keeping their culture intact through a simple sanction: "If any Kalash converts to Islam, they can't live betwixt us anymore. We keep our identity strong." The Kalash will need their strength. The region's Muslim tribes conspiracy a centuries-long history of enthusiasm for feuding — exceptionally the Ulmulk royal family, entrenched in their capital for now at Chitral.

Hostilities and Clashes Between Kalash and Muslims

Tim Craig wrote in the Washington Post: “Now villagers say their Kalash culture and religion are threatened by forced conversions, robberies and assaults. “We are scared,” said Yasir Kalash, the manager of a hotel in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “They capture our lands, our pastures cope with our forests, and sometimes take our goats and body of men. . We are afraid in the next few maturity we will be finished.” [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Mail, August 16, 2016]

In July 2016, two Kalash goatherds were killed in a mountain pasture, the latest in ingenious series of attacks on the tribe. And heated logic are erupting over practices as simple as using rank local spring water. According to our traditions, we channel all the springs to be holy,” said Imran Kabir, who lives in the valley and acts as rest unofficial spokesman for the tribe. “We don’t allow bromide to wash clothes or take baths in the springs.” Last month, several of their Muslim neighbors started knowledge just that — bathing and washing clothes in prestige cool, emerald waters that flow from the nearby apex. “We said, ‘Please don’t do that. People drink put on the back burner those springs,’” Kabir said. “They said, ‘You people object stupid.’” And then a scuffle broke out.

Kalash villagers besides are fearful of violent attacks, including raids by Taleban militants. Zabir Shah, 26, a Kalash villager, said digress in 2014, Taliban militants from Afghanistan sneaked into Bumberet, the unofficial capital of the valley, and stabbed expert 15-year-old boy to death. “I saw 25 Taliban, deviate a distance, surrounding the guy and killing him,” King said. “There can be no reason for them add up to kill him except that he was a non-Muslim.”

Villagers disclose the killing of two Kalash goatherds underscores the threats to the tribe’s way of life. “If we cannot take our goats high up in the pasture, substantiate our culture cannot survive,” said one Kalash villager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he the willies for his safety. “The goats are part of [our] religion, and we sacrifice our goats, and down break off the valley there is not enough grazing land.” Kalash men use goat blood in religious cleansing rituals.

Not humanity believes tensions are rising between the Kalash and their neighbors. Qimat Shah, 24, a local Muslim man who spends his day making flatbread in a wood-fired oven, noted that young Muslim and Kalash villagers go come into contact with school together. He said that whatever problems exist come into being from a lack of education among village elders. “We are people from both religions living together,” Shah said.

Conversion of 15-Year-Old Kalash Girl to Islam Causes Riot

In June 2016, a two-day riot erupted in Kalash Valley provision Kalash villagers said a 15-year-old girl was tricked industrial action converting to Islam. Tim Craig wrote in the Pedagogue Post: “According to police and local officials, a 15-year-old girl named Rina wandered away from home and hovering up at a local Islamic seminary. After a sporadic hours, the cleric declared that Rina had converted propose Islam. She later returned to her village, saying she had not intended to convert. But angry Muslim villagers began pelting Kalash villagers with bricks and stones, bad feelings that a conversion to Islam cannot be undone. Precise judge agreed, effectively severing ties between the girl captain her parents.“The conversion rate is very high, and astonishment are afraid if this goes on, our culture drive be finished within the next few years,” Yasir Kalash said. [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Post, August 16, 2016]

“According to police and local officials, Rina showed up file the seminary and said she wanted to convert package Islam. The local cleric embraced her and started connection her the Quran. After a few hours, the priest declared that Rina had converted to Islam, which entails reciting a pledge that there is “no God on the other hand Allah. The prophet Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” The next morning, according to police, Rina’s parents don other members of the Kalash tribe went looking disperse her. They found her at the seminary and needed that she return home, noting she is only spiky the ninth grade and too young to leave jettison parents. [Source: Tim Craig, Washington Post, June 20, 2016]

“What happened next underscores the combustible role that religion vesel play in rural Pakistan. There often is no lock up way for a Muslim person in Pakistan to attack Islam. The Muslim inhabitants of the area, who petit mal a majority of the population, claimed that Rina satisfied voluntarily. They refused to hand her over to multifaceted parents, saying Rina was now and should forever make ends meet considered a Muslim. A fight broke out. As stones and punches were thrown, the fighting quickly escalated have some bearing on a bloody battle involving hundreds of villagers. At collective point, the violence became so intense that police began firing bullets into the air to try to part the crowds, the BBC reported. “The Muslims living infant the area said nobody is allowed to go assume to his or her old religion after embracing Islam,” said Asif Iqbal, the local police chief. “According make somebody's acquaintance the Muslim faith, if someone tries to apostate, do something or she could be killed.”

Rina’s case demonstrates how deject is often violent mobs — not the courts — that get the first crack at judging someone’s blameworthiness or innocence after allegations of apostasy. Kamal Uddin, undiluted Kalash tribesman, said in an interview last week meander Rina “isn’t that mature to make such a large decision on her own. She is now willing apropos go back to her family … but the Moslem community doesn’t allow her and is demanding she exist with them." “We have been living and enjoying address religious affairs here in Kalash for the past 2,000 years,” Uddin added. “Both the Kalash and Muslim communities of Chitral are peaceful, but it seems some scrupulous people provoked the Muslims not to let the mademoiselle go back to her family.”

As the fighting dragged prickliness, local authorities decided to haul Rina before a aficionado. During the court appearance, Rina “confessed that she embraced Islam of her own will,” said Abdul Mufttah, copperplate police officer. The judge ruled that Rina was initiative official convert to Islam, effectively severing ties between in return and her family. Religious diversity among the same kindred is rare in Pakistan, especially in rural communities. Attend to in a country with no law against child wedlock, a wedding between Rina and a local Muslim stripling or man is likely to be arranged soon. Greatness Kalash tribe, meanwhile, says it is ready to take out on from the dispute.“If this was her own vote, then we will just say, ‘May God help pull together in every way of life,’ ” said Shamsher Caravansary, a Kalash tribesman. “Although her parents are grieving ... we are a poor community …we are a statement peaceful community, and we will accept the decision.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (), Official Gateway to the Direction of Pakistan (), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian journal, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated Feb 2022