Kalash Calling

Nyla Daud

Publishing Date: Monday, July 25 2005

ONE of the major attractions of the Chitral valley is its fabled Kalash tribe. Traditionally called �the wearers of black robes�, they are a pagan tribe who some historians believe are descendants of five soldiers of the legions of Alexander's army. Today, just over 3,000 Kalash people live in the three valleys of Bumburiet, Birir and Rumbur.

Twenty years ago even the track made for jeeps, the one and only link of the Kalash to outside world, was non-existent. Today tourists can conveniently gather courage for one of the most thrilling jeep rides in the world.

�Winding� would be an inappropriate word to describe the route leading to Bamburiet. It's different. Spectacular in its own rugged way, it takes two to three hours of tossing and turning on mud tracks that the locals erroneously term as roads. Fortunately, the �negatives� of this kind of tossing and turning are balanced out by nature's bounties that the area is gifted with.

So just as you begin to wonder if the people of Kalash are indeed a reality and if you do manage to find them will you ever make it back to civilization in one piece, the track widens out displaying tiny stretches of cultivated land. The beautiful land catches the eye instantly. Nothing in the entire world can prepare a jeep ride's tortured traveller for what his eyes catch later on. One moment you are struggling to get rid of the claustrophobic feel of being eternally enclosed in the narrowest of mountain gorges, the next moment nature decides to reward you for perseverance. Suddenly, the landscape opens out into green fruit trees and yellow wheat fields that lie placidly in the depths of rugged mountain land. A wide variety of grapes, apricots, mulberry, fig, and plum trees also make the landscape worth seeing.

The road to Bumburiet is paved through many deep gorges. Perhaps it is a divine design to shut out Kafiristan from the ravages of modern civilization. With the increase in tourism the Kalash people are a threatened species because of a fierce media onslaught. Globalization has given way to a Kalash culture fighting with itself to retain whatever it can. Understandably, it must be tough to keep one's identity intact in modern times.

The contemporary Kalash people thus face many dilemmas. Their women still dress up in traditional attires. Kalash homes hang precariously from the surrounding mountainsides. Menstruating women are still vaulted away in special huts. The walls of their solitary place of worship continue to be painted with visuals of the different shapes of their Khuda. All of this is done to remember the many festivals around which their lives revolve. Yet, few among the younger lot are aware of their history or culture. The young tourist guide at the PTDC motel in Bumburiet draws his ancestry from Khushal Khan Khattak. Perhaps the most important thing for the young ones is to retain whatever semblance of primitive culture they can, because therein lies their source of earning a living. At the same time, there are a lot of young men and women who have converted to Islam. More than half of their families adhere to the Kalash religion. However, one does hear stories of forced conversions in the Afghan part of Kafiristan, which has now been renamed as Nuristan.

There are two kinds of the Kalash people who have not converted to Islam: the older ones, who are either too old or too poor to really care about it; and the younger ones, who are astute enough to realize that the remaining Kalash ensures a steady income in a world where primitive cultures are valued as tourist attractions.

It is not much comfort then to witness Kalash women, dressed in typical Kafir attires, roam the countryside in a world of their own. Wizened with age or displaying the charms of youth, these women present a stark contrast with the towering, treeless mountains that enclose their private habitat. The men, as in most cultures of the world, are not so conspicuous, and their only identity is the fact that they do not sport beards. In Bumburiet as well as in the adjoining Birir and Rumbur valleys, the Kalash people live a surprisingly peaceful life even today when sectarian, ethnic and religious differences have made life so burdensome in the so-called civilized parts of our country.

The morning sun rises to an eerie silence around the Bumburiet PTDC motel. It is because almost every child goes to school and women work in the fields. Bumburiet, like the rest of Chitral, boasts of 99 per cent literacy rate, and is totally crime free. Beggary is also a rarity in the region. The presence of the odd plastic shopper or juice cartons along the roads, however, are an ironic reminder of the downsides of civilization.

In the afternoon, children start returning from their schools and that is the hour of the day when the Kalash people use their cultural heritage to earn a living. Suddenly, the countryside becomes dotted with Kalash women in their colourful dresses. Increasingly aware of the economic worth of their culture there are many young Kalash girls who would pose for a photograph for a hundred rupees. But these are contemporary Kalash people. The older ones stick to their hillside homes made of wood and mud. I remember an old woman who invited me to her home. On our way to her home she took a detour into a graveyard. She told me that the people of Kalash do not bury their dead, but leave them in open boxes for the birds of prey.

While brochures can make a visitor know different things about Kalash, the people here are not as primitive as is generally considered. Their girls go to schools where learning a lesson in Islamiyat comes to them as naturally as to their Muslim peers. A Kalash woman, who is also a trained pilot, runs a hotel in the neighbouring Rumbur valley and has developed enough contacts that she periodically leads cultural troupes to the western world. A famous hut in Bumburiet is a recent gift from the government of Greece in an effort to conserve the dying culture.

If a tourist is interested in seeing a traditional Kalash funeral procession, he or she is going to be disappointed. These days, the people of Kalash do not leave their dead in open boxes, but bury them. However, they do guard one open graveyard with pride for some traditional reasons. Today, they bury their dead like all civilized people, probably because there is more logic to the procedure. Also, a young Kalash woman learning to drive a car can be as much an interesting sight as anything else.

Fortunately for the Kalash people there are a lot of natural resources in the region. Nature has sprouted massive reserves of water from the dry mountains and the AKRSP, which has helped the local people to use water as a powerful source. Each house has electricity, and the people only have to pay Rs15 per month for the facility. Individuals� property ownership is nothing to write home about, but they don't care much about it. The Chitrali common man is not bothered about whether the Lowari Tunnel Project comes through or not. Wheat and fruit trees are enough for sustaining life here. And as a Chitrali said, "what else do we want?"

In the final analysis, the Kalash people should be a must-see on any tourist's agenda. The advice is to follow the track as early as possible. Wonders of modernism may not take too long to reach the area. And the jeep ride is an adventure in itself. But our national airline saves the day as it takes tourists over the Lowari Top from Chitral to Peshawar. Viewed from the high skies above, the landscape is a visual treat to be had at least once in a lifetime