Khyber.ORG
Pashto :: Pashtuns :: Pashtunkhwa :: Pashtunwali
پښتو :: پښتانه :: پښتونخواه :: پښتونوالی

| Articles | Publications | Maps | Links | Language | Tribes | Media | Betak |

پښتو څيړنه

Journals & Publications

Page | 6-10 | 11-15 | 16-20 | 21-25 | 26-30 | 31-35 | 36-40 | 41-45 | 46-50 |

| 41-45 |


H. SIDKY., Shamans and Mountain Spirits in Hunza
The Hunzakut, a high-mountain people in the western Karakoram mountains of northern Pakistan, possess a shamanistic tradition centered around religious specialists known as bitan. These practitioners inhale the smoke of burning juniper branches, dance to a special music, drink blood from a freshly severed goat's head, enter into ecstatic trances, and converse with supernatural beings. An ethnographic and historical analysis of this little-known shamanistic tradition is offered, focusing on the rituals, beliefs, and practices of Hunzakut bitan, the place of these practitioners in the traditional ritual and politico-ideological apparatus of the former Hunza state, and their role as healers and soothsayers.

Read More


a

a

 

Read More

a
a

Read More


a
a

Read More


a
a

Read More