Several historians have written about the Kalash and most of them have linked them to descendants of the army of Alexander the Great since many of their rituals, customs and traditions are indicative of the way of life of the ancient Greeks.
The Kalash with their unique culture, traditions, rituals, values, festivals and attire are not be found anywhere else in the world. Kalash are considered ‘infidels’ and their habitations are known as ‘Kafirastan’ — the land of infidels — amongst the local Pakistani community. The Kalash valleys are located in Chitral in the northern district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.
They lead a centuries-old primitive way of life with a religion which has no name, no written book or prophets and are now concentrated in three valleys which are called ‘Kalash gooni’ among the Kalash and the ‘Kafir Kalash’ (land of infidels) amongst others.
But it is not just the place which fascinates, also the women of Kalash — who legend says are part-fairy and part-human because of their ethereal beauty. Local people say the Kalash woman can make a man lose his religion. As the story goes, when a Kalash woman drinks water, you can see it streaming down her throat. Yet they are considered impure in their own community; they are also called “whiter than the white”.
The Kalash feel threatened by the outside world as their number are dwindling with every passing day. Many Kalash are accepting Islam and the influence of other cultures. With more members of the community getting educated, people are also reluctant to follow their primitive traditions and rituals.
The tribe does not face any threat from militants but the pressure was more from members who are embracing Islam. “Though, no one forces them to convert, they are under constant pressure from their own converts to quit their way of living,”
There are less than 4,000 Kalash left. 3,554 to be precise when the last count was done in 2009
As members of any community, please help spread this message to inform the world of the hidden yet charming community of people whose existence is doubtful in the coming decades. Visit & see them in Pakistan before they are gone…..
On a separate note, hurry up before all their beautiful women get married! Luckily, they belong to one of the few tribal communities in Pakistan where girls are free to choose their life partners without any influence from the male members in the family.
November 1, 2010 at 11:49 am
[...] Kalash women – who, legend says, are part-fairy, part-human – wear black gowns, and headgear decked out with cowrie shells, buttons and crowned with large colored feathers. The men wear shalwar kameez, the traditional Pakistani dress. [...]
November 1, 2010 at 12:49 pm
[...] marriage-by-elopement is a custom and a celebration, even involving women who are already married. Kalash women – who, legend says, are part-fairy, part-human – wear black gowns, and headgear decked out with [...]
December 2, 2010 at 9:01 am
nice documentation
December 5, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Kalash people are probably Illyri-Thracians, which are a kin to the Sythians. They share customs similar to those of the Balkan peoples..Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians, Dacian and Pannonians. Alexander’s army was forged from this group. In fact the word “Kalash” loosely relates to “horseman, horse people” in my language. Im quit sure that the Kalash and the rest of the Caucasian peoples of central asia(what is left of them) share kinship. Archeological digs have proven beyond doubt that Caucasian people stretched throughout Central Asia, China and as far as Japan(Samuraii). So, it is no wonder that pockets of Causacians can still be found even today as the Kalash of Pakistan.
December 9, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Im always curious about different races of the world yet I didn’t know about these beautiful people pf Pakistan, being from Pakistan. Well I guess Im travelling up to those mountains soon…Texas will be surprised when I come back with a fairy wife.
July 21, 2011 at 11:51 pm
I was just overwhelmed when I heard about this group. They came so close to complete annihilation. Their close relatives, the Nuristani people were forcibly converted to Islam about a century ago. This kind of destruction of culture is, in my opinion, the worst crime a person can commit. If you kill someone, you’ve just destroyed a generation. But if you kill a culture, you’ve destroyed a thousand generations.
Their unique culture and religion is so important for those of us interested in the ancient history of the region, prior to the Islamic conquests. I can’t even begin to describe what the world would have lost if these people had been forced to abandon their way of life. And, if I can get on the soap box for just a moment, anyone who believes that their religion is the only acceptable way to live and that they have the obligation to force, coerce, or even just persuade others to believe the same as them, is disgusting and needs to be stopped. We’ve lost so many irreplaceable cultures across the breadth of the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia all because of this brutal notion.
On another note, I hope so much that Afghanistan can stabilize and become safe and prosperous. There is so much history in that region that I don’t have nearly enough space to describe it right now. We know that numerous great cultures have existed there since prehistoric times, but archaeology has been all but impossible thanks to the dangerous climate there.
November 30, 2011 at 11:07 pm
I could not agree with you more….well said. Our visit in 2007 to the Kalash Valley has been one of them most memorable, yet saddest of all my travels…these people are exploited so much….
August 2, 2011 at 3:36 pm
I’m Mat, or Aemathia as it was in times of Alexander the great. Even thought that because of the name of the province, have received the name “GREAT”. The Albanian language “Aemathia” is like saying “great”. In this region lie the cities of “moo”. And “PELL-a”, in Albanian, with accurate dialektoren matjane (Mat Province), called the forest. Locals still say: “We make shku in Pella (forest) to cut wood.We still have a lot Mat topunime city, town, which gives to understand that “moo Cities”, cities were spread in a forested area. So “Pella” is simply an Albanian word, a word is not Greek, or Slavic languages from the old as Sanskritishtja. Albanian is the only way to explain the words people speak KALASHIT. And his word “Fortress + sh” in the Albanian language understood immediately, and means Castle.But, as The more of them around the civilized world today do not recognize the value of the Albanians will say one thing to be interesting. ART keyword all know that there çkuptim. If you do not know a great truth. The word ART is the source of the Albanian language. Many scholars, not taken into account the Albanian language, try to understand the old words from Arabic, Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskritishtja, Hindi …., also make many mistakes, or not at all approaching the truth. AR + t we mean AR Classifieds, ie gold. We slip it is also the root for some other word, but this will be a deep study of those who are interested …! So when the Pelasgians, the ancestors of Albanians today, saw that the inside of some people leave a precious value that tjetersohej in painting, sculpture, music and other things, they compared with the precious material that came from the earth, then to gold. Many scholars, not known Albanian, and left without a proper understanding of ART keyword, to only the simple fact that it is a creative human activity. At the end of this commentary, I want to tell all thosethey like to approach the truths of this world, to take seriously the existence of language and traditions of the Albanians, that soon will realize that it would be an inalienable help to understand the past of white people. Albanians today, we still preserve their traditions of elements that we find since Homer, the Spartans, Trojans, Etruscans, Thracians and other people who have left their stamp of human life on this earth. For these reasons I think it is important that due attention be paid to this nation, which has suffered heavily in its existence as a nation (and not tjetersua, even when they had to fight for 500-years with Turkey).
Find me at: sulafitim@yahoo.com
October 31, 2011 at 10:40 am
There are many opinions on the etymology of Pella (of course none of them suggests that it is of albanian origin). It might be from the word Pellas which in the local ancien greek dialect means stones or the colour “Pellos”
Kalash is not a greek word, but it is not albanian either. in their location there are mountain valleys and no castles…
Is good to have developed imagination but not so good to present it as fact…
November 30, 2011 at 11:01 pm
The Kalash are a beautiful, hospitable and rugged people. My family and I had the good fortune to stay at a hotel called the “Hindu Kush Heights” in the city of Chitral, and on one of our excersions we visited the Kalash Valley….one of the most picturesque areas in the world! The gentleman who drove us up insisted that we visit his relative, who was from the Kalash tribe. Once there, we were offered apples that has been plucked off the tree in our presence,which were very sweet, moonshine that was made in their home, and as we talked to members of the Kalash household, the ladies of the house were knitting belts using twigs….when we left their house, each one of us recieved a ‘belt’ around our necks and a hug from them….their generosity and warmth has become a cherished memory.
We visited a museum in the valley dedicated to the Kalash people’s history; looked after by a Greek gentleman who spent 6 months physically living there so no one looted the museum. The other six months while he was in Greece, local Kalash elders would donate their time to stay at the museum to protect their relics. They have a picture language which is still being pieced together; most of their stories stay alive through drawings or by oral tradition. A few years ago they stopped burying their dead in the traditional manner; dressing the corpse in colourful clothes, and adroning it with jewelry. The body would placed in a wooden box above the ground; unfortunately ‘tourists’ were helping themselves to ‘souveniers’ off the bodies . They are an unarmed, peace loving people who have been caught in the crossroads of civilization and religious fanaticism.
January 16, 2012 at 8:30 pm
It is good that there are brave Greeks who look upon these people, but honestly the Kalash to me no more Greek than a welshman.
If one looks at their genetic isolation, isolated language and culture; leftovers from Alexanders pursuits in the area does not seem plausible. The population of Greeks post Alexander in the region was comparatively tiny, and by all accounts assimilated into the native population to help hold to their tenuous power. Pashtun people would likley have more Greek blood than Kalash.
If one wants a clearer picture of the Kalash; the Kushan are far greater candidates. Tsiyam in no way would ever translate into greece; but as a homeland of ancient people driven out by Xiong Nu, whose 4,000 year old ancestors still lay in said lands, yes.