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The Land of the Kalash

Chris Cork Walking gently uphill in a sparkling autumn morning that is vibrant with the colours of the turning season, there is a sense of peace and tranquility that is rarely experienced in these troubled times. Everywhere there is the sound of water and birdsong, and our small group moved along mostly in silence as we drunk from the cup of new experience. We are now in the land of the Kalash, perhaps the smallest of Pakistan's many minority groups. They have been objects of interest to social anthropologists for many years, mainly because of the unique nature of their animist faith and culture, far removed from the Muslim culture which surrounds them. They are agro-pastoralists, framing the valleys and gazing their flocks much in the same way as other mountain dwellers the world over, scratching a marginal subsistence-living which has, until the last year or so, been augmented by a steady stream of tourists. Nowadays the tourists are fewer as the records of the police post at the bottom of the valley clearly indicates, but a few brave souls still make the journey and are rewarded by contact with a people who are truly unique. Anybody who has ever read a Pakistan guidebook will have seen a picture of the Kalash women with their colorful headdresses adorned with cowrie shells - shells that speak of this being an ancient trade route as they thousands of kilometers from the sea in any direction. But no photograph prepares you for the sight of these rainbowed women moving about in their landscape, with their pale almost Mediterranean complexion indicating their probable genetic origins in the armies of Alexander the Great who passed this way over two thousand years ago. They are not veiled and greet passers-by with a few words of greeting and often a handshake, polite and friendly, making eye-contact and smiling a welcome you would not get elsewhere. Kalash women very obviously occupy a different place and space in their culture to that which prevails elsewhere. The men, by contrast, look utterly unremarkable apart from the similarities of physiognomy, reversal of the usual state of affairs in nature where the male is the shimmering peacock and the female the drab peahen. We were invited into houses along the way, catching a behind-the-scenes glimpse of family life. Children, their faces painted with religious symbols, are everywhere and they all seemed to be busy doing something - which these days includes going to school. One of the valley schools is in the Kalasha Cultural Centre, a superbly designed and built museum-cum-school-cum-vocational workshop-cum health centre that has been built by Hellenic Aid; a part of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is managed by an Athenian who came as a tourist fourteen years ago and has been the driving force behind this vital project. He spends six months a year in the Kalash valleys and is accompanied by a team of Greek volunteer doctors and nurses who do brisk business in the well-equipped small health unit. The ethnological collection is as good as any I have seen in Pakistan, carefully curated and effectively presented, and the project has grown to maturity.The Kalash valleys and their peoples are a jewel in the crown of the diverse cultural mix that makes up Pakistan. This tiny community presents a threat to nobody, lives a peaceful life, and is a significant revenue generator for the local economy via tourism. These humble and decent people are a part of the Pakistan's rich cultural heritage. They may be different from many Pakistani people in their religious beliefs and social practices; but they offer us a link with a far past that we should.