The Amazing People of Kalash

The diversity found in the culture of people of different areas of Pakistan never cease to amaze us. Every region with its unparalleled beauty has a story of its own. The same is true for a place within the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where a dingy and dangerous road leads to ‘Kalash’, situated within the District of Chitral.

Within Kalash there are three different towns/valleys, namely Bamborait, Ramboor and Birir. The most populous out of these three is Bamburait town full of people who call themselves the Kalasha people.

These people call their God ‘Maulava’ and do not believe in the Prophets and Messengers. Their belief is that God wants them to always be happy and to never mourn, hence leading them to celebrate everything, including the deaths of their people.

In the instance of the death of a Kalasha, the dead body is placed in a specific area with his/her body on the bedstead on which he/she normally slept at home. People from all three towns are invited to celebrate the death. People come in heaps and consume large amounts of wine. There is dancing and slaughtering of hundreds of goats to honor the dead. Previously the bodies were kept along with the belongings of the dead in open wooden boxes in the graveyards on the mountains instead of being buried underground. However, because of an increase in the Muslims in the area and the threat from Taliban, the Kalasha started burying the bodies of their dead.

If a person wants to embrace their religion (i.e. Become a Kalasha), he/she is taken on a mountain where a goat is slaughtered in a way that the blood droplets of the goat fall on the person who wants to become a Kalasha. He/she is asked to recite some specific verses and is then welcomed into the tribe with wine and traditional food. The Kalasha pride themselves over the wine that is made in their households. It is heavily consumed by them and is considered as a significant part of their culture.

Kalasha hold different events all over the year, but the most famous of them all is the Spring Festival, which is called as ‘Chillam Joshi’ and is organized to celebrate the onset of spring. The festival spans over a period of three days and involves prayers for the safety of their homes and animals. The people, particularly the women dressed in their traditional clothes, dance to the beat of drums in organized circles. Two other popular festivals include Uchal and Chomos.

All in all the Kalasha are unique people with their own norms and traditions, living in a beautiful place which is worth visiting.