Pakistan - behind the headlines: (3) Celebrating Chaumos

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Celebrate a festival with a little-known pagan tribe in distant mountains? What an opportunity! The chance to spend Chaumos with the Kalash people in northwest Pakistan had been the real draw of this trip.

Our tour company, Wild Frontiers, has a particular connection with the Kalash. Its founder, Jonny Bealby, had stayed with them for several months at the end of his mid-1990s journey from Peshawar through Nuristan in search of Kipling’s “Kafiristan”. Wild Frontiers had been the result of discussions with his host as to how others could experience the incredible hospitality of the Kalash, and Jonny himself continues to visit regularly. We were welcomed like family, and Lucy, who works for WF (though she was on this trip in a personal capacity), was peppered with questions about her boss from both sides, co-travellers and hosts.

It is not an easy place to visit. Within almost literally spitting distance of Afghanistan, the border being less than 30 km away, this is another part of the country about which the Islamabad government is wary. There were extra checkpoints as we left the Chitral Valley, and we would see additional security and police in attendance, jarringly out-of-place in their dark uniforms, at some of the festivities. One or two were even Kalash themselves, and looked awkward as they interacted with their partying and far-from-sober friends.

In Pakistan, the Kalash have an unexpected dispensation to practise their beliefs and follow their own customs, while their Afghan cousins across the border suffered forcible conversion to Islam as recently as the 1970s. Their way of life is very traditional, the main risk to its continuation being the attraction to the younger generation of more modern ways of living – exemplified by their Muslim neighbours and, of course, more widely in the nearest town, Chitral, where many of them go to school. Theirs is a selective rejection of modernity: mobile phones and WhatsApp may be ubiquitous, but carpets and wall decorations are rare; multifunctional single-roomed houses the norm. The Kalash villages, scattered across three neighbouring valleys in the northwest, already have mixed populations to a greater or lesser degree. There seems to be no animosity between the neighbours, but Kalash theology holds that Muslims are inherently impure (along with women and chickens: they’re in good company!) which becomes an issue during the three annual festivals, and particularly at Chaumos, the winter festival and most important of them all.

We were to stay in Balanguru in the Rumbur Valley, the “most Kalash” village, guests of Jonny’s own host and now close friend, Saifullah, in his modern guesthouse in the centre of the village. Having expected very basic amenities, I was delighted to find my bed furnished with several thick “Asian” blankets, as well as sheets and a pillow, so, with the addition of my own sleeping bag, I would be snug as the proverbial in the near-freezing overnight temperatures. I even had an “en suite” with an Asian toilet, and hot water for showers twice a day. I’d been all set for a few days of wet-wipe washes, and a dunk in the river for our “purification” ceremony, so this was luxury! The dining room would be our living quarters during waking hours, the only room with a stove and, in the mornings, the only room with a sunny view across the narrow valley. The stove was decidedly smoky, so we juggled chilly air versus smoke inhalation for the next few days. (My “un-smoked” clothes back in Islamabad were very welcome.)

Having noticed fewer and fewer women on the streets the further north we drove – and those few usually burqa-clad – it was refreshing to see the colour and confidence of the Kalash women, joshing with their male friends and family as equals. Their daily garb comprises a loose full-length black dress decorated with colourful embroidery at the cuffs, neckline and hem (a cheos), and tied – the excess fabric hitched up – at the waist with a coordinated colourful band of woven fabric, reminiscent of the Bhutanese kera, although the Kalash one is edged with tassels. Endless strings of glass beads add further colour at the neck and wrists, and, as a headdress, there’s the shushut, a colourful circlet with a pendant of cloth that hangs down the wearer’s back, both heavily embroidered, and sometimes decorated further with beading and cowries, the latter symbolising fertility. On special occasions, the shushut is covered by a kupas, a heavy oversized-keyhole-shaped headdress decorated with tight rows of brightly coloured beading and shells, its weight helping keep the shushut in place. Impressively, there is no fixing for the shushut: Kalash women’s deportment is phenomenal, with even young girls running around without losing their headdress. By contrast, the men wear Pakistani shalwar kameez in muted colours, and Chitrali hats, the latter bedecked with a collection of feathers for special occasions.

We were to find that the Kalash do festivals in style: none of this one-day/Christian approach. Chaumos, in particular, cheers everyone up in the coldest month of the year after the harvest has been brought in, fruit preserved, and cheese made for the winter. I believe celebrations started the week before we arrived – outsiders not being allowed – but the party spirit was far from flagging at the start of week two. Now it was time for purification and, once purified, we’d be subject to various restrictions. Already our guide, Salahuddin had been banished to stay in a “Muslim house”, although he was allowed to socialise with us outside the guesthouse walls provided there was no physical contact. That morning, the village women had been down at the river doing what appeared to be the year’s laundry, leaving splatters of bright colours drying at the river’s edge for the next few days, and houses were being scrubbed. Now it was our turn.

For this, we showered (fortunately without having to take a dip in the glacial river), and dressed in clean clothes. At lunchtime we’d been presented with a pile of cheos, shushuts and a few kupas from which to choose our outfit – like kids at the dressing-up box – and now emerged from our rooms in our new finery. I had thought that my Bhutanese festival experience would have stood me in good stead, but the tying of my sash did not meet the exacting standards of Saifullah’s daughter, Gulistan. I stood patiently while she teased the cheo’s fabric into better order and secured me tightly. Once we all passed muster, precariously balancing shushuts and kupas, we walked out of the guesthouse into the village square feeling self-conscious, a feeling that soon wore off when we were met with warm smiles and herded off to see the preparations.

Special walnut bread is baked for Shishao Suchek, the women’s purification ritual. This is carried out in the women’s temples by men who have themselves already been purified, and who may not touch anything else during the hours that they spend hunkered down by the cooking fires. We were allowed into the temple to see them at work, but had to keep our distance. While it sounds like a solemn process, the men appeared relaxed, chatting while they worked and happy to be photographed. The temple did not appear to be much different to other buildings in the village – stone-walled, mud-floored – except larger. The only light came from the open door and the “skylight”, an open square in the middle of the roof supported by carved wooden columns at each corner.

For the event itself, we washed our hands again under water poured by one of the bakers, and we were each presented with a pile of breads – like large round naans – to hold vertically, as if praying, while a burning branch of juniper was waved over us three times. The breads were then returned to the pile for distribution around the village. Women were “blessed” in what looked like family or household groups, but there didn’t seem to be much order to it.

By contrast, the next day the men were shepherded off en masse to their temple, Sajigor – out of bounds to women at all times – for their purification ritual, Istongas. There was no subtlety about this. Villages from up and down the valley had been congregating all morning in Balanguru’s large public area (conveniently just outside our guesthouse) with music and dance, and the men were sent off in style. I gather that, at the temple, prayers were said before goats for the feasting were ritually slaughtered, one goat for each household. Wild Frontiers had contributed one on our behalf. The men were then dabbed with blood, and deemed purified.

In the meantime, Gulistan took us to a couple of houses in the village where some of the children were undergoing their own initiation into society. At three or four years old, boys and girls are “confirmed” in an event called Goshnik. Their maternal uncle dresses them in new clothes, and their parents offer the mother’s family gifts of woven belts, fruit and aluminium pots. At the age of seven, boys have a further ceremony, Butt Sanbiyek. This time they are dressed in traditional clothes and, while the women clap, they dance (or, in the case of the wee lad whose ceremony we attended, stand around awkwardly), earning themselves gifts of money which they carefully squirrel away. Once again, woven belts, fruit and aluminium pots are distributed.

During Chaumos, the Kalash believe that their god Balimain comes from Tsyam, their mythical homeland, to check up on his followers. The men returned from Istongas in a long chain, hands on the shoulders of the man in front, symbolising Balimain riding his horse. Later, they return to the temple with the newly-inducted boys so that the god may count their strength. And the most spectacular event of all, Chanja Rat, is to bid farewell to Balimain as he returns to Tsyam.

Throughout the day of Chanja Rat we’d watched the bonfire being built. Once again, all the valley’s villages would be congregating at Balanguru. When the first torches – burning branches – were spotted across the valley, Shakeel, one of Saifullah’s sons, took us up to the Charsoo, the village’s “dancing hall”, a large roofed but open-sided room located at the top of the village, with views up and down the valley. It was now almost 9.30pm, and the festivities had clearly been going on all day – with more than a little alcohol being imbibed. (The right to brew their own liquor is one of the traditions that the Islamic Republic has granted the Kalash. We’d been sampling “red wine” (freshly fermented grapes, tasting more like my mother’s elderly cooking sherry than any kind of Beaujolais) and “white wine” (fire water made from apricots), each packaged in elderly plastic water bottles, since we’d arrived.) Beside the Charsoo, a small bonfire was burning, and a group of locals had gathered, already dancing and singing, lighted torches in hand. Once someone deemed the torchlit processions from villages across and down the valley, squiggly lines of fire from where we were standing, to have reached the right point, our guys headed down to join them. Perhaps alcohol is not the best preparation for this (though mercifully I didn’t see any accidents), so we, less well acquainted with the unevennesses in the paths and steps than the fire-waving locals, stood well back. While their euphoria was contagious, this was very much the Kalash people’s big night. We stood off to one side as they danced and sang around the huge bonfire. It was not going to be an early night.

Sexual tension had been becoming more and more palpable over the previous couple of days, albeit a tension more reminiscent of innocent youngsters at their first disco than anything more threatening. On the men’s return from Istongas the day before, they had encircled the women to demonstrate the community’s unity and solidarity, but levity had soon returned with one man performing a sensual dance suggestive of increasing the population. Later, groups of men and women had exchanged improvised, teasing songs, each trying to outdo the other. By the time the Chanja Rat festivities drew to a close, sometime in the not-so-wee sma’ hours (we’d long since gone to bed), it was time to watch out who you went home with: under Kalash customs, you are then deemed to be married!

The next morning, our last full day in Balanguru, there was a “Boxing Day” feel to the village. Few people were out, and it was very much the morning-after-the-night-before. At breakfast, we asked Shakeel if he’d “got married”. He giggled and blushed: he hadn’t, but there had been options, he said.

With no festivities to give shape to our day, we took advantage of the time to explore. Shakeel took us up to Kalasha Grom, a neighbouring village on the sunny side of the valley. The views were stupendous. If Balanguru has one disadvantage, it’s in being on the shaded side of the valley, losing the sun at lunchtime which, at this time of year, had meant that we were soon reaching for more layers. From the higher Kalasha Grom, we could see further up the valley to the snow-capped peaks of the Afghan border. Shakeel stopped to see a few friends, and we found ourselves on the receiving end of multiple offers of tea and even of lunch. Chaumos is the festival for which Kalash return to their homes: one of our hosts was a botany professor at Peshawar University. Another expanded, unasked and at length, on his thoughts about the rise of the Pakistan Taliban – not a subject we would have dared to broach; we were too tentative to make any kind of contribution.

The next morning, we reluctantly took our farewells. Saifullah, Shakeel and Gulistan had made us feel part of the family, and their neighbours had welcomed us warmly. Jonny will of course continue his connection with Balanguru; Iain had established a bond with Shakeel, largely over a shared interest in wrestling; and I left with the feeling that I’d return.

One day.

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Photos

the author
(c) Michael

catching up with the news: talking to the women in the Bashali Dur
Menstruating women and those giving birth are regarded as impure, so cannot take part in the Chaumos festivities... but perhaps enjoy the time away from family commitments