In a remote valley in Pakistan, dozens of Kalash minority women dance to celebrate spring’s arrival — but as a gaggle of men scramble to catch them on camera, the community warns an influx of domestic tourists is threatening their unique traditions.
Every year the Kalash — a group of less than 4,000 people confined to a handful of villages in the north — greet the new season with animal sacrifices, baptisms and weddings at a festival known as Joshi.
As celebrations begin, tourists with smartphones jostle to get close to Kalash women, whose vibrant clothing and headdresses contrast starkly with the more modest attire worn by many in the conservative Muslim nation.
Photo: AFP
“Some people are using their cameras as if they were in a zoo,” local tourist guide Iqbal Shah said.
Known for their pale skin and light-colored eyes, the Kalash have long claimed ancestral links to Alexander the Great’s army — who conquered the region in the fourth century BC.
They worship many gods, drinking alcohol is a tradition and marriages of choice are the norm — unlike in the rest of Pakistan, where unions are often arranged.
However, the community is far from a liberal beacon. Members of the community often wed in their teens, with women poorly educated and expected to perform traditional roles in the home.
Stories about the Kalash are nonetheless frequently fabricated, and this has been amplified in the past several years by the proliferation of smartphones and social media.
One video viewed 1.3 million times on YouTube proclaims the Kalash “openly have sex” with partners of their choosing “in the presence of their husbands.”
Another calls them “beautiful infidels,” saying that “anyone can go and marry any girl there.”
“How could that be true?” Kalash journalist Luke Rehmat said. “People are systematically trying to defame the community. They are fabricating stories... When a tourist comes with such a mindset, he will try to experience [it].”
In the main Kalash village of Bumburate, a hotel manager estimated that about 70 percent of Pakistani tourists visiting his establishment are young men, who often inquire about where to “find girls.”
Tourists who spoke to reporters — most of whom were men traveling in groups — said that their primary interest in exploring the Kalash Valley was to learn about a new culture.
“We want to be part of this festival, but it doesn’t mean that we want to mix up with girls,” tourist Sikander Nawaz Khan Niazi said.
However, friction has been increasing in the past few years.
In Bumburate, posters now call on visitors to seek permission from villagers before photographing and signs warn tourists not to harass women.
“If they don’t respect us, we don’t need tourists,” said Yasir Kalash, the vice president of the local hotel association. “If they respect ... our culture and traditions, we must welcome [them].”
Regulating tourism is a cumbersome, but vital task for the Kalash, with money from the industry increasingly providing an important source of revenue for the community.
The Kalash — who once inhabited a vast territory stretching from the Himalayas in Kashmir to northern Afghanistan — are now one of the smallest religious minorities in Pakistan, said Akram Hussain, the director of a local museum.
A recent survey put their number at just 3,872, living in three remote valleys.
“We are going to die if we are not supported,” Hussain said.
Kalash traditions can be expensive, Hussain said, adding that weddings and funerals require families to kill dozens of animals for the festivities, driving them into debt, forcing them to sell off land and leave their ancestral homes.
Cases of forced conversions to Islam of Kalash women have also been reported, while the increase in tourism has pushed some in the community to shun traditions like Joshi, several residents told reporters.
Others have begun wearing veils to hide their faces from the prying eyes of outsiders.
“We don’t wear veils, as it is not our custom, but some wear them because people take pictures of them from all sides and it makes them feel ashamed,” high-school student Musarrat Ali said.
The ongoing erosion of the culture at the hands of outside forces is tragic, said Sayed Gul, an archeologist from Bumburate.
“They don’t want to participate just because of these cameras and this insensitivity,” Gul said. “If these things are continuously happening ... maybe in a few years, there are only tourists, there are no more Kalashis to participate and dance in the festivals.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS