Kalash – a Phoenician connection in Chitral?
The Kalash are a non-indigenous tribe with a distinct culture, religion, and way of life living for centuries in District Chitral. Where they come from has been an enigma for centuries.
The first British envoy to the king of Kabul led by the honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone started a story of Greek ancestry about the Kafir of Afghanistan who were the Kalash of present day Nuristan. In the 1890s, Amir Abdurehman forcefully converted the whole Kafiristan to Islam and changed its name too. However, the Kafir on the other side of the border, which was under rule of the Mehtar of Chitral, retained their Kalash religion and identity.
According to the three main theories written about the Kalash people, it is said that they are either Greeks, Aryans, local inhabitants and previous rulers of proper Chitral.
The Kalash people and their oral traditions tell a different story of a place they call Tsiyam, from which their forefathers came many centuries ago. This place has been identified with Yarkhun by some academics, while others say it is a place somewhere in Afghanistan. A research paper written by Gail H. Trail, of Summer Institute of Languages, interprets Tsiyam with Sham, the Urdu name for Syria.
The Greek theory says that Seleucus I, a general of Alexander who was governor of Bactria, could be Shalak Shah, who the Kalash name as their forefather. Or he could be the one who settled the Kalash people here. This Greek ancestry claim is one of the most prominent ones and purports that the Kalash people were left behind from Alexander's army, but a genetic study by Ayub, Mezzavilla, et al. (2015) found no evidence of this claim. Thus the hypothesis of Greek ancestry has no roots in reality.
In my exploratory research on this subject by the Islamabad Think Tank, I posit the hypothesis that the Kalash people are Jebusites, or one of a subgroup of Canaanites who practiced a Phoenician religion. Phoenicians living in different city-states like Tire, Jebus, Byblos, Sidon, had different deities specific to each city-states and one supreme god and goddess, which could be El and Asharat.
Present day Israel and Palestine were known as Canaan before the arrival of Prophet Abraham. Canaan himself was a son of Ham, and grandson of Noah according to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. These Canaanites or Phoenicians used to worship several deities and basically were polytheists.
There are many reasons to support my hypothesis – historically, religiously, culturally, and genetically. Historically, the last Canaanite city-state standing against the Israelite’s kingdom was Jebus, which is present day Jerusalem. In Biblical description, King-Prophet David and the Israelites captured Jebus when they entered the city-state using a water canal. It's a known historical event remembered as the siege of Jebus in 1010 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible, the Land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem are both referred to as Zion. Other religions use the word Zion to mean "utopia" or "holy place”. We have synonyms of this name in Tsions, and in Hebrew language, Ṣīyyōn. There is a hill in Jerusalem too, which is called Mount Zion – in Hebrew it is Har Ṣīyyōn and Jabal Sahyoun in Arabic language – located just outside the walls of the Old City. According to Kalash literature, oral or otherwise, they came from or originated from a place that they call Tsiyam, which l think is the same as Sidon or Zion. Kalash literature, which is mainly religious hymn and folklore, has songs about Tsiyam, which is a magical place of peace and prosperity, which is another proof of this very strong argument. This Phoenician city-state was very strong and built well to fight off invaders, it was prosperous according to many sources and it stood for a long time against the Israelites. Once defeated, most of the Phoenicians living in Jebus were either killed, migrated to other lands, or later made serfs by King-Prophet Solomon.
A person named Shalak Shah is said to be the forefather of Kalash people, who came to either Kafiristan of Afghanistan or Kalash valley in Chitral. Now, Shalak or Shaw-lak is a Hebrew word, which is a noun and it means an act of throwing something forcefully and Shah is a Persian word for Lord or King. These two words for the Kalash forefather's name indicates a forceful casting out of him and his people, which could be either the defeat at the hand of Israelites in siege and conquest of Jebus, or a mass migration due to harsh treatment after the defeat, or later conduct of the Israelites.
Referring to their forefather as Shalak, Shah, and Khodai, which is also a Persian word for god, tells us of the Kalash people's long journey through Persia to Afghanistan and Chitral and interaction with Persian people and culture.
Traces of Phoenician religion?
It is clear that apart from a patron-god, the Phoenicians had specific individual city-state deities, altars, female deities responsible for things like life and death, rain and drought, fertility and sex, and many other worldly matters. Kalash people worship and follow different deities like the Phoenicians in different valleys either in Kafiristan in Afghanistan or Kalashgom in Chitral, Pakistan. Some of the different gods and goddesses are Irma/Mara, Sajigor, Mahandeo, Balumain, Dezalik, Ingaw, and Innan/Inn including others. In my research, l have found the names of deities that are similar to the deities of the Phoenician religion where they have Baal, his father-god Dagon, and female deity Innan who has many more names and equivalents like Isis and Ishtar. Irma, the supreme creator goddess of Kalash, with a temple dedicated to her located at the River Kushtiki. Irma is also pronounced as Emma, which is a Hebrew word for mother. It has a Jewish origin and means God's warrior princess. It is a historical fact that Jewish people went back to worship some Canaanites or Phoenician gods and goddesses like Baal, Ishtar/Ashur/Inanna or Inn as some Kalash people call it. In Puran valley in Kafiristan of Afghanistan, Irma is known as Mara. This temple, called Makâ by the population, was a large and high, tower-like structure, described as three times the height of a Parun house (2.5 m). It contained a number of deity figures, with that of Mâra (probably on horseback) in the centre, and with some 17 other figures or objects serving as deity symbols as described by Max Klimburg in his research paper “The Art and Culture of Parun, Kafiristan”. It is said to have been destroyed long ago and an effigy of Irma or Mara is placed in the Museum of Guimet in France.
The Kalash festival of Chemosh
Culturally, Chemosh is the longest religious festival of the Kalash people celebrated each year in December, which lasts for 14 days. It is celebrated by organising gatherings where people dance and enjoy music and animals, especially goats and sheep, are slaughtered in sacrifice. The local economy is basically agrarian where they grow wheat, maze, and barley, with other fruits like walnuts, apricots, and apples. Chemosh marks the end of the season of fieldwork and harvesting. The festival has a long series of ceremonies, phases and rituals. Now, interestingly there is a supreme deity of the Canaanite city-state of Moab and the patron-god of its population and these people were “People of Chemosh”, as per Edward Lipiński, a Belgian Orientalist who wrote Itineraria Phoenicia. As for the Moabite evidence is concerned, Chemosh is attested both in native inscriptions on the one hand and in royal names transmitted in cuneiform texts on the other hand. In a stela of Mesha, the moabite king erected on occasion of the building a sacred high-place, report battles against Israel won by Mesha in honour of his god Chemosh and of himself. Inscription on the stela glorify various efforts of King Mesha as city founder or restorer and are free from religious motifs. In the city-state of Moabites, which is present-day Jordan lies on the east of present-day Jerusalem, which was Tsayyion or Tsiyam and the Kalash talk about this deity visiting from the East
According to another book Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible written by Karel van der Toorn and Pieter Willem van der Horst, the divine name Chemosh has the phonological form 'kam(m)i!, he was the first one being attested in the Eblaite or Palaeosyrian, which is an extinct East Semitic language used during the 3rd millennium BC in Northern Syria of Ebla Kingdom. The great importance of the god Kamis or Chemosh in the private as well as in the official religion of Ebla Kingdom is to be seen from the use of this theonym; a title attributed to a deity as a theophoric element in personal names, from the bulk of sheep offering presented to him and not least by the fact that the name of the 12th month is dK()-mi-i,~ 'month of the festival for Kamis or Chemosh. This celebration and presence of a deity which is similar by name, and used to come to visit in both Kalash and Elbaitic cultures and also talks about the sacrificing of a lot of sheep in his honour and celebration.
The Kalash dance
The Phoenician deity Baal Marqod is said to have either invented dance or incorporated dance in his worship. The Phoenicians used to dance in a group in religious or other festivities. It is said that the Irish tap dance and Lebanese Dabké dance are forms of Phoenician dance. The Kalash dance is similar to the Irish tand the Lebanese dance, as they also dance in a group standing side by side with hands around other participants. They also had a council of elders and rich citizens who used to advise the ruler on important issues and used their wealth to get important positions in secular and religious institutions. Kalash people also have an assembly where they gather to talk about matters regarding religion, social, and other issues.
The Phoenician culture included practices like women used to prostitute to honour their goddess Asherah, maybe to please her to get fertility, offspring, and a good sex life. In Kalash, although it has been abandoned now, there was a festival of Budalak or Shepherd King which was set on the tradition of sending a young healthy virgin boy to live in the mountains with goats, eating all natural food like butter, cheese, milk and meat of goats. On his return to the village, he would sleep with as many women as he wanted, with the consent of the women, as the logic behind this practice was to get healthy offspring, according to local people.
The Kalash practice of burial bears resemblance with Phoenician too. Upon a Canaanite Phoenician's death, they used to honour the deceased with funerary rites, where dead bodies were buried with personal belongings, and offerings of food and drink were made to the dead to ensure that they would not trouble the living in the afterlife. Incense, music, singing devotional songs, and trance rituals and magic to speak to departed souls for future predictions were ritual practices. In Kalash culture when a person dies, it is not just a loss of a family member but it brings huge financial obligations. The family members of the deceased have to offer a feast with a sacrifice of a lot of animals, for three days for a male and one or two days for a female member. They also sing and dance around the bodies, singing devotional songs, praising the dead person, bringing the deceased's favourite things, and even firing to announce their arrival. Open burials with all the belongings of the deceased were once practiced but now it has been discontinued and deceased are buried now.
What Kalash DNA reveals
In the modern world, the use of scientific methods of genetics to ascertain history, genealogy of people and others has become a norm. According to mitochondrial DNA research, the Kalash people mostly belong to Western Eurasia as most of the haplogroups of Kalash population pointed towards that area which is also Canaan or present day Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Many recent studies done by researchers testify that Kalash people originate from Western Eurasia where the mystical place of Tsiyyon or Tsiyam exists, which is the place of origin of Kalash people as per their belief. According to the Genetic experts, humanity started in Africa and went out of Africa from the Horn of Africa. Haplogroup L1 and L2 stayed in Africa while haplogroup L3 migrated from the route mentioned above. A genetic analysis of Y-chromosome DNA by Firasat, Khaliq, et al. (2007) on Kalash individuals found high and diverse frequencies of these Y-DNA Haplogroups like L3a is 22 percent, whose dispersal originated in East Africa and expanded to West Asia, and further to South and Southeast Asia in the course of a few millennia.
A genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA by Quintana-Murci, Chaix, et al. (2004) stated that "the western Eurasian presence in the Kalash population reaches a frequency of 100%" with the most prevalent mtDNA Haplogroups being U4 (34%), R0 (23%), U2e (16%), and J2 (9%). Although a deep genetic study needs to verify my hypothesis, this presented evidence is very promising and directs us in the right direction.
In conclusion, I will state my hypothesis that Kalash people are Jebusites and originated from Tsiyam or Zion. I hope this article either puts an end to the debate of Kalash people origin or opens a new window for research.
Ijaz Ahmed is the founder of the Islamabad Think Tank and can be reached via email at founder@itt.org.pk
All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author