Mythologies of the Nūristāni Tribes

The Nuristanis are an ethnic group native to the Nuristan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and Chitral District of northwestern Pakistan. Their languages comprise the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian languages. In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan and the British Indian Empire reached an agreement regarding the Indo-Afghan border for a period of time, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign in Kafiristan and followed up his conquest with forced conversion of the Kafirs to Islam; the region thenceforth being known as Nuristan, the "Land of Light". Before their conversion, the Nuristanis practised a form of ancient Hinduism. Non-Muslim religious practices endure in Nuristan today to some degree as folk customs. In their native rural areas, they are often farmers, herders, and dairymen. The Nuristan region has been a prominent location for war, which has led to the death of many indigenous Nuristanis. Nuristan has also received abundance of settlers from the surrounding Afghan regions due to the borderline vacant location.

Nūristāni, people of the Hindu Kush mountain area of Afghanistan and the Chitral area of Pakistan. Their territory, formerly called Kāfiristān, “Land of the Infidels,” was renamed Nūristān, “Land of Light” or “Enlightenment,” when the populace was forcibly converted to Islam from the local polytheistic religion by the Afghan emir ʿAbd al-Raḥmān at the turn of the 20th century. The territory now forms part of the Afghan province of Nūristān. In the early 21st century, the total Nūristāni population was estimated to be more than 100,000, with the vast majority living in Afghanistan; just a few thousand lived in Pakistan. The Nūristāni languages belong to the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Nūristāni are nominally Sunni Muslims but continue many of their traditional ways dating from before their conquest by the Afghans in 1895–96. Their earlier record was one of brigandage and plundering; they were, and still are, intensely loyal to their own people and strongly cherish their independence. They have a clan organization with village government and are now settled agriculturists. The region as a whole has a most distinctive culture, and although it is possible to establish certain cultural differences between the three main valleys, the Nūristāni share a culture which gives them a unique position within Afghanistan. The houses in the highest northern regions are built of stone or clay, but in the forested regions they are mainly of wood, often (to save space) with multiple stories and arranged in steplike terraces on the mountain slopes. The small enclosed fields (often no bigger than an ordinary floor space), mostly lying in steep, narrow mountain valleys, are cultivated by the women, while the men hunt or tend livestock. The main crop is wheat, supplemented by barley, corn (maize), millet, and peas. Grapes and mulberries are grown in the lower areas. Livestock consists mainly of goats, with some cattle and a few sheep in the upper, wider valleys. There are no horses.

The Nuristani people are just one among many ethnic groups living in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. Although the Nuristanis are entitled to Afghan citizenship, they live in relative isolation. Outside Afghanistan, few have heard of this minority group, and for those who might have heard their name, their way of life might still be a mystery. In this post, we’ll take a look at the culture, history, and context of the Nuristani people. The Nuristan province is located in eastern Afghanistan, at the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush mountain range. It’s bordered on the south by the Laghman and Kunar provinces, on the north by the Badakhshan province, on the west by the Panjshir province, and on the east by Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Nuristan Province has a population of 140.000 people, and its capital is Parun. The region enjoys a moderate climate with reasonable precipitation levels, so it’s suitable for irrigated agriculture. However, its mountainous geography restricts extensive farming. As a result of the abundance of pastures and the inability to conduct extensive agriculture, the province’s population has inclined towards cattle breeding. Nuristan’s food production is all about subsistence. It’s central to their grains and dairy products from goats and cattle.

Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Pashto: نورستان; Kamkata-vari Nuriston), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, with a population of around 167,000. Parun serves as the provincial capital. Nuristan is bordered on the south by Laghman and Kunar provinces, on the north by Badakhshan province, on the west by Panjshir province, and on the east by Pakistan. The origins of the Nuristani people traces back to the 4th century BC. Some Nuristanis claim being descendants of the Greek occupying forces of Alexander the Great. It was formerly called Kafiristan (Pashto: كافرستان) ("Land of the Infidels") until the inhabitants were forcibly converted from an animist religion, a form of ancient Hinduism infused with local variations, to Islam in 1895, and thence the region has become known as Nuristan ("land of illumination", or "land of light"). The region was located in an area surrounded by Buddhist civilizations which were later taken over by Muslims. The origin of the local Nuristani people has been disputed, ranging from being the indigenous inhabitants forced to flee to this region after refusing to surrender to invaders, to being linked to various ancient groups of people and the Turk Shahi kings. The primary occupations are agriculture, animal husbandry, and day labor. Located on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains in the northeastern part of the country, Nuristan spans the basins of the Alingar, Pech, Landai Sin, and Kunar rivers. Most of Nuristan is covered by mountainous forests and it has a rich biodiversity with a domestically unique monsoon climate by air coming from the Indian Ocean. As of 2020, the entirety of Nuristan is now a protected national park.

Nuristan

The Nuristani languages, also known as Kafiri languages, are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the much larger Indo-Aryan and Iranian groups. They have approximately 130,000 speakers primarily in eastern Afghanistan and a few adjacent valleys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Chitral District, Pakistan. The region inhabited by the Nuristanis is located in the southern Hindu Kush mountains, and is drained by the Alingar River in the west, the Pech River in the center, and the Landai Sin and Kunar rivers in the east. More broadly, the Nuristan (or Kafiristan) region is located at the northern intersection of the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau. The languages were previously often grouped with Indo-Aryan (Dardic sub-group) or Iranian until they were finally classified as forming a third branch in Indo-Iranian. Dameli is often thought to belong to Nuristani instead of Dardic based on its vocabulary, but its pronoun system and morphology are characteristically of Dardic origin, suggesting that the language is Indo-Aryan, with heavy Nuristani influence.

Nuristanis arrived in Afghanistan fleeing the eastward spread of Islam. They speak a unique Indo-European-language. Nuristanis were conquered by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan in 1895-96 and were obliged to abandon their ancient religious beliefs in favour of Islam. They reside mainly in the east of the country – between the Pashtun tribes of Kunar, Kalash in Pakistan’s Chitral, and Tajiks of Badakhshan in the north. Nuristan (‘land of light’) is located on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush mountain range and is spread over four valleys, with each valley having its own distinct language/dialect: Kati, Waigali, Ashkun and Parsun. Nuristan has very little arable land, the vast majority of the territory being covered by forest. The main base of the economy is animal husbandry – mostly goat-herding. While maize and barley are grown in small quantities, the Nuristani people survive mainly on subsistence agriculture, wheat, fruit and goats. Very few Nuristanis have had access to education. Yet, among those who have travelled to Kabul and been able to gain access to schools, some have gained prominence as well-known figures in the army and the government in Kabul. Nuristan’s distinctive cultural heritage was under considerable threat during the period when the Taliban controlled Kabul. A collection of life-size wooden sculptures dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries was smashed by the Taliban in 2001 in their effort to destroy artistic expressions of the human form, as well as evidence that parts of Afghanistan had in fact followed other faiths than Islam until relatively recently. The collection had been brought back by the forces of Amir Abdul Rahman and housed at the National Museum. The statues depict ancestors as well as animistic and polytheistic divinities. Although some remain lost, others were hidden away by museum staff. Fourteen sculptures could be carefully restored and incorporated in an inaugural display at the newly reopened museum in 2004.

Origins of present-day Nuristani peoples remain a mystery, although some of their ancestors might have been soldiers of Alexander the Great. Physically, the people appear like Europeans; blond or red hair and blue or green eyes are more frequent than in other Afghan people. Alexander's records from 327 BC mention his expedition there and his armies' defeat by fierce-fighting mountain tribes in the Kunar River area, where they sustained considerable losses. Not long after when Alexander died, his army disbanded. There is no documentation regarding whether remnants of his forces remained in the area. It is interesting to note, however, that Nuristani games echo those of Greece—javelin throw, shot put and a discus throw using an 8" round, polished stone. Even today, they hold village competitions and award trophies, culminating in an annual tournament. Nuristani people groups are unique amid others living in Afghanistan—so unique we cannot view them through a single lens. Their only common threads may be religion, ethnicity and remnants of customs pre-dating their collective conversion to Islam little over 100 years ago. Ethnically, the Nuristani people cluster embraces eight groups – the Ashkuni-Wamayi, Bashgali-Kati, Grangali, Kamviri, Malakhel, Waigeli, Prasuni, and Tregami. Linguistically, however, two of these clans speak languages unrelated to the Nuristani family of Indo-Iranian languages. Often, a language spoken in one valley is unintelligible to a near neighbor in another. None of their languages are in written form and their literacy rate in other languages is very low. Oral traditions testify to longstanding interaction between groups through the centuries despite language barriers. Geographically, as early inhabitants of the Nuristani region in northeast Afghanistan, most still live there. Focus here is on the seven groups still living in the mountains of Nuristan. Renowned as an area of astonishing beauty that shares its eastern border with Pakistan, Nuristan spills down the craggy southern heights of the Hindu Kush Mountains into valleys holding the watersheds of four major rivers. A fairly consistent climate provides sufficient rainfall to sustain lush forestland–in stark contrast to the barrenness of other parts of Afghanistan–and to irrigate crops directly or through a network of canals. They grow wheat and corn in terraced plots because arable land is sparse.

Nuristan (nŏŏrĬstăn´) [Persian, land of light or the enlightened], region on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush, NE Afghanistan, bordered on the E by Pakistan. Formerly called Kafiristan [land of the infidels], it is inhabited by an ethnically distinctive people (numbering about 60,000), who practiced animism until their forcible conversion to Islam in 1895–96. Inhabiting relatively isolated villages in deep, narrow mountain valleys, they grow wheat, barley, millet, peas, wine grapes, and other fruit and raise livestock (chiefly goats). A special artisan caste specializes in woodcarving, pottery making, weaving, and metalwork. The Nuristanis, divided into several tribes, speak Dardic dialects (often mutually unintelligible) belonging to a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family. Nuristan was the scene of some of the heaviest guerrilla fighting during the 1979–89 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces.

The Nuristani people groups are unique amid others living in Afghanistan – so unique they cannot be viewed through a single lens. Their only common threads may be religion, ethnicity and remnants of customs pre-dating their collective conversion to Islam little more than 100 years ago. Ethnically, the Nuristani people cluster embraces eight groups – the Ashkuni-Wamayi, Bashgali-Kati, Grangali, Kamviri, Malakhel, Waigeli, Prasuni, and Tregami with a population likely between 120,000 to 250,000. Linguistically however, two of these clans speak languages unrelated to the Nuristani family of Indo-Iranian languages. Often, a language spoken in one valley is largely unintelligible to a near neighbor in another. None of their languages are in written form and their literacy rate in other languages is very low. Oral traditions testify to longstanding interaction between groups through the centuries despite language barriers. Geographically, as early inhabitants of the Nuristani region in northeast Afghanistan, most still reside there. Renowned as an area of astonishing beauty that shares its eastern border with Pakistan, Nuristan spills down the craggy southern heights of the Hindu Kush mountains into valleys holding the watersheds of four major rivers. A fairly consistent climate provides sufficient rainfall to sustain lush forestland – in stark contrast to the barrenness of other parts of Afghanistan – and to irrigate crops directly or through a network of canals. Wheat and corn is grown in terraced plots because arable land is sparse. It is the women's task to perform agricultural chores, often using primitive tools for cultivation. Pastureland for goats and cattle, tended by the men, is more plentiful. Even so, when the first settlers found natural resources limited by the rugged terrain groups fought for land and stole livestock from one another. Left unchecked if no village mediator was available, retaliation to defend a tribe's possessions led to volatile relations between the clans, even blood feuds that continued for hundreds of years.

The Nuristanis are an ethnic group native to the Chitral District of northwestern Pakistan and Nuristan Province of northeastern Afghanistan, who speak Indo-Iranian languages, chiefly Nuristani. In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan reached an agreement on various frontier areas to the British Empire for period of time, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign in Nuristan and followed up his conquest with forced conversion of the Nuristanis to Islam; the region thenceforth being known as Nuristan, the "Land of Light". Before their conversion, the Nuristanis practised a form of ancient Hinduism. Non-Muslim religious practices endure in Nuristan today to some degree as folk customs. In their native rural areas, they are often farmers, herders, and dairymen. The Nuristanis are distinguished from the Kalash and a segment of the Kho people of Chitral by their adoption of Islam, territory within Afghanistan, and consolidation with other Afghans. The Nuristan region has been a prominent location for war scenes that have led to the death of many indigenous Nuristanis. Nuristan has also received abundance of settlers from the surrounding Afghanistan regions due to the borderline vacant location.