Myths of the World

  A HISTORICAL REFLECTION OF ZHOSHI: THE SPRING FESTIVAL OF THE KALASHA OF CHITRAL (PAKISTAN) The spring arrives in the Kalasha valleys of the Hindu Kush (Chitral) around May, and the Kalasha people celebrates a three-day spring celebration; Zhoshi also written Joshi, and known as Chilm Josht in Khowar the franca lingua of Chitral a town in the Hindu Kush. After the elders of the community announce the dates of this celebration, people begin saving milk in their barns (where they keep their livestock) even ten days before the festival, and the gathered milk is distributed amongst the tribal brethren. Zhoshi festival in Grom village of Rumbur valley. Photo: G. Morgenstierne, 1929. Those Kalasha who has rather large herds do not keep milk from the first day due to the excess of milk. Smaller flocks, on the other hand, begin storing milk from the first to the eleventh day. G. Morgenstierne, the Norwegian linguist, produced the first detailed account of the Zhoshi, which was recorded i...

  FRENCH POLYNESIA/TAHITI INDIGENOUS PEOPLES In April 1769, Captain James Cook made his first trip to  Tahiti  aboard the HMS Endeavor to watch the Transit of Venus. The arrival of British and French missionaries in the 1800s provoked a rivalry between England and France for control over the islands, and this forever changed the way of life in Tahiti.   “…but nothing on Tahiti is so majestic as what faces it across the bay, for there lies the island of Moorea. To describe it is impossible. It is a monument to the prodigal beauty of nature.” Captain Cook wanted to introduce British justice to  Indigenous people . Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent . A FAILURE TO SAY HELLO: HOW CAPTAIN COOK BLUNDERED HIS FIRST IMPRESSION WITH  INDIGENOUS PEOPLE . Cook initially saw himself as an enlightened “civiliser”, bringing a new vision of the world to the so-called “savage lands” of the South Seas. Cook instead came to embody the “savagery” he o...