2 PRIME PAGINE 58-2008 (1-8)

12-11-2009

9:44

Pagina 3

Founded by Giuseppe Tucci

A QUARTERLY PUBLISHED BY THE ISTITUTO ITALIANO PER L’AFRICA E L’ORIENTE

IsIAO Vol. 58 - Nos. 1-4 (December 2008)

2 PRIME PAGINE 58-2008 (1-8)

12-11-2009

9:44

Pagina 4

EDITORIAL BOARD

† Domenico Faccenna Gherardo Gnoli, Chairman Lionello Lanciotti Luciano Petech

Art Director: Beniamino Melasecchi Editorial staff: Elisabetta Valento, Matteo De Chiara

ISSN 0012-8376 Yearly subscription: € 170,00 (mail expenses not included) Subscription orders must be sent direct to: www.mediastore.isiao.it

Manuscripts should be sent to the Editorial Board of East and West Administrative and Editorial Offices: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente Via Ulisse Aldrovandi 16, 00197 Rome

2 PRIME PAGINE 58-2008 (1-8)

12-11-2009

9:44

Pagina 5

CONTENTS Michelina Di Cesare, New Sources for the Legend of Mu∆ammad in the West................ G.R.H. Wright, The Avatta Tree on the Vatican Hill ..................................................... Jacqueline Calzini Gysens, Interim Report on the Rabbathmoab and Qaßr Rabbah Project Simonetta Schiena, The False Smerdis. A Detective Story of Ancient Times: The Reconstruction by Ilya Gershevitch ............................................................................. Farid Ullah Bezhan, The Enigmatic Authorship of Tårikh-i Badakhshån........................ Akira Miyaji, Iconography of the Two Flanking Bodhisattvas in the Buddhist Triads from Gandhåra. Bodhisattvas Siddhårtha, Maitreya and Avalokitevara .................... Elisa Freschi, Structuring the Chaos: Bh円a M¤måæså Hermeneutics as Depicted in Råmånujåcårya’s ‡åstraprameyapariccheda. Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Forth Section .................................................................................. Tiziana Lorenzetti, The Am®tagha†e-vara Temple in Tamil Nadu. A Complex Example of Cø¬a Architecture ..................................................................................................... Donatella Rossi, An Introduction to the mKha' 'gro gsang gcod Teachings of Bon......... Saerji, The Inscriptions of the Great Stupa of Gyantse. A Review of Their Transcription in Giuseppe Tucci’s Indo-Tibetica and a Remark on the Calligraphic Conventions Used in the Inscriptions ............................................................................................... Angelo Andrea Di Castro, The Mori Tim Stupa Complex in Kashgar Oasis .................... Francesco D’Arelli, The Chinese College in Eighteenth-Century Naples ......................... Roberto Ciarla, The Thai-Italian ‘Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project’ (LoRAP). Excavation at Khao Sai On-Noen Din 2008: Preliminary Report ............................... Fiorella Rispoli, Off the Beaten Track: 2007 Italian-Indonesian Archaeological Investigations at Gua Made (East Java).......................................................................

9 33 53 87 107 123

157 185 213

235 257 283 313 337

Brief Notes and Items for Discussion Nicola Laneri, Hirbemerdon Tepe. A Middle Bronze Age Site in Northern Mesopotamia ..... Fabrizio Sinisi, Another Seal of a Sasanian D¤wån ............................................................ Rebecca Beardmore, Gian Luca Bonora and Zholdasbek Kurmankulov, Preliminary Report on the 2007-2008 IAEK Campaigns in the Syrdarya Delta ............................. Max Klimburg, A Former Kafir Tells His ‘Tragic Story’. Notes on the Kati Kafirs of Northern Bashgal (Afghanistan) .................................................................................. Massimo Vidale, Post Scriptum to The Collapse Melts Down, June 2008 ....................... R.K.K. Rajarajan, Identification of Portrait Sculptures on the Påda of the Någevara Temple at Kuæbhako∫am ........................................................................................... Giuseppe Vignato, Chinese Edition of Giuseppe Tucci’s Indo-Tibetica ..........................

365 377 385 391 403 405 415

Obituaries Oscar Botto (1922-2008) (Lionello Lanciotti) ...................................................................

423

2 PRIME PAGINE 58-2008 (1-8)

12-11-2009

9:44

Pagina 6

Domenico Faccenna (1923-2008) (Pierfrancesco Callieri) ................................................ Grigorij Maksimovich Bongard-Levin (1933-2008) (Gherardo Gnoli) .............................

425 453

Book Reviews by Alberto M. Cacopardo, Pierfrancesco Callieri, Lionello Lanciotti, Nicola Laneri, Erberto Lo Bue, Beniamino Melasecchi ....................................................................

457

Books Receveid ...................................................................................................................

482

List of Contributors ............................................................................................................

485

Table of Contents ...............................................................................................................

487

6

2 PRIME PAGINE 58-2008 (1-8)

12-11-2009

9:44

Pagina 7

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AAA AAH ACASA ActaO ActaOH ADMG AION AJA AMI ArOr ASIAR BEFEO BMC BMFEA BMMA BSO(A)S CAH CAJ CHC CHInd CHIr CIInd CIIr CIS CRAI EW HJAS HR IIJ JA JAH JAOS

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Archives of Asian Art Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America Acta Orientalia, Copenhagen Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Abhandlungen der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Annali dell’Istituto (Universitario) Orientale di Napoli American Journal of Archaeology Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran Archiv Orientální Annual Reports (Archaeological Survey of India) Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient Catalogue of Coins in the British Museum Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin of the School of Oriental (and African) Studies Cambridge Ancient History Central Asiatic Journal Cambridge History of China Cambridge History of India Cambridge History of Iran Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum Comptes rendus des séances (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres) East and West Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies History of Religions Indo-Iranian Journal Journal Asiatique Journal of Asian History Journal of the American Oriental Society

2 PRIME PAGINE 58-2008 (1-8)

12-11-2009

JAS JASB JESHO JGJRI JIABS JISOA JNES JRAS JUPHS KSIA MASI MCB MDAFA MIA MTB NTS OLZ PSAS REI RepMem

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

RHR RSO SA SAS SOR TOCS TP TPS VDI WZKM WZKS ZAS ZDMG

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

9:44

Pagina 8

Journal of Asian Studies Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of the Ganganath Jha Research Institute Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Journal of the Uttar Pradesh (formerly: United Provinces) Historical Society Kratkie soobs˘c˘enija Instituta Arheologii Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan Materialy i issledovanija po Arheologii SSSR Memoirs of the Research Department of the Tôyô Bunko Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap Orientalistische Literaturzeitung Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies Revue des Études Islamiques Reports and Memoirs (IsIAO [formerly IsMEO], Centro Studi e Scavi Archeologici) Revue de l’Histoire des Religions Rivista degli Studi Orientali Sovetskaja Arheologija South Asian Studies Serie Orientale Roma (IsIAO [formerly IsMEO]) Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society T’oung Pao Transactions of the Philological Society Vestnik drevnej istorii Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens und Archiv für indische Philosophie Zentralasiatische Studien Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 391

A Former Kafir Tells His ‘Tragic Story’ Notes on the Kati Kafirs of Northern Bashgal (Afghanistan)

by MAX KLIMBURG

The ‘Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush’, who inhabited ‘Kafiristan’ in northeastern Afghanistan, have fascinated scholars and the general public alike, in particular since the publication in 1896 of G.S. Robertson’s important book about them. At the same time, the Kafirs had already been subdued by the Afghan army with the aim of destroying their ‘heathen’ culture and Islamizing them. In the quest for more information about the Kafirs, rechristened ‘Nuristani’ (i.e. inhabitants of ‘Nuristan’, the ‘Land of Light’) soon after 1896, far more data were anticipated from a long-awaited publication which finally appeared in 2006. This is an annotated translation into English of a manuscript written in Urdu by a former Kafir who lived most of his life in Chitral in the early 20th century. He was a member of the Kati (Strand: Kât’a) Kafirs of the northern Bashgal valley, not far from the Afghan/Pakistan border in Chitral. As that part of former Kafiristan was visited only briefly by Robertson during his yearlong stay 1890-91 in Kamdesh, the main settlement in the southern part of the valley, it was hoped that important new information about the culture of these Kafirs would be revealed. Georg Morgenstierne, the eminent Norwegian Indo-Iranist/Indologist and discoverer of the manuscript in 1929, had high expectations of its informative value. However, it would have been advisable to adopt a more cautious attitude, as the manuscript is one of those rare, generally somewhat distorted documents authored by natives of illiterate societies in a written (and thus foreign) language in the hope of preserving knowledge about their culturally endangered or destroyed communities. After spending nearly eighty years in the hands of academia this manuscript was finally presented complete under the following names and headings: Alberto M. Cacopardo and Ruth Laila Schmidt, eds., My Heartrendingly Tragic Story. Shaikh Mohammad Abdullah Khan ’Azar’. Transcribed and translated by Knut Kristiansen from notes left by Georg Morgenstierne, revised and edited by Kandida Zweng

* I thank Richard Strand for reading critically an early draft of my review and for correcting the spelling of the Kati names and terms according to his linguistic expertise. I respect his sophisticated, internet-conditioned system of transcription, but I believe in using widely accepted names and terms regardless of their correct usage and phonetic transcription, as long as they are clearly understood. This applies here, above all, to my use of the term Kati in spite of his request to use his more correct Kât’a for the population and Kât’a-vari for the language, being names used by the population. The Kati names and terms written without any phonetic expertise in my field notes (marked MK) are often presented in combination with Strand’s transcription (marked RS) of the same terms spoken in Kâmv’iri, the language in southern Bashgal, already published in his Kâmv’iri lexicon in his website. His Kât’a-vari lexicon is not yet published.

[1]

391

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 392

and Manzar Zarin, and with the cooperation of Wlodek Witek and Lars Martin Fosse; published by The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, Serie B: Skrifter, Vol. CXXII, Novus forlag, Oslo 2006. XL and 277 pages, including facsimile reproductions of 139 numbered pages of Abdullah’s Urdu manuscript. A map, 14 illustrations (4 in colour), table of contents, bibliography, no index, but an indexed glossary of technical and ethnographic terms. The book contains a ‘Foreword’ by the two editors (pp. V-X), a ‘Tribute to Knut Kristansen’ by Rolf Theil (pp. XI-XVI), an ‘Introduction’ by Georg Morgenstierne titled ‘A Native of the Hindu Kush Describes His Own Tribe’ (pp. XVII-XXXVII), a ‘Note on Transcription’ by Schmidt (pp. XXXVIII-XL), the translation of Shaikh Mohammad Abdullah’s manuscript by Morgenstierne and Kristiansen accompanied by 299 footnotes by the two editors, mainly by Cacopardo (pp. 1-104)i(1), an ‘Epilogue’ by Cacopardo based on the fieldwork of Christiansen in 1993 and 1995 (pp. 105-108), a ‘Bibliography’ (pp. 109-28), a ‘Catalogue of the documents in Shaikh Abdullah’s archive’ (pp. 128-32), an ‘Index of Technical and Ethnographic Terms’ (pp. 133-36), and, finally, 141 pages of facsimile colour reproductions. The manuscript was bought by Morgenstierne (1892-1978) from its author, Shaikh Mohammad Abdullah ‘Azar’ or, rather, ‘Sardår Azar’ (Azar was his original Kafir name), referred to in the book mostly as Abdullah, occasionally as Azar (by Morgenstierne always as Abdullah, by Kristiansen as Azar, by me as Abdullah), during linguistic research in Brumotul (also Brumbutal, Brumbutol), a village in the Bumboret valley to the southwest of the town of Chitral in northwestern Pakistan, in 1929. Bumboret is one of three valleys, the other two being Rumbur and Birir, which are inhabited by Kalasha Muslims and Kalasha Kafirs. They speak an Indian language, while the tongue of the Kati, called Kât’a-vari by them according to Strand, belongs to the archaic Aryan group of the Kafir or Nuristani languages. In addition, the culture of the Kalasha Kafirs also differs markedly from that of the former Kati Kafirs. The Kati village of Brumotul (also known as Shaikhanande) is located in the uppermost part of Bumboret, while a second Kati village by the name of Kunisht lies in the upper section of the Rumbur valley. Both these settlements were founded (unless already existing before as tiny hamlets) by hundreds of Kati Kafir families who had fled across the high dividing mountains from the upper Bashgal valley in northeastern Afghanistan when the Afghan army entered the area in the winter 1895/96. All of former Kafiristan was then forcefully Islamized; only the Kalasha Kafirs were able to preserve their ‘heathen’ belief system, being protected by the border between Afghanistan and then British India. The sudden immigration of several hundreds of Kati refugees, among them the leading Kati families, into Kalasha territory must have caused considerable tension, and it led to even stronger Kati influence on the Kalasha culture than before (see Klimburg 2009). Morgenstierne was, of course, aware of the importance of any source on the culture of those Kafirs, as little was known about them. Robertson had focused on the Kafirs of southern Bashgali(2) during his stay in Kamdesh in 1890-91, visiting northern Bashgal only

(1) In the ‘Foreword’ (p. X) one reads: ‘Where the author of a footnote is not mentioned, it is written by Alberto Cacopardo (marked “AMC”); footnotes written by Ruth Laila Schmidt are marked “RLS” ’. This somewhat confusing reference applies to footnotes with contributions by both editors, while the unmarked notes are all by AMC. (2) Generally known as speakers of Kati, their language is differentiated by Strand as Kâmv’iri from the closely related Kât’a-vari in northern Bashgal (see his website).

392

[2]

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 393

Fig. 1 - Ancestor effigies close to the cemetery at Brumotul. (Photo by Morgenstierne 1929).

briefly. Much new information could thus be expected from research conducted in the two already mentioned villages of Kati refugees. However, all that was left of the Kati Kafir culture at the time of Morgenstierne’s visit were last vestiges in the village of Brumotul. There a few families had withstood the growing trend to adjust to their already Islamized relatives across the border in the Bashgal valley. Morgenstierne, whose main concerns were linguistic, documented these last cultural vestiges on cine film and (only) some still photographs. Thus, unfortunately, there is only one single photograph of the genuinely exciting ensemble of ancestor figures, mute, close to the cemetery of Brumotul (Fig. 1, same as fig. 11 in the book) – an ensemble which included a horse figure with two heads and four forelegs. It cannot be seen in the photograph, being hidden behind other mounted figures, but is mentioned by Morgenstierne. The same effigy is clearly recognizable in a photograph of unknown origin in my possession (Fig. 2). It is probably identical with the double-headed horse figure among the mute in the Peshawar Museum (Fig. 3) in spite of the fact that it was reportedly destroyed, as noted by me in Brumotul. According to Morgenstierne and also local informants, this extraordinary image represent the great Kati headman or ‘Great Man’ Konmaro, a paternal uncle of Abdullah, mounted on a pair of horses as a sign of having reached the highest socio-political position of Kate-uto (see Klimburg 2008 and, much improved, 2009). As to the manuscript, Abdullah, a self-conscious member of the Kati social elite, who titled himself Sardår Azar (sardår means ‘chieftain’ or ‘prince’ in Persian/Urdu) in the section dealing with his genealogy (p. 67), was apparently ‘driven’ to report about himself and his Kafir culture when he served in the British-Indian army from 1898 to 1908. Morgenstierne’s short article on the manuscript published in 1933 ‘aroused enormous interest’ (p. V) with regard to the important information to be learnt about the Kati Kafirs when properly translated. In the 1960s Morgenstierne wrote a detailed resumé (published only in the

[3]

393

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 394

Fig. 2 - Ancestor effigies close to the cemetery at Brumotul. Print of a photograph of a print in the Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt-Main. (Anonymous photo).

reviewed book), and he drafted a translation of the text. Morgenstierne never finalised the work beyond a draft, as he valued the text so highly that much work on it – complete with a transcription – was deemed necessary. Then Knut Kristiansen stepped in, publishing translations of parts of the text, namely those dealing with the invasion of the Afghan army, the flight of the Kati to Chitral and with Kati festivals in 1974, and that dealing with the life cycle in 1986. In the latter article one reads that the work was ‘based on a seminar which Georg Morgenstierne gave at The Indo-Iranian Institute of Oslo in the 1960s’ (p. 145). Therein Kristiansen also stated that he had ‘prepared an edition of the complete Urdu text (139 pages) with an English translation and a commentary drawing on available ethnographic literature on Nuristan’ (p. 146). With Kristiansen’s two articles a large section of the genuinely Kafir related parts of the manuscript was made available in English. Only the parts on ‘Becoming a headman’, ‘Becoming a hero’ and the religion were still missing. In 1993 and 1995 Kristiansen travelled to Brumotul in order to find out more about Abdullah († around 1948). At the Second Cultural Hindu Kush Conference held in Chitral in September, 1995, he read a paper about his findings, which were not published until 2008 but known to Cacopardo who used them in the epilogue written by him. After Kristiansen’s tragic death in 1999i(3) the existing translation was revised and edited in many minor ways, but not just for the purpose of correcting Kristiansen’s ‘uncorrected English’ (1986: 146). It was then published without any reference to Kristiansen’s two articles (except for their listing in the foreword and in the bibliography) and to his commentary already written in 1986. It appears to

(3) Kristiansen was a victim of special bad luck in his last years: Due to an infection caused by a leg injury during fieldwork in Chitral in 1995, his left leg had to be amputated, and soon afterwards, in 1999, he was killed by a Romani who was one of his informants in Norway on the Romani language.

394

[4]

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 395

have been left aside or incorporated in the annotation (see below the sections on marriage and death). Thus, 80 years after its acquisition Abdullah’s manuscript is finally presented fully translated, extensively annotated and even greatly honoured by the addition of its complete facsimile reproduction in colour. Was it really worth all the attention and deliberations? In the ‘Note on transcription’ by Schmidt one reads that no attempt ‘to reconstruct the sound system of Abdullah’s Kati’ was made. That would have been impossible in any case, as the Arabic script of Urdu cannot convey the characteristic spirants and nasal vowels of the Kati names and terms in the manuscript, and as no expert on the Kati language was consulted. Thus it was decided ‘to let the Urdu text, however imperfect, stand as evidence of that’ (p. XXXVIII), transcribing the Kati terms from the Urdu and leaving their proper transcription to ‘a linguist specializing in Nuristani languages’ (ibid.) – that is, at present, only Richard Strand. However, the names and terms also found in Morgenstierne’s article ‘Some Kati Myths and Hymns’ (1951) allowed for some phonetically correct transcription. The manuscript was written during Abdullah’s service under officers of the British-Indian army posted at different Fig. 3 - Effigy of Konmaro in the Peshawar locations in India. In 1908 the final touch to Museum. (Photo by Klimburg 1975). the manuscript was made while Abdullah was residing in the big Jalandar Camp of the British-Indian army, as stated on p. 1. At that time he had served some ten years as a servant/bearer of British officers, and he was about to leave the service. That service had started in 1897, when two officers, while fishing near Abdullah’s village in the Bumboret valley, had met him, then a boy of some eleven years, and had invited him to work for them (did they know that he was a Kafir refugee?). He then converted to Islam, and as a new convert he returned to his home village for three months in April, 1901, having been granted leave. He boasted there in the style of an urbanised ex-Kafir villager with his wider horizon, and he chastised his Kafir relatives for being ‘great sinners, for despite being creatures of the Almighty, you worship stones, thinking they are God and keep them in your houses’ (p. 85). Some time in autumn of 1902 he returned again to Brumotul for two to three weeks, and afterwards he stayed for a year with an Urdu speaking friend in the town of Drosh, not far from his home valley, spending much time learning proper Urdu and ‘acquiring knowledge’ (p. 89). He sent a petition to the then ruler of

[5]

395

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 396

Afghanistan, Amir Habibullah, for letting him return to his village in the Bashgal valley, even managing to effect an introduction to that ruler when on a visit to Lahore in 1907. Nothing came of it, and, suffering increasingly from homesickness, he finally returned to Chitral for good in 1908, then some 20 years old. He had left his very friendly disposed last master, Captain A.A. James, ‘with a good conscience’ (p. 103), as the captain had by then fully recovered from a bad fall. All the personal accounts occupy more than half of the manuscript, which ends with a ‘hope for mercy [...] in the name of the five holy persons’ (p. 104), thereby presenting himself as a Shia Muslim. Unfortunately, his ‘dream of returning to live in Bashgal never came true’ (p. 108)i(4). The style of the handwriting and the wording of the text are of a literate person and not of someone like Abdullah, who had learnt to speak, read and write Urdu only in his later teens during his ‘service’ with the British army. Thus a professional scribe whose ‘Urdu was grandiloquent, with a fondness for synonym-compounds and hyperbole’ (p. IX) wrote the text, as also stated by the editors (pp. VI and XXI, n. 9). Only several marginal footnotes ‘are very likely in Abdullah’s hand’ (ibid.). After the calligraphed first page with the title ‘My heartrendingly tragic story’ (‘My heart-moving and lamentable story’ in Kristiansen 1986: 146) one finds a d¤d¤k¤shen to his ‘esteemed patron, the pride of the English nation, His Excellency Captain A. A. James Sahib Bahadur’ (p. 2). The increasing homesickness while with the British army, and also the sad reality of his life as a refugee in a foreign country had led to the manuscript’s pathetic title. In 1929 the manuscript had probably lost much of the emotional and representative value it once had for Abdullah, then a man of some 40 years. He must have felt greatly honoured when Morgenstierne expressed great interest in his book and induced him to part with it. As to its purpose, Abdullah must have wanted to impress not only his masters in the British Army, but also their Indian colleagues and the authorities in Afghanistan, especially the Amir Habibullah himself, with a glorified account of his elite social origin and of the culture he came from, which, as a new convert, he nevertheless condemned. One finds much of ‘family pride and tribal patriotism’i(5), as stated by Morgenstierne (p. XXXIII). There is even the title sardår (‘prince’) used for his father, Sardår Kashmir, and his paternal uncle, the Konmaro mentioned above, and for himself. In the relevant part of his book Abdullah presents a great number of topics properly headed and neatly arranged one after the other, but lacking structural coherence. In the first pages one finds summary accounts of his country, its ‘divisions’, geography, inhabitants, language, government, and economic life. Abdullah then describes, occasionally in more detail, the customs regarding birth, marriage, sickness, death, theft, ‘business transactions’, murder, clothing, major festivals, merit feasts for becoming headman, merit conditions for becoming a ‘hero’, conditions for borrowing and lending, and finally, of ‘lawful and unlawful things’. Seen from a wider perspective, such an overview looks impressive and promising, able to shed some light on the hitherto little known Kati Kafir culture of the northern Bashgal valley. Unfortunately, the book will also lead to more confusion. A person particularly affected by such problems is the reviewer, who conducted some limited fieldwork in Brumotul in 1973 and 1995 and some in-depth research in Bragamatal in 1976. I (4) When Kristiansen visited Brumotul in 1993 and 1995, he acquired 19 documents dated 1902-11 (official letters or recommendations in English and copies of Abdullah’s petitions) from Abdullah’s youngest son, Abdul Majid. See the ‘Epilogue’ and ‘Catalogue of documents’. (5) There is no ethnographic base for the frequent use of the terms ‘tribe’ and ‘tribal’ by Robertson, Morgenstierne, Kristiansen, and others.

396

[6]

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 397

focused on many of the topics presented by Abdullah, especially on ‘Becoming a headman’ by merit feasting. Most of my data in tape-recorded interviews are still unedited, but I have enough field notes to deal critically with Abdullah’s statements which, in general, should be taken with more than just the proverbial grain of salt. Among the numerous characteristic statements are those on the singular ‘royal’ status of Abdullah’s family whose rule was ‘more beneficent than the mercy of God’ (p. 67), and which ruled not only over its ‘first division of Red Kafirs’, but over all ‘four divisions’ of ‘Red and Black Kafirs’ (pp. 4 ff.) – terms of British Indian origin – ‘for the last eighteen centuries’ (p. 7). One reads also of state-like institutions, of ‘regulations’ including those of land taxes (p. 67), of monetary transactions and ‘mortgage agreements limited to 12 years’, of ‘last wills’ (p. 26) and ‘auctions’ of a debtor’s belongings in order to ‘give money to the creditor as compensation for the property’ (p. 22) and the like. All this is made up, of course, in order to impress ‘civilized’ outsiders. The presented state-like image contrasts with the ‘controlled’ or ‘regulated anarchy’ (a term phrased by Christian Sigrist) found in illiterate and non-monetary cultures such as those of the Kafirs, still valid to some extent in the Nuristani societies of today. These are societies regulated not by any ruling authorities, but by rules and regulations agreed upon by tradition or acclamation at gatherings. In the description of ‘Birth’ (p. 10) one finds the strange statement that after giving birth in the menstruation and birth house sˇor-åmo (p. 10, n. 31; also MK), sˇor-âmo (RS), the mother and the child took part in a family feast arranged on that occasion. Afterwards they ‘were taken back to the above-mentioned house’ (ibid.). Such a brief home visit is unimaginable in view of the very strong aversion towards impurities connected with birth. It is for this very reason that mother and child had to stay in the sˇor-âmo for 20 days, as also stated by Abdullah. In the context of finding suitable partners for marriage Abdullah uses the English term member, denoting influential elderly men acting as lineage headmen, councillors and mediators. This term corresponds to Robertson’s jast, correctly spelt jˇe߆ (RS)i(6), and to ‘my’ Kati term jisht, explained as ‘white beard’. Kristiansen discusses member in a long note in his article of 1986 (p. 155), but there is no reference to any of his commentaries (see also below). The description of the funerary traditions includes the statement that important men or women were honoured by the erection of a wooden ancestor figure ‘at the anniversary of the dead’ (p. 19). The same erroneous information is also found in Robertson’s book (1896: 645). The anniversary is only a vague guideline, as, naturally, the very costly feast on the occasion always took place during the festive season, i.e. in autumn, such as in the Kati 20-day-month Badiyashe (Bragamatal) or Bediyesh (Brumotul). Ancestor figures were placed ‘in the effigy graveyard. This site is completely separated from the actual graveyard’ (ibid.)i(7). This information is confirmed by pictures of such groups of effigies called mute by the Kati (Figs. 1-2; Robertson figs. on pp. 376 and 647)i(8), and it conforms to my data which include the term mute-mu for the ‘effigy graveyard’. Of special interest is the indication of an ‘effigies’ house’ in Kristiansen’s published translation (6) See Strand 1974: 58 f. On p. 57 he criticizes Robertson for ‘serious distortions and omissions’. (7) Palwal’s related statement surprises, but it may refer in essence to small figures on top of poles called kundrik by the Kati: ‘[...] the effigy of a dead hero made of wood was erected after the lapse of one year on the roadside, in the village in front of the houses or even in the house of the descendants’ (1969: 26). (8) This term is not mentioned by Abdullah. In note 57 Cacopardo uses the term dazi (RS d’âazi) for the effigies, but that is used only in southern Bashgal.

[7]

397

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 398

of that part of the manuscript (1986: 153), with the transcription of the Urdu text given in his note 38. This feature would correspond to Robertson’s ‘open sheds’, under which particularly important effigies were kept (1896: 646). Such sheds must have served as models of the probably roofed enclosure of the large mounted effigy erected around 1900 in Rumbur for Mahamurat, the important headmen or, rather, Great Man of the Rumbur Kalasha at the time. Similar to the mute of Konmara in Brumotul (see above), the figure’s horse features two heads and (only the indication of) four forelegs, accordingly termed doshishi-’istori-gandau by the Kalashai(9). Abdullah’s emphasis on an ‘effigy graveyard’ or a ‘graveyard determined for these effigies [which] is quite separate from the real burying ground’ (Kristiansen) reflects the interest in placing the large and thus important ancestor figures not far from sight when walking near the village. I think that the grouping of such figures was also conditioned by their size, impeding their positioning next to the dead persons’ coffins in graveyards on often steep, non-arable stony slopes. Furthermore, figures in the ‘effigy graveyard’ could be visited by women on certain occasions (see below), while they were strictly forbidden to enter the burying ground. Smaller mute or gandau (the Kalasha equivalent) were probably placed in general next to the coffins of the respective dead and some time later carried to a place outside the graveyard, probably a place separate from the ‘effigy graveyard’ reserved for the top families (see Robertson, fig. on p. 376). In the section on ‘Festivals’ Abdullah mentions G¤sˇ Namuc, N¤lon, Isˇtri-cal-na†, G¤ce, ~ Mårvõ (pp. 36-43). Three of these names are those of 20-day months: N¤lon, G¤ce and ~ Mårvõ, corresponding to my recordings of Nilo’ë (in Brumotul: Neilu), Giche and Ma1yvã. (The Kati calendar has 14-15 months depending on the counting system.) True, often a particular feast was known by the name of the month in which it took place. Abdullah’s statement that the feast of G¤sˇ Namuc lasted 18 days and that of N¤lon 20 days should be corrected. G¤sˇ Namuc and N¤lon were each most probably a feast of one day, but in the month N¤lon a m¤-moc candidate could have been on a retreat, feasting the villagers on many days (or of all?) of that month (see below). I learnt that G¤sˇ Namuc (MK Gish Namuch) was a feast in honour of the war deity Gish on the first of the 20-day month Dere˜’. That day was celebrated as New Year with a bull sacrificed in honour of that deity. Similarly, N¤lon was an important feast with the dance nil-na† at the end of that month, a date which fell in Bragamatal in 1976 on the 6th of August. In the middle or at the end of the 60-day-month Shude, i.e. 30 or 60 days – not 40 days according to Abdullah – after the month Nilo’ë (in 1976 on about the 6th of September or the 6th of October) the feast and dance Isˇtri-cal-na† (MK shtritshil-nat) was celebrated. During that feast, which, if dated on the last day of Shude, would have fallen on the first day permitted to pick grapes, young boys and girls chased and threw each other into the water of the nearby Bashgal river. Abdullah wrote in some detail about the important winter feast of G¤ce which lasted for most of the 20 days of the G¤ce month (pp. 38-42). On its last day the female deity D¤sa¤ (p. 41), i.e. Disani, was particularly honoured. According to my data of 1976, that feast of Disani would have fallen on about the 5th of January. Abdullah’s statement that the G¤ce festival ‘comes a hundred days after isˇtri-cal-na†’ may thus appear trustworthy. The given date comes close to that noted by Robertson in Kamdesh, namely January 17, 1891 (1896: 578).

(9) After a small odyssey the figure ended up in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Munich. See Frembgen 1998.

398

[8]

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 399

In the context of the G¤ce feast dances with long torches constituted a characteristic feature, as also described by Abdullah (pp. 40 f.). I learnt that these torches, one for each person (Abdullah: ‘A pregnant woman makes one [in addition] for her unborn child’, p. 40) were lit and carried to the Disani cult place where a shaman, psˇ∑, in a trance would have grabbed the one or the other and thrown them into the cult fire. If one of these torches was that of a pregnant woman, she could expect to give birth to a son. I wonder, however, how one could imagine 6- to 10-foot long torches of bundled branches held by women and children, and 15- to 20-foot long bundles held by men. ~ Mårvõ (MK Malyvã in Bragamatal, Ma’mõ in Brumotul) is a 20-day month which precedes Dere˜. It starts 60 days after G¤ce, i.e. in Bragamatal in 1976 on about the 24th of March, thus ‘at the onset of the warm season’, as Abdullah states (p. 43). According to my data, on the last day of that month, i.e. one day before the G¤sˇ Namuc New Year feast, the dead were honoured. In that context the women went to the ancestor figures and ‘fed’ the dead by leaving water and bread near them and by smearing ghee on them. Abdullah reports that, when the women returned to the village, they made ‘fun of the men, which embarrasses them. All the men gather together and beg the women to stop singing and ask forgiveness’ (p. 43). Did the women want to instigate the men to perform actions worthy of those of the ancestors they had just visited and honoured? The information about ‘Becoming a headman’ through merit feasting adds some more confusion to that already caused by the diversity of data collected in particular by the reviewer who especially keen on related informationi(10). The subject deals with the different feasts and requirements which had to be given respectively met in order to become an acknowledged Great Man, generally known as m¤-moc. According to both Abdullah and my notes, the long series of smaller and larger feasts required for the prestigeous m¤-moc rank started with a large sacrifice of goats (Abdullah 64, MK 60 goats) and the distribution of their meat in the name of the war deity Gish (p. 46). According to Palwal the feasting cycle started with the killing of ‘thirty goats at the Bagisht-ta, the shrine for Bagisht, the god of wealth’ (1969: 20). After that feast, again according to Abdullah, Palwal and my notes, the ears of the candidate were pierced and ear rings of silver or even gold hung in them. This particular event raised the m¤-moc candidate to a sun-våe˜ aro, corresponding to my sunvare˜ -aro, denoting a ‘gold-owning-rich-man’. There are also my terms sun-wo and sun-ashishta or sunkana-ashisht, indicating more or less the same, with kana meaning ‘ring’ (RS k’aNa, ‘ring’, distinct from kâN’a, ‘feast’, in the Kâmv’iri language). There is also the term sun-ashou, denoting the act of ‘putting on gold’ (earrings). After that ceremony of hanging the earring(s), as confirmed by both Abdullah and Palwal, the m¤-moc candidate retreated to a certain location called Misä (MK) or Mi-sa (Palwal) for 20 days during the 20-day-month of Nilo’ë, as mentioned above. A series of feasts were given by the absent m¤-moc candidate in that month, and ‘all the deities are worshipped through dance and song performed on a large wooden stage. They are accompanied by musical instruments and the worship is performed as a raga’i(11). Only after the last feast which was given a year or

(10) The information gathered by Strand is still unavailable, while a few research data published by A.R. Palwal (in Afghanistan, 22, 1, 1969, pp. 17-23) are mixed with those from Abdullah as presented by Morgenstierne in 1933. Palwal must have learnt from Abdullah’s manuscript while he assisted Morgenstierne during fieldwork in Bragamatal in 1964. (11) The mention of raga, i.e. of classical Indian music, is somewhat bizarre.

[9]

399

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 400

so later, occasionally also much later, was the man fully established as a m¤-moc. The series of feasts could be repeated and then ‘a m¤-moc, that is to say a m¤, is added to his title’ (p. 49), upgrading the man to a du-m¤ or du-m¤-moc or tre-m¤ etc. Abdullah mentions still higher social ranks introduced as dum me-våe˜ aro, dum gum-våe˜ aroi(12), mas mijgum-våe˜ aro and vame nõ-våe˜ aro (pp. 49 f.). These terms mostly refer to distributions of millet and wheat organized, unstated by Abdullah, by the nanwei (RS nânv’âi) of a m¤-moc, his female partner (often a cousin). Field crops could by distributed only by women, and such acts of generosity entitled a nanwei to sit on a stool outside her housei(13). In my notes I find the terms moc-gum-’ashile for the distribution of wheat to each man and maste-moc-gum-’ashile for two distributions to each man, namely of four baskets of millet or maize followed by four baskets of wheat. Palwal mentions the same event, but spelled Majsamajgum or Majsamajgumashali (also: Maj-sa-maj-gum-ashal-i). He explains the first term as ‘the rank given to a woman who offered a sack of about twenty-five kilos of millet to each of the warriors in the autumn, later she offered an equal amount of wheat to the same Mlatars’i(14). The second term is translated as ‘the master or man of leather-bag wheat distribution’. The term dum me-våe˜ aro appears to relate not only to my deme-no-’ashile, explained to me as the giving of one spouted pot of ghee to each man, but also to Abdullah’s vame nõ-våe˜ aro which ‘is gained by distributing ghee among the villagers’ (p. 50). Abdullah calls this a title, denoting the highest, fifth rank, held only by a ‘first headman [...] After that, no matter how many years he goes on holding feasts, he does not acquire a higher rank. He is only given status titles’. There were in addition, but unmentioned by Abdullah, costly distributions of live goats and live cattle to each man, noted by me as moc-vasa-prele (RS moc vasa prˇela) respectively moc-gå-prele (Palwal majga, RS moc go prˇela). Eventually, after having met also these requirements, a man could reach the highest social position of a pur-ira or pur-aro, denoting a man who has performed ‘everything’. This title appears to be the same as the otherwise inexplicable p¤rå’õ, mentioned by Abdullah as the title of great leaders who ‘have brought autonomy to every single division’ and ‘consider it intolerable to be subject to other ethnic groups or to cede territory to them’ (p. 9). They also advise the people to honour their deities and ‘pray for the advancement of their own idolatrous religion and for the decline and destruction of other religions, especially Islam’ (p. 45). Abdullah speaks in the plural, and also my notes state that there have been several pur-ira at the same time, each in charge of a particular community or region. Abdullah may refer herewith indirectly to the top sociopolitical position of the Kate-uto (RS Kât’a uto), strangely unmentioned by him, who was the socio-political top headman or, rather, top Great Man, of all Kati in Bashgali(15). Abdullah provides a good account of many aspects of ‘Becoming a hero’ (pp. 51 ff.), but he does not mention important warrior terms such as le-moc and shür-moc (RS l’ea-moc and

(12) As communicated by Strand, in his Kâmv’iri lexicon one finds the term d’ümar d’üm gum, denoting a ‘series of feasts in which one goat’s worth of grain was given to every man. In the first feast each man got 10 kâsˇ’e of millet, in the second 10 kâsˇ’e of wheat’. (13) This feature is also mentioned by Robertson in Kamdesh (1896: 450 f. and 473). (14) Palwal 1969: 22; the term mlatar, recalling the French militaire, is unknown to me. (15) Cacopardo also thinks that ‘the role figure Abdullah refers to may be the one widely known as utå (Robertson’s ‘Utah’, the ‘high priest’)’. There was, however, a basic difference between the more political position of the Kate-uto and the more religious role of the Kam-uto.

400

[10]

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 401

sˇür in Kâmv’iri), ‘good man’ or ‘warrior’ and ‘hero’, depending on the numbers of homicides. He describes how men intent to go on raids danced three times at the cult place of Gish and pledged to kill ‘an enemy of [his] religion’ within a year. Naturally, the Kafirs had good reason to incite their men to become good warriors for defending them against their numerous enemies. Thus, if a man had any wish for social recognition he had to prove he was a good warrior with a minimum score of kills, and he had to celebrate his kills with a feast after his triumphal return. Potential victims of raiding Kafirs were not only ‘enemies of the their religion’, but virtually everybody regardless of sex and age living outside generally respected ethnic or political boundaries. At the end of his notes on the Kati culture Abdullah deals briefly with the deities worshipped by the Kati Kafirs, their religious leader deblol and shaman psˇ∑, their handicrafts and craftsmen called bari, and finally with conditions for ‘borrowing and lending’ (pp. 5666). The listing of 12 deities headed by Imro is accompanied by several lines of introduction of each deity. The war deity Gish is described ‘as being completely opposed to Muslims’ and that ‘he has even challenged God. In reality it is Satan they call by this name’ (p. 57). The two last mentioned deities are two spirits, namely the female Vutr, considered to be ‘very chaste’, and the male Yush, mostly mentioned as an evil, terrifying giant, but introduced by Abdullah only as being ‘identified with the world of spirits’ (p. 60). In view of the above statements it becomes clear that Abdullah’s rather cursory account of Kati cultural features, presented in ‘bits and pieces’, while it often sounds convincing, is also frequently questionable and occasionally even bizarre. The value of the information may well have suffered from Abdullah’s youth when he authored the manuscript dealing mainly with his ‘tragic story’. Abdullah was then still very young, hardly 20 years old, having passed most of his teenage years away from home. He was preoccupied with his ‘tragic story’ which takes up nearly half of the book. He may thus have lacked sufficient knowledge of Kati Kafir life and culture. His statement that a wooden ancestor figure was erected ‘at the anniversary of the dead’, unless to be understood in only general terms, makes one suspect that he may have learned the one or the other aspect of his own culture indirectly, for example from people who had read Robertson’s book, which was certainly well known and much discussed at the time, also in British-Indian army circles. In short, there is more doubtful material in the manuscript than was anticipated and is still being postulated. The editors’ statement that Abdullah’s ‘information is for the most part remarkably accurate and precise’ (p. VIII) is thus problematic. One wonders how such a statement could be made without back-up from sufficient field data. In conclusion, Adullah’s contribution to our knowledge of his people’s Kafir culture has its value as an interesting and challenging conglomerate of both sound and doubtful data which need to be scrutinized by field researchers. The reviewer’s commentary represents a first ad hoc effort in that respect. Academic concerns might have recommended cooperation with field researchers at an earlier stage. Regardless, the painstaking efforts of the translation by Morgenstierne and Kristiansen should be praised, as should the copious annotation provided mainly by Alberto Cacopardo which attempts to explain, relate and discover interesting perspectives. One must also praise the beautiful appearance of the book which presents Abdullah’s unique manuscript in a way he could have never dreamt of, but is certainly worthy of this ‘most remarkable man’, as Kristiansen appreciatively called him. With respect to Abdullah’s mention of extremely long torches on the occasion of the G¤ce feast, long torches are carried in Birir, Chitral, during the local Chaumos, the Kalasha winter festival (see Cacopardo 2008: fig. 1).

[11]

401

18 KLIMBURG (corpo min)391-402

12-11-2009

10:59

Pagina 402

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cacopardo, A.M. & A.S. Cacopardo (2001) Gates of Peristan. History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush. RepMem, Series Minor, V. Rome. Cacopardo, A.S. (2008) The Winter Solstice Festival of the Kalasha of Birir: Some Comparative Suggestions. ActaO, 69, pp. 77-120. Edelberg, L. (1960) Statue de bois rapportées du Kafiristan à Kabul après la conquête de cette province par l’Emir Abdul Rahman en 1895-96. Arts asiatiques, VII, 4, pp. 243-86. Frembgen, J.W. (1998) Zur Biographie einer Reiterstatue der Kalasha (Hindukusch). Baessler Archiv, XLVI, 1998, pp. 329-42. Herrlich, A. (1938) Land des Lichtes. München. Jettmar, K., with contributions by S. Jones & M. Klimburg (1986) The Religions of the Hindukush. I, The Religions of the Kafirs. London Klimburg, M. (1983) The Monumental Arts of Status among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. In P. Snoy, ed., Ethnologie und Geschichte. Festschrift für Karl Jettmar, pp. 351-57. Wiesbaden. Klimburg, M. (1999) The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush: Art and Society of the Waigal and Ashkun Kafirs. 2 vols. Stuttgart. Klimburg, M. (2004) The Arts and Societies of the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Asian Affairs, XXXV, III, pp. 365-86. Klimburg, M. (2008) Status Imagery of the Kalasha: Some Notes on Social Change. In Israr-du-Din, ed., Proceedings of the Third International International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference, pp. 127-34. Karachi. Klimburg, M. (2009) Status Culture of the Kalasha Kafirs in Chitral. In H. van Skyhawk, ed., Masters of Understanding. German Scholars in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram, 1955-2005. Journal of Asian Civilizations, 1-2, pp. 168-94. Kristiansen, K. (1970) A Káfir on Káfir History and Festivals. In K. Jettmar & L. Edelberg, eds., Cultures of the Hindukush, pp. 11-21. Wiesbaden. Kristiansen, K. (1986) A Káfir on the Káfir Life Cycle. In E. Kars, ed., Kalyanamitraraganam. Essays in Honour of Nils Simonsson, pp. 145-58. Oslo. Kristiansen, K. (2008) Shaikh Abdullah Khan. A Most Remarkable Man from Bumboret Shaikhanandeh. In Proceedings of the Third International Hindukush Cultural Conference of Chitral 1995, pp. 449-52. Karachi. Morgenstierne, G. (1933) A Kafir on Kafir Law and Customs. Göteborg Högskolas Årsskrift, 39, 2, pp. 195-286. Morgenstierne, G. (1951) Some Kati Myths and Hymns’. ActaO, 21, pp. 161-89. Morgenstierne website: http://www.nb.no/baser/morgenstierne/english/index.html Palwal, A.R. (1969) History of Former Kafiristan. Part Three. War, Wealth and Social Status. Afghanistan. Historical and Cultural Quarterly, 22, 1, 1969, pp. 6-27. Robertson, G.S. (1937) The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush. London. (1st ed. London 1896). Snoy, P. (1962) Die Kafiren. Formen der Wirtschaft und der geistigen Kultur. Ph.D. Thesis. Frankfurt. Strand, R. (1970) A Note on Rank, Political Leadership and Government among the Pre-Islamic Kom. In K. Jettmar & L. Edelberg, eds., Cultures of the Hindukush, pp. 57-63. Wiesbaden. Strand, R. (1997-2008) Nuristan Site. http://users.sedona.net/~strand

402

[12]