13/07/2021
Obscured by time, the routes of the Kalash are steeped in myth and legend. Descended, they maintain, from the armies of Alexander the Great, the Kalash worship a plethora of ancestral gods and hold colourful religious festivals of music and dance. Though the men now wear the standard Pakistani shalwar kameez, the women still dress in traditional garb; voluminous black dresses held tight round the waist with thick red belts, flamboyant head-dresses made of wool, decorated with cowry shells, old buttons, beads and bells and, perhaps most striking of all, around their necks hang great strands of coloured beads. Practising the ancient agricultural system of transhumance, the Kalash divide the summer months between herding their goats in the high pastures and tending their crops of wheat and maize in the valleys.
