Kalash : A religiously divided world

 A religiously divided world

Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference.

The world of the Kalash is religiously divided in spheres of Onjesta and Pragata (by anthropologists translated into "pure" and "impure"). 

The gods, the high pastures (the world of the fairies), the goats and the men belong to the Ondjesta sphere. 

Women's position - women•s outfit: 

Pragata is the sphere of the women and their activities including the loom. Women are extremely pragata, when giving birth or menstruating, so during these periods they stay in the Bashalii - a particular house and area for women alone, where they can have a holiday from the hard daily work. 

Before returning from the Bashali, the women must purify themselves by washing their bodies, hair, clothes and the things, they want to take out. 

Compared to the surrounding Muslim world, the Kalash women have a very strong and free position.  

The men together decide the affairs of the community as a whole. Though frequently the elder women give their opinion and are heard. 

The women in principle control their own personal affairs: 

They decide whom to love. whom to marry (or divorce) and where to stay. However when children have come a woman normally stays in her husbands house, as the children belong there, to their father's clan. 

It is the women, who decide if they want to make love or not. The men can only accept, what the women decide in these matters: The men proudly say: "We will never force a woman". Frequently they use the phrase: "It's the women's choice.." . Sometimes men also complain: "My wife has "closed" - - What •am I to do?" A man even said to me: "Now my wife wears trousers underneath - -" 

As the men and women belong to different spheres; they mostly keep at a• distance from each other. Also for a loving couple it is not the custom to be close, to touch, to flirt for other people to see or to kiss - kisses are only given to children. 

As the two sexes - even when in love - are not too close, strong visual stimuli are important. As the woman takes the initiative in matters of Jove, it is her, who has to give these stimuli to the man - of course most the younger women. 

The very colourful and conspicuous outfits of the women can in the light of this be interpreted as the visual stimuli given out by strong women having a high degree of self-determination. 

Keeping the spheres of onjesta and pragata intact is a very essential aspect of the Kalash religion - in particular ceremonial purification of the onjesta, whenever it has been in touch with the pragata.

 A baby is born: 

The babies are born in women's blood and in the Bashali, so they are most Pragata. 

During their life they undergo several purifications - a gradual transition into being true Kalash.  As the men are onjesta, the boys, must undergo most purifications before entering the onjesta world with the men. the goats. the high pastures and the gods. 

The baby is purified for the first time 5 days after being born. The mother washes herself and the baby in the Bashali area and then they are purified: 

Small singing girls go to the borderline of the Bashali and circle burning holly-oak branches (symbol of the family goddess Jestak) over the mother and her baby, who are just inside the borderline. After this the baby can be shown to the public. 

The second time is 20 days after being born. 

The mother and her baby again have to wash when leaving the Bashali. Then they go to the Jestak-Haan - the clan-temple of the fathers clan. On the way to the temple girls pour purifying water from the river over the mother's hands. 

In the temple the baby receives a miniature bow in one hand - for a boy to shoot, for a girl to kard - and in the other hand either a knife for a boy or a miniature spindle for a girl. 

These things are later put into the stone wall as offerings to Jestak: 

From the very beginning the small girls are prepared for their important textile work which Jestak is expected to support. 

While the baby still holds the small things, the mother with her baby on her lap undergoes the usual purification ceremony of the women: 

She receives 5 loaves of flat bread baked in the temple by purified men of the family. 

Then burning holly-oak branches are circled 3 times over her head with the words: 'Sootj - Sootj - Sootj". 

After this a hole is made in the center of a flat bread. This bread then is placed upon the baby's head and some of its hair it cut off through the hole after which the bread is folded around the hair and with the small things put into the wall as offerings to ]estak. 

During these two ceremonies the mother often wears her big needle - made from purifying iron - above her front plait. Now the baby and its mother can return home to the village. 

Khrosh Nawaz: Why the women are pragata. 

"The five angels created the man from soil. They completed the body and Khrodaij gave it a soul in front of them and sent him to heaven.

Once, when he was asleep on the golden throne in heaven .. the woman was created from one of his ribs. 

As he woke up, he saw a woman lying at his side. He was in heaven and so was his wife Bibi. One of the witnesses was Sheitan, whom Khrodalj did not like (as he refused to pray to the man). 

So Sheitan was expelled from heaven. A ring of fire was put around his neck, and he repented very much. For 500 years he stood on one leg and prayed to Khrodaij for forgiveness. He prayed: "Everything has been taken away from me. Please give me, what I want - the ability to enter the human body," Then Khrodaij gave this ability to him. 

The first humans were in heaven, and they did not eat. 

Then Sheitan wanted to get into heaven to enter the human body. 

There were three gates to heaven. The first one was guarded by a snake, the second one by a frog, and the third one was guarded by a peacock. 

Sheitan went to the first gate and said to the snake: "Oh. I would like so much to see the heaven." The snake did not allow it.

Then Sheitan said: "You can swallow my body but not my head - Then I can look into heaven."  Then the snake swallowed him. After this, Sheitan urinated in the snake’s mouth, and it vomited. Then Sheitan ran into heaven. The frog and the peacock believed, he had permission, so they let him pass

When Bibi was alone, Sheitan gave a paper to her and said: "This is a letter from your husband. It  tells you to eat a grain of wheat from the wheat tree above your head." 

She ate it, and at once she began to defecate. 

There was nowhere to hide it, so she tried to hide it here (under the arms) and here (between the legs) - and where she hid it, hair, started to grow. Then she asked for help from the wine tree, from the pumpkin tree and from the fig tree. They gave her leaves, but it was impossible to hide it. 

Then Khrodaij asked the four angels to expel the humans from heaven. He sends the man toward the west and the woman towards the east, so that they could never see each other. 

For a long time they longed to meet, and they cried. Then, Khrodaij ordered the angels to bring the man and woman together in the middle of the world. As this was done, the angles brought some fire from Hell to them. They washed the fire seven times to make it weak. They also brought them wheat from heaven. And they washed the wheat seven times to make it less pure than in heaven. Then the angels taught the humans how to plough and how to grow the wheat. 

Is it because of all the mistakes, the first woman made, that the women are pragata."