Fashion 6: The Minor Headdress: Shushut (Susut)

The Minor Headdress: Shushut (Susut)

Shushut (susut) is also called minor headdress, because it is just a head band with a tail at the back

called tagalak decorated heavily with cowries’ shells, red and other multicolor beads, buttons and colorful bead patterns and flowers, worn underneath the major headdress kupas. Its character and use is less formal than the Ku'pas - for beauty, adornment. The shushut is given to a little girl for the first time, after she has received the Ku'pas during Chaomos. It can be given anytime without formalities and is worn from then on. It can be produced in any month of the year.

Shushut is worn all the time by Kalasha women. The only time a woman takes off her shushut is when she is going to bed at night or when in mourning. Even then if a woman wakes up and gets out of bed to stoke the fire or feed her baby she may well put her shushut on, so integral are they to woman's sense of self. A woman is also buried with her shu'shut (if not dressed instead in a Surma'dek - a decorated ribbon around the front) under her ku'pas.

Susuts also have tagalak (Trail and Cooper 1999: 295), the horizontal section on women‘s headband consisting of buttons, beads and bells. These decorated sections are on the tail piece of the shushut and vary in number and patterns depending on the length of the piece.

Studies indicate that both kupas and shushut have become much more elaborate and ornate with the passage of time. 

As the shushut is less formal than the ku'pas, it is also less "conservative" in its shape than the ku'pas. So the shu'shut has been changing faster than the ku'pas. 

The shu'shut was "always" there, according to the very old people.

An old Kalasha woman remembers that the shu'shut originally was only a ring around the head with long fringes hanging down the back. The ring was decorated with the 2 rows of cowries’ shells that are still universal.

She also tells, that chains along and between them have always been preferred, though not always available - in which case they are replaced by rows of red beads. Also the pairs of oblong red beads upon the chains were there all the time, she remembers.

The fringes were stitched together to close the ring and this place was decorated with crosses of cowries surrounded by red beads.

During the last 30-35 years the "tail" decorations have grown downwards placed upon a flat upper part made from fringes stitched together transversely with the big needle bought from the Nuristani smiths. 

In 1983 many travelers observed, that old women still had shu'shuts with short "tail" decorations and long fringes.

Since then the long fringes have disappeared - as a result of the growing money economy: The long fringes had an increasingly large part decorated. The "tail" grew longer - from hanging half down the back to the waist or even longer. The shu`shuts also become broader - the ring part as well as the "tail": From having only two chained rows of shells the ring now frequently has 3 rows - an extra row on the top made from buttons and beads.

This is the case at least among the young women who care most about their looks: Now the ring is standing up - coquettish aslant above the front plait, decidedly on top of the head or decently on the back of the head - the same woman wears it in different ways according to her moods.

In the last 25-26 years another innovation has begun:

The "tail" is now woven instead of made from fringes stitched together. A firm woven "tail" is a better support for decorations. 

22-23 years ago yet another innovation came up in Bomburet and Rumbour: It became "fashion" to insert colored borders when weaving the "tail".

The shu’shuts show regional differences;

In Birir, they are very peculiar: The "tail" is decorated with a long row of "cowries’ shell crosses" ending in a short part decorated with 1-2 shield designs and rows of beads and bells above the fringes.

Also in Birir small bells are placed along the stitched lower edge of the "ring", which is still low, like before in the other valleys.

In Bomburet and Rumbour: the short row of "cowries’ shell crosses" are surrounded by beads and only placed on the top of the "tail", which is dominated by rows of buttons, bells and beads and never more than one shield design.

In Bomburet there was always a longer part of "cowries’ shell crosses" (6-9), whereas in Rumbour there used to be only 3. Now the "Bomburet style" is spreading in Rumbour.

From the higher villages in Bomburet another fashion is spreading down this valley and in Rumbour also: The shield design is disappearing and the entire tail is covered with rows.

In 1990 Gulman'deh from Anish (the lowest village of Bomburet) told, that the shield design in Bomburet is used only by the women in her village and by some of the women in the next village Brun.

An old specimen of shushut displayed at the Folk Heritage Museum, Islamabad, and also a new shushut, showing tremendous change in decorations of the tagalak or the horizontal section of a shushut overtime.

Fabrication: The warp is set with the top beam in the lowest hole of the loom - the number of stones here decides the length. Traditionally only the ring part was woven and the tail made by stitching the long fringes together. Now also the tail part is woven - often with inserted patterns - a part of the warp is left empty for stitching the ring and bending of the tail. Traditionally the tail fringes came from both sides.

Now only one tail part is provided with fringes. So these are made double length as each fringe later is doubled: Before closing the ring, the edge border "clod" is stitched: Then the work is fulled and dried in the sunshine.

After which the double row of cowries are attached two by two with the same stitches. The stitches through the tops of the cowries also attach the infolded top edge. Then the other decorations are done.

At the end of the "tail" the fish-border is bound from the right - first on one side and then on the other side. Finally the fringes are doubled into half length.

Sperber, while talking about making susut (shushut) states “fringes stitched together transversely with big needles bought from the Nursitani smiths” (1996:382). Those produced for selling to tourists are much lower in quality and decorations as compared to those worn by the Kalasha women themselves, made with lot of labor, skill and passion for special occasions and major festivals.

1 Shabnam Bahar Malik, 2015, Traditional Costumes of the Kalasha Kafirs of Chitral,

2 Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference,  pp 14-17

3 Anwaar Mohyuddin, Irum Sheikh & Hafeez-ur-Rehman Chaudhry “KALASH DRESS ADORNMENT AS SPACE FOR IDENTITY: A CASE STUDY OF BUMBURET VALLEY IN DISTRICT CHITRAL, PAKISTAN“

4 https://www.horniman.ac.uk/object/2014.40/

Fashion 5: Headdress (es) of Kalasha Women [The major Headdress: Kupas]

The major Headdress: Kupas

Kalasha women wear one of the most elaborate and ornate serpent style headdresses called kupas. Kupas is the major headdress of women, the most conspicuous part of the culture (also to George Robertson in 1889). This type of headdress or 'kupas' is similar in style and decoration to the headdresses worn by Kalasha women when they were first photographed in the early twentieth century; see for example the images held by the Pitt Rivers Museum taken by Reginald Schomberg in the 1930s.

Kupas is a woolen headdress hanging down the back, covered with eight to ten rows of cowrie’s shells or chakash (cakas), with two rows folded upward on each side of the Kupas, and other tail decorations. It is similar to the perak headdress worn by women in the Ladakh region, as documented by Aggarwal in her very interesting article, The Turquoise Headdress of Ladakh (2005:57).

As noted by the late curator Haberlandt in 1906 (Gerlach 1971: vii) the Kalasha adornment is also thoroughly a jewellery of nature, produced and collected from natural surroundings and species of animals, trees, birds and flowers. 

Put together by women using high level of skill and labor over days and months using bone, feathers, seeds, plant materials, sea shells, coral beads and local cloth material from spinning and weaving from hair of the local goat and sheep. Kupas is an ornate headdress very heavily decorated with cowries’ shells, beads, bells, buttons, metal ornament chamas, feathers, flowers (gamburi) and with mountain pheasant feather plumes called cheish. Kupas holds an important position in Kalasha culture, worn on all important ceremonies, festivals and during periods of mourning. The little girls get their first kupas in a ceremony during the winter festival chaumos. 

Its front corners are named singoiak, from sing meaning horn, which may have some relation to the horned cap worn by women in Bashgal Valley in Nuristan before their conversion in 1895-96. 

The earlier kupas had no folds on the sides, but in 1956 one Kalasha woman had the idea of rolling the edges of her kupas upward to rest it more firmly on the head and soon it became a fashion and part of the tradition (Sperber 1996: 378-9). 

Apart from this change the kupas is conservative; it looks the same on the oldest photographs and now.

At a closer view another change though has come: The traditional home spun and rang-dyed yarn for the tuft is no longer considered as beautiful as brilliantly red synthetic knitting yarn either from the shop or from an unraveled sweater bought second hand in Chitral. Sperber (1996) notes that the character of the kupas is ceremonial and solemn (378-9). 

The small 3-4 years old girls receive their first ku'pas at a celebration during the winter festival Chaomos and are then considered true Kalash.

Generally every woman makes her own kupas. A woman can only weave a new kupas before joshi (the spring festival) in the month of May. Sperber (1996) has also pointed out the use of kupas during death of close relatives, and further states, if a person dies, all women of the same clan take off their shu`shut, and only wear kupas until the end of the mourning period, two days before the next festival (378-9).

 During the death of a close relative, females also take off the kupas for three days to bare their heads as a sign of deep grief. On death of her husband a widow removes everything from her kupas other than cowries. And when a woman dies most of the decorations are removed from her kupas other than cowries and distributed among other women. A woman is also buried with her kupas. Perhaps that is the reason the Kalasha coffins lying open in the burial grounds had cowries’ shells in many of them.1

Fabrication:

Normally every woman makes her own kupas. Mothers though love to make them for their daughters - even if the daughter is adult but maybe busy with her own small children - giving work is a sign a love.

The warp is made from home spun and dyed rather thick single threaded wool set in the lowest hole of the loom. It consists of stripes made from 4 threads of each color: (Dark Brown - Blue - DB -Mauve - DB - M) x 7.

The weft is fine thread of the natural dark color with inserted colored soumak borders in each end. The material becomes warp faced.

The warp loops are left rather short (about 12 cm) and are made into fringes according to color. Then the fringes are bound in the lish border, which strengthens the edge of head dresses, belts and trousers.

The spinning and weaving work lasts 7 days. The 7 blue lines are made to separate the 7 lines of cowries and border the middle seam of stitches. Doing this seam and the front seams lasts 1 day.

Then the cowries are attached one by one in 7 lines, it takes 2-3 days to do this work. The cowries come from Karachi via the bazaar in Peshawar brought by migrant tradesmen. Before being attached, it is necessary to make a hole on top of the shell. The small cowries are considered most beautiful (and the big ones may he stitched on a worn out kupas, the woman tries to sell to tourists). The cowries are also used on the hats and in the necklaces of the small children, as they protect against evil eyes. About the use on the women's head dresses, the women tell, that it is just "dastur" - custom.

Finally the rest of the decoration is done: The tufts, the shield design in the middle of the lower part, brass rosettes, small and big buttons (called coat-beads), badges from the border police and rows of beads and bells like on the shu`shut.

As mentioned earlier, the tail end of a kupas headdress has multiple decorations, including a shield design sewn in the middle of the decorations called kera. Darling notes that traditionally shield design was reserved for ley moch or man-killer rank, in Bashgal Valley. Later this was given to a woman in Bumburet Valley who killed a bad spirit and achieved the rank of man-killer. She was the first jamili (clan daughter) permitted to wear the shield symbol on her kupas (Darling 1979: 178). 

Shield design:

The shield is an important design on the wood carvings in the temples (it was earlier used in combat - some few still exist). Before it was used on male clothing as a sign of "hero-warrior" status (acute Peter Parkes). 

The shield design is also important on the head-dresses: "It was adopted by the Kalash women after being earned by a famous female demon-killer ….. some 8 generations ago …. The “4-cornered" arrangement of cowry-shells ... indicates festal rank of owner's ancestor" Peter Parkes). 

An old Kalasha story relates how a daughter of the prestigious Baramouk clan from Bomboret Valley became the first woman to earn the right to wear a kera on her kupas “a tiriweri (bad spirit) inhabited the bashali which is a special building where women go during menstruation and to give birth. The tiriweri had been eating babies, but the woman put a halt to its evil by carefully plotting against it and then killing it. For her skill and courage the community made her lay-mach.

H Noor Jan (1990): "Ten years ago this inner circle of cowries (surrounded by white buttons) could only be worn by the daughters of a big man. The other women had two circles of buttons instead.

It was also only a big man’s daughter, who could wear the tshish (the bundle of straw stems with the blue feathers of the mountain pheasant in the top) upon the right corner of their ku'pas at festivals.

 “My father was a big man: He made a Biramor (merit feast), he knew many songs. My daughter could also wear it: My husband is a big man too. He has killed two Nuristani robbers in fighting. He has made a BiraMor, where he gave 1000 female goats to the people. Nowadays everyone wears it started 10 years ago. Our customs are disappearing“2

1 Shabnam Bahar Malik, 2015, Traditional Costumes of the Kalasha Kafirs of Chitral,

2 Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference,  pp 14-17

Dress and Orniment in Kalash

Dress and Orniment in Kalash%20

Traditional Dress of Kalasha Women

 

Traditional Dress of Kalasha Women

……Most Pakistanis as well as foreign tourists in Pakistan easily recognize Kalasha women’s dress, although they are likely to know little else about Kalasha culture. The Kalasha themselves recognize that their dresses are strikingly beautiful and original—possibly the most beautiful way of dressing in the world, women often add.

Within South Asia, the importance of clothes is by no means unique to the Kalasha.  Indeed,  clothes  play  such  an  essential  role  in  South  Asian identity politics that Gandhi placed the issue of what to wear at the center of the  struggle for Indian independence (cf.  Bayly 1986; Bean 1989;  Tarlo  1996).  Yet  outside  of  museum  literature  there  has  been surprisingly little regional academic attention given to the problem of what  people  wear  and  why  they  wear  it.  In  her  wonderful  book Clothing  Matters  (1996),  Emma  Tarlo  redresses  this  gap  in  the  literature. She suggests that the birth of fieldwork coincided with the marginalization of dress in Indian anthropology “because at the precise moment when anthropologists developed close personal contact with the people they studied, they ceased to pay attention to their clothes”. Further, she argues that it is partly because clothes are so obviously important as markers of social and personal identity in India that they have been so little discussed. 

The word costume carries implications of exotic otherness, of “dressing up” and of fixed, unchanging, tradition bound forms. None of these connotations is appropriate for Kalasha women’s clothing, which is a dynamic and personal expression of both individual and collective identity. The word fashion (with its connotations of fashioning or making, its associations with self expression) better captures Kalasha women’s sense of personal investment in the clothes they create and wear.

Susan Bordo has offered a powerful critique of what she has called the  “general  tyranny  of  fashion”  in  the  lives  of  Western  women— “perpetual, elusive, and instructing the female body in a pedagogy of personal inadequacy and lack” (1993:254). Kalasha women do not seem to suffer from the sort of body image tyranny that Bordo describes. They are not marketed to, so inspired changes in women’s clothing really do represent a form of “self-fashioning.” Also, one wonderful thing about Kalasha women is that their standards are not impossibly high, so they are relieved of the perpetual inadequacy many Western women feel. Kalasha fashion therefore offers more room for play, for “fashion” in the sense of process, of crafting However much fun, the game of Kalasha fashion is also serious. Women’s elaborate clothing and jewelry are central markers of Kalasha ethnicity, both within and beyond the community. While many other aspects of their traditional culture—rules about marriage,  merit feasting (Darling 1979),  religious rituals,  and so on—seem  to be  relaxing, women’s  dresses  are becoming ever more elaborate and central to the Kalasha identity as a unique people. While her clothes may all look the same to outsiders, in fact each woman’s dress is both an important expression of her individual identity and a manifestation of important cultural values. Her choice of colors, combinations, and patterns, the amount of decoration and careful attention to detail allow for her creative expression of self. Yet the result is a constellation of features that is also an evocative symbol of the identity of the Kalasha collective. Through their continual attention to and elaboration of their dress, Kalasha women are not simply “wearing” ethnicity but are actively involved in making culture.

The process of identifying “Kalashaness” with Kalasha women’s clothing begins at birth…..1 

1. The Old Dress of Kalasha Women Cheo (Cew)

….The traditional dress of Kalasha women cheo was a black woolen robe-like garment, tucked around the waist with a long woolen belt or paTi, with almost no or little decorations at the neck, sleeves or hem.

Interestingly about the use of color black in their dress.  Black is also a symbol of equality that is practiced in Kalash society. It is an egalitarian society without any social stratification on the basis of lineage, dress, status or economic prosperity. 

Similar black woolen dresses for women are also reported among some other mountain communities like Merag in Bhutan (Karchung 2011: 23).

Talking about old Kalasha women‘s dress, Maggi (2001) notes, twenty years ago, women wore heavy woven woolen dresses that they made from the wool of black sheep, carded and spun over the long winters, called cheo, then a dramatic change in women‘s dress came in the late 1970s when a group of young Kalasha women were taken to Karachi to dance in a folk festival, and due to the heat felt in their heavy woolen dresses, they bought lighter cotton material and sewed replicas of this lighter material. On their return they continued wearing these very comfortable dresses and soon they became popular throughout the valleys and according to Maggi (2001) only two to three women were keeping up custom,‘ by wearing woolen dress in Rumbur Valley at the time of her research (1973-77). 

Not a single Kalasha woman was seen wearing a traditional woolen dress, during my visit to Kalasha Valleys on joshi festival of May 2011. It has almost disappeared from the Kalasha Valleys and has become a collection piece. 

The first one is given to a little girl, at the initiation ceremony during the winter festival, when she receives her first ku'pas. It is often made from white wool with many soumak borders on the top. The next ones will be made from the dark wool with decorations only on the back above the middle hem.

Sperber‘s study also supports this change in dress. But she states that the woolen dress ―is still considered special and very beautiful, ‖ (Sperber 1996: 385). And in 1983 she notes many of the old and a few of the young women were still wearing the woolen dress in the summer time, and about 80 percent during winter festival (chaumos) whereas in 1987 winter festival only about 20 percent of the women were wearing the woolen dress (Sperber 1996:385). The woolen dress cheo was very simple and had almost no or little decoration at the hem neck or shoulders. The dresses worn by the Kalasha women in the 1960s show almost no decoration at hems, shoulders or necks as is clear from the photographs by Graziosi (1964) and the dress collections at the Kalasha Dur Museum and the Folk Heritage Museum in Islamabad. 

About the labor involved in weaving of the woolen dress, Sperber (1996) notes, the woolen dress due to spinning and weaving, needed six huge balls of fine dark woolen yarn and two to three months of work, but it could also survive at least two years of hard daily use (383-4).

Unfortunately at present, due to total abandonment of the old dress, specimens of traditional black woolen dress of Kalasha women are only found in the museum collections for further study and documentation. To observe women wearing cheo in reality in the Kalasha Valleys cannot be envisioned any more. 

2. The New Dress of Kalasha Women: Piran

The new cotton and mixed material dresses called piran are in vogue now and worn by almost all Kalasha women; older, younger and even little girls. Pirans, like the old woolen dress cheo have always been black as well, as noted by Sperber. The word Piran probably derived from the Persian word for dress perahan and is very colorful and elaborates having decorated hems of ten inches and more of chot (cot) or decoration. According to Maggi this trend started in 1993, when on spring festival joshi two of her respondents, who claimed to be the first one, decorated the hems of their dresses with a solid ten inches or so of decoration (Maggie 2001: 9). The decorative patterns (floral or geometrical) on a piran, are primarily embroidered designs in bright colors using knitting yarn, available in valley shops, made by hand on manual sewing machines.

 Piran takes a lot more yarn and skill to make exquisite designs and motifs with expense on various cloth materials, hence shows a woman‘s creativity, skill and wealth, highly prized among the Kalasha Kafirs.  

As noted by Sperber (1996), with some initial criticism the new style of dress piran became very popular throughout the valleys (383-4), and looks like the trend is on the rise, with more and more innovations and embellishments added each passing year, observed on major festivals. 

After the first use of the piran dress in 1974 it swept across the valleys and has almost taken over the place of the traditional woolen dress cheo completely. A May 2011 participation in joshi festival showed almost every woman was wearing a piran with beautifully designed floral and geometrical hems, necks and shoulders in brilliant colors. 

When compared the durability of the piran as a dress with the old dress cheo, it is not very durable. According to Sperber (1996), pirans are less heavy and more comfortable during the hot summers (384-7). They can be much more heavily decorated, and are made in only three to five days, but after about four months of daily use, they need to be renewed-perhaps with other decorations. That way piran as a new dress promotes changes, and reinforces new fashion sensibilities among Kalasha women than the simple cheo dress of the bygone times. Pirans cost more money, so they give higher status to their owners than the old home made woolen dress of the past (Sperber 1996: 383). Earlier, following local custom, Kalasha women would only make a new dress before Joshi festival, now many women make new pirans also for the other big festivals, like Uchao and Chaumos. A two piece piran dress; a loose black-robe with baggy pants, requires five to six meters of cloth in any material, readily available from the nearest market in Chitral town.

The changes in traditional Kalasha women‘s woolen dress cheo and the newly added decorations on piran dress are truly indicative of more opportunities that are brought to the valleys with increased accessibility to all-season roads, education, economic opportunities, tourism and effects of globalization. I would like to quote Sperber, who traces the complete history of how the new dress piran came into existence:2

How the cotton dresses came:

…Washlim Gul tells:

"When I was about 16-18 years old (ca 1974), there was a folklore festival in Islamabad arranged by President Bhutto.

We Kalash were invited to come and show our dances. Prom Kalashadesh came Kata Singh, Shah Jehan, 4 men from Birir, 2 women from Bomburet, 3 from Birir and from Rumbour came myself and another woman, who now has died.

We came down to Islamabad in our woolen dresses, and it was far too hot for us to wear them there Then one of the women from Birir made pirans (the cotton dresses) for all of us.

As we came back, everybody thought, the pirans were ugly, but gradually more and more women had them made. Previously we had them made only before Joshi (the spring festival). Now many women make new pirans also for U'tjao and 'Chaomos (the other big festivals)."

In 1983 many of the old and a few of the young women were still wearing the woolen dress in the summer time.

In photographs from the winter festival 1983 show that about 80% of the girls and women were wearing them then.

Gradually the woolen dress has gone out of use in the summer period.

In photographs from the winter festival 1987 show that at that time about 20% of the women were wearing the woolen dress and that the small girls receiving the ku'pas now were dressed in cotton pirans.

The piran has always been black. The first of them were decorated with thin machine borders in red and green cotton thread. six or seven years ago, skeins of fine synthetic yarn in vivid colors came to the shops in the valleys, and they were very soon used, as bottom thread, because the synthetic thread repels dirt and does not absorb dye from the cotton cloth. She further notes, recently, color-fast polyester cloth has come into use. Five or six years ago various ribbons reached the shops and began to be used as decorations on the pirans.

Then two to three years ago, thick knitting yarn reached the shops. It was machine-stitched onto the material with fine thread. The introduction of this soft thick thread inspired the women to make more gently curved designs, like flowers above the hem (Sperber 1996: 385)

Pati - the woman's belt:

The long woolen belt with borders and long fringes is wound around the hips letting the long dress hang baggy.

The loose dress and the tight belt are used as "pockets': The dress has got room for walnuts and apples that can be distributed through the sleeves. In the belt may be the naswarin - the mirror-box with snuff or needles, thread, hair-pins etc.

Every woman wears the belt whenever she is not in her bed. Before going to sleep, she takes off her belt and sleeps in her dress.

Taking off the belt is a very private thing - never to be done in public. 'She puts on her pati" is another way of saying: Now she is well after her illness."

Before a birth both the woman to be confined and the two midwives take off their belts - hard work is to be done and everything must be loose. The pati for the adult women is woven in the third hole of the loom and so has a length of about 360 cm plus 2 x 45 cm fish-bound fringes at the ends. Its width is 13-16 cm. For small girls it is adjusted to their size.

The warp is made from fine single thread, whereas the weft is made from double twisted thread. So it becomes warp faced. The weaving is 6-rowed twill alternating with 1-2 wefts of double threaded plain weave.3-4 broad colored borders are inserted - the brighter colored, the better. So the home dyed yarn has been replaced by synthetic yarn for the borders. Typical is the pati-design in kelim technique (maybe combined with soumak) surrounded by triple stripes of kaoshelak, which are still made from home dyed yarn in indigo, green and dark brown. Sometimes a shield design is placed inmost.

The fringes are used as decoration hanging down. A few of them are used for attaching the belt: When the bell is put on. The woman lifts up the breast part of the very long dress and may keep it between her teeth. Then she holds some of the fringes in her left hand, while she winds the belt around herself clock wise from the front as many times as she can. Finally some of the fringes at the other end are thrust into the belt and the rest of the fringes remain loose.

For the traditional men’s dresses patis are also made and used traditionally in red color.

The women's shawls

During the winter, at festive occasions in particular, the women may wear the traditional shawls. Two traditional types exist: The Tja'rushdi and the Djil.

The Tja'rushdi

The tja'rushdi shawl is made from one length of white woolen cloth - at each end are broad colored soumak borders and fringes bound in lish. The cloth is cut in two parts that are joined together by a middle seam.

The tja'rushdi can be worn by every woman. According to Peter Parkes it is specially made before Chaomos by the mother of a little girl, who is going to receive her first ku'pas. The tja'rushdi is worn around the body covering the left shoulder and attached by a pin. 

The Shaddar:

If they do not have a traditional shawl, or if it is not too cold, the women wear 4 pies of cloth from the shop - the brown woolen shaddar also used by the men during the winter, or just a piece of patterned cotton cloth round the body tied on the left shoulder.

Sometimes a woman without the ku'pas can be seen with a cloth wound around her head and shoulders and maybe around her baby too - a cloth made into a bundle in one corner:

The woman then has probably started bleeding. She is on her way to Bashali - the menstruation house. She is wrapped in the shaddar sheet; she is going to sleep upon.

The shaddar is tied around some flour for the bread; she is going to eat there. Maybe she has also got yarn tied in the shaddar, as many women weave shu`manns, during their stay in the Bashali.

The Djil

The djil shawl is rarer as it can only be worn by the daughters of a big _man. (Feast giver, who made a BiraMor). The Kalash have very strict rules for exogamy (marriage inside the fathers clan is first allowed after 7 generations, and inside the mother’s clan after 5 generations). So the women marry into other clans.

Anyhow she keeps her strong identity as a member of her father’s clan. She is always considered a "member" (djamili=clan daughter) by her father's clan: To show her, she is remembered; she receives presents of bread, goat’s cheese and maybe shu'mans at each of the big festivals.

So it is the honor of the father and not that of the husband, which is reflected in the dresses she wears - whether she can wear the djil and whether she could wear the Tshish and the shield design with the inner circle made from cowries (before these began to be used by all women).

The jil is made in one very long piece covered with a special combination of transverse stripes in indigo and dark green and with fish-bound fringes at the ends (weft faced weave). The stripes are narrower in the middle part, which can be folded inwards. The edge on one side is made into a middle seam, and so the jil can be worn as a big hood, which I have seen some young women do. 

The elder women though say that it is not the way for decent women, who respect the traditions:

Either the "hood triangle has to be folded inwards and the shawl worn like the tja'rushdi or it can be worn double as a shorter shawl…3

1Maggi, W. 2001 Our Women are Free: Gender and ethnicity in the Hindukush. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

2 Shabnam Bahar Malik, 2015, Traditional Costumes of the Kalasha Kafirs of Chitral,

3 Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference,  pp 30-31

Fashion 3: The traditional Dress of Kalasha Men

The traditional Dress of Kalasha Men

The traditional costume of a Kalasha man of rank namusi moch, using Darling‘s descriptions, consisted of various pieces denoting various symbols of rank. The woolen Chitrali Cap with plume or cheish (a symbol of leopard or man-killer); the loose white sheep‘s wool pants, called bhut or boot (a symbol of his membership in the growei (sacred male community of the Kalasha)); bands called shumans around his chest, a symbol of honour, and apricot seed garlands called jajey ghu around his neck (the symbols of prestige); markhor hide moccasins (shara kandali kalun) only worn by men of rank who have given merit feasts (like biramor); and puttees around his calves are woven with symbols of horns of the sacred male goats (Darling 1979: 186). The traditional woolen dress of men consisted of three pieces. A woolen baggy pant called bhut or boot, a woolen upper garment, and a Chitrali cap. Woolen pants sualak (shualak) and goat hair cloak called ghui or walghui were also worn by goatherders. Silk and brocade robes as signs of rank were and are still worn on important occasions. Belts or pattis of various types, length and colors were also used by men. Different studies give different terms for various pieces of traditional dress for men (Sheikh 2013: 115)1

Jackets: “The traditional jacket was made from wool (in warp faced plain weave) - sometimes with embroidered decorations on the shoulders and Kao'shelak border above the sleeve hem. It has gone out of use during the last 35 years. Peter Parkes had such a jacket made, which is now in Oxford. 55 years ago a man in Rumbour wearing a similar jacket, but cut in a different way. It had many borders and the Kalash told that it was bought from the Nuristanis. They still remember, that earlier the men wore vests from goat skin with holes for the arms, when it was very cold. Later they began to wear the woolen shawls from Chitral. Nowadays the men prefer factory-made coats bought new or second hand in the shops. The woolen Chitrali coat with extra long sleeves is also popular, but is too expensive for most Kalash men.

Brocade coats: For festival ceremonies men of significance sometimes wear the Tja'park (= made in Japan?) - a glittering long coat made from synthetic brocade in strong colors with golden or silvery designs. Such coats are also frequently used for funerals over the other fine clothes on the dead person - to honor them both for men and for women. 

 Vests: Underneath most men wear a cotton vest with pockets for money, identity-card etc.. Over the kameez nowadays many men even wear a vest - either the woolen Chitrali vest or imported new or second hand ones. Trousers: The traditional trousers (Boodt) are made from white wool: Nowadays these trousers are not only used for the initiation of the boys, but also at feasts by some of the elder men. Quite a few men of all ages wear them, when it is very cold in the winter. It is made in warp faced plain weave. The warp is set in the top of the second hole of the loom for the men's trousers and in the top of the first hole for the boy's. For the boy's trousers it is woven in one long piece, for the man's trousers two pieces are made - with broad coloured borders and long lish-bound fringes in each end For the boy's trousers the piece is folded lengthwise in the middle, the gusset is cut out and then the long piece is divided in two. For the men's trousers the two pieces are sewn together also in the sides. The wrong side of the borders is turned outwards, as they are to hang down with the right side outward after the belt is put on. The knee hems are stitched with "buttonhole stitches".

 The leggins: In winter many men wear the Kuta'wati - the woven leggins, that are also part of the costume for the boys when they are dressed in the traditional trousers. The leggins are made in plain weave ending in colored borders. The last three wefts are made thick (instead of lish), and after being taken from the loom, the loose warp threads are braided in about 16 plaits, that are stitched together with a long braided string, which ties the legging around the leg. The winding starts at the ankle and ends below the knee around the edge of the trousers

Shalwar-Kameez: The Shalwar-Karneez suit is worn by most men in Pakistan. It is mostly made from a cotton-synthetic mix, which makes it easy to wash and dry without ironing. The loose cut makes it very comfortable to wear. It is no wonder, that this dress now has been taken into use - also by the Kalash men and boys -as soon as money economy entered the Kalash society. Schools have come and so the school uniforms: Dark grey shalwar-kameez suits arid black caps with a red crescent or a diamond above the peak are now worn by many small boys. 'Now they dress like all other school boys in the country. The school uniform symbolizes, that the boys at school develop an identity as citizens of Pakistan besides their Kalash identity. The surrounding world enters the valleys, enters the Kalash minds.“2

1 Shabnam Bahar Malik, 2015, Traditional Costumes of the Kalasha Kafirs of Chitral, 

2 Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference, pp 32-35

Fashion 2 : Jewellery and Accessories of Kalasha Men

Jewellery and Accessories of Kalasha Men

A long time ago, maybe only on festive occasions, the Kalash men wore a turban (Distar). On the grave statues it is wound around a pointed thing. Maybe it was a special cap? Maybe it was the top of the hood? A long woolen turban with woven borders (about 200 x 30 cm) was according to Wazir All Shah bought from the Nuristanis and used for dressing a dead man at the funeral. This kind was also used for feasts by men of importance {according to Peter Parkes}. Moor Jan told, that 60 years ago in Birir, the father of the boy, who receives the trousers wears a broad pati (women's belt) with the innermost end upon his head letting the fringes hang down his back and the rest of it wound like a turban.

Now the turban survives only when the small boys receive the traditional trousers, and wound around the head of a dead man - these turbans are made from white cotton cloth from the shop.

A woven hood seems to have been the original ordinary headdress for the men. The elder men still remember, they used it in winter, as it was good, when they went out in the mountains to fetch firewood. It looks like a ku'pas without cowries and beads. Like the ku`pas it is made in one long piece striped lengthwise. This piece was folded in the middle and seamed. Sometimes embroidery of goat's horns was made on the back to symbolize a man of great honour. Some few hoods are still kept in the valleys, but not used any more. In 1974 Peter Parkes saw a few men using undecorated hoods of goat's wool when in the gosht. He also saw, that some baby boys on the Gulparik-day were dressed in small hoods made from sheep's wool striped in grey and white and decorated with embroidery. [Such a cap made in adult size, it is now in Pitts Rivers Museum, Oxford. The Kalash hood resembles the Scythian hood.)1 Although, Robertson (2001) mentions the use of jewellery pieces and ornaments by Kalasha men, in 2011 in all three Kalasha Valleys revealed that it was not observed by men anymore.

Almost all young and old men, however, were wearing Chitrali woolen cap, some decorated with mountain pheasant feather plume cheish and also many with ordinary feathers from various other types of local birds dyed in beautiful colours. The cheish with multiple feathers of the mountain pheasant is a pricy dress item for men nowadays, costing three to four thousand rupees for a small 3-to-4-feather cheish. The more the number of feathers in a cheish the more pricy it gets. It is very interesting to note here, that in the past the cheish was a symbol used only by high ranking men. If a man was a leopard killer, the cheish had 3-feathers or stalks, or if the victim was a man, then the plume, called asemal had nine feathers (Darling 1979: 179). At present, men wear it frequently more as a decoration piece on their caps. Only few men were spotted wearing small cheish with only few feathers during 2011 joshi festival. Khas`ong is a woolen cap used by the shepherd.

In fact, more Kalasha women were observed wearing very heavy cheish as compared to Kalasha men. The Chitrali cap is now used occasionally also by some women upon the shu'shut - they say, it is less heavy, than the ku'pas, and protects against the sun, when they work in the fields). Robertson‘s study gives further clues into men‘s accessories, and notes during a dance of celebration: While their male relations in the dancing crowd were distinguished from the others by wearing bright-colored clothes and all the bravery they possessed, and by each carrying a dancing-axe. They wore gorgeous sham kinkob chappans or long robes [of honor worn on special occasions] and white cloth turbans … In the ears they wore long silver earrings … while the neck was frequently circled by a silver, or what looked like a silver ornament, solid and heavy, such as those worn by Hindu women. If an individual were the proud possessor of two chappans, he wore them both, exposing some of the glory of the one underneath by slipping an arm out of a sleeve of the one above. The waist was girded by a narrow shawl, or the usual metal-studded leather belt of the country, supporting a dagger. (Robertson 2001: 220-21)2 Nowadays the Kalash men in their outfits look like the surrounding Muslims. So many Kalash men of rank wear a "feather" on their cap and in this way emphasize their Kalash identity. This "feather- may either be a dyed eagle-down has also used upon the women's headdresses, or it may be another decoration, like the tshish made from straws, beads and pheasant-feathers. Some big men wear the "feather" always, some men only wear it on festive occasions or when going outside the valleys.

1 Shabnam Bahar Malik, 2015, Traditional Costumes of the Kalasha Kafirs of Chitral, 2 Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference, pp 30-31

Fashion 1: Kalash - Traditional Footwear of Men (kalun)

Kalash - Traditional Footwear of Men (kalun) The traditional soft leather moccasins kalun were part of the traditional Kalasha footwear for men, worn on various important and ceremonial occasions. The traditional ornate leather moccasins called kalun were used about 50 years from now (Farman, April 2012).

A good brand was shara (sara) kandali kalun, the decorative moccasins made from markhor leather (Trail and Cooper 1999: 147-287). During death rituals a male dead body is dressed with kalun as well. Ordinary kalun were told to be used inside as well as outside as they were carefully made using layers of raw leather as a base or sole. The moccasins were tied with colorful thin woven tape with colorful pompoms at the ends. Various studies indicate that moccasins were of different colors including red leather watsas (Robertson 2001: 221), prepared in Kamdesh by slaves and some in natural beige and browns with woolen embroidery around the shoes.

A literature review shows that there were many types of soft leather moccasins, having different names, as indicated by Robertson and Darling (Robertson 2001:220-1, Darling 1979: 176). While talking about men‘s shoes and dress in a dancing ceremony Robertson notes: The feet were covered with curiously worked dancing-boots… and that almost everybody wore «watsas»‖ the soft reddish leather boot of the country with red woolen rosettes on the instep while from the long, soft drab-colored uppers, which reached nearly half-way to the knee, there depended a long fringe of white goat‘s hair, dyed red at the tips. The boots were secured to the legs and ankles by narrow tapes of list. Above them appeared Chitrali stockings, into the tops of which the loose, baggy trousers of coarse white cotton cloth were carefully tucked. This, with a dancing-axe, completed the full dress of a swell, but there were all gradations in attire, according to the wealth or position of the wearer. (2001: 220-1)1 There is even a mention of mochost (mocost) or moccasins made of human skin (Trail and Cooper 199: 202).

In 1983 all women were bare-footed during the summer and most of them also in the winter, when walking on the snow and ice. Most women though use these only for walking a long away, whereas at home, in the village, and when working in the fields the women prefer to be bare-footed. Since 1985 due to the gradual transition to money economy more and more now wear cheap plastic shoes or tennis shoes from the shops.2 No use of kalun was observed in May 2011. The KAL’AS’A DUR Museum has some very fine specimens of various types of kaluns at display.

1 Shabnam Bahar Malik, 2015, Traditional Costumes of the Kalasha Kafirs of Chitral, 2 Sperber Glavind, Brigitte, 1990. Kalash: Dresses, Body Decorations and Textile Techniques. In Proceedings of the Second International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference, pp 34