Arrival of winter season bring heavy snowfalls in Northern areas of Pakistan. With mercury dropping way down below, traveling to those areas becomes a bone chilling challenge for an outsider.
But for the locals, winter is the time when they celebrate and look forward towards the arrival of a new year through festive rituals.
Every winter, people of Kalash in Chitral district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan celebrate a unique and secretive festival: Chamos.
Since the area becomes unreachable during the winter solstice, the Chamos festival is unheard in even Pakistan also. But thanks to Daniyal Shah, who took a treacherous journey last year to the region and got a first-hand look at a festival in which dead spirits share food with the living and women climb trees.
Want to know more about this rare festival? Click on the link below where you will find many stunning captures by Daniyal Shah along with details about Chamos.
A festival of fire & ice
images above courtesy of DAWN
I’ve also recently come to know about this small community of northern Pakistan. So fascinating to learn about such ancient cultures and their existence through a time where Pakistan has evolved so much.
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Yes, these folks and the traditions they follow are indeed unique. No other community is like them as rest has moved on with the world. People of Kalash also have moved on a bit but not much.
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Ah, wonderful images! I saw them on Dawn Online yesterday and was marvelling at them! What I’ve heard is that the Kalash are descended from those left behind from Alexander’s army when he came to our parts of the world – that’s a theory, whichI don’t know if true
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Yeah, I have heard the same but seems like it may not be all true. They do belong to Dards, an Indo-Aryan group however.
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Wow this is interesting
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Yeah, I also got surprised when I read about it 🙂
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It’s interesting to learn about Pakistan. I don’t know much about this country
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I share something about Pakistan every week. I’m doing so because many only know about my beloved country for bad reasons. I want to show them the hidden bright side of my country.
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