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Economy and Society in the High Mountains of Northern Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

John Staley
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Extract

This paper describes certain features of the economy in an extreme mountain environment where two contrasted forms of traditional political organization have survived into the twentieth century. It attempts to show that these forms of organization not only have had implications for the agricultural economy in the past, but are now influencing economic behaviour in the face of new situations and opportunities.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , May 1969 , pp. 225 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 Biddulph, J., Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, Calcutta, 1880, p. 1.Google Scholar

2 The region is little known to the outside world, although valuable descriptive and historical accounts were published by travellers and political officers during the nineteenth century. A few excellent studies have also been published during the twentieth century, mostly concerned with the linguistics, ethnology, or glaciology of particular groups or localities. Quantitative data are few and fragmentary, both for the past and the present: even though certain official data are now collected for all parts of the region (for example, during recent population censuses) many of these data are ‘classified’ and hence not available. This paper is largely based on material that the author collected in the region at various times between 1962 and 1966.

3 Some of these ‘caste’ distinctions represent the subjugation of an established population by an invading group; some are associated with the artisan groups and with the provision of specialized services; while others probably represent former stages in the conversion to Islam, when those members of the population who were already Muslim were prevented from giving women in marriage to those who remained non-Muslims. For examples, see Biddulph, 1880, p. 36; Lorimer, D. L. R., The Dumaki Language: Outlines of the Speech of the Doma, or Bericho, of Hunza, Nijmegen, 1939, p. 9;Google Scholar and Barth, Fredrik, Indus and Swat Kohistan: An Ethnographic Survey, Oslo, 1956, p. 42.Google Scholar

4 E.g., Drew, Frederic, The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories: A Geographical Account, London, 1875, pp. 456 ff.Google Scholar

5 Traditional peaceable procedures for settling disputes and attaining rank are described by Muhammad, Ghulam in ‘Festivals and Folklore of Gilgit’, Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1905–1907, I, 1907, p. 103.Google Scholar See also Frontier and Overseas Expeditions from India, I, ‘Tribes North of the Kabul River’, Simla, 1907, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

6 Barth, , 1956, pp. 79 ff.Google Scholar

7 E.g., Barth, , 1956, pp. 79–86.Google Scholar

8 This has already been suggested byJettmar, Karl in ‘Ethnological Research in Dardistan 1958: Preliminary Report’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 105, 1, 1961, p. 85.Google Scholar

9 The Sunni predominance in the southern part of the main Chitral valley is the result of secondary missionary activity. Local differences in the codes of the three sects are directly reflected in the agriculture; for example, in the distribution of cannabis-cultivation in Chitral, and in the growing of fruit for wine elsewhere.

10 There was no rule of succession, and on the death of a mehtar his brothers and sons fought among themselves until all but one were killed or forced into exile. These periodic struggles seem to have been largely confined to the upper class and to the capital and did not necessarily result in disruption of the administration. On the accession of a new mehtar provincial and other officials were expected to transfer their allegiance, hence the proverb which has often been misunderstood by foreigners: ‘He who rules my country is my king.’ During the nineteenth century at least, the Katore mehtars effectively kept the peace within their own territory, and the relative security of life and property there was remarked upon by several of the early travellers.

11 One group particularly liable to enslavement was the Kalash, a conquered but non-Muslim people inhabiting parts of the southern Katore territory. In addition to the Katore, the Kushwaqt and the rulers of Gilgit (i.e. in those principalities where centralized rule was long-established) used to sell their own subjects into slavery. Their right to raise revenue in this manner was apparently explicit, and largely by this means they paid for the import of costly luxury goods that were used on formal occasions. Men, women and children were in fact a major exportable resource, with the advantage of being relatively easily moved over difficult terrain. See, inter alia, Moorcroft, William and Trebeck, George, Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Punjab: In Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz and Bokhara; from 1819–1825 (ed. Horace, Hayman Wilson), II, London, 1841, p. 270;Google ScholarDurand, Algernon, The Making of a Frontier: Five Years' Experiences and Adventures in Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar, Chitral, and the Eastern Hindu-Kush, London, 1900, pp. 51–2;Google ScholarVans Agnew, P. A., ‘Diaries of Mr P. A. Vans Agnew, Assistant to the Agent, Governor-General, North-West Frontier, on deputation to Gilgit—1847’, The Political Diaries of the Resident at Lahore and his Assistants 1846–1849, VI, Lahore, 1915, p. 288.Google Scholar Even in those principalities where the local inhabitants were spared, battle and foray prisoners were sold into slavery. The rulers of Hunza augmented their revenues by organizing raids upon the Khirghiz and upon the trade caravans that passed to the north of Hunza between Ladakh and Eastern Turkistan. Plundered goods and captives became the property of the ruler, who usually distributed some of the goods among his officials and courtiers and sold the remainder and the captives abroad. See Cobbold, Ralph P., Innermost Asia: Travel and Sport in the Pamirs, London, 1900, p. 22;Google ScholarCurzon, Marquess of Kedleston, , Leaves from a Viceroy's Note-Book and Other Papers, London, 1926, pp. 181–2. There was very little else that was suitable for export from the principal-ities—a little gold dust washed from the river sands, woollen cloth, nuts, kernels, dried fruits, clarified butter, and falcons—and this trade likewise was largely in the hands of the rulers.Google Scholar

12 The imported goods that were prized were the costly but durable luxuries of Central Asia—precious stones, knotted carpets, rich horse trappings, ‘cloth of gold’, silk, brocade and velvet robes, and jewelled weapons—and also horses and hunting dogs. The distribution and display of such items was an important feature of adminisstrative and court procedures. At the daily Katore mahraka, adamzada attended in order of precedence in their formal regalia while the mehtar rewarded and honoured state officials, visiting dignitaries, and prominent supporters with gifts appropriate to their status and deserts. Afterwards there was recreation—polo, exhibitions of horsemanship, falconry and hunting—when again the costly apparel and trappings were displayed, and the triumphs of men and animals were praised and rewarded. Apart from their social attributes many of these goods had an additional economic character as value-retaining and portable liquid assets—a consideration for any prince who might have to flee his country.

13 It was not until 1913 that any scholarly investigator was able to visit Darel and Tangir without disguise (and then only because of an interval of centralized rule— see note 14 below), and it was not until 1941 that one visited Indus Kohistan. Both times it was Stein, Sir Aurel, who described the journeys in Innermost Asia: Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su and Eastern Iran, I, Oxford, 1928, pp. 1ff.;Google Scholar and ‘From Swat to the Gorges of the Indus’, Geographical Journal, 100,2, 1942, pp. 49–56Google Scholar. In traditional saving and consumption behaviour the acephalous communities presented a further contrast with the principalities. In place of the hoarding and display of luxury goods characteristic of the upper classes of the principalities, members of the dominant castes accumulated agricultural surpluses for periodic competitive feasting of the community. At one time such feasts were probably more formally associated with political, social and religious procedures (see note 6 above) but even during the Islamic period they have been associated with individual status, with election to the jirgas, and with support in the almost universal inter-family feuds. Death ceremonies are now the occasion for the most lavish provision of food, chiefly bread, meat, and clarified butter. Such feasts are traditionally almost the only expression of personal wealth in the acephalous communities; there are no robes nor regalia, no precious stones nor carpets, and traditionally no horses nor sporting recreations. Karl Jettmar has mentioned how personal ostentation would be regarded as a provocation, in his ‘Soziale und wirtschaftliche Dynamik bei asiatischen Gebirgsbauern (Nordwestpakistan)’, Sociologus, 10, 2, 1960, pp. 127, 132.Google Scholar

14 The exception that proves the rule is a small number of immigrant pastoralists who have been settled on land at the head of the Darel valley for two generations. This came about during the brief reign of a member of the Kushwaqt family who managed to establish himself as ruler in Darel and Tangir and who granted those particular immigrants their right to settle. See Jettmar, 1960, p. 133. Some pastoralists also settled in Swat Kohistan on unclaimed land between Kalam and the neighbouring communities.

15 Barth, 1956, p. 32. It was partly on account of its disadvantages for agriculture that wesh was stopped when the lower Swat valley, and later Indus Kohistan also, came under new government. Similarly the Kushwaqt prince who briefly ruled in Darel and Tangir sought to stop it. See Jettmar, 1960, p. 134.

16 Jettmar, , 1961, pp. 85–6.Google Scholar

17 SirStein, Aurel, On Alexander's Track to the Indus: Personal Narrative of Explorations on the North-West Frontier of India, London, 1929, pp. 52, 101–2, 109;Google ScholarFautz, Bruno, Sozialstruktur und Bodennutzung in der Kulturlandschaft des Swat (Nordwesthimalaya), Giessen, 1963, pp. 95 ff.Google Scholar

18 Neve, Arthur, in his Thirty Years in Kashmir, London, 1913, p. 118, remarked that the ‘… chaotic republicanism … is a source of utter paralysis as regards any concerted policy or action …’;Google Scholar while Longstaff, Tom in This My Voyage, London, 1950, p. 217 wrote that since the introduction of the modern rifle ‘… a threatened man hardly dare cultivate his fields’. The only ‘concerted action’ of the acephalous communities comparable with the more elaborate channel building of the principalities was the construction of remarkable wooden mosques, with beams and pillars of colossal dimensions and intricate decoration. However, traditions about the main mosque in Kalam tell that each faction carved its own pillar—hence the variety of their decoration—and that the actual construction was made possible by a period of internal truce imposed by the Islamic missionaries.Google Scholar

19 tein, 1928, pp. 11–12, attributed the development of this transhumance to the ending of inter-community warfare, which enabled most of the population to escape during summer from the extreme heat of lower altitudes. See also Jettmar, 1960, pp. 128–9. Jettmar also suggests, pp. 132–3, that the spread of maize in place of millets is associated with the change, and that maize cultivation is itself a nonintensive feature.

20 Jettmar, , 1960, pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

21 Census of India 1941, XXII,Google ScholarPart III (‘Village Tables and Housing Statistics’ by R. G. Wreford), Jammu, 1943, p. 528.Google Scholar

22 E.g., Durand, 1900, pp. 161–2.Google Scholar

23 Nonetheless elaborate and extensive terracing is found in some acephalous communities; this anomaly can be explained by the terracing having been completed before the Islamic conversion, that is, probably under centralized rule. See Barth, 1956, pp. 19, 95–6.Google Scholar

24 But not within the acephalous communities: indeed Jettmar, 1961, p. 86, suggests that internal bloodshed may have actually increased.Google Scholar

25 Travel in itself is an important change from the traditional isolation, which was so complete that only eighty years ago some ‘leading men’ of the principalities who were being taken on a tour of British India were astounded upon seeing a flat landscape for the first time in their lives. See Knight, E. F., Where Three Empires Meet: a Narrative of Recent Travel in Kashmir, Western Tibet, Gilgit, and the Adjoining Countries, London, 1895, p. 527. Even now very few heads of households in the principalities have travelled outside the region, and many have not been beyond the boundaries of their own principality.Google Scholar

26 Jettmar, 1960, pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

27 Cf.Raoul, Blanchard, ‘Essai d'une Synthèse’, Les Alpes Occidentales, Vol. 7. Grenoble, 1956.Google Scholar