Ancient spring festival concludes with rituals and dance in Pakistan’s picturesque Chitral

REHMAT MEHSUD
In this photograph, taken and released by the Associated Press of Pakistan on May 15, 2024, Kalash people perform traditional dance during the Chilam Joshi festival in the Rumbur valley of Kalash in Chitral. (APP)
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  • Chilam Joshi celebrated in May by the Kalash, a group of about 4,000 people and possibly Pakistan’s smallest minority
  • Festival coincides with coming of spring and is marked by dance, animal sacrifice and highly prescribed roles for men and women

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Tourism Authority said on Friday a spring festival celebrated by the minority Kalash people living in the country’s northern Chitral District had concluded with the practice of community rituals and song and dance. 
The Kalash are a group of about 4,000 people, possibly Pakistan’s smallest minority, who live in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, where they practice an ancient polytheistic faith. Each year in May, they come together for Chilam Joshi, a festival that coincides with the coming of spring and is marked by dance, animal sacrifice and highly prescribed roles for men and women. The community’s religion incorporates animiztic traditions of worshiping nature as well as a pantheon of gods and its people live mainly on the three Kalash valleys of Bumburet, Birir and Rumbur.
“A large number of domestic and foreign tourists had arrived for the religious festival celebrated on the arrival of spring,” Mohammad Saad, the spokesperson of the tourism authority said in a statement. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tourism Authority’s tourist facilities in Dir Upper and Chitral Lower remained open during the festival.”
He said the Kalash tribe celebrated the festival with song and dance as well as the rituals of distributing milk, performing traditional dances for newborns and praying for the safety of livestock and crops.
On the first day, boys and girls go to the higher pastures to pluck wildflowers and walnut leaves to the beat of drums, while the second day, when milk is distributed, goat stables are decorated with wildflowers and walnut leaves, and songs and ceremonies take place in every village.
On the third day, villagers get together and distribute dried mulberries and walnuts in ceremonies for new born babies. On the fourth day, during the Ghona ceremony, villagers of the Kalash community gather at one main venue and different rituals and ceremonies are performed. 
Throughout the festival, women usually dress up in vibrantly colored traditional clothes, wear gold and silver jewelry and elaborate headgear, while men wear traditional shalwar kameez with a woolen waistcoat.