Jodi Hilton

Pakistan: The Kalash People

Deep in the mountains of Pakistan's Northwest Fronteir province live about 3,000 Kalash, a non-Muslim, Indo-Aryan minority struggling to maintain their religious and cultural identity in the face of increasing pressure from their Muslim neighbors, tourism and the modern world.

A Kalash teacher instructing children in traditional music at the Kalasadur School in the village of Brun. Built by the Greek Teachers NGO, the school aims to reinforce the indigenous culture of the Kalash people of Pakistan's Hindu Kush Mountains.
  
Kalash children studying Kalash dance and music at the Kalasadur School in the village of Brun in preparation for a summer festival. Built by the Greek Teachers NGO, the school aims to reinforce the indigenous culture of the Kalash people of Pakistan's Hindu Kush Mountains.
  
A Kalash woman and girl peak through the doors of a sacred space used by the Kalash for worship. Unlike their Muslim neighbors, the Kalash are polytheists who celebrate a unique, ancient religion.
     
  
A Kalash man, dressed in a Chitrali hat and shalwar kameez typical of the region, relaxes on the roof of his home in the Bumburet Valley. About 3 to 4,000 Kalash survive, building their homes, one on top of another, into the sides of the mountains in the remote Kalash Valleys of Pakistan's Hindu Kush.
   
A Kalash girl and her grandmother outside their home in the Bumburet Valley. The Kalash believe they are descended from the Macendonian army of Alexander the Great, and the high incidence of light-colored eyes, and light skin differentiates their Chitrali-speaking Islamic neighbors.
  
A Kalash farmer plows his fields following the grain harvest in Bumburet Valley. The Kalash, believed to be descendants of the first Aryans, survive in three high altitude valleys in the remote Pakistani Hindu Kush Mountains.
     
  
Kalash children play in the glacial river that runs through the Bumburet Valley and their village of Brun, providing the community with fresh, clean water for agriculture, drinking and bathing.
   
Two Muslim schoolboys walk the only road in the village of Brun, where the population is split between Kalash and Muslim families, who generally coexist peacefully. Over the years many Kalash have converted to Islam, sometimes for a love marriage, other times due to peer pressure.
   
A Muslim man harvests wheat in the village of Brun, which has a mixture of Kalash and Muslim inhabitants, who generally coexist peacefully.
     
  
A Kalash woman, left, speaks with a man near the only mosque in Brun, in the Kalash Valley of Bumburet. The mosque is adjacent to the girls' government school, where teachers are Muslim and female children are encouraged to veil themselves.
   
Kalash children play on a donkey near the glacial river that runs through the Bumburet Valley and their village of Brun. The water is deviated into irrigation canals that create ideal conditions for agricultural, despite a typically dry climate.
  
A Kalash woman looks out from the high walls of the "bashali", or women's house, where women isolate themselves during menstruation and childbirth.
     
  
Kalash and Muslim students share a classroom built by the Aga Khan Foundation with European Community funds in the Bumburet Valley, where Muslims and Kalash coexist. Funds are administered when a community agrees to build and administer a school, especially one that provides female education in areas where illiteracy among women can top 50%.
  
A goat roams the roof of a Kalash home in the Bumburet Valley. Most Kalash survive by subsistence farming and raising livestock, building their homes, one on top of another, into the sides of the mountains in the remote Kalash Valleys of Pakistan's Hindu Kush.
   
A Kalash girls attends to her infant brother while her mother cooks dinner over an open fire in their home in the Bumburet Valley. About 4,000 Kalash survive by subsistence farming and raising livestock, building their homes, one on top of another, into the sides of the mountains in the remote Kalash Valleys of Pakistan's Hindukush
     
  
The roof of a Kalash home serves as a overlook to the valley below, which is surrounded by the high peaks of the Hindu Kush
   
Kalash children outside the Kalasadur School in the village of Brun. Built by the Greek Teachers NGO, the school for Kalash children reinforces the indigenous culture of the Kalash people of Pakistan's Hindu Kush Mountains.
  
Kalash girls from the Bumburet Valley are pressured by their peers and teachers to wear headscarves at the government school they attend. Many Kalash, who are a religious minority numbering a few thousand and live in remote areas of Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains, are under pressure to convert to Islam.