Kailash descendents of Alexander

The Kalash, an ancient ethnic group living high in the remote mountains of Pakistan's Hindu Kush. They are also called as white tribe of pakistan. There are an estimated 3,000 Kalasha left in this beautiful tribe, and they have maintained their ancient culture and tribal rites for well over 2,000 years.

The fascinating point is they claim to be the Descendants of Alexander the Great! and for good reasons too... Many of the Kalash are blond haired and blue eyed, somewhat of an anomaly in Pakistan.

For centuries these pagan people have claimed to be the long-lost descendants of Alexander the Great's world-conquering armies, which invaded this region in the fourth century B.C. The animist Kalash are outwardly different from the darker-skinned Pakistani Muslims who live in the lowlands below them, so it seemed plausible. However, there had been no proof of this remarkable claim until the geneticists quoted in The New York Times found that the Kalash people's DNA seems to indicate that they had an infusion of European blood during a "mixing event" at roughly the time of Alexander's conquests.

Kalash people look and sound very different from their neighbors. This isolated people are thus most likely the direct descendants of the ancient Greek-Macedonian armies who set up outposts in this region 2,300 years ago.

"Long, long ago, before the days of Islam, Sikander e Aazem came to India. The Two Horned one whom you British people call Alexander the Great. He conquered the world, and was a very great man, brave and dauntless and generous to his followers. When he left to go back to Greece, some of his men did not wish to go back with him but preferred to stay here. Their leader was a general called Shalakash (i.e.: Seleucus). With some of his officers and men, he came to these valleys and they settled here and took local women, and here they stayed. We, the Kalash, the Black Kafir of the Hindu Kush, are the descendants of their children. Still some of our words are the same as theirs, our music and our dances, too; we worship the same gods. This is why we believe the Greeks are our first ancestors."

This is what Kazi Khushnawaz, a Kalash himself, is telling today.

The story goes that they believe in many gods and more specifically in the twelve gods of ancient Greece including Zeus, Apollo and Aphrodite. Shrines in their honor can be found in every Kalash village a reminder of the sanctuaries we would expect in ancient Greece. Oracles, believe it or not, still play an important role in their social structure where every question or prayer to the gods usually includes an animal sacrifice.

And then there is their ritual "Day of the Transfiguration which is celebrated on August 6th when the grapes are ripe and offered to Dionysus asking his blessing for a plentiful harvest. In ancient Greece Dionysus was the god of wine and fertility, but what is he doing here in Pakistan, an Islamic country prohibiting the use of alcohol? The Kalash are certainly an exception as they produce and consume wine.

Their celebrations too are considerably freer than is normally seen in Pakistan, with liberal drinking, much dancing and public displays of affection, and liberal attitudes towards sexuality and experimentation. Marijuana smoking too is common among them, and not in the least a taboo of any sort.

While the women do dress conservatively, this is more likely to be due to the prevailing weather conditions than any conventions. Women enjoy a very "modern degree of freedom, when compared to even the cities in Pakistan, and are allowed to choose their husbands, divorce their husbands, and even take a new husband. In fact, the most revered form of marriage is via elopement, and generally when a woman runs away with her lover from her husband. The score is settled by the new husband giving the old husband double of whatever the old husband had paid his wife as the bride price.

Another oddity in the Kalash's lifestyle can be found in their furniture. They are the only ones in the East to decorate their chairs with drawings such as the ram's horns which can be traced back to Alexander's helmet and even battle scenes depicting Greek soldiers, not at all unlike those discovered in Vergina, Greece.

However, like the rest of the ethnic groups of the region, the Khalash are undoubtedly Dardic people, and their language is more Indo-Iranian in nature than Indo-European. They maintain their racial purity by enforcing very strict rules about following the Khalash religion.

DNA evidence does tie them in with ancient European races, from as far away as Lithuania, Scotland, and Wales, but also showed DNA from Georgia and Lezgin, both once part of the mighty Macedonian Empire. Statistical analysis suggests a mixing event before 210 BCE, which does agree with the time frame for Alexander's invasion of those lands, which was around 321322 BCE.