Page images
PDF
EPUB

Art. V. GLIMPSES OF A WILD LIFE-KAKARS.

"Sweet ignorance is bliss."

HE Kakar is not

THE

an unknown personality in Baluchistan. He could be seen every year in the streets of Quetta when the grand jirga, the local judicial tribunal of the leading chiefs of Baluchistan, meets to expound the Rawaj (customary law) of the country. He is a rough sort of person wearing long hair, a savage expression and baggy trousers of enormous circumference. The chief requires a complete piece to make his own. It is a sign of greatness amongst them and is persistently observed to the

advancement of the Manchester weavers.

The Kakar's past history has not been exactly ascertained. It was not till Sir Robert Sandeman threw their country open to the world that the people had had anything to do with the modern civilisation. We would, as a matter of fact, have known nothing about his past had it not been that such people always keep up a body of folklore which genuinely and faithfully records the history of their past and which is handed down quite untampered because they are not capable of realising its importance and its sacredness is prohibitive of interven. tion. It is to his folklore therefore that the compilers of the Kakar's history turn for a clue to what they want.

It is popularly believed by the Kakars that they have descended from a priest going by the name of Kakar whom chance directed to their present abode. But it yet remains to be determined as to when this historically important immigration took place. The Gazetteer is, as expected, silent on the point. All it tells us is that Kakars are Afghans and that the

Takht-i-Suleiman range which forms the Eastern boundary of their country is the cradle of the Afghan race. In fact it mainly depends on the random research of the already overworked Patwari or mohurrir who only puffs up imperfectly remembered stories to cover a convenient number of pages and doesn't believe in wasting time and energy on the collection of what is to him a mass of rubbish which the wild people so often sing to the disturbance of his sleep.

There is a legend current amongst the people which provides the solution of the problem. It is believed that this person of ethnological sanctity came to the country in the time of Ongashee, one-eyed and one-legged kings of the Mongols gifted with tremendous powers of jumping. To find out these skipping royalties of the Mongolian era we must go to the root of the word Ongashee. Ongashee is derived from Ongashedal, which means limping, and the Mongols had a limping king in Tamerlane only, the famous horseman and warrior. The idea of lameness has been extended to the loss of an optic to complete the symmetry and his excellent horsemanship seems to have suggested the absurd jumps to free the hero from the human need of a horse. The multiplicity of number does not require much of an explanation for it is the chief characteristic of mouth-to-mouth stories.

So it was in Tamerlane's time that the founder of this race first came into Zhob, a funnel-like valley extending from very near Quetta to the Gomal and well known for its bad water and wild scenes. He himself was not a military person nor was there anything militant about his band. In fact it was not till Sanzar sprang up in his line that the policy of that priestly nucleus of the present Kakar race took a turn. Sanzar was one of those restless beings who could never be curbed down.

He inherited a spiritual fame from his ancestors and his own physical powers added to it helped him to rise to the call of his ambitious nature and he soon brought the weak Mongols to their knees by a guerilla method of attack. Nearly the whole of the Kakar folklore which, it is curious to note, is mainly the composition of the females, celebrates the exploits of this famous warrior and priest. For instance, one of the legends says that Sanzar once rode into the Mongol Governor's fort. His dog and slave were with him. He had instructed his slave to tighten up the girths, if required to loosen them and vice versa. On entering the fort he ordered the girths to be loosened and the slave did otherwise. Here the legend takes a turn and represents him sleeping under the wall of the Governor's house. His capture had been ordered and he would have been taken but for the daughter of the Governor who was sitting at the window. She had fallen in love with him and realising his danger she cut her finger with a knife letting the blood trickle on his face. The dog barked at the blood and the bark awoke him.

He looked up and

She explained

was captivated by the beauty of the girl. the situation to him and said she was ready to go with him. She got down by a rope ladder and both of them mounted the horse, the slave and the dog hanging to its tail. Then Sanzar said "Go my horse with the permission of Allah" and up went the horse clearing first the inner and then the outer wall of the fort. But as it was landing after the second jump it burst in twain and Sanzar, who was touched by the sight for he loved the horse, said "Oh God! burn all the Mongola" and all the Mongolian dwellings were burnt to ashes.

No authentic information as to the details of the great struggle between Sanzar and the Mongols, could

be elicited from such a vague and exaggerated description. But, roughly speaking, it clearly indicates that spiritual fame and valour being on Sanzar's side, the esprit de corps of his little band coupled with his guerilla modus operandi was quite enough to drive the weak Mongols out of Zhob.

The later legendary history of the people is more or less a record of continuous strife between the offshoots of the race for supremacy kept on down to the occupation of the country by our Government. It is said by the people that a tribe going by the name of "Rohilla" once entered Eastern Zhob only to be driven out soon afterwards. It is very curious to note that the direct descendants of Sanzar have not lost in the strife the spiritual respect which that illustrious personage bequeathed to them. They are still believed to be proof to lead and steel, and the poor amongst them do not hesitate in going on Baspan which means going about with an appeal to the purse of the community on behalf of their empty coffers. It is more as a matter of right than of request that the Sanzar Khel Sirdar thus asks for money.

The male Kakar is out and out a drone. The deficiency is made up by the woman who is the most industrious and hard-worked human being and by the way the sole poet of the country. We rarely come across verses made by men in that country. She is beautiful-the Kakar woman-but extremely dirty. Her fair complexion, soft Aryan cut proportionate features and long tresses of wavy black hair present a shocking contrast to her dirty red shift and wrapper-smelly and greasy and to the geological crusts on her hands and feet which lay claim to an immemorial antiquity.

This dirty beautiful being enjoys a very low status in the Kakar society. She is looked upon as property

and is inherited. The sisters are inherited by the brothers from the father and their bride money which is called walwar is divided amongst them in the same proportion as other chattels. She does not wear trousers -the Kakar woman-but only a long red shift which reaches just above her ankles. Round her ankles she sews small pieces of cloth, the colour of which is meant to indicate whether she is a virgin or a married woman. Red is the sign of virginity and green of marriage.

The Kakar boy does not, as a rule, wear trousers before he is twelve, and the year of sheltering his naked limbs is deemed a landmark for reckoning a Kakar' sage. The boys and girls usually mix together up till they are well grown up and therefore they have a fair opportunity of choosing mates for each other. The boys are allowed to visit their fiancées long before (nikah) the proper marriage ceremony is performed a custom which establishes the Israelite extraction of the Afghans.

Every Kakar carries his own blood price called nek, probably from the Persian word neki which means a good turn because it patches up the quarrel. Tooth for tooth is not their principle, and it would have caused a continual bloodshed had it not been that the ancient Kakars have introduced a very wholesome custom. It has saved them from the feuds which are working havoc amongst their cousins of the other frontier-I mean Afridis, Mohmands, etc. The rawaj (customary law) of the race obliges the murderer to give a Bazoo (hand) which means a girl, or two, according to the circumstances of the murder, in marriage to the next in kin of the murdered. Of course the girls are given in addition to the blood money and the wound which can in no other way be cured is healed up in a very short time.

« PreviousContinue »