Fwd: The Hunzakuts

[Guest guest]

gandhara , " ymalaiya " <ymalaiya wrote:

 

From a lecture by S. Shahid Hamid.

 

Lecture given to the Society on 24 July 1991. Major-General S. Shahid

Hamid was educated at the Taluqdar's School, Lucknow and the Muslim

University, Aligafh. After passing out from Sandhurst, he joined the

3rd Cavalry following a period of attachment to a British battalion.

He served in Burma during the Second World War and later became an

instructor at the Staff College, Quetta. At the time of Partition he

held the post of Private Secretary to Field Marshal Sir Claude

Auchlinleck, then British C-in-C India. Formerly Master-General of

Ordnance and Adjutant-General in the Pakistan Army, he has also been

Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Minister of Culture,

Sports and Tourism in the Pakistan Government. He is the author of

Courage is a Weapon, Karakoram Hunza, So they rode and fought,

Disastrous Twilight and Autobiography of a General.

 

 

 

The Hunzakuts are hardy people, and are known to have walked 280

miles in seven days and 60 miles in one day. They continuously chew

dried apricots while walking. Hunza has produced several great

climbers, the best-known of whom is Colonel Sher Khan, the late

Mir's son-in-law, who has conquered all the major peaks. The

Hunzakuts are also renowned farmers and cultivate every inch of

available land, producing two crops during the summer.

 

They are excellent horsemen and very fond of polo. Their version of

the game has no rules and is played on fields of any size. A goal

can be scored if a player picks up the ball and rides into the goal

with it, and any player carrying the ball can be hit with a stick to

force him to drop it. Whoever scores nine goals wins the game. There

are no umpires and no chukkers and a band plays during the course of

the game, which can justly be called a " free-for-all " . The Hunzakuts

maintain that " other people play at other things but the king of

games is still the game of kings " . Their polo has been called " a

wild struggle with players who look like brigands and brandish

primitive clubs " .

 

The Hunzakuts regard themselves as a closely-knit family, and the Mir

sent each of his children to be fostered in the home of a prominent

family of the valley, thus preserving the close bonds between him

and his people. The Hunzakuts have many festivals, but the main one

is at the time of the harvest and is attended by the Mir. A bonfire

is lit and there is dancing. The people dance in slow motion, to the

accompaniment of large kettle drums and pipes. Other celebrations

include weddings, which are always held in the winter on a

particular date fixed by the Mir. The girls inherit apricot trees

but not land, as they cannot plough. At the time of the harvest they

come and collect the fruit. There used to be very good small and big

game shooting in Hunza, including Ovis Poli, the father and mother

of sheep, first mentioned by Marco Polo, who was immediately branded

a liar. There were also ibex, snow leopards, bears and geese, which

came from Siberia and made Gulmit their first stop, and the

ubiquitous yak, built like a tank but invaluable for producing milk

and cheese.

 

Over the centuries, the various travellers who have visited the

valley have seen the Hunzakuts in both a favourable and an

unfavourable light. Knight, in his book Where the Three Empires Meet

describes them as arrogant, bloodthirsty, treacherous and cruel. No

word of abuse seems too harsh. Conversely, Lord Curzon maintains

that the Hunzakuts are the manliest and the most attractive of the

Aryan tribes of the Hindukush. Stromberg calls them " an oasis of

manliness in a desert of trousered women " . Lorimer says that there

is something very winning about their courteous and polite ways.

 

Hunza's wealth of culture and tradition stemmed in many ways from

its geographical position on the Silk Route, which began in the

Chinese province of Kansu. From there, it circuited the Talanasder

desert to Kashgar, and then branched into two; the northern route

went to Samarkand and then to Merv, while the southern route passed

through the Eastern Pamir into Hunza and then to Gilgit. At Hunza,

the route again branched into two; one went through the Wakhan

corridor into Afghanistan and joined the northern route at Merv, and

the other led into India.

 

Buddhism spread to China through the Silk Route, which became a

regular highway for travellers: Marco Polo in the 13th century,

Faltian in 399 AD, Hinen Tsang in the 7th century and the Abbasids'

envoy in 751 AD. All the travellers left carvings on the rocks so

that they would be remembered, and these took the shape of temples

and human and animal figures. They also wrote messages in various

languages; Kharoshthe, Brahimi, Protosarada, Tibetan and Chinese.

All these relics depicted life at that time and give important

information on that period in history. Some of the rock carvings can

be traced to 5000 B and most can be found around the prehistoric

town of Chilas, near Gilgit. Two great scholars, Dr. Karl Jetmir, a

German, and Dr. Dani, a Pakistani, have done a great deal

of valuable work in this field, but there is still much to be

unearthed.

 

The last time I visited Hunza was several years ago, when I took

Julian Amery and Billy Maclean up by helicopter for a few days. We

went to the Khunjerab Pass, which is at a height of 16,100 feet.

When I told Julian that we should not spend more than half an hour

at that height, he promptly opened his flask with the precious

liquid, and we were there for an hour and a half. Later we flew

around K2 and Nanga Parbat and saw the Russian defences along the

Wakhan.

 

In conclusion, I must repeat that my talk was based on observations

made some forty years ago, when the old values and traditions still

existed. With the construction of the Karakoram Highway, the death of

Mir Jamal Khan and the annexation of Hunza by Pakistan, the old world

has disappeared. I was fortunate to witness the twilight of an era.

 

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