PUBLISHED
September 28, 2025
In the valleys of the Hindu Kush Mountains in northern Pakistan, the Kalasha tribe resides. Music is an indispensable pillar of their identity, serving as the primary repository of their unwritten history, religious beliefs, and social norms. Hymns are not decoration around their prayer; they are prayer. Their melodies are not secular art but a form of spiritual knowledge, with its own liturgy, purity laws, and prohibitions. It is theology in practice, a living liturgy encoded in melody and rhythm rather than in scripture.
I discovered their liturgical traditions at a workshop called Sur Sajday Ke Roop Hazaar. Among the participants was Imran Kabir, a Kalasha polymath, teacher, writer, and heritage bearer. I explored their music, festivals, and rituals in “The Kalasha Audio-Visual Archive” by Elizabeth Mela-Athanasopoulou and during my conversations with Imran.
The text-based liturgical music traditions in South Asia thrived within major religious civilisations, backed by states and institutions. Kalasha has no canonised scripture. Their chants are their text. The people exist at the margins of a modern Islamic nation-state, where their musical rituals are sometimes tolerated, sometimes commodified, and often threatened.
A journalistic piece, “The Last of the Kalasha,” highlights the existential threats to their cultural practices. They are the smallest minority group in Pakistan, estimated to be in the low thousands. The community experiences pressures such as converting to Islam, attacks on cultural sites, damage to altars and monuments, land encroachment, and socio-political marginalisation. Each passing year, their sound grows thinner. To understand their music today is to listen closely for both what is sung and what risks falling silent.
Gayatri Spivak’s theory of subalternity throws light on their musical marginality. Songs are voices without amplification, audible in valleys but mediated, distorted, or silenced in national discourse. Spivak’s concept of epistemic violence explains how theology in hymns is erased when it is classified as “folklore” or a “tourist attraction.” Representation by outsiders becomes silencing.
They live in three remote valleys: Bumboret, Rumbur, and Birir, in Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Their language, Kalashamun, and religious traditions set them apart from the neighbouring populations. It comprises about ten major tribes, each with approximately 90 families. Worshippers sing in the morning and evening to welcome and bid farewell to the Lord.
The tribal priest leads a ritual chant “Achambi” on the seventh day when a child is born. This welcomes the child into the community and invokes blessings. Mourners gather to sing lamentation hymns that express both grief and reverence. One of the famous hymns sung during funerals is “Kanaa Bhum,” which tells the story of how a human called “Kanaa” caused the first human death. At weddings, people sing joyful songs. Some share tales of love, while others celebrate tribal traditions. Songs of victory commemorate triumphs over natural disasters or historic conflicts.
The musical tradition is diverse. It encompasses various forms of songs that serve distinct religious, historical, and social purposes. According to “Kalasha Texts — With Introductory Grammar,” genres such as “Luli” are ancient hymns. They hold dreams for the future and convey a sense of hope. “Daginay” are hymns that talk about the start of life and the beginning of slavery. “Ishtyikhek” are hymns with two parts. First, they praise the Lord. Second, they include praises for one another.
“Nasiat” or the advice hymns are didactic pieces where elders share wisdom and life lessons. “Ispra’Pasa Gho’n’” is a hymn from the Dream of the Dead. These mystical hymns are thought to come from the spirits of the deceased. They visit the living in dreams. The dreamer memorises the composition and shares it with the community. “Sachi” are fairies and their songs are sung in funerals as well as in festivals.
“Ajona Bayak” are the love songs. “Biramor Gho’n” are the Dowry Songs. They present gifts to daughters who have recently married. They sing songs that praise her and wish her good luck for her journey ahead. “Ishpadhek Gho’n” is a lullaby song. Every kid has her or his own lullaby. Elders often create a lullaby for the newborn. In this way, every child has a unique lullaby.
A core principle of the religion is the dualistic concept of purity, “Onjes’t’a,” and impurity, “Praga’t’a.” Maintaining a strict separation between these spheres is paramount, as their mixing is believed to cause “pollution,” leading to misfortune. This dualism permeates ritual practices, social interactions, and even the designation of physical spaces. They oppose religious imperialism and do not focus on inclusion or expansion.
The liturgical function of hymns is strict. For example, “Onjes’t’a Gho’n” is the “Pure Hymns,” which can only be sung by men at major festivals. They are believed to be so sacred that non-Kalasha must not even hear them. This theology of sound offers a profound perspective on music. It sees songs as a holy gift.
Their Lord has many names, each reflecting a different trait. Some of these names include Bidra’a’ Khal’en, Nagairo, Yas’I, Mira Kumay, Jua shay, Gos’iday, Khodai, Dizaw, Paida Garaw, and Mul’awa ta deva. For instance, Mul’awa ta deva means to instruct, order, or speak to his creation. Ghon Dewa means the Great Lord, while Onjes’t’a Dewa means the Holy Lord. The names of the Lord are also the titles of Pure Hymns, says Imran.
Each genre illustrates how sound intertwines with theology, oral history, and ritual. Together, they form a cultural system where sound is both an archive and an oracle. Yet, a systematic genre–meter–mode mapping is still scarce in music journals.
During my research, I found a long list of Kalasha celebrations and chose a few to include. Festivals function as a way to bring about cosmic renewal. According to Socio-Cultural Life of the Kalasha People of Chitral: A Study of their Festivals, “Zhoshi” is the three-day Spring or Sowing Festival, which begins in mid-Mayto celebrate the arrival of spring, fertility, and prosperity.
The first celebration of the “Bis’a” festival begins with women and children singing songs, and collecting special yellow flowers called “Bis’a” from the mountains. All the doors of buildings, houses, barns, fields, and temples are decorated with these flowers called “Bis’a bi’ek”.
All doors of buildings, houses, barns, fields, and temples are decorated with these flowers. A celebration starts, called “c’irik pipi,” meaning “drink the milk.” People walk in a long line carrying metal pots and follow the drumbeat to the barn for fresh goat’s milk.
During this event, women sing “para para may bayaa zhoshi gos’t’ para c’irik pipi o shishamond hawaw.” This means, “I went to my brother’s barn on the festival of Zhoshi and saw it’s the time of c’irik pipi.” On milk offering day, people make stops, sing energetically, and dance with delight.
“C’hir histik” is the milk sprinkling day. Fathers, mothers, and babies receive a sprinkle of goat milk for purification. At the ritual of “s’is’au”, women’s purification takes place. After the rituals, people rush to dance and sing to different drumbeats.
The “Chel’ik Sambiek” ceremony dresses a child aged 4 to 7 in traditional clothing for the first time. This marks their belonging to the community. The ritual ends with children singing and dancing.
“Ghona Zhoshi” means “the big Zhoshi”; it is the last day of the spring festival. Singing hymns and dancing start at dawn and finish in the evening. All get intoxicated with dancing to loud drums. There’s an extended celebration called “Mrac’waki Zhosh.” It means the mulberry harvesting festival celebrated in the last three days of May.
“Ucaw”, a festival of harvesting in August. It is a thanksgiving to honour nature. It begins with “Rat’nat’”, a short religious ceremony. Men go to altars to perform rituals, sing hymns, and dance. These activities help protect crops and livestock. During the festival, they hum slow and fast autumn hymns. Drums, flutes, and cheerful clapping go with the performers.
“Phoo’n” is a two-day autumn harvesting festival in mid-October, marking the grape and walnut harvest. It takes place in Birir Valley, signifying the end of harvesting. It involves singing religious hymns, dancing to upbeat rhythms, and rituals to thank the Lord.
“Cawmos” is the greatest, solemn, and last festival of the year, known as the Winter or Remembrance Festival. A month-long series in December, called “ghona chawmos yat,” meaning “the great memorial chawmos festival.” Lievre & Loude in Kalash Solstice say the festival is for remembrance and purification of self and the land, with deep religious meaning. It signals the advent of the new year.
The celebration starts after finishing fieldwork and storing cheese, fruits, vegetables, and grains. Augusto Cacopardo in Pagan Christmas notes it begins with the “Sarazari” ceremony. Boys and girls burn cedar branches uphill for purification. Groups compete over the highest smoke with hymns. Late at night, they burn worn-out baskets with hymns, clapping, and wild dancing. This marks the most solemn festival. In every home, women sing “kul’ani Jes’t’ak.”
“Cuinari” is where men, women, and children sing and dance in serpent-like lines. They spiral and sing outdoors, “O may bayako!” which means “Oh my beloved brother!” “Sharabirayak” is where each family makes goat-like statuettes called kut’amru from dough. At night, boys and girls head to high pastures, burn cedar branches, and sing Cawmos hymns.
“Mandahik” is the ritual of “feeding” the spirits of the dead. All houses make food and take it to the temple. Outside, a square wooden structure is built to burn, shedding light for the dead to ‘eat’ offerings. When the fire goes out, it means the dead have eaten and left; the basket is taken inside following which they sing hymns and dance inside and outside until midnight.
“Sawel’ik Hari” is a celebration of fun dancing in disguise. This daytime event is full of songs. Men and women dance in semi-circles and individually in the open air. The flute plays, and fun peaks when men dress in goatskins with horns and dance wildly.
“Grohonyak” means “conical baskets”. Women craft baskets from willow branches. They sing a slow hymn, “Balimahin ta ucundaw, O guum bi oni!” meaning ‘Balimahin indeed has come, Oh Lord, wheat seeds bring!’ Making baskets is a contest for the strongest and most beautiful.
“C’anj’arat” means “The night of lit torches.” Men make huge torches, 3 to 10 metres high, from pine wood. The procession of men and boys holding lit torches, singing hymns, starts late at night around a huge fire. At dawn, all hold waists, chant, and dance.
“Da’utatu” is the beans festival. Children gather beans from houses, cook and eat them and sing “kul’ani Jes’t’ak” house to house. This is dormant now. “Ka’ga’yak” is the last; Ka’ga’ means crow. Villagers gather in a home and sing ka’ga’yak songs, asking the white crow to take prayers and bring needs.
The festival includes unique hymns for “pure” and “impure” men. Through these events, music acts as a calendar, a ritual drama, and a cosmic dialogue. Another festival, Yas’i, takes place in March. People travel to their holy homeland, Tsiym, and return. It is dormant.
Some hymns are often sung during the Zhoshi Spring Festival and Uchaw Harvesting Festival. “May Dewa iu koshanias thara koshani kariu,” meaning “My Lord will come and multiply our happiness many times.” “Ghona Dewa, the Great Lord will descend from his holy heights and protect the women.” “Shia Dewa iu, kezias chak hiu,” translated to “The Lord will come and be a shade (shelter) for the posterity.” During the Winter Festival, mostly hymns associated with the holy names of the Lord are sung.
Their music features a unique but limited range of instruments. In “The Kalasha of the Hindukush, Himalayas,” Wãc is a small, hourglass-shaped drum made from pine or apricot wood for rhythmic interplay. Dãu is a larger drum, partnered with wãc for layered rhythms. A duff is a frame drum for indoor music, like weddings. The tribe used duff in rituals, especially funerals, in the past.
The flute, made from walnut wood, is high-pitched for dance accompaniment and melodies at festivals. Flute and duff are companions, always played side by side. Chang is a rare percussion mouthpiece kept by older tribes. Rubab and the local sitar are string instruments shaped by local traditions. Clapping, stamping, and body percussion are used during circle dances.
The songs are simple and melodic. Carol Rose, in “Songs of Kalasha,” notes that most singers perform lyrics in two notes, A-flat and G, with minor harmonies. There is a limited melodic span and minor-like centres. There is a gap for researching transcription-based analyses on pitch organisation and modality, intervallic structure, scalar sets, micro-timing, and cadence patterns.
The Audio-Visual Archive research showcases intricate rhythms. Ca’ is a fast 3/4 beat. D’hushak is a steady 4/4. D’razhailak is a slow 2/2. Ghach’Raw is the slowest, sacred for secret “Ghach Hymns.” Comparative BPM, entrainment, and cross-valley variants deserve deeper study. Captivating repetition inspires group involvement and spiritual focus.
Applying Steven Feld’s acoustemology, melodies are ecological knowledge. High flute tones, drumbeats, and song timings match the valley’s seasons. Spring songs call for grazing, winter for protection. Sound maps weather and herd movements. Older singers predict climate shifts from ritual changes. Music is practical epistemology, embodied environmental intelligence, not just ritual.
As Wynne Maggi notes in Our Women Are Free, women’s musicality represents continuity and defiance. Musical life is notable for strong female participation. Women’s songs, dances, and costumes are central to festivals and rites. Some songs, for example, the courtship songs, lullabies, and weaving chants, are gendered both in text and performance. Festival liminality challenges gender norms. Men and women swap clothes and roles, clear in Cawmos “praphand’awaka.” Music reinforces this inversion.
Contemporary pressures from conservative communities and migration affect genders differently. Young women moving or marrying outside the valleys may stop traditional songs, speeding the loss of oral traditions. Ethnographers show that women’s voices are key to preserving specific song types. Female-focused efforts are vital for keeping songs alive.
While Onjes’t’a Gho’n’ excludes women, they have a sacred space, “Bashali”, a menstrual and childbirth house. Women sing ancient polyphonic songs passed from elders to youth in private. Bashali is more than a biological refuge; it is a female academy of memory and song. Women preserve unique repertoires invisible to men. Gendered division shows a mix of secrecy and revelation in spirituality.
Despite pressures, music remains a survival strategy. Festivals reaffirm group cohesion against the homogenising pressures of the Pakistani nation-state. Each hymn is a counter-narrative to conformity: to sing is to remain distinct. Survival is not guaranteed. Dormant festivals like Yas’i show erosion in real time. Diminished rituals express identity, reflecting Antonio Gramsci’s “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
Efforts are underway to preserve heritage, but documentation is uneven. The Pakistan National Commission for UNESCO sees a pressing need to protect heritage, especially since Suri Jagek was recognised as intangible cultural heritage in 2018. Lok Virsa in Islamabad has recordings and digital archives expanding like the Audio-Visual Archive. With NGOs, ethnomusicologists, and museum efforts, they risk speaking for the community instead of boosting their own voices.
Some gaps exist. Few transcribe songs; no music schools. Young people move to cities and stop singing. Technological preservation saves sounds, but not living ritual performance. Without community-led transmission, archives risk becoming tombs of sound.
To support music, interventions are needed. Community music schools teach hymns in a liturgical context. Apprenticeships with elder priests and women singers are necessary. Legal protections for sacred spaces and intellectual property are needed. Culturally sensitive education integrating language and songs is required. Responsible tourism that funds rather than exploits festivals is essential. Ultimately, the community must lead preservation, or it risks reproducing Spivak’s cycle of representation that silences.
Kalasha music is not vanishing because it is weak. It is vanishing because it is subaltern, marginalised by political structures, threatened by economic precarity, and silenced by dominant religious discourses. Its fading foretells cultural disappearance. In Spivak’s sense, its voice is mediated and unheard.
Yet to listen deeply, to accept hymns as theology, to hear them not as folklore but as liturgy, is to resist epistemic violence. The survival of music is more than cultural nostalgia. It is a defence of pluralism, of humanity’s diverse ways of knowing the divine.
When the fires dim at the end of Cawmos and the final hymn drifts into the ravines, it is more than music. It is a covenant: a promise to ancestors, to the Lord, and to each other. Protecting that covenant requires land rights, cultural rights, and above all, a willingness to listen. These are the last songs of the Kalasha. They are fragile, prophetic, and subaltern. And they deserve not only to be heard but to continue being sung.
Brian Bassanio Paul is a music enthusiast whose expertise lies at the intersection of music business, artist development, music appreciation, and cultural studies. He can be reached at brian.bassanio@gmail.com and on LinkedIn @brianbassanio
All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author
