446 
R. Lincoln Reiser 
Anthropos 69. 1974 
tain pastures to graze in the spring and summer. Although this pattern is found 
in many Pashai speaking areas, as well as most of the Hindu-Kush and Kara 
koram region, there are also many differences between various Pashai valley 5 - 
Pashai is classified by linguists as an Indie language of the Dardic branch- 
It has linguistic borders with several other languages. It borders Persian in the 
Northwest; Pakhto in the Southwest, South and Northeast; and the Nuristani 
languages of Ashkun and Kati in the North, 
Of the few researchers who have conducted investigations among the 
Pashai speaking people, the Norwegian linguist, Georg Morgenstierne, has 
published almost all of the available material concerning this group. Based o 11 
distributional and linguistic evidence, Morgenstierne concludes that tin? 
Pashai speakers once held main portions of the Kabul and Kunar Valley 5 ■ 
Further he feels that the present-day Muslim Pashai are descendants of the 
Hindu-Buddhist civilizations located in the ancient kingdoms of Kapisa and 
Nangrahar (1967: 11; 1944: vi). Thus the contemporary tribal and peasant 
mountain people who speak Pashai are the degenerate remnants of once high 01 
civilizations swept away by invasions of Pakhto speaking Afghans. Echoing 
Morgenstierne, Karl Jettmar states that "... the ancestors of the Pashai 
tribes lived in the central region of the classic Gandhara culture before the) 
were expelled to the mountain valleys south of Kafiristan” (1959: 86). \Vhh e 
historical records indicate that the population of the Pashai area converted 
to Islam fairly recently, Morgenstierne feels that this in no way means the 
religion of the immediate pre-Islamic period was similar to that found 111 
neighboring Nuristan. The Nuristanis were converted to Islam in 1896 and 
before that exhibited a set of pagan rituals and beliefs that are in some wa) 5 
strikingly similar to ancient Indie and Iranian religion h In contrast to the 
pre-Islamic religion of Nuristan, Morgenstierne feels the paganism of the 
Pashai people was more a debased form of Hindu-Buddhism (1967: 12). 
Thus Morgenstierne states there is a basic cultural difference between 
the Pashai and their Nuristani neighbors to the north. The Nuristanis are the 
direct descendants of early Indo-Iranian tribes who migrated from Cento 
Asia into the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East at various times during 
the second millennium before Christ. They have, therefore, inhabited thei 
mountain valleys since ancient times "...and have never belonged to the coin 
munity of civilized Indian peoples” (Morgenstierne 1944: viii). In contract- 
according to Morgenstierne, the Pashai people migrated to their pres e11 
location from the main river valleys to the south and at one time formed the 
population of societies with complex civilizations. Morgenstierne feels, 
difference between the Nuristanis and Pashais with regard to the developm el ^ 
of music and poetry may be a manifestation of the different historical roots 
the two ethnic groups. The rich heritage of the Pashai in ballads and songs m a 3 
be a retention of aspects of Buddhist-Hindu civilization. In comparison to fh lS 
relatively rich tradition, the "stunted poverty” of Nuristani poetry stands i 1 
strong contrast (1944: vii). 
1 See, for example, Lennart Edelberg’s film These were Kafirs.