Social Structure in the Southeastern Hindu-Kush 
447 
there 
Such a comparison is obviously fraught with danger. In the first place, 
are as yet no systematic analyses of Pashai and Nuristani music, but even 
h there were it would seem difficult to control ethnocentric bias. However, in 
this paper I will not pursue this kind of argument. Rather, I will develop an 
al ternative hypothesis to Morgenstierne’s based on comparative social 
structural, linguistic and other data. In constructing this hypothesis I will use 
b°th information gathered during field work among a Pashai tribe in 1968., 
and published and unpublished material on various Nuristani and Dardic 
societies in the area. 
To the east of Nuristan in the state of Chitral there are a few inaccessible 
Alleys inhabited by the last remaining pagans of the Hindu-Kush. These 
People called the Kalash (not to be confused with the Kalasa of central Nun- 
sta n) speak a Dardic language quite different from the various Nuristani 
lari guages. Their religion, while similar in many ways to the religion of pre- 
Isla mic Nuristan (Morgenstierne 1932:167) has important differences as 
We ll- Jettmar feels that it is even more archaic than the paganism of Nuristan 
ffi the pre-conquest period (1959: 88). Yet the Kalash speak a Dardic language 
SlI ffilar to Pashai. Scholars have never suggested that the Kalash are degenera e 
re mnants of a Hindu-Buddhist civilization. Jettmar, for example, feels tha 
the Kalash, as well as many other Dardic groups of the Karakoram, retain 
ma *y cultural elements of the pre-Aryan population. In fact, he argues tha 
pre-Aryan population of the Hindu-Kush and Karakoram proba y orme 
0116 link in a continuous chain of mountain cultures stretching from the 
^ a ncasus to the Himalayas (1961: 93). _ . 
Whether or not there was a common cultural heritage lin mg t e rnoun 
ta ffi areas of west and central Asia, I think we are safe in assuming that during 
the various invasions of Indo-Iranian speaking peoples into the Hindu- vus 
ari d Karakoram regions, there was a mixture of populations, an a t ou £ 
. Iranian languages dominated, the cultural and social systems o 
Mediate pre-Islamic period resulted from a synthesis of the pre-Indo-Iraman 
Indo-Iranian systems. The picture that emerges, is thus a complex one. 
In some cases, invading Indo-Iranian groups may have either exterminate oi 
^°nipletely submerged the previously existing people; m other cases they may 
hav e formed alliances on a more or less equal basis with pre-existing, n es, 
in yet other instances the indigenous people may have retained their me e- 
P e ndence while adopting Indo-Iranian languages. But m all these cases new 
s °cial and cultural patterns developed from a synthesis of the previous sys ems 
as emerging politico-ethnic groups came to terms with new p ysma an s _° cl ° 
Cul Wral environments. Thus the cultural heritage of the eastern Hmdu-Kush 
Karakoram has Indie, Iranian, and pre-Indo-Iraman roots We will 
pr °bably never be able to reconstruct the details of what happened during an 
afte r the Indo-Iranian invasions, but I feel that subsequent archaeological and 
, i j K-,r Public Health Service Research 
Grant- A ,^ esearch in Afghanistan was su PP. ortec L fro m the National Insti- 
rant MH 14159-01 and Research Fellowship MH-210S4 UiAi iroi 
e °f Mental Health.