The Kalash and the Macedonians This text intends to point at the similarities between the contemporary Macedonians and the Kalash people, who claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great’s Macedonians. Among the region known as Kafiristan lies the town of Brir, considered one of the last remaining settlements of the Kalash — or “wearers of black." Its inhabitants consider themselves the direct descendants of Alexander the Great. The 3,500 souls are the last enclave of pagan tribes people. Interestingly, the word Kalesh exists in modern Macedonian, meaning Black (Kalesh Angja – Black Angja popular Macedonian song). The Kalash have distinct traditions, customs and mores that associate them to the traditions of the contemporary Macedonians. The costumes of women are the first obvious similarity:
Left: Kalash traditional costumes (black robes with colorful designs, and headdresses); Right: traditional Macedonian costumes from Solun - Thessaloniki, (black robes with colorful designs and headdresses). Incredibly, the Kalash have not changed much over the centuries. They make their own wine, elevate animals to religious status and believe in mountaintop fairies. Similarly, the Macedonians make their own wine, they believe in mountain fairies too, and have the same customs, as it seems, to the Kalash people, which provides enough contextual evidence to claim that the genuine tradition has been
inherited and preserved in its most pristine form in both Kalash and Macedonian cultures, ever since Alexander the Great’s time, in the least. Both the Kalash and the Macedonians use the same traditional instruments, the ‘tapan’ (drum), the ‘kaval’ (wooden flute), the ‘zurla’, and dance to the same 7/8 rhythms.
Macedonian traditional dance and instruments
Kalash traditional dance and instruments
Both Macedonian and Kalash people still use the traditional weave designs in their garmenst:
Macedonian traditional weave designs – Kalash traditional weave designs
Macedonian traditional design
Both Kalash and Macedonian share similar anthropogenetic features: fair complexion, fair hair…
Kalash girl
Macedonian girls
There is a creator deity called Dezau (ḍezáw) in the Kalash polytheistic religion, while according to the Rosetta stone Demotic text, the supreme deity for the Macedonians was called Dze, our of which later Zeus derived. Dze according to the professors Tentov and Boshevski was the supreme creator of light. The word Dze has been preserved in children’s games among the Macedonians, indicating ‘visible’. Thus when one hides from the little kid, they say ‘Dze’ after the kid spots them. To the Kalash, Jestak is the goddess of domestic life, family and marriage. Her lodge is the women's house (Jeṣṭak Han). In modern Macedonian ‘Jastuk’, means a pillow, or a soft pad to place the head. In a patriarchal society, if the man is the head of the house, than the woman would be the ‘Jastuk’, or the pillow. Among the Kalash, there also is a general pattern of belief in mountain fairies, Suchi (súči, now often called Peri), who help in hunting and killing enemies, and the Varōti (~ Sanskrit Vātaputra), their violent male partners (echoing the Vedic Apsaras and Gandharvas). They live in the high mountains. Similarly, Macedonians have ‘Slamovili’ or ‘Vili’, mountain fairies who are often seen spinning as whirlwinds, thus if one sees leaves spinning in a circle on a wind, Macedonians say it is a fairy dancing. The word for spinning in Macedonian is ‘suchi’ (the same word used for spinning the wool). Macedonian folk tradition recognizes male spirits, known as Vragovi, or in singular Vragot. They are commonly identified with demons. During the Chaumos festival, the Kalash men divide into two parties: the pure ones have to sing the well-honored songs of the past, but the impure sing wild, passionate, and obscene songs, with an altogether different rhythm. This is accompanied by a 'sex change': men dress as women, women as men. In Macedonia, the Vevchani carnival is typical for the ‘sex change’ costumes. Men usually dress as women and perform fertility rites, which incorporate the ‘bride and the groom’ and ‘friends of the groom’ and 'the stupid August' masks, with even scenes of sexual nature. The aim of the brothers is to
protect the bride and the groom, who symbolize the fertility, from the ‘evil spirits’ which will try to grab the bride, and they even perform an improvised rape scene. The main weaponry against the ‘evil spirits’ is the mask, which should be very scary. The whole village transforms into a kind of theatre during the carnival happenings, because every street is a stage, where masked persons perform their dances.
In the Kalash tradition, the Festival of the Budulak (buḍáḷak, the 'shepherd king') is a festival when a strong prepubescent boy is sent up into the mountains to live with the goats for the summer. He is supposed to get fat and strong from the goat milk. When the festival comes he is allowed for a 24-hour period only to have sexual intercourse with any woman he wants, including even the wife of another man, or a young virgin or his own mother if he wants her. Any child born of this 24-hour rampage is considered to be blessed. The Kalash claim to have abolished this practice in recent years due to negative world-wide publicity. At this crucial moment the pure get weaker, and the impure try to take hold of the (very pure) boys, pretend to mount them "like a hornless ram", and proceed in snake procession. At this point, the impure men resist and fight. When the "nagayrō" song with the response "han sarías" (from *samrīyate 'flows together', CDIAL 12995) is voiced, Balumain showers all his blessings and disappears. He gives his blessings to seven boys (representing the mythical seven of the eight Devalog who received him on arrival), and these pass the blessings on to all pure men. Interestingly, the term Budalak in modern Macedonian means ‘fool’, just as the ‘stupid August’ mask would be to the Vevchani carnival, or the ‘shepherd king’ to the Kalash, who is fooled or mounted by the impure. Could these two traditions stem from an even earlier Dionysus fertility rite venerated in ancient Macedonia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash http://www.struga.org/eng/vevcani_carnival.htm