Kalash Festivals 2024-25

Kalash festival is an ancient cultural event which takes place every year around the same time in the Kalash valley, Pakistan. Kalash valleys are surrounded by the Hindukusch mountains. People who live in these valleys are called Kalasha people, who have a unique culture, traditions, language and follow an ancient form of Hinduism.

Kalashi festivals are famous throughout the world. Three festivals are more important, celebrated in different months of the year. Chilam Joshi is the most important festival celebrated in May for four days. Uchal Festival held in autumn and Choimos Festival in midwinters.

1) Chilam Joshi Festival

Chilam Joshi is also known as Kalash spring festival. Chilam Joshi festival is held in three Kalash valleys, Bumburet, Birir, and Rumbur where Kalash girls and boys dance to the tune of traditional drum beats.

Chilam Joshi celebrations highlight their cultural richness, the plethora of colors, and the underlying message of peace. The women dressed up in traditional clothes of vibrant colors, gold, and silver jewelry, and elaborate headgear. Men wear traditional shalwar kameez with a woolen waistcoat.

Chilam Joshi festival starts at Rumbur Valley and then moves on to other valleys of Kalash. In this festival, Kalashi people pray for the safeguard of their fields and animals before going to their fields and for this purpose, they used to spread milk on their Gods. The festival brought smiles to the unmarried Kalasha boys' and girls' faces who during the festival get an opportunity to choose their life partners. They announce their life partners' names on the last day of the festival.

2) Uchal Festival

Uchal Festival Kalash is one of the top cultural festivals of Pakistan. Kalasha tribe celebrates many festivals around the year. Uchal festival celebration is to pay homage to the Almighty for blessing them with good food and crops. They prepare corn, buttermilk, and cheese to celebrate the festival and rejoice in Uchao.

Uchal Festival Kalash is celebrated in annual harvesting with singing, dancing, and paying homage to nature for blessing them with the barley and wheat harvest season every year in August.

In the Kalash Uchal Festival, they prepare special foods, cheese, buttermilk, and cornbread for the event. Women in traditional dresses perform dances. During the festival prayers, a procession is made to a high plateau outside the village of Balangkuru where the long night of dancing begins.

3) Choimus Festival

Choimus festival is also known as the Christmas festival, the Choimus Festival is held annually in winter. Among the Kalasha people's celebrations, the Choimus festival holds great significance with a lively swirl of traditional dances, foods, and prayer chants by the Kalasha tribe to the Balomain spirit. Throughout the festival at the beginning of the New Year, the locals conduct rituals for purification.

Spread over days, the Choimus Festival is an attraction not just for locals, but also for visitors and travelers. There’s plenty of locally brewed mulberry wine to cherish as you get to dance around enormous bonfires on drum beats. Because of their traditional black robes embroidered with colorful threads and large headwear made of shells and beads, the women of the tribe hold a special place at the festival.

At the top of the hills, the tribal elders gather to see the rising sun of the New Year, which is accompanied by goat sacrifices made to the goddess, “Jastak,” and blood is sprinkled at the Jastarkhan temple.

Kalash Festival Dates