Experience a colorful Kalash Festival

See Chitral key spots with our knowledgeable local guides

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The Kalash have three colorful festivals the Kalash these festivals are the culminations of religious life and, like the big funerals, unite the people.

CHILMJUSHT (14th -15th May) CHILIMJUSHT THE SPRING FESTIVAL will last for four days in the middle of May. The spring festival honors the fairies and safeguards the goats and shepherds before going to the pastures. Before the festival, the women and girls gather from all over the valley and decorate their houses. Inside the places, local wine and milk products are shared. The women then sprinkle milk on Goddess ” Jestak,” the protector of their children and home. The festival begins at Rumbur where the Shaman (soothsayer) and tribal chiefs lead a procession to the ” Malosh altar,” high above Grum, to sacrifice goats to the Gods. Later the festival moves on to Bumboret and ends up at Birir, a few days later.

Every religious ceremony is accompanied by dancing and a rhythmical chant to the beat of the drum. The women wearing their traditional black robes, ornate cowries, and shelled headdresses adorned with colored necklaces dance in a circle. Then the men join in: it may be a man and women or a man in the middle with women on each side, lovers being free to intermingle. One hand is held around the waist of the partner and the other around the shoulders. Tribal chiefs in colorful dresses narrate stories of bygone days and events.

UCHAO O UTCHAL (19th – 20th August) UCHAL FESTIVAL, in August marking wheat and barley harvest and bringing down of cheese from the high summer pastures. It is celebrated in Rumbur and Bumboret. Earlier in July, it starts as the” Ranat,” with dances held on alternate days performed by the young girls and boys to safeguard the maize crop.

CHOIMUSK (7th to 22nd December) CHOMOS FESTIVAL. As winter starts around mid-December, the Chomos festival begins. The festival is observed for the divine, the living and dead relatives, for the crops and the goats to be safeguarded, while the community, the village, and the valley are purified before the coming year. Sighting a fox is a good omen, and great efforts are made in this regard. At dusk, torch-lit processions are led from all the nearby villages culminating at the “Charsue,” the central customary dancing place. Most of the festivities are indoors, where the local wine is handed around as the dance gathers momentum carries out till late in the night around the bonfire. At the same time, the tribal elders sit on hilltops at dawn to watch the rising sun and declare the New Year. Goat sacrifices are then made to the Goddess “Jastak,” blood from the animal is sprinkled at the temple Jastak An. This is the time when “Balimine,” another great God, visits the Kalash valley once a year, and sacrifices are made at his” Malosh. Altar,” too

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