A little-known Pakistani tribe that loves wine and whiskey fears its Muslim neighbors

Aug 16, 2016

(WP) - Hidden up in the mountains near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, the Kalash tribe loves homemade wine and whiskey, dances for days at colorful festivals, and practices a religion that holds that God has spirits and messengers who speak through nature.

Long before the campaign of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, the villagers fretted over whether they needed walls or do-not-enter lists to protect them from their more-conservative Muslim neighbors — ultimately deciding that the towering heights of the Hindu Kush would protect them.

But over the past century, Muslims from modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan began moving in. Now villagers say their Kalash culture and religion are threatened by forced conversions, robberies and assaults.

“We are scared,” said Yasir Kalash, the manager of a hotel here in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “They capture our lands, our pastures and our forests, and sometimes take our goats and women. . . . We are afraid in the next few years we will be finished.”


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