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Alexander the Great's long-lost descendants in

Pakistan?, and the "whites" of Central Asia
by James Mayfield (Chairman, European Heritage Library)

Print this Article    •    About the Author    •    Bibliography/Sources

This article analyzes the obscure ethnic, religious, and cultural roots of the Kalash tribe of northern Pakistan (the Hindu Kush) that claims descent from the Greek settlers of Alexander the Great's empire. It also analyzes the puzzling European-looking tribes throughout Central Asia today, and tries to determine their ethnic origins. If you have any information, corrections, or perspectives to add, feel free to notify us.

Of the many distinct tribes and ethnic groups around the world, especially in remote regions divorced from the dominance of influential civilizations, many devise romantic ancestry in order to distinguish themselves from the hegemony of others. Some African peoples consider themselves descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, like the Ethiopians. In the remote and desolate mountains of eastern Central Asia, the inhospitable topography has especially allowed distinct populations to retain their ancient traditions, either imported or constructed. This advantage has been embraced by many ancient religious minorities seeking solace from persecution by Muslims or other expanding religions, as well as by the Mujahidin of today who have still eluded the might of the US military. The Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains straddling Pakistan, Kashmir, eastern Afghanistan, and Tajikistan have recently revealed hugely diverse and unique cultures that were able to escape the staunch and exclusionary Islamic tradition. The Kalash tribe has recently stood out for their unique genetic features, vibrant dress, rituals, and religion, all on the brink of extinction because of their polytheistic religion in one of the Sunni world's most conservative regions. Are they Alexander the Great's long-lost Greek descendants?

Background on the demographics and genetics of eastern Central Asia

Understanding the genetics of the region can help determine whether or not the Kalash's Greek roots are reality. All across the Pamir mountain range and the Hindu Kush – from the eastern fringe of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to western China and Kyrgyzstan – there is an unusual amount of ethnic and genetic diversity that can easily shock the average person who envisions the Muslim world with the dark-hair and bearded, dark-eyed, olive-skinned features associated with Semitic Arabs. Many populations have blue or green eyes, are often taller or even with red hair. Red-haired, blue-eyed monks brought Buddhism from Afghanistan to China, at least if Chinese depictions of the Tocharians is accurate. There is also an unusually high percentage of deformities not common in the general local populations such as crossed eyes, etc., possibly a result of occasional inbreeding that naturally appears in such remote and small populations. The ethnic or racial group to which the Tajiks belong is the Iranian group common to Iran and most of Afghanistan (especially the Pashtuns). The Uzbeks and Kyrgyz are ethnically Mongol, descendants of Mongolian settlers who conquered the region under Chinggis Khan, but have since embraced Turkic culture and their religion (Sunni Islam) and language. The western portions of China (East Turkestan), the Muslim Uyghurs, include both Mongol and Turkic populations under the same historic Uyghur cultural orbit. All of Central Asia is Sunni Muslim (Hanafi school), excluding the Orthodox and secular Russian Soviet settlers who dominate the already-poor economies here. The majority of the population of Pakistan and Kashmir fall into the Indo-Aryan racial/genetic group, and are related to the North Indians, all with ancient linguistic relation to the Iranians. Despite these dominant populations, disparate populations still are markedly different from the Iranian, Indic, and Mongol elements. It is important to note that Turks and Iranians, both of whom are often described as “Arab-like” in the West, are typically light-skinned, tall and slender, often even described as “Europoid” (related to Europeans), and often have green or blue eyes and lighter hair, especially among Turks. The green eyes of the supposedly Greek Kalash tribe, their most striking feature, is difficult considering its frequency among Turks and Iranians and rarity among Greeks even in Greece.

A map of Central Asia. Notice the proximity of northeastern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. The far north of Pakistan is the Hindu Kush, the Pamir mountains including Tajikistan and its surroundings, and the dotted-line circle in northern India on the right is Muslim Kashmir. There are "white" or "European-looking" populations all over this region, although Iranians and Turks who populate southern Central Asia, typically called "white" also, have the same light features frequently.

The Hindu Kush mountain states in northwestern Pakistan (Chitral and Nuristan) are where these kafirs (infidels) reside.

Historical background on ethnic Greek expansion into Central Asia and Afghanistan

From the 7th century until the 4th BCE, the ancient Iranian nation of the Achaemenid dynasty had conquered the most massive empire the world had ever seen before. Stretching from Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush to even forever terminate Ancient Egypt, and threatening the very existence of the Greek squabbling city-states, this Iranian empire also exerted its cultural and political dominance all the way to China and Kazakhstan. Under the Persian god-kings, they followed the Zoroastrian or Mazdaist religion with the intense dualism of heaven and hell that the Jews under Persian rule eventually added into the later Western religions derived from the Bible. This religious concept is present among all of the peoples influenced by Iranian cultural or ethnic domination, including the Kalash.

In the 3rd century, in the northern Greek city-state of Macedonia in what is now Greece came the young general Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon, who by the end of his life had conquered all of Egypt, northern Arabia, the Greek tribes, and the entire Iranian empire. His defeat of the Persians gave the Greek culture domination over the empire that the Persians had already conquered before (he did not conquer much of the land himself). Alexander had the unique policy of ensuring stability of forging alliances with local peoples that he borrowed from the Iranian satrap system. He also had the strategy of intermarrying his generals with local rulers in order to secure their submission, although this was very unpopular with the Greek army and had more to do with stability than any modern form of tolerance. As a result of both of these tactics, Greek culture flourished in parts of Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Hindu Kush. Alexander's domination of the region as well as the acceptance of local leaders led to the settlement of large Greek populations, especially around Balkh in modern Afghanistan. Many ancient coins of local rulers included Greek-alphabet inscriptions, and there is evidence of the propagation of Greek philosophical ideas eastward. Very little of the Greek religion spread here because of the high development of the native religions that were far older than the Greek religion, although Iranian-origin gods have permeated into Greek and later Roman religion, like (possibly) the Mithra cult that derives from Zoroastrianism. The Greek conquest had a noticeable cultural and political legacy in the region for centuries after Alexander's death. And thus, many ethnic Greeks stayed behind, and perhaps the Kalash.

As soon as he died, the empire immediately collapsed into squabbling Greek kingdoms. But the legacy endured. A native empire around Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and the Hindu Kush had already grown prior to Greek conquest, and had become one of the earliest and most glorious Buddhist civilizations. This Buddhist Kushan empire, following Greek conquest, later assumed a Greek cultural and demographic element that was evident on Kushan coins and Greek-language writings that survived long after the Alexandrian empire's collapse. The Buddhas of Bamiyan that were detonated by the Mujahidin of the Taliban were a testament to the glory of this Greek-influenced state. It is sometimes argued that the transformation of the Buddha figure into a slender human figure (in contrast with the Eastern fat Buddhas) has Greek settlers to thank since they imported the tradition of Greek sculpting eastward. Many Greeks converted to Buddhism, or created syncretic religions with Buddhist and Greek religious elements upon settlement. The Kalash tribe may be one of these descendants. Another religion that escaped Iranian and later Muslim persecution by hiding in Central Asia and the Hindu Kush was Manicheism. This Iranian religion, derived from Zoroastrianism in part, emphasized the dualistic nature of the universe between evil and good that may have influenced the Kalash tribe today in their nature worship and dualistic gods. This crossroads of religions and cultures surely had as much an effect on the Greek settlers that it did on the natives. With the re-emergence of the even more powerful Iranian empires and the Huns, this civilization and its Greek traditions were abolished and extinguished, and with the Muslim conquest, most of their polytheistic religions with it. Interestingly, the Kalash claim that they were once educated and highly literate before their “books” were burnt by “barbarians”. This parallels the destruction of this famous Buddhist center of culture that was the Kushan state that was destroyed by the Hunnish barbarians (among others). The possibly Greek Kalash, left behind in these remote regions to be spared from the conquests of mighty empires, may be the last remnants of this ancient Greek Alexandrian tradition.

(Click to enlarge) Alexander the Great's empire. Nearly all of it was simply what he got from the Iranians who he destroyed at Gaugamela. Notice the extension of his (and Iranians') power into Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.

The Buddhas of Kushan in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Destroyed by the Mujahidin.

The “Greek” Kalash tribe, their customs and religion, and possible ethnic classification

The word Kalash means “wearers of black”, although they wear a huge array of bright and dark colors, especially for festivals. There is common use of cowrie shells on dresses of women, a trait common among ancient or primitive peoples as an expression of wealth. They are the only pagans (polytheists – many gods) in Pakistan and the surrounding Hindu Kush, since the Buddhists, Manichaeans, Jewish Khazar merchants, and Hindus had long been expelled, slaughtered, or converted by over a millennium of Muslim rule. The region in the North West Frontier of Pakistan (in the Kush) is often called “kafiristan” by scholars and locals (“kafir” is the Muslim term for infidel). They have unique rituals of their own, such as winemaking (of course, forbidden or haraam in Islam) and shoemaking. They have a strange ritual of sending teenage boys into the difficult forest terrain for nearly a year and, if they survive, they can have their way with any number of women. Obviously, this is far from a Muslim ritual, but it surely is not notably Greek either. There is little gender segregation unlike their Muslim neighbors, who eat, sleep, pray, and work separately. They have intense funeral and mourning rites in which women dance in circles, sacrifice goats and cattle, feast, and drink. They apparently seldom eat meat because of the expense of livestock in this wickedly poor and desolate region. Alcohol is important in ritual, as it was in Greek and pre-Islamic Iranian culture. They apparently reject eating or slaughtering chickens, even claiming that introducing chickens into Kalash society would spell their extinction, and Muslims have done just that (source: Maureen Lines). The women wear headdresses, scarves, and veils, and the men often wear headcoverings, kufis (Islamic skullcaps), and Islamic-derived garb. Women remove their headscarves when in mourning, likely to signify emptiness and absence. It seems that, divorced from the hegemony of any other local civilization and equally divorced from their Greek heritage (if indeed they are Greek), they are now in all respects their own. Today numbering less than 4,000 by some estimates (source: Maureen Lines), deforestation, overdevelopment, Islamic terrorism, high mortality, and conversion make many think this society is close to extinction, and the strictly Islamic qualities of Pakistan (especially the North West Frontier) that make their traditions stifle their survival in trade and life. The danger that results from being a polytheist in a Muslim land probably means that there are far more Kalash who have either forgotten or abandoned their roots either with conversion or for the sake of their own lives.

From Gettyimages.com.

From Gettyimages.com.

From Gettyimages.com.

From Gettyimages.com.

From Gettyimages.com.

Classifying the Kalash is difficult because of the region's legacy of demography exchange and cultural hegemony. Mixing, although uncommon because of the antagonism between the new invaders, and the topography of the region, further complicates defining these people as ethnic Greeks. Their blue and green eyes may simply be a result of rare and isolated recessive genes, although they surely came from an ethnic/racial group's common stock. Light eyes, somewhat common among Turks and Iranians but seldom among Greeks, are not enough to define them as Greeks or Europeans. The vast majority of Greeks (even in Greece) tend to have very dark hair, brown or hazel eyes, and olive skin, although green eyes are sometimes present. It is difficult to describe them as being Greek when their genetic features are uncommon in Greece but more common in the local region among Turks, Pamirians, Slavs, and Iranians. Even many Slavic Bulgarians (despite typically dark features) claim descent from this difficult-to-classify cultural orbit with light features in the Pamir mountain range. Many Bulgarians believe that the strange light-eyed and -haired tribes throughout southern Russia and Central Asia are the true ancient Bulgars or Bulgarians before they mixed with Iranian Thracians in modern Bulgaria to form their own branch (if this ever even happened). None of this is or can be proven, and thus the difficulty in classifying any of these “whites” or European peoples in Asia (or the Kalash) is difficult. It is just as possible to say that the Kalash are Slavic. Although this tribe or ethnicity populate only the Hindu Kush and the North West Frontier, their unique qualities are a microcosm seen all over the Pamir and Kush basin. Many local tribes with minute dialectical difference, like in Luristan and eastern Afghanistan, have similar features and possible links with the Kalash, and thus possibly with the Macedonians (Greeks, not modern Slavs of the ex-Yugoslav Macedonia). The language and customs of the Kalash derive from local influence. Their languages include Urdu (“Pakistani”), Pashtun, Farsi, and their own dialects of the Indo-Iranian language group to which most of Pakistan and North India belong. Greek is not spoken, and very little of their dialects seem to have Greek influence, but this of course does not dissolve their possible Greek roots. Their dress and customs, with their very vibrant and bright clothing for festivals, seems to be their own creation in their effort to distinguish themselves from the hegemony of Islam and the dominant local cultures. Many claiming Kalash ancestry have predictably converted to Sunni Islam. For this, they are shunned from this society for deteriorating the already-dwindling Kalasha identity.

It is difficult to put credence in the Kalash's claims of Greek and Alexandrian ancestry from the linguistic, cultural, or visual ethnic perspectives. Their claims to this descent may be just as fabricated as African-Americans' constructed links with Swahili language or Islam that almost none of their ancestors spoke or followed, or the old German claim that Mycenaean Greece and Rome were created by roving Germanic warriors. More than a dozen cities named after Alexander were founded after his name, such as Alexandria or Iskanderiya. Societies facing extermination or death, or seeking to find glorious and esoteric qualities tend to invent mythology about themselves. Perhaps their “descent” from Alexander the Great and “his army” [of Greeks] originally referred to soldiers conscripted in Alexander's campaign after his conquests in Iran, irregardless of their race. What may be a useful tool in determining the Greek ancestry of the Kalash is their religion. However, the location of the Kalash dictates that it could have been imported from other local cultures or merged to form a distinct Kalash tradition that has nothing to do with Greeks. There is firstly a great emphasis on dualism (light/good and darkness/evil) that is surely influenced by the Buddhist, Manichean, and Zoroastrian heritage of the region stretching from Tajikistan to Kashmir. The Kalash apparently divide their worldview into a system of male and female realms, and gendered aspects of reality and life ruled over by gods and goddesses. This springs from the fertility cult concept popular in nearly every early society and today's primitive societies free from modernizing civilizations. The Kalash worship nature, animals, and spirits. None of these religious qualities seem to derive from Greek religion. No Zeus, Hera, Apollo, or Athena. No titans and fire-to-Man myths. The modern religious mysticism of the Kalash may simply be a blend of the Greco-Kushan Buddhist tradition and Zoroastrian/Manichean dualism that evolved into its own new form after the Jihad of Islam abolished Buddhism and destroyed nearly all images and statues of the Buddha they could find. There is much influence from the more core tenets of Hinduism or its Aryan/Iranian-created Vedic predecessor that came to India in the 2nd millennium BCE via the Aryan invasion. Belief in Indra and emphasis on the bull/cow are present, revealing links with Iranian and Vedic tradition. There was little historic domination of this far northwestern region by Hindu powers in history, and thus this rules out the possibility that the Kalash people or their religion spring from Indian influence. The Kalash emphasis on fertility rites, nature, statues, and gendered gods of different aspects of life is common to all of the early so-called “Indo-European religions” as well as the Vedic Aryans of Iran and North India.

From telegraph.co.uk.

It would seem that the Kalash are simply yet another one of many unique and disparate tribes found throughout Central Asia, the Pamirs, and the Kush with Europoid or Turkic features. Many of these settled in the region with Alexander's expansion, many with the Turkic and Hunnic conquest. Many are simply Iranians with recessive eye color genes who spread east via early Persian conquests. Or perhaps they are among the last survivors of the ancient Aryans. The Aryans, not to be confused directly with the German racialist concept, were the early ethnically-Iranian warriors who invaded North India from Iran and Afghanistan and brought and created the roots of early Hindu (Vedic) religion, scripture, and Indo-Iranian languages like Sanskrit. The word Aryan is cognate with “Iran” (or “Ayran”). Having used the isolated mountains of the Kush and Pamirs to be spared from Muslim and Persian domination, perhaps the Kalash are an anachronism of the ancient Indo-European Aryans who maintained their early proto-Iranian traditions. Same, perhaps, for all the other “Europeans” in Asia.

Almost certainly, they are not Greek or migrants from Europe, nor are any of the “white” tribes of Central & South Asia, the Pamirs, or the Hindu Kush. Blue eyes and light-brown hair in Tajikistan and the Tarim Basin of China does not translate to European immigration or invasion. There may be more ethnic Greek settlers in Central Asia, Pakistan, western China, and Tajikistan than we even know, but some twenty centuries of Turkic, Mongol, Iranian, and Islamic conquest have offset and annihilated so much of these populations and their traditions that they will be forever lost in history. Alexander's legacy spread Greek culture and language throughout the Arab world until it was vanquished by the Jihad of the new faith in the one God, but it also may have endured just as long in the desolate and inhospitable mountains and valleys of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and northern Pakistan.

________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Mayfield is the owner and Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I am working for a doctorate in history, with a specific emphasis on Islamic and European histories. I am well versed in all world cultures, ethnicities, religions, languages, politics, and historical evolution in relation to and against each other.

BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES USED:

The images are widely distributed and are not owned by any any party, unless otherwise stated below the image if an original owner could be found. Many of these images are found on blogs and different sites that obviously did not travel to Pakistan themselves, and they fail to cite the original photographers. If you have found the owner or believe that this was improperly taken from your website, please notify us so we can give credit.

-Maureen Lines: http://www.telegraph.co.uk - "Titan of the Kalash"