Culture & Heritage

Origin of Wakhi Ethnic Group

The Wakhan, a narrow valley in the north-east of Afghanistan, is the country of origin of all Wakhi people, giving this ethnic group and their language its name. The Wakhi identify themselves by their eastern Iranian language which belongs to the Pamirian group. Often they are mixed up with their Tajik neighbors. The historical Wakhan was situated between the ranges of the Pamir and Hindukush, 2,500--3,000 m above sea level. The Great Silk Route to China crossed it, caravans on their way to India and Persia passed through it, and Marco Polo also traveled here. Situated between high mountain ranges: Pamir in the Eastern and Hidu Kush in the south- the Wakhan valley stretches over a distance of 200 km with the river Oxus as its lifeline, a name well known through early travelogues. Qala-i-Panja, the former capital of the rulers of Wakhan, is perched on five hills above the Oxus at an altitude of 2800 meters. The last Mir of Wakhan, Ali Mardan Shah, was buried there after his death in 1926 as a Governor Ishkomen (Ghizer Pakistan). The Afghan authorities later shifted the administration to Khandud, a little further east.

When the famous explorer. Marco Polo, traveled through Wakhan in the Thirteenth century, he was not only impressed by the abundance of wildlife and natural grazing grounds-Pamir means "green highland"-but also by the abilities of its people to cope with the hardships in one of the most remote areas of this world. Nineteenth-century travelers like John Wood who followed in his footsteps made similar observations. John Wood came in search of the source of the Oxus river with the sanction of the Supreme Government of India in the 1830s.  "The flocks of the Wakhani constitute his riches, or rather enable him to endure the ills to which his bleak-high living valley expose him." (Wood 1841:373).

The Wakhan was ruled by its own kings (Mirs) untill 1883. This small principality on the roof of the world has constantly faced outside pressures. The Wakhi population has suffered deportation, slavery, and religious and political persecution over the centuries. Regional conflicts in Badakhshan and Central Asia forced the Wakhi to leave their homes and emigrate to Xinjiang (China) and Northern Pakistan even before Wakhan lost its autonomy in 1883. Captain Barrow, the author of the first Gazetteer of the Afghan Provinces of the Upper Oxus, reports that before Wakhan was taken over by the Afghan Government, "The population in 1883 was about 6,000, i.e. 300 houses. A house in Wakhan means a family hamlet, and many consists of twelve to fifty people; but twenty may be taken as a fair average." (Barrow 1888:124). Ali Mardan Shah, the ruler at that time, fearing for his life, fled with half of the Wakhi population across the border into the Yasin and Ishkoman, where the Mehtar of Chitral, Aman-ul-Mulk, granted him exile.

The Wakhan corridor of today was created during the 'Great Game' of Russia and British India. This buffer zone under Afghan control resulted from their negotiations in 1895: the Oxus river emerged as a natural landmark and the new border between Russia and Afghanistan. Thus, the northern part of Wakahn came under Bukharan supremacy. To escape oppression  in the form of high taxes and forced labour, as well as out of fear of conscription and starvation, a large number of migrants left the Wakhan in the period between 1883 and 1919. Groups of migrants crossed the passes into the neighboring valleys and took refuge in their inhospitable upper reaches. It was during this period that most of the present Wakhi settlements were established in uninhabited and remote valleys. Communication between relatives were sustained across the high mountain passes.

The Russian and Chinese revolution led to stricter border control, and international agreements made cross-border exchange difficult. The official diaries kept by the British Political Agents in Gilgit and Kashghar give a contemporary record of the difficulties trespassers faced when ignoring the newly established boundaries. Thus the Political Agent, Crichton, notes in 1940, under the heading of 'Afghan Wakhan:

"Two Afghan Wakhies arrived in Chipursan (Hunza) during the month and on being turned back from there, crossed the chilinji pass into Ishkoman where they were arrested. They said they had fled from Wakhan because the Afghan authorities were conscripting Wakhis from service in the Army. They have now been sent back to their homes from Ishkoman. (Gilgit Agency Political Diary 1940: 134)

According to Sabine Felmy the Wakhis are now living outside of Wakhan, separated by colonial borders. Today the Wakhies are found in four neighboring countries: about 9,500 Wakhi live in Afghan Wakhan, 12,000 in Tajikistan, 2,500 in Xinjiang (China), and 10,500 in the northern Areas of Pakistan

In Tajikistan, the Pamirian people were granted an autonomous region called Gorno Badakhshan in 1925. Later on they were organized in kolkhozs. Some of the mountain people, including the Wakhi, have been resettled in the cotton-growing plains of Uzbekistan, in disregard of the socio-cultural and climatic problems they faced in the lowlands. G.V.B. Gillan, the Political Agent in Gilgit, records their uprooting under the heading 'Russian Pamirs' in his official diary in 1933:

 

Reports are current from Wakhan that the Soviet authorities have ordered all cultivators to hand over their grains, keeping only a half pound per head per diem for their own subsistence: that they have abolished the Muhammadan law relating to marriage and that they are endeavoring to send numbers of Kirghis and Wakhis in the plains of Tashkent for their speedier assimilation of Bolshevik culture.   (Gilgit Agency Political Diary 1933:325)

The political changes have in mountains inhibited by Wakhies led to the separation of the Wakhi enclaves, each enclave developed independently of the other. This different living conditions prevail in each of the Wakhi habitate.

In Chinese Xinjiang, the Wakhi settled in the heart of the nomadic pasture areas of the Taghdumbush Pamir, where they established their settlements on the upper limit of cultivation. After Mao Zedong's revolution, people's communes were established, and these still comprise the dominant settlement features in rural China. Sabine Felmy writes that this applies as well to Wakhi villages which she visited on Pamir Plateau, at the highest altitudes for permanent settlements, in the vicinity of Tashkurgan, the center of the Tajik autonomous country. The villages are located along the Pak-China Friendship Highway which follows the traditional trade-route between Hunza and Kashgar, known as the Silk Route. The Wakhi village of Dafdar formed one stage on the mail track to the British Consulate in Kashgar, when the subcontinent was part of the British empire. The border regions offer excellent grazing grounds which were utilized from the Hunza and Dafdar side. Nowadays these summer settlements on the roof of the world are inhibited by the Wakhi, Kirghiz, and the Sarikoli, where they breed livestock and process milk products. To their Chinese and Uigur counterparts the Wakhi are Tajiks, a synonym for the Eastern Iranian-speaking people and Ismaili Muslims in China.

Wakhi habitats within Pakistan are scattered in different valleys of the north. The largest group of Wakhi in Pakistan have settled in Gojal, in the upper reaches of the Hunza valley. They migrated from Wakhan throgh Chipurson border areas during different time periods to escape deportation, slavery, and religious persecution. It is said that before their arrival, Kirghiz nomads with their flocks were utilizing the pastures of the Karakurum only seasonally. Living under the protection of Hunza, the Wakhi had to pay tribute to the Raja of Gilgit and later to Mir of Hunza.   Another group of Wakhies who crossed Wakhan through Ishkomen and Brughil Passes settled down in Ishkomen, Brughul, Yarkhun and Yasin areas.

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