An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan/Page 176-206

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An Inquiry Into the Ethnography of Afghanistan

By H. W. Bellew

The Oriental University Institute, Woking, 1891

Ethnology of Afghanistan:Page 151-175

Parikanoi Contd.

[Page-176]:

and Kaj Makran. Anciently the name of the whole of this region, now called Balochistan, was, it would seem, Kash, Kach, or Kaj (or Kush or Kuj, as the Persians pronounce it), that name appearing both in its eastern and western divisions as Kach Gandava and Kach or Kaj Makran respectively ; and it was inhabited by the Kash or Kach race (Cush of the Bible — " Gush begat Nimrod"), the Asiatic Ethiopians of Herodotus. From these Kash or Kach derives the great Kashwaha or Kachwaha (Kushwaha or Kuchwaha) of the Rajput genealogies.

The Parikanoi (Persian plural form of the Indian Paru-ka = "mountaineer") mentioned by Herodotus along with the Asiatic Ethiopians, are now represented by the Brahoe, Brahwi, or Barohi an indigenous word of the same signification, " mountaineer". The term Asiatic Ethiopians of Herodotus, here mentioned, refers to that branch of the ancient Cushites which at a very early period settled in the Tigris valley, and thence extended along the sea-coast to the Indus. From these parts they spread eastward to the heart of Rajputana or Rajwara as the Kachwaha and to the north as far as Hindu Kush, where we have seen Kachwaha tribes among the people of the Kafiristan and Kunar or Kashkar. The tradition current among the Baloch, of their ancestors having come from Aleppo in Syria evidently refers to the Cushite origin of the ancient inhabitants of the country.

Strabo, describing this part of ancient Ariana — our Afghanistan — says (Geog. xv. 2), that the tribes on the sea-coast from the Indus to Karmania (Persian Kirman), are the

Pliny also mentions the Oritai (Hist. Nat., vi. 25) as the Ikhthiophagi Oritai, who speak a language peculiar to themselves, and not of the Indian dialect, and as being neighbours of the Gedrusi and Pasires, and being divided from the Indians by the river Arabis.

Arrian, describing Alexander's march through this region, says that, after starting Nearchus to conduct the fleet by sea, Alexander himself marched along the coast to the river Arabius, to attack the Oritai, a nation of India dwelling near that river ; that on his approach the Oritai fled to the deserts, and Alexander, invading their territories, came to the village called Rambakia, which served them as a capital city.

Gurtius, in his account of this same march, says that Alexander built a city at this place, and peopled it with Arakhotoi. Beyond the Oritai, continues Arrian, Alexander, keeping near the coast, entered through a narrow pass into the territories of the Gedrosoi, the onward march through which lay at a distance from the sea, by

[Page-177]: a very dangerous road, destitute of all the necessaries of life, till he reached Pura (Bampur), the capital of the Gedrosoi, on the sixtieth day after leaving the territory of the Oritai. After a rest at Pura he marched into Karmania.

Oritai and Gedrosi

The only people mentioned by Arrian as inhabiting this part of Ariana are the Oritai and Gedrosi.

The name Oritai is probably a Greek word (" Mountaineers"), and corresponds to the native name Parikani used by Herodotus, and both are represented by the modern colloquial name Brahwi, On the other hand, there is the Hara range of mountains, separating Las Bela — the country of the Oritai — from Makran, which may be the original source of the name Oritai. Be this as it may, both these peoples, the Gedrosoi and Oritai, came under the denomination Ikhtiophagoi, the Greek equivalent of the Persian Mahikhoran, "Fish-eaters," still surviving in the modern Makran.

Pura (Bampur) was, according to Arman, the capital of the Gedrosoi, after whom the whole of this region was named Gedrosia. They were probably at that time the dominant and most numerous tribe ; their name still survives in that of their modern representatives, the Gadar of Las Bela, where they are chiefly employed in mercantile pursuits. The Gidar sections of some of the Pathan tribes of the Suleman range are perhaps from this source, or more directly, from the Lumri, a name of the same signification ; and, as before suggested, the Jadran of the Suleman range near Ghazni represent the same people. But the ancient Gedrosoi are probably now most largely represented in Balochistan by the Lumri which is only another Lidian form for Gidar, both words meaning "jackal," or "fox." On the other hand, the Pathan Gidar may stand for the Sanskrit Vidor, and may represent the tribe of the wise and far-seeing Vidura of the Mahabharat, whilst the Gadari represent the swift Gadura, enemy of the Naga.

The place of the ancient Gedrosoi is now taken by the Baloch, by far the most numerous tribe in the country, and after whom this region was, it is said, named Balochistan by Nadir Shah, only about a hundred and fifty years ago, when he annexed the Afghanistan of our inquiry to the Persian dominions. I have in a previous passage recognised the Baloch as the Baldecha Rajput. Formerly they must have been a powerful tribe, and have given their name as the national designation to a heterogeneous mixture of tribes and races which are now incorporated as clans of the Baloch. The Baloch are not now, however, the dominant tribe in the country which bears their name. That position is occupied by the Brahwi. Let us now examine the composition of these two great tribes of the ancient Gedrosia, the modern Balochistan, viz., the Brahwi, representing the ancient Parikanoi, or Oritai ;

[Page-178]: and the Baloch, representing the ancient Asiatic Ethiopians, or Gedrosoi. We take the Brahwi first.

Brahwi

The Brahwi, — the name is said to be a corruption of Ba-rohi,"of the hills," or "Highlanders," and distinguishes this people from the Baloch, whom they designate as Na-rohi (Narhwi), " not of the hills," or " Lowlanders," — inhabit the Sarwan and Jhalawan provinces of Kalat Balochistan, and the Brahwi, or Brahwik, range of mountains extending southwards through these districts and Las Bela, from Shal Kot (Quetta) in the north to the sea coast in the south, and bounded eastward by Kach Gandava and westward by Nushki and Kharan. This wide area of mountains and elevated plateaux is the central home of the mountaineers called Brahwi, and is the country in which their language, called Brahwiki, prevails. The name Brahwi, thus explained, corresponds to the term Kohistani, applied to the "mountaineers " of the Swat and Boner countries at the northern extremity of the Indus frontier, and is not the proper ethnic name of the people to whom it is, in one sense, properly enough applied. The proper ethnic name of the Brahwi and his language is Baraha, an aboriginal tribe of kindred race with the Lumri ; but the names Baraha and Brahwi, Brahoe and Barohi, are really the same, and the people so called are of the same stock as the Kurd or Kurd-Gali. Though mostly centred in the area above defined, the Brahwi is found all over Balochistan, and, as we have seen, in Sistan also ; and though in his native home he is more commonly called Brahwi, outside it he is most commonly called Kurd, or KurdGali; whilst both names, Brahwi and Kurd, are common to him everywhere. The Brahwi or Kurd is in reality a descendant of the ancient Assyrian or Khaladi. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Kurd were an important people in Afghanistan ; and under the Malik Kurd dynasty (previously noticed), the princes of which were treated as favoured vassals by Changiz Khan and his successors, they held the government of Herat, Ghor, and Kandahar to the confines of the provinces on the Indus. The Malik Kurd dynasty in Afghanistan was extinguished, as before stated, by Tamerlane ; but was revived in Balochistan by the ancestor of the present Khan of Kalat, a chieftain of the Kambar clan of Kurd. I have mentioned these historical details, because they help to explain in some degree the mixture of Turk (subjects of the Kurd) elements in the composition of the tribes of Balochistan, whether clans of the Brahwi or of the Baloch. Most of the names of the clans and sections of both these great tribes end in the Persian plural form (possessive) -ani (which is sometimes changed to -anri or -ari), corresponding to the Indian -ka. or -ki, and the Afghan -khel and -zi.

[Page-179]: The principal Brahwi clans are the following ; and they are all subdivided into more or less numerous sections, some of which contain only a few families. The principal clans are : —

Amal. Bangal. Bizanju. Ghajgi. Jatah. Kalloi. Kambar. Kedar. Kochik. Kurd. Langao. Lari. Luti. Mahmud Shahi. Mandar. Mingal. Noshirwani. Pazh. Phog. Rais. Raksh. Rod. Saholi. Samala. Sarpara. Shekh Huseni. Shirwani. Sonari. Tambar. Zehri. Zigar, etc. Of these names,

The others are all Kurd or Brahwi clans ; amongst them

  • Kambar is the tribe of the ruling chief at Kalat, the Kambarani Khan.

Besides the above there is a great number of subdivisions, the names of many of which appear indifferently as Brahwi and Baloch.

Baloch

The Baloch (Baldecha Chohan Agnikula Rajput) appear to have been separated from the other Rajput tribes of Afghanistan from an early period, and to have remained for ages under more direct and complete Persian influence. Perhaps their country was not included in the territories ceded by Seleukus to Sandkakottos, previously mentioned. The Baloch know nothing of their remote ancestry, but as Musalmans pretend Arab descent from ancestors settled at Aleppo ; the claim may arise from a

[Page-180]: tradition in the country of its first inhabitants having come from that quarter. In Kaj Makran and Kach Gandava the Baloch are called Nahrwi (Narohi) by the Brahwi, it is said, by way of distinction from themselves (Barohi) ; but this name has no connection with their tribal divisions or race designations. In Kalat the Brahwi are commonly reckoned as a division of the Baloch, and the whole tribe of Baloch is said to consist of three great branches ; namely, the

These, in fact, represent the three main ethnic elements constituting the modem Baloch nationality ; the

  • Rind are originally from the Rin or Ran, of Kach, the great salt marsh formed by the Loni (" salt ") river of Rajwara ; a name, according to Tod ("Annals of Rajasthan," vol. ii., p. 295) derived from the Sanskrit aranya (" the waste "), and preserved by the Greek writers in the form of Erinos, We have before met with the name Aranya amongst the tribes of Kafiristan, viz. in that of the Arinya, or Aranya, neighbours of the Kalasha, whom I have recognised as the Kalacha Solanki Rajput (Agnikula). The name Rind is a territorial designation applied to the Baloch, or Balaecha, and other Chohan Rajput tribes, whose original seats were in the Chohan country, on the banks of the Loni ; and instead of being a branch of the Baloch as now reckoned, is the tribe of which the Baloch proper (Balaecha) is a branch. For the purpose of description, however, it is convenient to adhere to the above threefold division of the Baloch. We have described the Brahwi, and have now to examine the composition of the Numri and the Rind.

Numri, are in three main divisions, viz. Numri of Las Bela, Bulfat, or Burfat, and Jokya, each of which is subdivided into numerous sections. These all speak Jadgali or Jatgali, a dialect — varying amongst the different clans — of the Jatki, or Jat language, of Sind.

The Numri, or Lumri, sections are : —

Achra. Angarya. Bahra. Barodya. Bora. Chota. Doda. Gadarya. Ganga. Jamhot. Mangya. Manduri. Masur. Ranja. Rongha. Shaluka. Shekh. Sur. Sinhan. Sengar. Suthra, etc. Of these names,

[Page-181]:

  • Bulfat, or Burfat, is a corruption of Abulfath, a Muhammadan surname taken on conversion to that religion by the ancestors of this tribe, and means "Father of Victory," or, "Pre-eminently Victorious." The Bulfat are in two divisions — Bappah, or Bappahani, and Amal, or Amalanri. The
  • Bappah, or Bappahani, descend from the family of the celebrated Gahlot Rajput sovereign of Chitor, who was styled Bappa, and whose history is given in Tod's " Annals of Rajasthan." Bappa founded the Gahlot dynasty in Marwar in 728 A.D. He left a very numerous progeny, and had reached the age of one hundred years when he died. At the close of his career, Bappa, says Tod, " abandoned his children and his country, carried his arms west to Khorasan, and there established himself, and married new wives from among the 'barbarians,' by whom he had a numerous offspring." Tod adds, that Bappa " became an ascetic at the foot of Meru, where he was buried alive after having overcome all the princes of the west, as in Ispahan, Kandahar, Cashmeer, Irak, Iran, Tooran, and Cafferistan, all of whose daughters he married, and by whom he had one hundred and thirty sons, called the Nosheyra Pathans. Each of these founded a tribe bearing the name of the mother, his Hindu children were ninety-eight in number, and were called Agni oopasi Sooryavansi or " sun-born fire- worshippers."

Bulfat sections are — Not yet ascertained.

Jokya sections are : —

Band. Bardeja. Bizanju. Ghad. Gidor. Hamiraka.

[Page-182]: Harya putra. Harti. Hingara. Jadgal. Kalmati. Mahmat. Medah. Musi. Pagh. Panda. Ponwar. Rais. Regani. Sabra. Salarya. Shahzada. Shikari. Tabar. Wardili.

Of the above names,

  • Jokya may stand for Jaga, and
  • Band for Bhand both Rajput tribes of the bard or minstrel class, similar to the celebrated and once-powerful Charan of the same clan.

[Page-183]: Rind. — The Rind comprise a great number of clans, more commonly known by the general term Baloch ; of which latter tribe the Rind is now reckoned a branch. All these clans or tribes are subdivided into numerous sections, some of which contain only a few families. The principal Baloch tribes are the following, most of the subdivisions and sections of which have the possessive plural affix of -āni, or -āri, as before explained.

Baloch tribes.

Bari. Bolida. Bozdar. Bugti. Burdi. Dreshak. Dor. Dumki. Gichki. Gorich. Hamar. Hot. Jakar. Jaloi. Jatoi. Kaodai. Kasar. Katwar. Khatran. Khosa. Korwa. Laghari. Landi. Lashari. Latti. Lori. Lund. Magazi. Malai. Mammasani. Marwari. Mari. Mazari. Med. Nabka. Nohani. Noshirwani. Raksh. Rind. Sajodi. Sangarya. Utan, etc.


Of the above names,

[Page-184]:

are Las, Lash, Lakh, Lagh, and the last form occurs in Laghjam along with Lasari, the first form among the Spin Tarin before described ;

The chief of the above tribes are subdivided as follows : —

Mari sections are : —

Ali. Bijar. Chalgari. Ghazni. Gusara. Jangi. Kalandar. Kandar. Kayani. Kongara. Lanja. Lohar. Pawadi. Saheja. Salar. Sarwar. Shera. Somra, etc.

Of these,

Mazari sections are : —

Baloch. Bangi. Batil. Bhimbar. Chaoghi. Dharo. Gola. Haro. Isan. Jala. Jask. Kasar. Lot. Machi. Masid. Mastak. Mer. Merwi. Mingal. Morka. Musi. Pande. Polati. Rustam. Sado. Saheja. Samala. Sanata. Sanjar. Silat.

[Page-185]:

Siyaf. Sola. Sot. Sureja. Takar. Talpur. Torka, Umra. Vao. Zamka, etc. Of these,

Lund sections are : —

Alo. Bakar. Barna. Bhe. Burta. Chato. Gadi. Gaj. Gera. Gorich. Hot. Jamo. Ganjo. Jato. Kali. Kambar. Ladi. Loda. Mari. Mato. Nato. Saho. Saka. Soha. Sorba. Sumra. Yaro. Zara, etc.

Of these,

Dreshak sections are : —

Arab. Arsho. Brahim. Fogil. Gamo. Gonfaz. Isan. Jask. Katohal. Kirman. Malo. Mando. Mingo. Mital. Nuk. Sami. Sargani. Shekh, etc. Of these names,

Gorishani, or Gorchani sections are : —

Ali. Babol. Badal. Bangal. Bazgir. Chang. Choti. Dod. Dorka. Gabol. Haro. Hel. Hot. Jask. Jogi. Kalang. Kang. Katal. Khalil. Korpat. Ladi. Lashari. Meo . Mita. Motik. Musa. Pitafi. Salu. Sandil. Sarmor. Shal. Shik. Soha. Sur. Tangu. Tarkal, etc.

[Page-186]: Many of these we have met and explained above,

The above examples suffice to show the composition of the tribes and clans comprised under the name Baloch, and classed together under the Rind, Rin, or Ran, Rajput branch of the Baloch.

Jat Baloch sections

Jat Baloch sections are : —

Abra. Aslamya. Bangal. Bangi. Dalal. Desi. Dhe. Gatwara. Haura. Hel. Hodi. Jagdal. Jakhar. Jatoi. Kalhora. Khandya. Khokhar. Kori. Machi. Manjha. Nau Naga. Pachhada. Palal. Pasrar. Thakuraili. Thenwa. Wadera, etc. Of these,

Scattered Afghans and Arabs - Besides the tribes of Balochistan above mentioned, there are some scattered Afghans and Arabs. The latter are found chiefly in the western coast districts, where they are engaged in commercial and agricultural pursuits ; they constitute the bulk of a religious sect in these parts of Belochistan, which is called Zikari, and appears to be an offshoot of the Roshanya, and perhaps of the Manichaeans. The former have a small colony, settled at Kalat chiefly, of the Babi Afghan tribe, almost entirely engaged in mercantile pursuits; they derive probably from the Bhiba Pramara Rajput. In the same district of Kalat is also found a settled community of Persian origin, called Dehwar, or "villager" ; they correspond to the Dihcan of Sistan, speak Persian, and are wholly engaged in agriculture. By some they are reckoned as Tajib, a term which, in Afghanistan and Central Asia generally, is applied to all the vassal or servile Persian-speaking population who are settled in villages and towns, and engaged in husbandry and civil industries, as distinct from the dominant classes, military, nomadic, and predatory. This completes our review of the tribes inhabiting Balochistan, the ancient Gadrosia, the country covered by the seventeenth satrapy of Herodotus.

xviii, ixx and xxth satrapy of Herodotus

Eighteenth satrapy - The eighteenth satrapy comprised the Matienoi, Saspiroi, and Alarodoi ; it occupied the northern portion of modern Persia,

[Page-187]: and lies beyond the limits of our present inquiry. It included part of Media, adjoining the ancient Aria district of our Afghanistan, which was inhabited by the Matienoi,or Mati, a tribe which we have seen largely represented amongst the modern Afghan.

Nineteenth satrapy - The nineteenth satrapy comprised the Tibarenoi, Makronoi, Mosynoekoi, and Marsoi ; it lay farther away than the preceding satrapy towards the west, about the shores of the Euxine Sea. It is interesting to us only from the mention of the Makronoi and the Mosynoekoi.

In Makronoi we seem to have the same name as the Makrani of Balochistan, already explained as meaning "fish-eaters " — the Ikhthiophagoi of the Greeks ; the name may have been given to the coast tribes of the southern shores of the Euxine for the same reason that it has been given to those of the ancient Gadrosia, modern Balochistan.

The Mosynoekoi of Herodotus is the name applied to a people apparently different from his Makronoi. But Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of some mountains in Pontus, says (Geog. xiii. 3) that they are all quite savage, including, among others, the Suanoi, formerly called Makronoi; and that some of them live among trees, or in small towers, whence the ancients called them Mosynoekoi "dwellers in towers," because the towers were called mosynoi. In regard to this, I may here note that in various parts of the Indus valley, where the land is marshy and periodically flooded, the pastoral inhabitants erect platforms or towers upon upright posts, in which they live during the period of the inundations, to escape the torments of mosquitoes and insects ; these structures they call machan, which may be the word represented by the Greek mosynoi above mentioned. In regard to the

Suanoi (modern Mingrelian), formerly called Makronoi, I may here note that there is a district, in the Makran division of Balochistan, called Syana-koh ; and at the junction of the Khojah, Amran, and Suleman ranges, on the north-eastern borders of Balochistan (Syana-koh being within its north-western border), is another district called Syona-dag. The Pukhto word dāg must not be confounded with the Turki dāgh or tāgh, which has the same meaning as the Persian koh, viz. " mountain." The Pukhto dāg or dāgah means a bare, flat plain, generally hard, and strewed with pebbles, and is here applied as the name of the elevated plateaux of hard, pebbly, and mostly bare soil, which constitute a characteristic feature of the Tobah highlands. There is also, as we have seen, a section of the Pathan tribes of this region of the Suleman range, called Syani.

Twentieth, and last, satrapy - The twentieth, and last, satrapy included the Indians, says Herodotus. The term is comprehensive, and indefinite enough ; but, happily for us, this satrapy lies beyond the area of our inquiry.

Origin of name Afghanistan

[Page-188]: We have now run over, — with more haste than I wished, — the twenty satrapies of the Persian Empire of Darius Hystaspes enumerated by Herodotus, and have very briefly noticed those which lay within the limits of the ancient Ariana — our Afghanistan — as defined at the outset of our inquiry. We have recognised amongst the existing inhabitants of this region the modern representatives, in name, at least, of most of the nations mentioned by Herodotus as its occupants in his day — say, the middle of the fifth century before Christ; and I have examined and analysed the present composition of the several Afghan tribes bearing the names of those ancient nations, or occupying their territories. In the long list and multiplicity of tribes and their sub-divisions, amongst the great variety of names and races, the fact which comes out with most remarkable clearness is the entire absence of the name which the people of the country now bear as their national designation. We have met with no tribe, nor clan, nor section named Afghan, or bearing a name anything like it.

Next to this disclosure, and a fact no less remarkable, is the great preponderance of Rajput and Indian races — long since lost to sight in the all-absorbing brotherhood of Islam — throughout the whole area of the region to its farthest western limits, although naturally they predominate in its eastern quarters. The Indian element in the population of ancient Ariana is well represented in modern Afghanistan by the survival to our day of the same tribal names, with little or no orthographic change, which history has recorded as being borne by the nations inhabiting that region during the centuries immediately preceding and following the overthrow of the Persian Empire of another Darius (Codomannus) by Alexander the Great, in 330 B.C.

The Makedonian conquest was that of one pagan — or idolatrous — nation over another ; the religious worship of both the Greek and the Indian, though separated by the intervening Persian of an entirely different creed, had many points in common, and their mythologies were so alike, as to have been recognised by each as of one and the same origin (Egyptian, Hamitic) ; the great difference between them, apart from language, lay in the superior civilization of the Greek, his advance in letters, arts, and military organization. It was this superior civilization of the Greek that enabled the successors of Alexander to establish the Greek dominion over the countries he had conquered ; apparently with the willing co-operation of the natives, with whom the Greeks freely intermarried, and with whom they fairly shared the government, whilst retaining the supreme authority in their own hands. During the Greek supremacy and course of Hellen-

[Page 189-198] ?:

[Page-199]: selves Pukhtun individually and Pukhtanah collectively ; and from this last, or from Pukhtan another form of Pukhtun, comes the current Hindustani form Pathan, By its Indian neighbours this country of Pukht is called Roh, a Hindi word which corresponds to the Persian Koh and means "mountain"; and the Roh country is said to extend from the highlands of Swat and Bajaur in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south, and from Kandahar and Ghor in the west to the Indus and Hasan Abdal in the east ; but in a restricted sense the name is applied only to the Suleman range itself, from the Khybar to the Bolan. The inhabitants of Roh are called Rohila, an abbreviation of Roh-wala, which means "native of Roh " (mountaineer). The word Pukhta is the mountaineer's hard pronunciation of the Persian Pushta, which means "mountain" "hill range," though the use of the word in this sense is now more or less obsolete in both the Pukhto and Persian colloquials ; the words Koh and Kohistan — " mountain " and " mountainous country," and Kohistani, " mountaineer," being used instead, especially in designating the mountainous districts in the northern portion of this eastern frontier of Afghanistan ; as the Kohistan of Kabul, Kohistan of Swat, etc., and in the case of Dardistan as Kohistan simply ; the latter term being in fact the Persian equivalent of the Sanskrit Daradistan, or " country of the Darada " ; the meaning of the word Darada itself being " mountaineer," or " of the dar," which last word means " mountain." Another Sanskrit name for " mountaineer," used anciently to designate the hill people on the Indus borders of Kashmir (if not indeed another name for the Darada), was Kirata, for Kirada " of the Kir," that is " of the mountain " (kir or gir = mountain). This last name is not often heard in these parts now, but that of the Darada still survives in the modern Dardu of Dardistan.

We thus see that from a remote period the whole of the eastern portion of our Afghanistan has, in various languages and dialects, been designated as " The Mountains," or " The High-lands," and its inhabitants as " The Mountaineers," or " The Highlanders." The Paktiya of Herodotus is clearly the Pathan Pukhta, the harsh mountaineer's pronunciation of the soft Persian Pushta, the term applied to this mountainous region when it formed part of the Persian Empire. The Roh of the Hindi probably originated after the transfer of these provinces to Sandrakottos filled the country with Hindus. The Sanskrit Darada and Kirata lay beyond the Paktiya country to the north, and were more ancient names, which perhaps included Paktiya before it got its Persian name of Pushta. The southern extremity of the Roh country, to the south of the Bolan Pass, though called Kohistani Baloch also, is locally styled Brahwiki, " of the Brahwi," or

[Page-200]: "Brahwi country," and explained as meaning Burohi ki, " of the people of the mountains." Thus far we see that the several national names in this eastern portion of Afghanistan — viz., Pukhtun or Pathan, Rohila, Kohistani, Barohi or Brahwi, and Darada or Dardu, all alike mean "Mountaineer."

Let us now turn to the western portion of our Afghanistan, Here we find the frontier marching with Persia of the present day, and extending in an unbroken chain of hills from Gurgan (ancient Hyrkania) in the north to Kirman (ancient Karmania) in the south, called by the Persian word Kohistan, "Highlands." The portion of it to the west of Herat, now occupied by the Karai Turk, is said to have been the former seat of the modern Abdali Afghans ; and the whole range was one of the strongholds of the sect of the Assassins, the followers of Hasan Sabah, the Shekh ul Jahali " Prince of the Jabal " (the name given to the highlands of Persia by the Arabs), and the " Old Man of the Mountains," as known in Europe ; who call themselves Ismaili, but were called Mulahida, or " The Impious," by orthodox Musalmans. It is probable that many of the subdivisions of the Afghan tribes which bear the name Ismail may derive from this sect, after its destruction by Holaku Khan, and perhaps the entire Bangash tribe.

The rest of western Afghanistan is occupied in its southern half by the sandy desert of Sistan and the low hills of Makran, a tract which, inclusive of modern Sistan, was called Nimroz by early Muhammadan writers from a tradition, it is supposed, of its having anciently belonged to the empire of Nimrod, king of Babylon. In its northern half the greater portion of western Afghanistan is occupied by the mountainous country of Ghor, the Paropamisus of Alexander's historians, a word supposed to be derived from the Hindi parva-bama, " flat-topped mountain," and the modern Hazarah. By Muhammadan writers the country is usually mentioned by the tautological term Kohistani Ghor, that is, " the mountainous country of the mountains " ; for Ghor is a form of the Pukhto ghar = Sanskrit gir, " mountain," and is found in this form in Gharistan (Gharjistan of our maps), the name of one of its districts. The name dates apparently from a period subsequent to the Makedonian conquest, and was given to the country probably by the Indians, who then took possession of the country. The modern name Hazarah dates only from the period of the Mughal invasion of Changiz Khan in the first half of the thirteenth century, and is explained as being of Persian origin, from the word hazarah, " a division a thousand strong," being used to designate the military divisions, or banners, into which the country was parcelled out under the Mughal rule. But there is another country, or district, on the east bank of the Indus, now

[Page-201]: called by the same name Hazarah, to which this explanation does not apply ; for the Indus Hazarah is evidently the modern form of the Sanskrit Abhisara (the country of the Abisares of Alexander's historians) mentioned in the Rajataringini as a dependency of Kashmir under the name of Dorvabisara, "the Dor valley Abhisara." There is, however, apart from any historical record, a decisive point in favour of the accuracy of the above explanation of the name of the Hazarah of Ghir, and that is its common use in the plural form of Hazarajat, which indicates the former division of the country into military districts, each of which was distinguished as the hazarah, or division of troops nominally a thousand strong, of a particular district under its own proper banner ; and at the present day each of the four Aymak tribes previously described, and several of the Dahi also, is called an hazarah, both as regards the tribe itself and the district belonging to it ; as Tymani hazarah, Tymuri hazarah, Dahi Zangi hazarah, Dahi Chopan hazarah, etc. At the present the name Hazarah or Hazarajat supersedes any other for the entire Ghor country. It is only the hill districts to the east and west of Herat that are now sometimes spoken of as Kohistan ; but their inhabitants are not called Kohistani, being too well known by their proper names.

The Aymak and Hazarah inhabitants of Ghor are never called Afghan by the people of the country in the heart of which they dwell ; they are indeed entirely different races, as we have seen, and have nothing in common with the Afghans so called.

North of the Ghor country is the Turkistan province of modern Afghanistan. It is the country of Turk and Uzbak tribes, and contains no territorial tribes of Afghans. We need not therefore tarry in this part of the country.

The eastern portion of Afghan Turkistan is inhabited by the Badakhshi, Wakhi, Shighni, who are classed as Tajik along with the other ancient Persian-speaking population now found in the lowlands and open parts of the country, and in the large towns and cities. In Afghanistan the term Tajik is comprehensively applied to all the Persian speaking peasantry in the lowlands, and to the artisan, professional, mercantile, and servile classes in the cities and towns whose language is the Persian. The Dehwar colony of Persian-speaking agriculturists in Kalati Baloch is also reckoned as Tajik, and there are similar village communities of Tajik in different parts of the country, as in Logar, the suburbs of Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, etc., and especially in the Kohistan of Kabul, where the bulk of the population is Tajik, and largely consists of converted Kafir. The word Tajik or Tazik, as used in Afghanistan, is a diminutive form of the Persian tāz, which means " servile, menial, low-bred, subject," and in this sense appears to have originated during the

[Page-202]: Arab supremacy in Persia and Central Asia, where the vulgar language of the civil population was Persian, to distinguish the servile and trading classes from the ruling and military classes ; as in the phrase Turk or Tāz, distinguishing the warlike and military Turk from the peaceable and servile Persian; and in Tazik Mazik or Tajik Majik, used in a contemptuous sense, to denote the servile and rustic classes of the Persian-speaking population and such like. The term Tajik does not signify race descent in Afghanistan, for under that designation are included a variety of tribeless but servile races, Persian, Indian, Rajput, Naga, etc. Those of recognised Persian descent in Afghanistan are called Parsivan. By the Persians the name Taz is given to the descendants of Arabs in Persia, and is also applied by them to the Arabs themselves who settled in Persia, and anything of Arab origin or descent in Persia they called Tazi, "Arabian," as aspi Tazi, "Arab horse," sagi Tazi, "Arab dog"; but both these examples have also the independent meanings of " race-horse " and "racing dog, grey-hound," from the Persian verb tākhtan, taZ, "to run," " drive," etc., and this may be the source of the Taz applied by the Persians to Arabs.

Of the various divisions of the country mentioned by the ancient Greek and Roman writers quoted, and by the later Muhammadan authors, we have already noticed the names in the beginning of our inquiry, and need not repeat them again now. In our review we have gone over the whole area of the region previously defined as the Afghanistan of our inquiry, and nowhere have we found any portion of it called Afghanistan, either by ancients or moderns, or even by its existing inhabitants; for, though the name is not unknown to them, it is not used by them as the designation of their country, except by that division of the inhabitants calling themselves Durani Afghan, and by them since the middle of the last century only. The name by which this region is known to and spoken of by its inhabitants is Khorasan.

The name Afghanistan, it appears, originated with the Persians, and no earlier than the conquest of Nadir Shah, Turkoman, who on re-annexing this region to the Persian empire of his creation, less than a hundred and fifty years ago, called the southern portion of it Balochistan, after the predominant tribe there, and the northern Afghanistan, after the principal people in that quarter with whom he had to deal. But in the middle of the last century, Ahmad Shah, Abdali, on making himself master of Nadir's conquests in this region, extended the name of Afghanistan to the whole country, as we have defined it after the ancient Ariana. Although the name Afghanistan is of very modern date as a territorial designation, the Afghans themselves appear in

[Page-203]: history from a very much earlier period ; at least from the beginning of the eighth century of our era, at which period the savage and predatory mountaineers of the Ghor highlands north of Sistan became known to the early Arab invaders of this region by the name of Afghan, and Afaginah in the plural. From this time forwards during the next two centuries of warfare and dynastic changes in this region, the Afghan name figures from time to time in Oriental history as that of a turbulent and barbarous people, mostly nomadic or pastoral, of warlike and predatory instincts, and endowed with military and administrative capabilities of no mean order; till at length they attain the climax of their glory and renown in the Ghori dynasty of Ghazni, when the celebrated Shahabuddin Ghori conquered Hindustan, and not only confirmed the Islam introduced there by Sultan Mahmud of the preceding Turk dynasty at Ghazni, but along with it planted the Afghan arms with such effect, that after the downfall of the Ghori dynasty they raised the Afghan to the sovereignty of India, as represented by the Pathan kings of Delhi. We are not concerned to trace the Afghan career in India to its displacement by the Mughal, but may conveniently turn from this point to inquire who these Afghans were. The dynasty established at Ghazni by Sabaktakin is reputed to have been Turk, though Sabak himself may have been a native of the Ghazni country, and perhaps a Rajput to boot; at all events he married a lady of one of the tribes dwelling about Ghazni, who bore him his son and successor the famous Mahmud, the first Muhammadan prince who ever adopted the title of Sultan. This Mahmud treated the Afghans with especial favour, and very largely employed them, not only in his army, but also in various other State offices, by which means they acquired so great power and influence as to supplant his dynasty on the throne of Ghazni, which then passed to the Afghan of Ghor.


The Ghori Afghan of the Ghazni dynasty belonged to the Sur tribe of Ghor ; they were Suri Afghan. The Sur we have already described amongst the tribes of Ghor, and left it uncertain whether these Sur were of Syrian or of Indian derivation. The Pathan kings of Delhi, who rose upon the ruins of the Ghori dynasty of Ghazni, were of the Lodi tribe ; they were Lodi Afghan, and apparently neighbours of the Suri, but their exact location as a territorial tribe is not well ascertained, though probably it was somewhere in the vicinity of Ghazni, towards the Arghandab valley. From the time of Sultan Mahmud the Lodi figure prominently as military commanders and provincial governors under successive sultans, until their own elevation to the sovereignty. There is none of the tribe now traceable in

[Page-204]: Afghanistan, nor have they left any perceptible mark of their former possession in the soil there ; though they are said to have been a very important tribe in all the country between Bost on the Helmand, the winter residence of the court of Mahmud, and Ghazni, the summer residence ; and are said to have materially contributed to the successes of Mahmud's repeated invasions of Hindustan, and especially at Somnath. In India, the Lodi, or Ludhi, as they are there called, have established many flourishing colonies, especially in Sirhind district, where the town of Ludhiana marks one of their chief settlements, and is now, under British rule, the asylum for broken-down and exiled Afghan princes.

The name Lodi, Ludi, Lodhi, or Ludhi does not appear among the Rajput tribes and clans ; but among the Brahmans of Northern India there is a clan named Luhdi. This Luhdi Brahman clan may be the source of the modern Lodi, or they may derive from the ancient Ludi of Lydia, together with the Ludhi Brahman themselves. But however this may be, neither of these names Suri and Ludi help us to the origin of the name Afghan, under which as a national appellation both are classed. Thus far we have failed to trace the source of the name Afghan amongst the people by whom it is borne as a national appellation, certainly since the commencement of the eighth century after Christ. Let us now look for it elsewhere within the ancient Persian Empire, of which this region formed an integral part.

Herodotus, in his enumeration of the twenty satrapies before referred to, says, " The thirteenth comprehended Paktyika, the Armenians with the contiguous nations as far as the Euxine ; " and a little farther on, after the last satrapy, speaking of the Indians, he says, " There are other Indians bordering on the city of Kaspatyrus and the country of Paktyika, settled northward of the other Indians, whose mode of life resembles that of the Baktrians." Thus we have two countries called Paktyika, one on the western borders, the other on the eastern frontiers of the ancient Persia. The Paktyika on the Indus we have before spoken of as the Pukhtun-khwa (Hindi Pukhton ka, Pukhta, or Roh country of the Pukhtanah, Pathan, or Rohila, and explained the words as equivalent to the modern Persian Kohistan or Koh, and Kohistani, and meaning respectively "Mountainous country," or " Mountains," and " Mountaineers." The Armenian Paktyika on the Euxine, being of the same mountainous character as the Indian Paktyika on the Indus, evidently bore the same Persian name of Pukhtun-khwa or Pukhta (probably the highlanders' pronunciation of the soft Persian Pushta) meaning "mountainous country." In Afghanistan the old names Pukht and Roh have given way in the colloquial to the modern Persian Kohistan, of

[Page-205]: the same signification. Whether the old name represented by the Greek Paktyika still survives in Armenia and contiguous countries in the form of Pukhtun-khwa and Pukhta, as it does on the Indus frontier, I do not know; but it is probable that there also the old name has been displaced in the colloquial by the modem Daghistan which is the Turki equivalent of Kohistan. The Turki words Dagh and Daghistan, " mountains " and "mountainous country," and Daghistani, "mountaineers," though used commonly throughout Asia Minor to designate mountainous districts and their inhabitants, are applied more particularly to a separate district and its inhabitants in that portion of the Armenian mountains which lies between the Caspian and Euxine seas and is bounded northwards by the range of Caucasus. The eastern portion of this region is occupied by the province of Shirwan, the Albania of Strabo and Pliny, and it is this country which is now more particularly designated Daghistan, and its inhabitants Daghistani ; perhaps because they are the exact equivalents of an obsolete native Pukhtun-kha and Pukhtun in the later predominant language of the country.

The name Albania, it seems clear, was given to the country by the Romans. Albania means "mountainous country," and its inhabitants were called Albani, " Mountaineers," Albanians. The name is not found in Herodotus, and may be taken as the Latin equivalent of the Persian name represented by his Paktyika, which was probably Pushta or Pukhtunkha. The original Latin name was probably Alba, corresponding to the Persian Pushta ; and from it came Albania as the equivalent of Pushtukha. The stages may be thus expressed: Alba = Pushta = " mountain " ; Alban = Pushtan = " mountaineer " ; Albania = Pushtimkha = "country of the mountaineer"; Albani = Pushtun = " inhabitant of the country of the mountaineers," or Albanian. The Latin Alban is apparently the source of the Armenian Alwan, which is their name for these Albani. The Armenian Alwan, Alvan, or Alban, though ordinarily so pronounced indifferently, is written in the Armenian character with letters which, being transliterated, read as Aghvan or Aghwan ; and this word, pronounced Alvan, etc., in Armenia, in the colloquial dialect of their eastern neighbours is changed to Aoghan, Avghdn, and Afghan; which last, with its Arabic plural Afaghinah, is the form commonly used by the Arab and other Muhammadan writers. In signification the word is the same as the current Persian Kohistani and Turki Daghistani, and means " Mountaineer."

Thus we find that the eastern highlands of the ancient Persian empire and their inhabitants have been called, at different periods and in different portions of the regions, by names which all alike

[Page-206]: mean "the mountains" and "the mountaineers." The old Persian Pukhta and its inhabitants the Pukhtun (Hindustani Pathan), whose language is the Pukhto. or " Hill language " (pronounced by the western Afghans Pushta, Pushtun, and Pushto), the Greek forms Paktyika and Paktyes, Anglice, Paktyans), the Hindi Roh and Rohila, the Sanskrit Daradasthan and Darada (colloquial Dardu), and the current Persian Kohistan and Kohistani, all alike mean " the mouutains " and " the moun- taineers " respectively. Similarly, in the western highlands of the empire the old Persian Pushta and Pushtan, the assumed source of the Paktyika and Paktyes of Herodotus, the Latin Albania and Albani, whence the Armenian Alwan, Aghvan, and Afghan, and the Turki Daghistan and Daghistani, all alike mean "the mountains" and "the mountaineers."

Having found the source of our Afghan in the Armenian Aghvan, it seems clear from what is above explained that the name Afghan merely means " mountaineer," and is the Armenian form of the Roman Albani, the same as the modern Albanian, and that properly it is not an ethnic term of distinct race nationality at all, but is merely the appellation of the inhabitants of a particular mountainous region, irrespective of their national or racial affinities. It is in this last sense that the name is applied to the inhabitants of Afghanistan, for the Afghans, as we know them, certainly comprise several distinct race nationalities. But the Afghans themselves, though they reckon no tribe as Afghan that does not speak the Pukhto as its mother tongue, make a marked distinction in the application of the name. In Afghanistan the name Afghan is properly limited to certain tribes inhabiting the Kandahar country whose language is the Pukhto ; whilst, as before explained, the other Pukhto-speaking tribes, inhabitants of the Suleman range and its offshoots, are called Pukhtun, or Pathan. In other words. Western Afghanistan is Afghan, and Eastern Afghanistan is Pathan.

How the Armenian name Afghan, derived originally from the Latin, came to be applied, with the limitations above indicated, to the people of a portion of Western Afghanistan, is a question that requires investigation. The name itself, I take it, dates only from the period of the Roman dominion in Asia Minor, and can have been applied to the people now owning it only at some time subsequent to the Roman rule ; perhaps during the period of the Parthian Empire, of which Armenia formed an important division. In the long succession of Arsaki kings, who for more than four and a half centuries ruled this part of Asia, some of them were of Armenian birth and descent, and others were closely allied by marriage with the Armenian princes and nobles. The whole of

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