'Kalash tribe not remnant of Greek soldiers of King Alexander'

George Lefeuvre, well known French anthropologist, sociologist and historian described the antecedents of the Kalash people at a mixed gathering of Pakistani and foreigners. He cleared the fallacious thinking that the tribe was a remnant of the Greek soldiers or had come with the Macedonian King Alexander the Great, and was trapped in the valley.
He said more than 500 years ago, before the birth of Christ, the tribe was probably defeated by Aryan hordes in Persia and had migrated to cohabit at Bhambureth, in Chitral. The well-illustrated lecture held at the Alliance Francaise here on Wednesday evening, which was jointly hosted by the Alliance Francaise and the Asian Study Group.
The French expert, a former director of Alliance Francaise, who now represents the European Commission at Islamabad, had lived among the Kalash of Kafiristan during the seventies and eighties for about 25 years.
Sprinkling his talk with a slide show and tape recorded music of melodious songs sung by Kalash women, he went over the history of the tribe, but said he would talk of the Kalash as he had known them years ago. There had been changes in the Bhambureth Valley during the last 25 years, where the tribe cohabited during the span of 25 years, but went on to describe the life pattern in the manner as if he had shared their life.
They were not infidels, but the term Kafir was the reverse of the word, or away from light, and their religion was pre-Vedic. But their language, one of the most ancient among the Indo-Aryan languages, is of utmost interest to the historians of today.
Georges Lefeuvre spoke with great admiration for their social organisation, co-operation as well as industry, and said 'No one among them can be described as poor and everyone in the tribe comes round to help when a person was down and under. The tribe believed that one became rich by sharing with others what you have.
He also told the story of one member of the clan who had met a landslide while bringing his 60 goats from high mountain peaks. About 60 goats died during the landslide. He immediately slit the throat of the 50 goats, and carried their heads and bodies to the village with the help of his colleagues, and donated the body of one goat to each villager, who had a great feast. In appreciation everyone in the village gave the man a live goat because he had provided feast to everybody.
Another story that Georges Lefeuvre narrated is about the visit of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who listened to the narration of genealogy of the tribe from two elderly gentlemen. The late former Prime Minister was very impressed with their memory and praised the narrator that he was as learned as a Qazi, or a judge.