Which way is Kafiristan, Danny?
Posted on 11/10/2001 9:08:09 PM PST by Cultural Jihad
I would love to visit that country. What a history!
Here's a good page on Nuristan: http://www.geocities.com/afghanistan_ca/Nuristan.html
And from encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/34178.html
Nuristan
Pronounced As: nooristan [Persian,=land of light or the enlightened], region on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush, NE Afghanistan, bordered on the E by Pakistan. Formerly called Kafiristan [land of the infidels], it is inhabited by an ethnically distinctive people (numbering about 60,000), who practiced animism until their forcible conversion to Islam in 1895-96. Inhabiting relatively isolated villages in deep, narrow mountain valleys, they grow wheat, barley, millet, peas, wine grapes, and other fruit and raise livestock (chiefly goats). A special artisan caste specializes in woodcarving, pottery making, weaving, and metalwork. The Nuristanis, divided into several tribes, speak Dardic dialects (often mutually unintelligible) belonging to a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family. Nuristan was the scene of some of the heaviest guerrilla fighting during the 1979-89 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces.
Here's a rules page: Buzkahi Rules
Yes, 'The Man Who Would Be King', with Caine and Connery (and Christopher Plummer as Rudyard Kipling), was a great movie. It also gives a fair idea of the sort of people we're dealing with. It takes place shortly before Kafiristan (Nuristan) was converted to Islam, and shows that the character of the people has not been affected by that conversion.
The talk of how the British, Russians, and Americans never will rule Afghanistan is shown to be reasonable by the history in the main article, since not even Afghans have been able to assert control over that beautiful place. However, killing and obliterated various factions (such as the Taliban) seems to be the real national sport, a sport which everyone seems to love and at which everyone excels.
Actually it looks like they're gathered around the head of the loser of a 'Man Who Would Be King' type of Buzkashi game.
Doesn't a rulebook for Buzkahi seem like a contradiction in terms?
So we build a Disneyland in Afghanistan, and THERE will be the happiest place in the friendliest country on Earth.
If they weren't so busy with almost constant warring, both internal and external, you'd reasonably think the irrigation system would be rebuilt. So much for progress, in nearly 800 years.
BTW--does anyone know the name for this irrgation technique? I know it is/was also practiced in Iran/Persia (recalling college geography class).
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