Blaming the Kalash for calamity in northwest Pakistan

Conservative Muslims in Pakistan's northwest are blaming the animist Kalash for a powerful earthquake that flattened entire villages in October, claiming their immoral ways provoked Allah's wrath, in the latest attack on a diminishing tribe fighting to keep its identity alive.

Residents of Chitral district are still reeling from the 7.5 magnitude quake, which ripped through Afghanistan and Pakistan killing more than 390 people and levelling thousands of homes.

It came just three months after floods also devastated Chitral, leaving thousands of families camping in the open as winter approaches.

Chitral's verdant, plunging valleys have long attracted tourists for their natural beauty and their brush with legend as the home of the ancient, polytheistic Kalash, many of whom are fair with light-coloured eyes.

Pakistan's smallest religious minority, they speak their own language and celebrate their gods through music, dance -- and alcohol, which they brew themselves for rituals and consumption, but many Muslims in the region feel Allah, angered by such un-Islamic practises, has smited the region with natural disasters.

"People are saying that the earthquake came because of the Kalash," says student Shira Bibi, who spoke to AFP in the village of Brun, nestled in the Bumburate area of the valleys. 

Shira's direct gaze and confident, melodic way of speaking are typical of Kalash women but distinctive in conservative, patriarchal Pakistan. 

Her face is uncovered and her clothing, a deep black, is intricately embroidered across the shoulders, as is the wide belt slung across her waist. Her long, dark hair is braided beneath a beaded headpiece -- in the traditional Kalash style.

Shira, who studies at a college in Chitral town some 100 kilometres (60 miles) away, came back to Brun after the quake.

"An old man in Chitral town said 'Look, daughter, don't walk around like that, don't you see earthquakes are striking, floods are coming, because of you?'" Shira said. 

"I was wearing Kalash dress when he said this. People keep saying things like that."

Centuries ago they ruled Chitral but now they are a minority in the valleys, with their population reduced to just a third of the 12,000 residents, according to the Kalash Peoples Development Network (KPDN), a local organisation.

Photo:The peninsula