As you know, the leaders of the "Third Reich" seriously believed that the true Aryans were Germans. Or at least they pretended to believe it. And in 1939, Himmler sent a large-scale scientific expedition to Tibet.
What were the Germans looking for there? Gold? Emeralds? No, they measured the width of the Tibetans' cheekbones, the facial angle, removed plaster masks from them, calculated the cephalization coefficient … They hoped to find in Tibet the very mythical "Nordic" Aryans who, in their opinion, once left Germany and went to the East. But they did not find it. For the most part, they dealt with indigenous Tibetans - representatives of the Mongoloid group of the population.
Who are the dardes?
More fortunate was the French explorer Michel Pessel. In 1975, he nevertheless found in the snow-capped Himalayas a small people, Minaro, who possessed all the features of the European anthropological group. Some of its representatives even looked like the "Nordic" Aryans.
This mysterious people to this day lives in the Western Himalayas, in Ladakh - a kind of threshold of Tibet. The region is located where the borders of three countries meet: India, Pakistan and China. Of course, Pessel found in Tibet not the "Nordic" Aryans at all, but the descendants of the Indo-Europeans, who came to India from Central Asia in 1400 BC and later became Indo-Aryans.
Minaro are by no means the only Europeans who have lived in the Himalayas since time immemorial. People with a European appearance are conventionally called dards by the inhabitants of Tibet.
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Europeans from time immemorial
In the province of Nuristan in Afghanistan, as well as in the mountains of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, locally lives one of the amazing peoples of the Dard group - the Kalash. Its number is about 6 thousand people.
The villages are located at an altitude of 1900-2200 meters above sea level. Kalash inhabits three lateral valleys formed by the right (western) tributaries of the Chitral (Kunar) River: Bumboret (in Kalash Mumret), Rumbur (Rukmu) and Birir (Biriu), at a distance of about 20 km south of the city of Chitral.
Their wooden houses are piled one above the other along the steep mountain slopes and are somewhat reminiscent of Georgian sakli with a flat roof. Walkways and steep ladders are laid between the dwellings, along which the children gallop with pleasure. Nearby are the ruins of ancient stone fortresses, possibly built by the ancestors of the current inhabitants.
Neighbors consider Kalash to be aboriginal - and scientists confirm this. In joint research by the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, the University of Southern California and Stanford University, a separate paragraph is devoted to the Kalash, which says that their genes are truly unique and belong to an ancient European group.
As in the Russian North
The Kalash, despite all the oppression, managed to preserve their pagan faith. It is interesting that the neighbors, who have the same European look as they are, are Muslims. Kalash ceremonies are very similar to the ancient Slavic and Baltic. They worship the sacred fire in three forms: the sun, lightning and the fire of the hearth.
They have preserved remnants of the twin cult, typical of all ancient Indo-Europeans. In the temple rooms for ritual dances, on wooden pillars, one can see carved figures of hugging twins and a stylized image of the sun. In the middle of the temple room, blown by all the winds, there is a sacred pillar with solar signs carved on it.
Some signs symbolizing the sun are similar to what they are still found in the Arkhangelsk wooden carving! Not far from the ritual pillar, there is an altar: two horse heads carved from wood.
Horned deity
On holidays, a goat is sacrificed on a special altar in front of a pagan idol made of a single trunk of a large tree, set on a mountainside under the open sky. Unmarried shepherdesses are engaged in grazing them on mountain pastures.
Local folklore is replete with tales associated with totem ideas about this animal. On major holidays, the fair sex dress in colorful outfits reminiscent of the traditional costumes of Slavic and Baltic women, and draw a silhouette of a mountain goat with curled horns over their eyebrows with soot.
Often during the holiday, a scene is played out where an unmarried girl depicts a horned goat, and an unmarried boy depicts a shepherd. This action is very reminiscent of the ritual of buffoonery at the New Year. Harvest and love holidays are arranged, similar to Ivan Kupala: then they lead round dances, sing songs.
Wooden horned idols - a female deity on a throne with a carved massive staff in his left hand - have also survived. Inevitably, you will remember the Russian devil with a poker.
As in native Provence
Kalash cultivate wheat, millet and barley in irrigated fields. They reap the harvest with sickles. Walnuts and mulberries are grown. Now they have an agricultural crop that is exotic for these places - corn.
Pessel at one time was amazed that the representatives of the Minaro people, outwardly so similar to the French, just like the Tyroleans or the inhabitants of Provence, grow grapes on the mountain slopes of the Western Himalayas and make wine from it. When in his book "The Gold of the Ants", published in 1984 (published in Russian in 1989), Pessel published a photograph of a smiling Minaro man who looks like a Frenchman, and even with a bunch of grapes in one hand and a cup of wine in the other, not everyone believed him. Some even accused the scientist of the scuffle.
Nevertheless, today it is already a proven fact: people who are indistinguishable from Europeans live in the Himalayas; and they lead a way of life that makes them akin to European peasants.
Combat past
Kalash women make beaded jewelry at their leisure, reminiscent of Russian and Baltic ones. On the breastplate, for example, there are symbols in the form of two horse heads looking in different directions, and solar signs. Similar ones back in the 19th century could be found in the Russian North in carvings on huts, spinning wheels and gates. The Balts have preserved these plots to this day in their village life.
The Pakistani Museum of National Antiquities houses wooden statues of horse riders in helmets and armor. At one time they were "expropriated" by the Pakistani authorities from the Kalash. Those, probably, in the past were a very warlike people: their folklore preserved legends about aggressive campaigns to neighboring lands. During military sorties, foreigners were taken prisoner. The slaves formed a caste of artisans, infringed on their rights - later it was they who converted to Islam. In their composition, there are much less blondes and a Mongoloid and Australoid admixture is noticeable.
In pristine purity
In the cemetery, on the graves of the Kalash, wooden boards with solar signs carved on them are installed vertically. The center of the clan cult is a carved board representing the goddess Dzheshtak, the patroness of family ties, or the "temple" ("Dheshtak's house") - a room for dances and meetings.
The symbolic plots on the gravestones are somewhat similar to the South Ossetian gravestones of the 18th century. Let me remind you that the Ossetians are the descendants of the nomad Alans who took refuge in the Caucasus mountains from the Hunnic invasion.
All this allows us to assume that the Alans, Slavs and Kalash had common ancestors. However, the Kalash are perhaps the only ones in the world that have preserved in their original purity not only the appearance of typical Caucasians, but also the culture of pagan ancestors, Proto-Indo-Europeans. They believe in the transmigration of souls in the same way as the ancestors of all Indo-Europeans, including the Slavs, not excluding the Russians, believed in it. Many features of life and rituals are explained by this.
And yet, the cultural impact from dissenting neighbors is undoubtedly felt. The men adopted typical Muslim clothing and headwear. The names of ancestral deities are gradually forgotten. The Holiday of Merit is a thing of the past - honoring respected people. But those who have passed away from this life and who are to be born again in a new body are not forgotten.
Shard of antiquity
In the social structure, the Kalash, like their relatives in neighboring Nuristan, are divided into ranks. The head of the family clan, who wants to increase his prestige, slaughters several goats and treats his fellow tribesmen. Anyone has the right to attend the feast.
Thanks to a warm welcome and a feast for the whole world, the head of the clan receives one vote in the council of elders and the right to install a personal carved wooden statue in the ancestral cemetery after his death. Of course, this is not a Greek or Roman statue, but you can still see a distant resemblance to antique images in these masks and figures.
Relatives of towels
The mountains and mountain pastures, where the gods live and “their cattle” - wild goats, graze the highest holiness among the Kalash. The altars and the goat barns are holy. Shrines are usually located in the open air. These are mostly altars, constructed from juniper or oak. They are furnished with ritual carved boards and idols of the highest deities.
Indoor wooden halls for religious mysteries and dances are specially built.
The ritual life of the Kalash takes place in collective festivals, feasts and games, to which the gods are invited as full participants. At the matchmaking ceremony preceding the wedding, you can see matchmakers with wedding towels tied, decorated with embroidery and very reminiscent of towels!
At the feet of the gods
Kalash, like all Dardic peoples, live in close proximity to the greatest peak in the world, called K2 climbers, and the local population - Chogori.
It is located in Kashmir, in the north of Pakistan, near the border with China and looks like a giant snow-covered pyramid. The second in the world after Everest. Its height is 8611 meters above sea level.
There is reason to believe that it is Chogori who appears in the Hindu Vedas as the sacred mountain Meru, and in the main book of Zoroastrianism, the Avesta, as the Great Hara. According to ancient Aryan beliefs, the Sun, Moon, stars and planets revolve around this mountain.
Perhaps the ancient Aryans or their descendants - the Caucasian nomad Scythians - because of their religious beliefs, climbed so high into the mountains and chose these highlands as their place of residence? According to the Vedas, great gods live on Mount Meru. And is it not the greatest honor to live at the foot of the abode of the gods?
Alexander Belov, paleoanthropologist
