Chilam joshi folk Festival celebrations in Kalash

Chilam Joshi Festival also spelt Chilim Joshi, is a

festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

celebrated by the

Kalash people The Kalash (), or Kalasha, are a small Indo-Aryan indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The term is also used to refer to several distinct Nuristani speaking people, including th ...

, living in the

Kalasha Valleys The Kalasha Valleys ( Kalasha-mondr: '; ) are valleys in Chitral District in northern Pakistan. The valleys are surrounded by the Hindu Kush mountain range. The inhabitants of the valley are the Kalash people, who have a unique culture, language a ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber ...

province of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. It marks the commencement of spring within the Kalasha community and is celebrated from the 13th to the 16th of May each year.

Activities

The three to four-day festival is held in the middle of May. It serves both spiritual and social purposes. The Kalasha people pray for their

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

's wellbeing, invoking their

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

, Goshidai. The festival also facilitates the search for potential marital partners, with announcements made at its conclusion by those successful in this quest. Essential activities of the festival are song and dance, with women traditionally wearing new clothes, and community-wide dances welcoming the spring season. While the festival spans the three Kalasha Valleys, Bumburet Valley sees the most visitors due to its greater accessibility. Over time, the festival has evolved in sync with shifts in Kalasha culture, as suggested by

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, wh ...

studies. It has become a platform for the community to exhibit their culture to a wider audience, contributing to their

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

by attracting

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity on ...

References

External links

Kalash Chilam Joshi Festival - Hunza Guides Pakistan

* Festivals in Pakistan Folk festivals Kalash culture Kalash people {{Festival-stub