The Burusho, or Brusho (
Burushaski
Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...
: , ''burúśu''
[Hunzai, A. N. N., Burushaski Research Academy, & University of Karachi. (2006). Burushaski Urdu Dictionary - Volume 1 / بروشسکی اردو لغت - جلد اول (الف تا څ). Bureau of Composition, Compilation & Translation, University of Karachi. ISBN 969-404-66-]
Archive.org
/ref>), also known as the Botraj, are an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to the Yasin, Hunza, Nagar, and other valleys of Gilgit–Baltistan in northern 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# ...
, with a tiny minority of around 350 Burusho people residing in Jammu and Kashmir, India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. Their language, Burushaski
Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...
, has been classified as a language isolate
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
. The region inhabited by the Burusho people is known as Brushal.
History
Although their origins are unknown, it is claimed that the Burusho people "were indigenous to northwestern India and were pushed higher into the mountains by the movements of the Indo-Aryans, who traveled southward sometime around 1800 B.C."
Prior to the modern era, the area in which most Burusho now live was part of the princely state of Hunza under the British Raj
The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent,
*
* lasting from 1858 to 1947.
*
* It is also called Crown rule ...
, until becoming part of Pakistan.
Culture
The Burusho are known for their rich music and dance culture, along with progressive views towards education and women.
Longevity myth
Medical researchers believe that peace, harmony and less exposure to stress in the lives of the Hunza people is linked to their longer life spans. The lack of urban harms, the healthy way of life, moderate use of fruits and vegetables and other factors contribute to the health and long life of this people.
Independent writers have refuted these longevity myths
Longevity myths are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), either as individuals or groups of people, and practices that have been believed to confer longevity, but which current scientific evidence does not support, ...
, citing a life expectancy of 53 years for men and 52 for women, although with a high standard deviation.
Jammu and Kashmir
A group of 350 Burusho people also reside in the India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, being mainly concentrated in Batamalu, as well as in Botraj Mohalla, which is southeast of Hari Parbat. This Burusho community is descended from two former princes of the British Indian princely states of Hunza and Nagar, who with their families, migrated to this region in the 19th century A.D. They are known as the ''Botraj'' by other ethnic groups in the state, and practice Shiite Islam
Shia Islam is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political Succession to Muhammad, successor (caliph) and as the spiritual le ...
. Arranged marriages
Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures, a professional matchmaker may be ...
are customary.
Since the partition of India
The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
in 1947, the Indian Burusho community have not been in contact with the Pakistani Burusho. The Government of India
The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...
has granted the Burusho community Scheduled Tribe status, as well as reservation, and therefore, "most members of the community are in government jobs." The Burusho people of India speak Burushashki, also known as Khajuna, and their dialect, known as Jammu & Kashmir Burushashski (JKB), "has undergone several changes which make it systematically different from other dialects of Burushaski spoken in Pakistan". In addition, many Jammu & Kashmiri Burusho are multilingual, also speaking Kashmiri and Hindustani, as well as Balti and Shina to a lesser extent.
Genetics
A variety of Y-DNA
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the Y ...
haplogroup
A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the , ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and ) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a sing ...
s are seen among certain random samples of people in Hunza. Some haplogroups found in the Burusho were R1a1 and R2a, the former of which is associated with Indo-European peoples
Indo-European is a major language family of Europe, parts of West and Central Asia, and South Asia.
Indo-European may also refer to:
* Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-E ...
and the Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
migration into South Asia c. 2000 BC, and probably originated in either South Asia
South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
,
Central Asia
Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
[R. Spencer Wells et al., "''The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity''," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (28 August 2001).] or Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and the Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
. R2a, unlike its extremely rare parent R2, R1a1 and other clades of haplogroup R, is now virtually restricted to South Asia
South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
. Two other typically South Asia
South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
n lineages, haplogroup H1 and haplogroup L3 (defined by SNP mutation M20) have also been observed from few samples.
Other Y-DNA
The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the Y ...
haplogroups reaching considerable frequencies among the Burusho are haplogroup J2, associated with the spread of agriculture in, and from
From may refer to:
People
*Isak From (born 1967), Swedish politician
*Martin Severin From (1825–1895), Danish chess master
* Sigfred From (1925–1998), Danish chess master
Media
* ''From'' (TV series), a sci-fi-horror series that debuted ...
, the neolithic Near East
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...
, and haplogroup C3, of East Eurasian male origin and possibly representing the patrilineage of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...
. Present at lower frequency are haplogroups O3, also of East Eurasian male lineage, and Q Siberian male origin, P, F, and G. DNA research groups the male ancestry of some of the Hunza inhabitants with speakers of Pamir languages and other mountain communities of various ethnicities, due primarily to the M124 marker (defining Y-DNA haplogroup R2a), which is present at high frequency in these populations.[R. Spencer Wells et al., The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity](_blank)
, ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' However, they have also an East Asia
East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...
n genetic contribution, suggesting that at least some of their ancestry originates north of the Himalayas. No Greek genetic component among the Burusho have been detected in tests.
Influence in the Western world
Healthy living advocate J. I. Rodale wrote a book called ''The Healthy Hunzas'' in 1948 that asserted that the Hunzas, noted for their longevity and many centenarian
A centenarian is a person who has reached the age of 100. Because life expectancies at birth worldwide are well below 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. The United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarian ...
s, were long-lived because they consumed healthy organic foods
Organic food, also known as ecological or biological food, refers to foods and beverages produced using methods that comply with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resou ...
, such as dried apricot
An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus ''Prunus''.
Usually an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are also ...
s and almond
The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...
s, and had plenty of fresh air and exercise. He often mentioned them in his ''Prevention
Prevention may refer to:
Health and medicine
* Preventive healthcare, measures to prevent diseases or injuries rather than curing them or treating their symptoms
General safety
* Crime prevention, the attempt to reduce deter crime and crimin ...
'' magazine as exemplary of the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle.
Dr. John Clark stayed among the Hunza people for 20 months and in his 1956 book ''Hunza - Lost Kingdom of the Himalayas'' writes: "I wish also to express my regrets to those travelers whose impressions have been contradicted by my experience. On my first trip through Hunza, I acquired almost all the misconceptions they did: The Healthy Hunzas, the Democratic Court, The Land Where There Are No Poor, and the rest—and only long-continued living in Hunza revealed the actual situations". Regarding the misconception about Hunza people's health, Clark also writes that most of his patients had malaria, dysentery, worms, trachoma, and other health conditions easily diagnosed and quickly treated. In his first two trips he treated 5,684 patients.
The October 1953 issue of ''National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
'' had an article on the Hunza River Valley that inspired Carl Barks
Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comics, Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of ...
' story Tralla La.[The Carl Barks Library Volume 12, page 229]
See also
* Brokpa people
* Hunza Valley
The Hunza Valley (; ) is a mountainous valley located in the northern region of the Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan.
Geography
The valley stretches along the Hunza River and shares borders with Ishkoman Valley, Ishkoman to the northwest, Shigar Val ...
* 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 ...
* Nagar Valley
Citations
General and cited references
*
*
External links
Humans of Hunza
Hunza People
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burusho People
Ethnic groups in Pakistan
Hindu Kush
Hunza
Karakoram
Longevity
Scheduled Tribes of Jammu and Kashmir
Social groups of Gilgit Baltistan
Social groups of Jammu and Kashmir