Chitrali

Chitralis are the Kho people of the Hindu Kush valleys of Chitral and Yasin. Their Khowar speech is a Dardic Indo-Aryan language counted among the most archaic living Indic tongues, preserving Sanskrit case inflection.

They spread from upper Chitral under the Rais dynasty, whose first chief, Shah Nadir Rais, is placed around 1320; in the seventeenth century the Khushwaqt branch carried rule east to Yasin and Ghizer. Most Kho converted to Islam from the fourteenth century, becoming Hanafi Sunnis with an Ismaili community in the upper valleys, while their kinsmen the Kalash kept their old animist faith in remote valleys.

The Kator dynasty overthrew the Rais in the seventeenth century and ruled Chitral as mehtars from Chitral town, holding a kingdom stretching at its height from Kunar to Punial. Older customs survived too: polo on high pastures, the pakol hat and folklore thick with mountain fairies.