Pathan: Tribes of Derah Ismail Khan
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. |
Pathan: Tribes of Derah Ismail Khan
The tribes of our lower frontier belong almost exclusively to the lineage of Shekh Baitan, third son of Kais. His descendants in the male line are known as Bitanni, and are comparatively unimportant. But while, in the early part of the 8th century, Baitan was living in his original home on the western slopes of the Siah band range of the Ghor mountains, a prince of Persian origin flying before the Arab invaders took refuge with him, and there sedujed and married his daughter Bibi Matto. From him are descended the Matti section of the nation, which embraces the Ghilzai, Lodi, and Sarwani Pathans. The Ghilzai were the most famous of all the Afghan tribes till the rise of the Durrani power, while the Lodi section gave to Delhi the Lodi and Sur dynasties. The Sarwani never rose to prominence, and are now hardly known in Afghanistan. To the Ghilzai and Lodi, and especially to the former, belong almost all the tribes of warrior traders who are included under the term Pawindah, from Parioindah, the Persian word for a bale of goods or, perhaps more probably, from the same root as pawal, a Pashto word for to graze.
They are almost wholly engaged in the carrying trade between India and Afghanistan and the Northern States of Central Asia, a trade which is almost entirely in their hands. They assemble every autumn in the plains east of Ghazni, with their famihes, flocks, herds, and long strings of camels laden with the goods of Bukhai-a and Kandahar ; and forming enormous caravans, number ing many thousands, mareh in military order through the Kakar and Wazu i country to the Gonial and Zho^) passes through the Sulemilns. Entering the Derail Ismail Khan district, they leave their famihes, flocks, and some two thirds of their fighting men in the great grazing grounds which he on either side of the Indus, and while some wander off in seareh of employment, others pass on with their laden camels and merchandize to Multan, Rajputana, Lahore, Amritsar, Dehli, Cawnpore, Benares, and even Patna. In the spring they again assemble, and return by the same route to their homes in the hills about Ghazni and Kelat-i-Ghilzai! When the hot weather begins the men, leaving their belongings behind them, move off to Kandahar, Hirat und Bukhara with the Indian and European merchandize which they have brought from Hindus tan. In October they return and prepare to start once more for India.
1 Dr. Bellew point: out that Raitan has an Indian sound ; while Shekh is the title given, in conlradistinction to Saiyad, to Indian converts in Afghanistan. Thus the Ghilzai (the Turk term for swordsman) arepruhahly of Turk extraction, with Indian and Persian ailmixturcs.
• The pronunciation is Powindah, rather than Pawindah.
Pawindah tribes with homes in the Ghilzai country, between .TalMabAd and Kelat-Qhilzai. . Their famihes spend the winter there, and the summer in the Derah Ismail Khan plains. For a description of the Pawindah traffic, see Section 398.
In 1877 the number of these traders which passed into the district of Derah
Ismail Khan was 764000, of which nearly half were grown men. In the year
of the Census, the number was 49,392. These Pawindah tribes speak the soft
or western Pashto and have little connection with the settled tribes of the
same stock.
It is not to be wondered at that these warlike tribes cast covetous eyes on the rich plains of the Indus, held as they were by a peaceful Jat population. Early in the both century, about the time of Shahab-ud-din Ghori, the Prangi and Sur tribes of the Lodi branch,with their kinsmen the Sarwani, settled in the northern part of the district immediately under the Sulemans, the Prangi and Sur holding Tank and Rori, while the Sarwani settled south of the Luni in Draban and Chandhwan. With them came the Balueh, Khasor, and other tribes who occupied the branch of the Salt-range which runs along the right bank of the river, and still hold their original location. In the early part of the 15th century the Niazi, another Lodi tribe, followed their kinsmen from Ghazni into Tank, where they lived quietly as Paioindahs for nearly a century, when they crossed the trans-Indus Salt range and settled in the country now held by the Marwat in the south of the Bannu district, then almost uninhabited save by sprinkling of pastoral Jats, where Babar mentions them as cultivators in 1505.
During the reign of the Lodi and Sur Sultans of Dehli 1450 to 1555 A.D.), the Prangi and Sur tribes from which these dynasties sprang, and their neighbours the Niazi, seem to have migrated almost bodily from Afghanistan into Hindustan, where the Niazi rose to great power, one of their tribe being Subahdar of Lahore. These last waxed insolent and revolted in alliance with the Gakkhars, and in 1547 Sultan Salim Shah Suri crushed the rebellion, and with it the tribe. At any rate, when in the early days of Akbar's reign the Lohani, another Lodi tribe, who had been expelled by the Suleman Khel Ghilzai from their homes in Katawaz in the Ghazni mountains, crossed the Sulemans, the Lodi tribes were too weak to resist them ; and they expelled the remaining Prangi and Sur from Tank, killing many, while the remainder fled into Hindustan. The Lohani are divided into four great tribes, the Marwat, Daulat Khel, Mian Khel, and Tator.About the beginning of the 17th century the Daulat Khel quarrelled with the Marwats and Mian Khel and drove them out of Tauk. The Marwats moved northwards across the Salt-range and drove the Niazi eastwards across the Kurram and Salt range into Isa Khel on the banks of the Indus, where they found a mixed Awan and Jat population, expelled the former, and reduced the latter to servitude. The Mian Khel passed southward across the Luni river and, with the assistance of the Bakhtiar, a small Persian tribe of Ispahan origin who had become associated with them in their nomad life,drove the Sarwani, already
' The Pawindahs are well described at pages 103 ff Dr. Bellow's Races of Afghdnistan, and at pages 18ff of Priestley's translation of the Haijjat-i- Afghan i, while Mr. Tucker gives much detailed information conceruing them at pages 184 ff of his Settlement Report of Derah Ismail Khan.
2 The Daulat Khel is really only a clan of the Mamu Khel tribe; but it has become so prominent as practically to absorb the other clans, and to give its name to the whole tribe.
Wrongly spelt .lator throughout Mr. Tucker's settlement report.
They are a section of the Bakhlinri of Persia. They first settled with the Shu'anl Afghans and a section now lives at Margha in the Ghilzai country, and is engaged in the puwindah trade but has little or no conuection with the Bakhtiar of Derah Ismail.
weakened by feuds with the Sur, out of their country into Hindustan. In this quarrel the Daulat Khel were assisted by the Gandupur, a Saiyad tribe of Ushtarani stock (see next paragraph) ; and the latter were settled by them at Rori and gradually spread over their present country.
The Shirani Afghans had been settled from of old in the mountains aliout the Takht-i-Sulernan. They are by descent Sarbaui Afghans ; but their ancestor, having quarrelled with his brothers, left them and joined the Kukar from whom his mother had come ; and his descendants are now classed as Ghurghushti and not as Sarbani. About the time that the Lohani came into the district, the Babar, a Shirani tribe, descended from the hills into the plains below and subjugated the Jat and Biloch population. Finally, about a century ago, the Ushtarani proper, a Saiyad tribe affiliated to the Shirani Afoluuis, havin.; cpmrrelled with the Musa Khel, acquired a good deal of the plain country below the hills at the foot of which they still live, subjugating the Biloch inhabitants and encroaching northwards upon the Babar. These are the most recently located of the trans-Indus tribes of Derail Ismail Khan. Thus the Pathans hold a broad strip of the trans-Indus portion of the district running northwards from the border of the Khetran and Qasrani Biloches (see section 383)along the foot of the hills and including the western half of the plain country between them and the Indus, and turning eastwards below the Salt-range to the river. They also hold the trans-Indus Salt-range, and the Sulemans as far south as the Biloch border.
But while in the extreme northern portion of the tract the population is almost exclusively Pathan, the proportion lessens southwards, the Pathans holding only the superior property in the land, which is cultivated by a subject population of .Jat and Biloch. Beyond the Indus the Baluch who hold the north of the Bhakkar that are the only Pathan tribe of importance. Their head-quarters are at Paniala in the trans-Indus Salt-range, and they seem to have spread across the river below Mianwali, and then to have turned southwards down the left bank. Although living at a distance from the frontier, they still talk Pashto and are fairly pure Pathans. The other Pathans of the Khasor hills, though trans-Indus, are, like all the cis-Indus Pathans, so much intermixed with Jats as to have forgotten their native tongue. The Mian Khel and Gandapur wore deprived of many of their eastern villages in the beginning of this century by Nawab Muham mad Khan Saddozai,Governor of Leiah.
The Pathan tribes of Derah Ismail Khan continued
I now proceed to give a brief
description of the various tribes-beginning; from the south : —
The Ushtarani — The Ushtarani proper are the ucsceudauts of Hannar, one of the sons of Uslaryani, a .Saiyad who settle! among and married into the Shirani section of Afghans, and whose progeny are shewn in the margin. They were settled with the Shiranis to the south of the
Takht i-Suleman, and till about a century ago they were wholly pastoral and pawin the forced Usi tarunl. - dali. But a quarrel with their neighbours the Musa khel put a stop to their annual westward migration, and they were forced to take to agriculture. Their descent into the plains has been described I in section 400. They still own a large tract of hill country, in which indeed
most of them live, cultivating land imimediately under the hills and pasturing their flocks beyond the border. Their territory only includes the eastern slopes of the Sulemans, the crest of the range being held by theMusaKhel and Zinari. They are divided into two main clans, the Ahmadzai or Aimzai and the Gagalzai, and these again into nuniornus septs. They are a fine manly race, many of them are in our army and police, and they are quiet and well behaved, cultivating largely ^vith their own hand-;. A few of them are still paiviudnhs. They are much harassed by the independent Bozdar (Biloch). They are all Sunnis. The bomidary between the Ushtarani and Eahar was originally the Ramak stream. But in a war between them the former drove the latter back beyond the Shiran stream which now forms their common boundary.
The Babar are a tribe of the Shirani stock whose affinities have been described in section 400, thouffh they are now quite separate from the Shirani proper. They are divided into two sections, one living wholly within our border, while the other holds the hill country opposite, but on the other side of the Sulemans The two have now little connection with each other. The Eabar of the plains hold some 180 square miles between the Ushtaraini and Mian Khel, Chandwan being their chief town ; and include the Mahsud and Ghora Khel clans of the tribe. The result of their quarrels with the Ushtarani has just been mentioned, while their advent in the plains has been described in section 400. They are a civilised tribe, most of them beins: able to read and write, and are much addicted to commerce, being the richest, quietest, and most honest tribe of the sub Suleman plains. Sir Herbert Edwardes considered them the most superior race in the whole of the trans-Indus districts,and their intelligence has given rise to the saying A Babar fool is a Gandapur sage.They are extremely democratic, and have never had any recognized Chief. Indeed the tribe is a scattered one, many of them still residing in Kmdahar and other parts of Khoras-in. Some of them are still engaged in the pawindah traffic. They cultivate but little themselves.
The Mian Khel are a Lohani tribe whose coming to the district and subsequent movements have already been described in section 339. They hold some 260 square miles of plain country between the Gandapur and the Babar. With them are associated the pakhtiar (see section 339) who, though of Persian origin, now form one of their principal sections. The greater number of them still engage in the trans-Indus trade ; and they are the richest of all the patoindah tribes, dealing in the more costly descriptions of merchandize. They are divided by locality into the Braban and Musa Khel sections, the latter of which hold the south-west quarter of their tract. They are a peaceable people with pleasant faces, and more civili-ed than most of the pawindah tribes. They seldom take military service, and cultivate but little themselves, leaving the business of agriculture to their Jat tenants. They have a hereditary Khan who has never possessed much power.
The Gandapur The origin of the Gandapur has been described in section 399. Besides the original stock, they include by affiliation some off-shoots of the Shirani. the Mushezai section of the Ghurghuhti Pathans, and the Eauizai section of the Yusafzai tribe. The manner in which they obtained their present country is described in section 339. They hold the whole of the north western part of trans -Indus Derah Ismafl east of Tank and south of the Nila Koh ridge of the Salt-range, comprising an area of 460 square miles abutting on the Suirmans to the west; and the town of Kulachi is their head-quarters. They were originally a poor pawindah amd pastoral tribe, but they now cultivate more largely than any other Derah Ismail Pathans, They reached the height of their prosperity about the middle of the 18th century, but lost their eastern possessions some 70 years later, they being confiscated by the Saddozai Governor of Leiah. They still engage in the pawindah traffic. They are lawless, brutal and uncivilised ; and their hereditary Khan has but little power.
The Bitanni include all the descendants in the male line of Baitan, the third son of Kais. They originally occupied the western slopes of the northern Sulemans ; but, being hard pressed by the Ghilzai, moved, in the time of Bahlol Lodi, through the Gomal Pass and occupied the eastern side of the north of the range, as far north on its junction with the Salt-range and as far west as Kaniguram. Some time after the Waziri drove them back to beyond Garangi, while the Gurbuz contested with them the possession of the Ghabbar mountain. They now hold the hills on the west border of Tank and Baunu, from the Ghabbar on the north to the Gomal valley on the south.
In their disputes many of the tribe left for Hindustan where their Lodi kinsmen occupied the throne of Dehli, and the tribe has thus been much weakened. Sheikh Baitan had four sons, Tajin, Kajin, Ismail, and Warshpun. The tribe consists chiefly of the descendants of Kajin, with a few of those of Warshpun. Ismail was adopted by Sarban, and his descendants still live with the Sarbani Afghans. The Tajin branch is chiefly represented by the clans Dhanne and Tatte, said to be descended from slaves of Tajin. A small Saiyad clan called Koti is affiliated to the Bitanni. Till some 50 years ago they lived wholly beyond our border; but of late they have spread into the Tank plr.ins where they now form a large proportion of the Pathan population, occupying some 550 square miles, chiefly south of the Takwara. They also hold some land in the Bannu district at the mouth of the parses which lead up into their hills. They are a rude people just emerging from barbarism, but keen-witted. They are of medium weight, wiry, and active, and inveterate thieves and abettors of thieves ; and they have been called the jacknls of the Waziri. They have no common Chief. The proverbial wit of the countryside thus expresses their stupidity and Uirifdessness. — '■ The drum was beating in the plains and the Bitanni were dancing on the hills ; and A hundred Bitanni eat a hundred sheep.
The Daulat Khel — The coming of this tribe to the district has been described in section 399. Their principal clan was the Katti Khel ; and under their Chief Katal Khan the Daulat Khel ruled Tank and were numerous and powerful about the middle of the 18th century. They accompanied the Diurani into Hindustan, and brought back much wealth But since that time the Bitanni and other tribes have eucroached, and they are now small and feeble. The Nawab of Tank, the principal jagirdar of the district, is a Katti Khel.
The Tator have been mentioned in section 899. They were very roughly treated by Nadir Shah, and the Daulat Khel completed their ruin. Thty are now almost extinct. Their two clans, the Bara Khel and Dari Khei, hold a small area on the Tank and Kulachi frontier.
