Pathans: Figures and Bibliography
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. |
Figures and Bibliography
The figures given in Table VIN A., under the head Pathan, almost certninly include many persons whose Pathan origin is to say the least doubtful; -while the Euros to be discussed in the following pages show that snch tribes as Tanaoli, .Tadun. Uilazak, Tajik, Khetran, and even Mughals have returned themseh'es as Pathans. Major Wace writes : The tribes in the west and north- west of the Pan jab, who during the last three ceuturies were frequently raided upon by Afghans, got into tho habit of inventing histories of Afghan origin as n protection against ill-treatment -. and even where this motive was absent, the treneral tendency to claim kinship with the dominant race would produce the same effect. Moreover tho origin of some of the tribes on the Peshawar frontier is doubtful, and their affiluition with the Pathans incomplete^ and thus they would set up a claim to be Pathan which the true Pathan would indignantly repudiate. Mr. Thorburnu notices the many and bitter disputes caused by the preparation of the genealogical trees during the Bannu Settlement, and the attempts made by Jat clans to be recorded as Pathans. He writes : A low-caste man born and brought up in a Pathan country if serving away from his home, invariably affixes Khan to his name and dubs himself Pathan. It goes down if he can talk Pashto, and his honour proportionally goes up.Still the great mass of those returned as Pathans are probably really so, and the figures represent very fairly the general distribution of the race.
In the second place, it must be remembered that of those who are really Pathan and returned as such, many are not British subjects at an. Such tribes as the Bar Mohniand of the Peshawar frontier, who, while esseintialy independent tribes, hold land within our border, come down in considerable numbers in the winter to cidtivatc their fields; while in the summer they retreat to their cool valleys in independent territory. So too the very numerous Pawindahs of Derah Ismail only wintir in the Panjab, and the number thus temporarily added to our Pathan bopnlatiun is exceedingly hirge (section 398). Again, almost the whole of the local trade across the border is in the bands of independent tribes whose members come into our districts in considerable numbers with merchandize of sorts ; while the seasons of drought and distress which preceded the Census drove many of the frontier hill-men into our districts in seareh of employment, and especially on the Bannu border, and on the Thai road in Kohat and the Swat canal in Peshawar.
As for the figures for the separate tribes, they were classified, not by my central office, but by the Deputy Commissioners of the several frontier districts, at least so far as regards the figures of those districts. Thus far greater accuracy will have been secured than would otherwise have been possible. But the lists of tribes received from some of the districts, on which the selection of tribes for tabulation was based (see Chapter on Tabulation, Book II), were in some instances very imperfect and the classification exceedingly faulty ; tribes of considerable numerical importance in British Territory being omitted, frontier tribes represented in the Panjab by only a few score of person? being included, and tribes, clans, and septs being mixed up in a perfect chaos of cross-classification. So too the constant recurrence of the same clan name among fhe various tribes was a certain source of error. Such names as Daulat Khel, Frroz Khel, Usmanzai, and Mahaminadzai recur in many separate tribes ; and where the schedule entry of sub-divisions did not specify the tribe, no certain classification could be made.
The best authorities on the subject of the Pathan nation as a whole are Dorn's translation of Niamat Ullah's History of the Afghans {Oriental Translation Committee, London, IS39), Priestly's translation of the Haiyat-i- Afghani called Afghdnistrm and its Inhabitanis {Lahore, 1874), Eiphinstone's Kabul and Bellow Races of Afganistan. Bellew's yuanfzai, Plowden't translation of th« Kalid-i-Afgani, and ths Settlement Reports of the districta of tbe northern frontier contain full iufovmation concerning the Pathans of the Panjab border, as do Macgregor's Gazetteer of the N.-W. Frontier, and Paget's Expeditions against the N.-W. Frontier Tribes.
