Pathans: Tribal Organisation
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. |
Tribal organisation
The tribe is probably far more homogeneous in its constitution among the Pathans than among the Biloches. Saiyad, Turk, and other clans have occasionally been affiliated to it ; but as a rule people of foreign descent preserve their tribal individuality, becoming merely associated, and not intermingled, with the tribes among whom they have settled. Even then they generally claim Pathan origin on the female side, and the tribe is usually descended in theory at least from a common ancestor. The hmmdyali custom described in section 380, by which strangers are protected by the tribe with which they dwell, is in full force among the Pathans as among the Biloches. But with the forarer though it does protect in many cases famihes of one tribe who have settled with another, it seldom accounts for any considerable portion of the tribe ; and its action is chiefly confined to traders, menials, and other dependents of foreign extraction, who are protected by but not received into the tribe. Thus a blacksmith living in an Utmanzai village will give his clan an Utraanzai ; but his caste will of course remain Lobar. The nation is divided genealogically into a few great sections which have no coi-porate existence, and the tribe is now the practical unit, though the common name and tradition of common descent are still carefully preserved in the memory of the people. Each section of a tribe,
The 52 Hindus shown in the tables are probably traders living under Pathan protection, or due to errors in enumeration. Tuere are several Shiah cians among the Orakzai of Tirah on the Kohat border. The people of the Samilzai tapah of th Kohat district, which is conterminous with the territory of these clans, are also Slualis. All own allegiance to the Shiah Saiyads of the Orakzai Tirah , while everywhere many of the tribes which claim Saiyad origin are Shiaha.
however small, has its leading- man who is known as Malik, a specially Pathan title. In many, but by no means in all tribes, there is a Khan Khel or Chief House, usually the eldest branch of the tribe, whose Malik is known as Khan, and acts as chief of the whole tribe. But he is seldom more than their leader in war and their agent in dealings with others ; he possesses influence rather than power ; and the real authority rests with the Jirgah, a democratic council composed of all the Maliks. The tribe is split up into numerous clans, and these again into septs. The tribe, clan, and sept are alike distinguished by patronymics formed from the name of the common ancestor by the addition of the word Zai or Khel, Zai being the conniption of the Pashto zoe meaning son, while KJul is an Arabic word meaning an association or company.
Both terms are used indifferently for Both the larger and smaller divisions.^ The stock of names being limited, the nomenclature is exceedingly puzzling, certain names recurring in very different tribes in the most maddening manner. Moreover the title which genealogical accuracy would allot to a tribe or clan is often very different from that by which it is known for practi cal purposes, the people having preferred to be called by the name of a junior ancestor who had acquired local renown. The frontier tribe whether within or beyond our border has almost without exception a very distinct corporate existence, each tribe and within the tribe each clan occupying a clearly defined tract or country, though they are in the Indus Valley often the owners merely rather than the occupiers of the country, the land and smaller villages being largely in the hands of a mixed population of Hindu origin who cultivate subject to the superior rights of the Pathans. These people are included by the Pathans under the generic and semi-contemptuous name of Hindki ,a term very analogous to the Jat of the Biloch frontier, and which includes all Mahomedans who, being of Hindu origin, have been converted to Islam in comparatively recent times.
