The Shilmani

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article.

Shilmani

The Shilmani are probably of Indian origin, and had their homes in Shilman on the banks of the Kurram. Prom there they migrated to the Tatara mountains north of the Khaibar, whence a section of them moved on via Peshawar to Hashtnaghar. About the end of the 15th century the Yusufzai drove them out into Swat, where they found a refuge with Sultan Wais and presently became sub jects of the advancing Yusufzai. A few of them are scattered through the Hazara district, and they still hold a village in the Tatara range. But they are fast dying out of existence as a distinct people. They are often confounded with the Degan in the eaily Afghan histories. I am afraid that some who are not realy Shilmani have been included in our figures.

The tribe is sometimes called Sulemani, a name also apphed to Afghans proper, while there is a separate tribe called Sulemau Khel ; and it is not impossible that there has been some confusion. The Shilmani have all returned themselves as Pathans, and their numbers are 1,557, of whom 969 are in Hazara, 174 in Rawalpindi, and 200 in Dehli.

At the Hazava settlement genealogical trees were prepared for the Swatis only for the last four or tive generations ; and this at their own request, as to have gone back further would have exposed in too public a manner their miscellaneous origin.