HOLGER HOFFMANN: At the Kalashi's Winter Solstice Festival

The Chawmos, a 14-day Winter Solstice Festival, is the most important event in the year of the Kalashi, an animist minority in northern Pakistan.

- HOLGER HOFFMANN

The Festival is a portrait in contrasts: solemn ritual and joyous dancing, gender segregation and public flirtation, togetherness, and isolation. Purity and purification are the big themes of this festival.

The Kalash are a group of about 4,000 people, the country’s smallest minority group, who live in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, where they practice an ancient polytheistic faith.

Their religion is often compared to an ancient form of Hinduism, but the origins of the Kalash are a mystery. Their faith incorporates animistic traditions of worshiping nature and a pantheon of gods, whose members, in some instances, bear resemblances to the Vedic gods of ancient India.

The main god of the Kalash is Balumain, the lord of heaven to whom the festival is dedicated. The Kalash believe places and people are most likely to be visited by Balumain only after being cleaned, pure, and sanctified.

Each year, they come together for Chawmos, a New Year festival that coincides with the winter solstice marked by animal sacrifice, dance, and prescribed roles for men and women.

Holger Hoffmann has experienced this festival up close and has undergone the necessary cleansing rituals, getting to know the lively and very friendly people.