Chapter 3 - The Palula

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The third chapter investigates the history of the Palula, some 7000 people speaking a dialect of Shina, the language of Gilgit and Chilas, who took refuge some three centuries ago from the latter area in their present abode, the valleys of Ashret and Biyori. The Palula brought with them from Eastern Peristan a Kafir culture in which faint memories from Buddhist times can still be discerned. In the mid 1900's, the first literate member of this community, Mirza Guldali Shah, put into manuscript Persian verses the oral traditions of his people, leaving us with an epic which forms a precious historical source about the conflicts of the Palula with the Kalasha and their final alliance with the Rais mehtars in the conquest of southern Chitral.