Chapter 5 - The Jashi

The Jashi village of Gawardesh was razed to the ground by bombs during the Russian-Afghan war. It has been since rebuilt in the traditional Nuristani style, with some innovations, such as windows

The fifth chapter is dedicated to the Jashi, a group that was known in the literature as the "aboriginals" of Nuristan, but remained almost completely clouded in mystery and was believed to be extinct. The Jashi are a Nuristani group who now lives straddled across the Afghan-Pakistani border in two distinct villages: Gawardesh, on the Afghan side, which was their historical homeland; and Badrugal, on the Pakistani side, a fortified stronghold near Nagar in southern Chitral. The authors have recorded among the Jashi a number of important oral traditions which shed light, not only on their origins, but also on the Kafir cultures of the Bashgal Valley, the westernmost section of Nuristan, to which the Jashi belonged. These people once had a language of their own and occupied much of the Lower Bashgal valley before the arrival of the Kom, another Nuristani group, some 400 years ago: they now speak the language of the Kom people and have been integrated with a special status within their wider community.