Chapter 6 - The Gawar

The Gawar village of Dokalam

The sixth chapter deals with the Gawar, another former Kafir (though not Nuristani) community, who also live straddled across the border, occupying, on the Pakistan side, the border village of Arandu, and on the opposite side a number of villages along the course of the Kunar river, where they farm the rich lands of the alluvial valley floor. The Gawar have much suffered in the past and in recent times from the openness and scarce defensibility of their territory. Three wars in a century have ravaged this land: the Afghan campaign for the conquest of Nuristan (then known as Kafiristan) in 1896; the third Anglo-Afghan war in 1919; and the Russian-Afghan war, which, starting from 1978, saw some of its bloodiest confrontations in this area, such as the battle for the fort of Birkot, a Gawar village. The Gawar preserve little memory of their pre-Islamic times, but field research has nevertheless yielded important data on their oral traditions and history.