Children of the Kalash tribe in Northern Pakistan Photo: EPA Posted on 09/21/2009 12:09:41 PM PDT by Nikas777
Taliban targets descendants of Alexander the Great
For centuries, the blond-haired, blue-eyed people of the Kalash tribes of North West Pakistan have lived a libertine lifestyle.
By Dean Nelson in New Delhi and Emal Khan in Peshawar
Published: 6:48PM BST 21 Sep 2009
Children of the Kalash tribe in Northern Pakistan Photo: EPA
The group, believed to be descendants of Alexander the Great's invading army, were shielded from conservative Islam by the steep slopes of their remote valleys.
While Sikhs, Hindus, and Christians were slowly driven out of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province by Muslim militants, the Kalash were free to drink their own distilled spirits and smoke cannabis.
But the militant maulanas of the Taliban have finally caught up with them and declared war on their culture and heritage by kidnapping their most devoted supporter.
Taliban commanders have taken Professor Athanasion Larounis, a Greek aid worker who has generated £2.5 million in donations to build schools, clinics, clean water projects and a museum.
They are now demanding £1.25 million and the release of three militant leaders in exchange for his safe return.
According to local police, it was Professor Larounis's dedication to preserving Kalasha culture that Taliban commanders in Nuristan, on the Afghan side of the border that made him a target.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Greece needs to evacuate these people like the Jews did for their Ethiopians brothers.
Remnant peoples ping
In the footsteps of Alexander the Great:
In this award winning adventure Micheal Wood embarks on a 2000 mile journey in the foot steps of Alexander's triumphal march from Greece to India.
Stop Jihad Now!
And remember, to liberals, the west is the bad culture. All other cultures are equal or better to include the taliban and islam.
Nope. They were built by the Kushan Empire in 500 to 550 AD, most of a thousand years after the Greco-Bactrian Empire disappeared.
While its neat to think these people are descended from Greeks, and it is possible, over the centuries there have been many Aryan tribes in this area. When a tribe was defeated, it always fled into the mountains, if it could. Throughout the mountains of Asia there are valleys with remnants of otherwise disappeared ethnic groups and cultures.
0bama will be retained as their attorney. Move along nothing to see here.
Even if there is a tiny bit of genetic similarity, which is doubtful, did you read anything about these peoples’ customs and religion? It’s completely incompatible with modern Greek society and is more fitting in Vedic India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire
The earliest documented ruler, and the first one to proclaim himself as a Kushan ruler was Heraios. He calls himself a “Tyrant” on his coins, and also exhibits skull deformation. He may have been an ally of the Greeks, and he shared the same style of coinage. Heraios may have been the father of the first Kushan emperor Kujula Kadphises.
The Kushans adopted elements of the Hellenistic culture of Bactria. They adopted the Greek alphabet (often corrupted) to suit their own language (with the additional development of the letter Þ “sh”, as in “Kushan”) and soon began minting coinage on the Greek model. On their coins they used Greek language legends combined with Pali legends (in the Kharoshthi script), until the first few years of the reign of Kanishka. After that date, they used Kushan language legends (in an adapted Greek script), combined with legends in Greek (Greek script) and legends in Pali (Kharoshthi script).....they absorbed the strong remnants of the Greek Culture of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, becoming at least partly Hellenised.
PS: “Kushan” = “Kalash” ? (The group that retained the old Vedic polytheist religion while the rest of the tribe when Buddhist?
When the Hellenistic kingdoms were swept away these must have been the remnants. Not Greeks per DNA but per culture.
Ship them better weapons instead.
Excellent point.
I just want to save these people and India is the best choice.
There are only 3,000 of them left.
Hey it is the culture of the Islamists in Afghanistan to wipe out other cultures, have some compassion for them
Then send them really good weapons.
Unlikely. The Kushans were invaders from Central Asia, not Aryan Hindus or Vedists. Genetically they were a lot closer to the Huns or Mongols. They probably had a similar rudimentary shamanistic religion prior to adopting Buddhism. The Mongols themselves later mostly became Buddhists, except in the west where they went Muslim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire Chinese sources describe the Guishuang (Ch: 貴霜), i.e. the "Kushans", as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi, also spelled Yueh-chi,[7] (Ch: 月氏), a loose confederation of supposedly Indo-European peoples.
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