Kalash Chilam Joshi Spring Festival

The experience

Kalash Chilam Joshi Spring Festival

The Kalash valleys welcome spring with three days of circle dances, drumming and blessing of the herds.

History & background

Chilam Joshi marks the Kalash new year and the start of the pastoral calendar, held each May as flocks are moved to summer pastures. The festival's rituals, milk libations, flower-crowned dancers and songs addressed to the mountain deities, are part of a pre-Islamic religious tradition unique to the roughly 4,000 remaining Kalash people, who trace their ancestry and customs back well over two thousand years and maintain a belief system found nowhere else in the region. Anthropologists have studied the Kalash for over a century precisely because their language, dress and animist practices survived largely unchanged while the surrounding valleys converted to Islam centuries ago. The festival remains, first and foremost, a living religious event for the community rather than a staged performance, which is why visiting on their terms matters as much as the visit itself.

Day by day

The programme

1. D1Islamabad to Chitral

   Road or flight, evening in town.

2. D2Enter Bumburet

   Village walks and first evening dances.

3. D3Rumbur & Festival Day

   Afternoon dances and singing.

4. D4Departure

   Return to Chitral and onward.