Faces in Smoke’ The Indigenous Divination Practices: An Immersive Field Study of Shamans of Northern Pakistan

Abstract

I held a sheer gaze of admiration for him, standing tall and steady in front of lofty mountains of Karakoram, at the door of a strangely designed building, I look at the picture taken in early 1990’s, adding more to an enigma it captivatingly held in each minutiae detail. ‘So Baba, where was this?’, instead of directly responding to me, he hands me another picture from a wrinkly album, ‘Bumburet, 15km’, “this was near Kalash valley, I was there on a whim with some of my biker friends to “try our lucks” and speak to a shaman that used to live in this building before he left to his  abode, mountains”. My father’s little anecdote met with a brief ‘interesting’, but the curiosity had me deep diving into the world of Shamans, beyond the mainstreamed Machine-Gun-Kelly and Meghan Fox’s version.  A version that starts from magnificent Gilgit to Chitral, from picturesque Nagar to Hunza, a history written on stones and stupas in relics of religious monasteries to indigenous culture fabric of Northern Pakistan. Housing five eight thousanders including the mighty K2, spanning across Himalayas, Hindukush and Karakoram Gilgit Baltistan exudes diversity be it geological, religious, linguistic or ethnic. But it also has history nullified at the hands of rapid globo-homo culture and standardization cum appropriation of indigenous practices among aboriginal tribes and highlanders. This study would undo the deeply seated historical nuances of Shamanistic practices in Northern Pakistan, with peculiarity of Gilgit Baltistan, as shamanism can only be found in this region because of the receding population of practicing shamans. Because of rapid social, political, economic and religious experience of rapid morphing social attitudes towards shamanism have also evolved, which are majorly underscored hence would be studied briefly through this paper. Other objectives include intersectional study of religious totems and cultural norms, divination and its interaction with geo-political situation of the designated area, gender gaps in Shamanistic practices and interaction of Islam and Shamanism in Gilgit. The paper would also explore diverse roles of Shamans within their respective communities. The research employed an immersive field study of two valleys Chaprote in District Nagar and Bagrot in District Gilgit to examine the divination practices of Shamans of Gilgit Baltistan also called Dayal (Borrowed from Shina language) and how the evolving process of modernization has impacted their religious asceticism. Through immersive field study the data collection was carried out through participant observation, open-ended, semi-structured interviews, field-notes and visual documentation.