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Tribe and Community among the Ghilzai Pashtun.
Preliminary Notes on Ethnographic

Distribution and Variation in Eastern Afghanistan
Author(s): Jon Anderson
Source: Anthropos, Bd. 70, H. 3./4. (1975), pp. 575-601
Published by: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40458776
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Tribe and Community among the Ghilzai Pashtun
Preliminary Notes on Ethnographic Distribution
and Variation in Eastern Afghanistan
Jon Anderson
Contents :
I. Ghilzai Country
1. Tribal Distribution
2. Ecology
II. Ghilzai Adaptation
1. Tenure and Settlement Patterns
2. Group Identity and Organization
Summary
This is a preliminary report on some basic ethnographic features of

tribal distribution, settlement patterns, and community organization in th
Ghilzai Pashtun region of eastern Afghanistan ^ I am prompted to publish
these selective and incomplete descriptions by the relative dearth of suc
primary information on this area in sources readily accessible to intereste
scholars 2.
The best single source on the Pashtun remains Elphinstone's An
Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, first published in 1815. His detailed repor
on the tribal territories and grasp of the processes underlying variation
local societies are all the more remarkable for having been collected on th
side during an initiatory diplomatic mission. This is a useful theme to pursue,
for apparent social diversity has seemingly increased along with the population
1 Field research, supported by U. S. National Science Foundation grant GS-

30275 under the auspices of the University of North Carolina, included local study ne
Ghazni, supplementary surveys there and in Logar, and interviews with informants from
surrounding areas between July 1972 and December 1973.
2 I am grateful to P. and M. Centlivres for generously discussing my work and
the suggestion to publish a preliminary report.
576 Jon Anderson Anthropos 70. 1975
without substantially altering the basic tribal

fluid history of this part of the world and the ch
ular area from a sparsely populated region of
herding most noted for banditry into a secure
affairs is noteworthy and bears examination i
processes in the society and culture.
I. Ghilzai Country
1. Tribal Distribution
Ghilzai 3 Pashtun (or Pakhtun in the "hard" or "northern" dialects

of Pashtu they speak) cover eastern Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush
from the Kabul River to the desert country past Kelati Ghilzai between
the Gul Koh and Suleiman mountains 4. Entirely within modern Afghanistan
except for a few nomadic groups that still cross into Pakistan to bases along
the Indus, they are in near exclusive possession of this wide arc of mountain-
ringed valleys except for the regions around Kabul and Nangarhar. To com-
plement the detailed map of cis-Durand Pashtun published by Caroe 5,
these are described according to district from north to south.
The northeast portion within the Kabul watershed is the country of the
Ahmadzai and numerous detached Suleiman Khel groups, which they share with
other Pashtun and non-Pashtun. The Ghilzai limit in this direction is lower
Laghman, where Jabar Khel Ahmadzai, Babukur Khel, and Uthman Khel are
interspersed with other Pashtun as well as with non- tribal Tajik and Pashai
and with Nuristani tribes in the upper portions. Such mixture marks the
area as a strategic and ethnic boundary where various groups settled or have
been displaced from time to time; and no little of the Ghilzai settlement
here represents conquest which informants can remember, which are confirmed
in British sources [Gazetteer ', p. 328), and which continue little less aggres-
sively today. Below Laghman to Jelalabad is Khogiani Pashtun country,
beyond which to the Khyber along the intermediate slopes of the Spin Ghar
live the Shinwari Pashtun. Khogiani are repeatedly identified with the Dur-
rani Pashtun in British reports [Gazetteer, p. 297), and this is the current
opinion among Ghilzai; but it probably reflects a political rather than genea-
logical relationship and their continued enmity with the Ghilzai. Shinwari are
related to Afridi and Orakzai Pashtun of the Khyber-Kurram region in Pakistan.
3 This spelling and all others are retained for convenience as the most common
renderings of the Pashtu. More accurately, Igalzœy I is the singular of Igalzi I.
4 A British name for a series of ranges running southwestwards from Shutur Gardan
Pass to the deserts east of Kandahar, it is locally unknown but retained here for conve-
nience.
5 Caroe's (1958) map reproduces the cis-Durand portion of a Government of India

General Staff ethnographic map of 1937 which showed no boundaries for tribes within
Afghanistan. For more maps, consult Humlum (1959).
Tribe and Community among the Ghilzai Pashtun 577
The Ghilzai Territory of Afghanistan
Jabar Khel Ahmadzai center on the upper Surkhrud and Hisarak

tiibutaries of the Kabul River south of Laghman, interspersed with Khogiani
and others particularly in the lower reaches. Jabar Khel of Hisarak are often
referred to as "rulers" of the Ghilzai in British sources [Gazetteer, p. 148, 509).
This misapprehension of the leading role they played in defense of their
country when assisted by other Ghilzai probably derives from British stra-
tegic attention to the approaches to Kabul. Informants deny this was ever
the case; and it does not fit with Pashtun tribal structure which is acepha-
lous and in which Jabar Khel are a sub-section of the Ahmadzai, who are an
off-shoot of the Suleiman Khel.
The Kabul plain through the Koh Daman is not tribal territory, and
Ghilzai here are a minority phasing variously into other peoples in what
are essentially garden suburbs of the city. To the north is traditionally Tajik
country. Pashtun settlement there is scattered and individualistic, generally
Anthropos 70. 1975 37
amounting to land investments that more ofte

systems than in tribal ones. The southern flanks
Paghman on the west through the eastern di
Lataband have a long established Ghilzai pres
the city, this is less a tribal boundary than a
cosmopolitan crossroads of Kabul and the tri
While Paghman, with Sohak and various Suleim
of Ghilzai distribution in that direction, it is so mixed with other ethnic
groups that they do not consider it properly a part of their wotan (homeland) .
The small Stanizai and Abdurrahimzai tribes and other off-shoots of the
Suleiman Khel concentrated in Charasiab and adjacent portions of lower
Logar south of Kabul have marginal tribal identities. Having long taken
advantage of diverse opportunities not available in the atrap (back country),
they are often too cosmopolitan to be considered "tribal" by their country
cousins. Overall, Ghilzai around Kabul, both individually and in groups,
tend to be "detribalized" in the sense of being oriented more toward pluralistic
urban than particularistic tribal spheres. Viewed from within the tribal country
proper, these districts are foreward fringes diluted by alienisms beyond. Their
people are "smooth" in contrast to the "rough" country Pashtun and are not
relied on to mediate those external spheres to the tribes because of this ambi-
guity.
Ghilzai spread south of Kabul through the Logar valley. Though con-
sidered to be the Ahmadzai homeland, it is little less complex demographically
or socially than Laghman or Kabul. Long part of the economic environ of
Kabul, it contains parcels of government and other lands that have often
changed hands outside a tribal framework, and, unlike the central tribal
country, has always paid taxes to Kabul. Farsiwan (the Pashtu generic
for all Persian speakers) including Hazara, Qizilbash, and Sayeed as well
as various Pashtun live here, plus the distinctive LTrmuri-speaking Barraki.
lower Logar in the north is dominated by the Musa Khel Ahmadzai, who cen-
ter on the Surkhab side valley and extend down to the Stanizai and Abdurra-
himzai area by Kabul. Central Logar is more mixed with fewer and recenter
Ahmadzai settlements, usually on land purchased from others. It includes
the Barraki area, above which in the upper Logar and on the adjacent plateaus
between the valley and the high mountains to the west is Wardak country.
Wardak are identified variously as Afghanized Sayeed or Durrani in the
literature {Gazetteer, p. 542), and contemporary Ghilzai opinions are similarly
eccentric; but they agree they are Pashtun, though not Ghilzai.
Southeastern Logar is a dry plain, whose flanks include a line of Ahmad-
zai settlements that extend over the mountains north through Azraw to Hisa-
rak, east through Shutur Gardan and south through Altimur to Gardez.
The Yahya Khel of Altimur claim to have initiated Ahmadzai settlement
here long ago by seizing the plain from "Turks" left by Mahmud of Ghazni
in the 10th century A.D. That the Barraki, to whom they point as the "Turk-
ish" remnants, speak an Indo-Iranian rather than a Turkic language does
not disprove that the currently observable expansion of Ahmadzai settlement
has been going on for a long time. This consists largely of nomads settling
on former summer pastures. Ahmadzai still include many nomads, who
come from Jelalabad to lower Logar and from Khost to southeastern Logar
to summer in the same areas year after year where they are related to settled
kinsmen and from those bases more and more extend settlement at the
expense of non- Ahmadzai.
The only other Ghilzai territory in the Kabul watershed is the upland
plateau of Kharwar in the mountains between Logar, Wardak, Gardez, and
Ghazni. It is principally occupied by Sohak (variously identified as a part of
or off-shoot from the Andar), who extend on eastwards to the vicinity of
Gardez. Also, Andar from neighboring districts of Ghazni extend marginally
onto its southern portions; and some detached Suleiman Khel live in the
north where it drains into Logar through the Farsi wan district of Charkh.
Passes from Kabul- Wardak to Ghazni at Shashgow and from Kabul-
Logar to Gardez at Altimur mark the end of the Kabul drainage and the
beginning of central Ghilzai country. It is "central" in Pashtun estimations
of tribal centers-of-gravity and purity of custom and in its less mixed
ethnic composition in contrast to the northern portions. The only non-Ghilzai
here are minorities of Farsiwan, Sikhs, and Hindus in the Ghazni and
Gardez bazaars, a series of Tajik villages along the old Ghazni-Gardez road
(which are all nucleated in contrast to Ghilzai settlements), a few villages of
Jadran and Mangai south of Gardez, and significant Hazara minorities at
Ghazni, Qarabagh, and Mukur. More important to the image of this area as
the tribal center is its marginal administrative integration in the Afghan state.
Unlike the rest of Afghanistan, central authority here and east to the Pakistan
border is more indirect and group-oriented. Tribes here enjoy many special
privileges on diverse historical grounds amounting to exemptions from outside
interference and often taxation or conscription. Day-to-day government pre-
sence is slight and more military than civilian, particularly in the eastern and
southern reaches. This facilitates maintaining images as independent tribes-
men, literally "rough Pashtuns," and their unhampered pursuit which are
vital to the realization of Pashtun lifeways.
From Ghazni and Gardez a broad intermontane plateau descends in
stages southwest through the interior drainage basin of Abi Istadah, across
its indistinct watershed with the Arghestan-Lora, then through relatively more
broken country that phases into the southern deserts by Kandahar. Between
the high ridges of the Hazara-occupied Gul Koh on the west and the Suleiman
ranges on the east occupied by Jaji, Mangai, Jadran, Khostwal, Waziri, and
Kakar Pashtun, Ghilzai tribes here extend over much greater continuous
territories than the previously mentioned groups. Viewed from here the latter
can be considered geographically and genealogically as extensions of the Sulei-
man Khel to the southern margins of the Kabul valley between Paghman
and Laghman.
Ahmadzai extend over the Altimur range to the area around Gardez,
which they share with Sohaks on the west toward Kharwar and with Tota
Khel (Suleiman Khel?) on the northeast. Suleiman Khel proper are the most
numerous and cover the largest territory, from Z

Shahran and Kattawaz to Wazakhwah, past wh
try. This eastern portion of the plains is divided
but locally steep Jarkana Ghar hills, which ar
easy passes from Kharwar on the north to A
western portion includes the Andar districts
south of Ghazni and the Tarraki territory fro
to Mukur and Abi Istadah. At the latter are settl
man Khel group also found by Gardez.
South of Abi Istadah the plains rise into hi
divide between seasonal streams flowing almo
Istadah and south into the Arghestan-Lora sy
to Kelati-Ghilzai in the Tarnak and Mizan in th
country, separated from Tarraki by the Rozan
Istadah and the Tarnak valley. Hotak or Otaq ran
dab above Kandahar to the vicinity of Kela
Arghestan-Lora drainages. Nasir, usually descr
ish reports [Gazetteer, p. 429; Elphinstone 181
wotan between the Hotak and Kakar and on part
and Wazakhwah 6. Some detached groups are
and outside this region.
A final tribe, the Kharoti, center on Sarodzah in the mountains above
Kattawaz and spread eastwards to the vicinity of Urgun between the Jadran
and Waziri countries north and south in the hills. Some formerly nomadic
sections have settled on their summer quarters in Qarabagh by Ghazni and,
in conjunction with formerly co-migrating Daotanni Pashtun, are consolidat-
ing their occupation of that plain at the expense of the Hazara there. Elphin-
stone reported some doubts that they were Ghilzai (1815: 445-446), but the
first English observer in this area in 1839 reported they were (Broadfoot
1886). Some Ghilzai disagree; but most regard them as Ghilzai as they them-
selves do, though they speak a "soft" dialect associated with the Durrani
(albeit with typical Ghilzai vocabulary) .
Problems of the Distribution
Where boundaries and groups can be identified, this is the same distribu-
tion described in the first British reports - Elphinstone's in 1815 and Broad-
foot's in 1839 - and confirmed in the Gazetteer compilations. There are few
gaps in this continuity (from unclear references, incomplete identifications,
and fragmentary information) ; and the marked increase in local densities and
variations observed today has not accompanied alterations in intergroup
boundaries except along the margins where the social nature of those bound-
aries (all involving non-Ghilzai) has changed.
6 Information east of Kelat is solely from informant reports and confirmations of

Gazetteer data. I have not visited these areas.
The northern margin seems to have witnessed an Ahmadzai-Suleiman

Khel expansion by nomadic settlement around a few strategic bases that
continues today through purchases of farmland from non-Ahmadzai. Similarly,
Kharoti and Daotanni settle in Qarabagh where they formerly only passed the
summers as nomads and are displacing Hazaras from the plains. On the south-
west, Hotak and others have expanded up the Arghandab and parallel valleys
into formerly Hazara country since the latter's conquest by Amir Abdur
Rahman, largely with Ghilzai assistance (see Kakar 1971: 159 f.). Informants
report boundary changes with Durrani in the Arghestan-Lora basin, but this
is unclear. Settlement there has always been more sparse and erratic, and I
have no direct information on it.
Though the patterns of expansion are clear, all results are not com-
mensurately successful. Hence, the scatter of detached Suleiman Khel segments
among other groups in the Kabul valley contrasts with the territorial consol-
idations of Ahmadzai in some but not all places and the more extensive con-
solidations in the central regions. Cases of nomads settling on former pastures
have in common with pre-existing settlements a pattern of expansion from a
base that is similar throughout. All Ghilzai tribes have nomadic components
which move from winter quarters in Jelalabad, Kandahar, and the Derajat,
to summer quarters here. Each group always returns to the same locality
where its rights are secured usually by a sedentary segment. Nomads are con-
siderably fewer now than in Broadfoot's time when he reported a prepon-
derance of nomad over settled that is reversed today. Also noting this pattern
of settling on summer pastures, whose division between the tribes was already
established, he speculated on even greater nomadism in the past (Bróadfoot
1886: 361, 363). Informants can relate this in traditions and from their own
experiences, and they clearly take this conception of filling up a claimed ter-
ritory from a base on it to the extent of their opportunities, whether by nomads
or by already settled groups. The case of nomadic settlement is merely the
more obvious.
But expanded settlement involves prior and subsequent alterations in
ecological and social contexts that systematically affect options and the result-
ing patterns of settlement. Many contemporary nomad settlements and a few
older ones, especially among the Ahmadzai in their Logar "homeland," are
financed with revenues from trade and from holdings in the Hazarajat or
beyond the Hindu Kush secured since those areas were opened up to Pashtun
penetration in the last 80 years. In those areas, some Ghilzai have acquired
farmlands as well as pastures but rarely settle on them (see Ferdinand 1962,
and Kraus 1968). They prefer instead to repatriate the income for investment
in their tribal homelands. Also, numerous Ghilzai and other Pashtun have
relocated beyond the Hindu Kush under internal security programs of the
government that both removed them from home where they were often trou-
blesome and installed Pashtun in the north as agents of central consolidation.
Some of these similarly use the opportunity to refinance their homelands or
to establish new positions in them. Further, decline in pastoral nomadism has
been accompanied by the appearance of a more individualistic reverse nomad-
ism of labor migration from these expanded settlem

of these activities have changed (with peace, new
ization) . All of these involve using externally acqui
old or new, that are economically marginal but s
they affect opportunities to do this, these external
tribal distribution here. But they do confirm demog
and variety of settlements by pointing to the popu
and to some of the variations that emerge in settlem
Although only research through incomplete (
document it fully, there is clearly more and more
at Broadfoot's time or at any other in the 19th c
is still continuing or recent enough to be observed ;
report it. In some places, settlements have expan
large belts of near-continuous occupation; in ot
dispersal of previously unitary villages. Internally,
ent proprietorships to complex landlord-tenant arr
boundaries between Ghilzai. groups have not at t
Tribal distributions are a staple, if old-fashioned,
but their significance has usually been considered h
logical. However, the stability of tribes and territor
ing and diversifying settlement removes the proble
ethnographic or historical to sociological frames
in light of the fact that Pashtun society is orga
lineages that tend to reduce corporateness to th
any enduring coordination of multiple, often confl
Stable distribution in these contexts can be prov
of the land tenure and residence scheme, the rec
group identity and organization, and the ecologie
2. Ecology
Physically, Ghilzai country comprises the broad plains of the Abi Istadah
basin, plus adjacent parts of the smaller Logar valley and some of the nar-
rower valleys of adjacent Kabul River tributaries, minus most higher portions
of the encircling mountains and the headwaters of all streams except on the
south where Ghilzai extend marginally into the Arghestan-Lora watersheds.
The region is high, 1500-2000 m, and subject to wide seasonal changes from
cold snowy winters to hot dry summers that alternate abruptly with only
short spring and fall periods. At the dry tail end of the Mediterranean weather
system, the region receives precipitation only during winter and early spring,
then mostly as snow, averaging 200 to 300 mm annually and diminishing
toward the south 7.
7 These are rounded averages for Kabul, Ghazni, Gardez, Kelat, and Mukur from
1968-1969 before the recent drought that more than halved precipitation (see Statistical
Pocketbook of Afghanistan, pp. 35-36).
Staple agriculture is only possible with irrigation, and its provision is

the key to sedentary life. Excepting the gorge-like upper tributaries of the
Kabul and Arghestan systems, this area of broad plains everywhere lacks
sufficient water for irrigated agriculture. Only a few localities in central Logar,
Hisarak, Laghman, and close by Gardez and Ghazni can tap streams lasting
into (but not always through) summer. Elsewhere and predominantly water
is brought to the plains from saturated strata in the surrounding mountains,
which tower 500 m or more above the plains, by hand-dug underground water
channels (karez). This localizes irrigated agriculture and thereby settlement
in separated concentrations along the inclined margins of the plains where
the channels reach the surface, which can be quite far out in the center of the
plains in some cases. Karez and the field systems they irrigate are thus variably
spaced in parallel along the edges of the plains with wider or narrower dry
intervals in between depending on the availability of water-bearing strata and
where they have actually been tapped. Settlement and cultivation are further
fixed to these points of supply by the astronomical investments in construction
and maintenance labor that each represents. In some places, they are close
enough to merge into continuous belts of cultivation; in others, they are
separated by wide stretches of desert-steppe. Considerable interlocal variation
in settlement densities results from the varying proximity of these point
sources. This is significant for comparison and is discussed further below.
Under irrigation, Ghilzai cultivate winter wheat and supplementary crops
of alfalfa or clover for animal fodder, plus small patches of oats, barley, and
corn. Sometimes small gardens of fruit and nut trees are kept as occasional
luxuries - as much for the shade as for the fruit - but are common only near
towns from whose gardens they are copied. Strictly as a sideline, melons, gra-
pes, and tobacco are grown on a few irrigated plots for the town markets. Dry
(rainfall) cultivation is restricted to spring-sown wheat on unirrigatable land,
and, with irrigated winter wheat and alfalfa, makes up the staple bulk of
agricultural production. Lands beyond the margin of irrigation or any not
being irrigated may be devoted to dry wheat, fallow, animal pastures, or left
wild to supply the scrubby brush collected for kitchen fires.
The agricultural cycle pivots on the integration of several operations in
a single growing season, since harsh winters preclude multiple cropping. It
begins with sowing the main crop of winter wheat in late fall on irrigated land
(abi), at which time there is barely enough water to soften the plots for plow-
ing. After two or three relatively idle months in winter, the secondary wheat
crop is sown on unirrigated land (lalmi) in the short interval between thawing
and the last rains of spring. Hay crops of perennial alfalfa receive the first
irrigation and yield a first harvest in early summer, followed by ahi wheat
harvested in turn in mid-summer. Lalmi and minor cereal crops with long
growing seasons are harvested in late summer. A second hay crop and fruits
are gathered during the fall while grains are being threshed and stored. Irri-
gated plots are usually rotated between one crop of wheat, sometimes two if
the soil will bear, then fallow and alfalfa for several years as restorative.
Another crop of wheat is sown when the unfertilized hay crops begin to dimin-
ish (at which time fertilizer can be applied), f

alfalfa and clover or fallow. Dry wheat is sown
on any given field. Though some are aware th
quently will turn it into desert, many do so
holdings are insufficient for long fallowing, for
and thus commands a higher price (and requires
farmer should have various fields in each stag
to be coordinated for all users of a single water
cyclical patterns largely because water is used
but operations remain individual with only sch
in most cases. Maintenance of buildings, fiel
husbandry all take place within this frame o
except for major jobs where labor has to be t
among the latter is karez work, a specialized pro
engineers who are famous for it.
A few sheep and goats plus at least one mi
households for meat and milk products to sup
At least one donkey for hauling and a bullock fo
plete the complement of each independent ho
sometimes care for a few animals kept in stables
larger combined holdings their care is often con
shepherd.
This is not a mixed subsistence agriculture, but specialized wheat and
hay farming marginally supplemented with a few special crops and a mini-
mum of animal husbandry. Even on the remotest margins everything but
bread, milk, and meat must be bought for cash obtained by selling wheat
and other raw products such as straw, fodder, or animals in the bazaar towns.
The only thing not purchased is house-building earth; and even that is not
always freely available. All clothing, household and farming utensils, salt,
sugar and other spices, and the all-important rice and tea, must be bought
and have always come from outside this region. The local sources of these
necessities, and of cash, are the bazaar towns. Ghazni, Gardez, Kabul, and
Kandahar are the principal ones, with smaller bazaars at Qarabagh, Mukur,
Kelat, Zurmat, Kattawaz, and Wazakhwah, plus a few larger (usually Tajik)
villages that have one or two shops for miscellaneous small items. Although
individual households are the units of production and consumption, they are
specialized producers with needs far wider than they can supply by themselves.
Every producer down to the smallest is thus enmeshed in a money market
economy which attains international proportions because interregional com-
plementarities large enough to accommodate even basic needs far exceed the
scale of those locally. Rice comes from Jelalabad or Turkestan or even outside
the country, tea from India, cloth from Pakistan (but increasingly from Afghan
mills) ; glassware, pottery, utensils, and finished clothing come from Europe
and Japan.
Viewing this region as an ecological "niche," these complementarities
have important demographic consequences for adjusting fluctuating labor
demands against the sustaining potential of local systems. Traditionally the

most important complementation is nomadism. Settled people regard nomad-
ism as a whole way of life contrasting with their own, less secure but full of
prestige and adventure; and cynical informants will speak of nomads who
own land as kuch-ing (migrating) for the fun of it, pointing out that nomad
men leave routine chores to women and children and do no work themselves.
Nomads arriving in spring graze animals and even plant lalmi by arrangement
with local proprietors. These arrangements are many-fold in keeping with the
opportunistic nature of nomadism. Some own land and have installed tenants
or relatives on it for the farming operation. Some merely pay for the use of
pastures and water; others do contract shepherding and harvesting during the
peak summer seasons for these rights or for payments in cash or kind. Some
of these arrangements are voluntary contract or market relations; others are
based on kinship or some other enduring customary relationship. Nomads also
formerly acted as carriers and suppliers for farmers, but they have lost this
role to lorry drivers and the bazaar towns which have split up the economic
brokerage formerly lodged with nomads (both pastoralists and caravaneers) .
Contemporary nomadism has the important impact that supplementary labor
and temporarily needed special services such as summer herding (animals are
stabled in winter) and harvesting are available when needed without the
burden of extra mouths in the slack periods. From the local point of view,
nomads, who think of this as part-time seasonal work, leave in autumn to
occupy - and hence support - themselves elsewhere, thus relieving the farmer
from having to support part-time specialists full time.
Also significant for Ghilzai demography and society is the reverse nomad-
ism of labor migration. In addition to those employed or in military service
elsewhere in Afghanistan and students away at school, not a single community
is without men absent to work or trade in India, Pakistan, or even farther
afield throughout Asia and Europe. Some locales are practically stripped of
men during the winter, and nearly every household includes at least one absent
man. Though most return seasonally or every few years with their earnings,
some never do. Their remittances form an important part of the local cash
flow and investment not only for the net volume but fundamentally because
the reason for labor migration is to finance or refinance life-styles at home.
Quite apart from its considerable economic impact (local expenditures exceed-
ing local income), this enduring identification with the community is a major
cultural scheme important for identity and social organization because it
emphasizes character of the community as a social base for participating in
tribal fora critical to Pashtun social identity.
II. Ghilzai Adaptation
1. Tenure and Settlement Patterns
The relations of groups to their spaces can be understood initially through

the complex factors of land tenure and residence. Sociologically, these group
boundaries are the aggregate product of individual proprietorships rather than
corporate group tenure. But the cultural and ecological conditions of such
proprietorships give them distinctive patterns and systematic variations.
Except for government property, including the nationalized waqf, every bit
of land is under claim to permanent personal ownership, often several. The
vesh system of rotating tenure on common group property described by Barth
(1959) among the Yusufzai Pashtun of Swat is not found among Ghilzai.
Some informants do not even recognize this scheme ; others do and report its
former existence in at least some Suleiman Khel areas of Zurmat, though they
add it was abandoned long ago as unworkable in favor of individual ownership.
Among Ghilzai, individual proprietorship maintains group boundaries by
limiting the acquisition of land almost entirely to inheritance rights trans-
mitted in parallel with patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence. But descent
is not the only organizing principal. Political and exigent factors of co-residence
and land use modify its application and compromise the intended modeling
of territorial after genealogical space. These result in systematic variations
from single isolated farmsteads through lineally extended hamlet settlements
to "nucleated" villages of nearly a thousand households. Internally, each of
these may range from a single proprietor's household to multiple localized
descent groups with various kinds of auxiliary "outsiders" all the way to
complex landlord-tenant arrangements similar to latifundia. These variations
arise from local differences in opportunities seized or missed over the course
of time and to locally different combinations of social and ecological factors,
but all revolve around a common generative scheme.
Ghilzai settlements have been physically described as separated clusters
of houses and fields at dispersed point sources of water. Each point, a karez
or more rarely a spring or diverted stream, is owned and used exclusively by
a group of proprietors who divide the water and all of the surrounding land
their water could reach from that point downslope to the next holding. They
and their dependants live in a mud- walled fort at the water source, the source
of the land's agricultural value, and farm the land under or potentially under
it in the manner described above. Each holding includes unirrigatable portions,
which can be quite extensive, because water is almost everywhere scarcer than
land. All of this land may not be used all of the time; but, since it is topo-
graphically under the water source, it is thereby included under the legal
ownership of it. The co- termination of these multiple miniature watersheds
thus results in all of the land up to the highest water source being claimed
regardless of use 8. Pashtun say only mountain tops are not private property.
The development of a new water source within one of these miniature water-
sheds, and thereby the extension of cultivation and settlement, is the exclusive
right of the proprietors. All growth is therefore based on social and physical
subdivision of an original unitary proprietorship; and this is the way Ghilzai
conceive it.
The organizational prototype of this proprietorship and something of an
ideal type in Pashtun thinking is also the simplest case of a single individual
owner. He and his various dependants form one or more households on the
holding which is his exclusive personal property. This ownership entitles him
to its use and disposal without legal restriction during his lifetime and passes
in toto at his death to be divided among his sons or, lacking those, to other
customary successors. In order, these are his brothers, their sons or other male
descendants, his father's brothers, their sons or other male descendants, his
father's father's brothers, their sons or further male descendants, and so on
theoretically to the limits of the tribe and eventually all Pashtun. Any nearer
individual or group of brothers excludes all more distant. Thus, in the normal
course of development, each community is composed of cousin-proprietors
(with their dependants) individually possessing the divided estates of their
respective predecessors back to the founder and common ancestor. As these
grow and subdivide through time, physical space ideally would mirror genea-
logical space. Pashtun intend this to be the case and try to achieve it.
Successors, initial and subsequent, may operate the estate jointly or
divide it among themselves in equivalent parcels containing equal shares of
each resource (water, house sites, gardens, irrigated fields, dry fields, pasture,
desert, and animals) for each heir. Neither a testator nor his heirs would
separate these, for there is no formula to equalize different resources. The
cultural value on personal autonomy which underlies the ownership scheme
prefigures such individualization of interests as to preclude joint ownership
of basic enabling resources over any but the shortest term. (Informants who
speak of former common tenures say these originate in nomadic times and
were abandoned when farming became more important because they could
not decide whether to portion use rights "by mouth" or by inheritance: would
two brothers divide the share of their father or would every household have
the same share?) In practice, only brothers have sufficient common interests
and sympathy to make joint tenure work, and even they require great effort
and uncommon self-restraint because one must be the leading partner no
matter how the fact is disguised. Pashtun thinking precludes the very equality
it values, for in all social relations one must dominate or be dominated. Even
where entitlements are equal, there is still strong temptation to separate
because this is a problem. So usually in the first succeeding generation and
invariably in the second a joint estate is divided into separate individual
8 Compare with Broadfoot's observation in 1839 (1886: 356) that "The grazing
grounds of these tribes, both in the hills and plains, are apportioned off, and are as well
known even in the wildest country, as the gardens and fields of more civilized races."
holdings that only accidents of inheritance cou

are a complex mix of high values placed on in
ownership, and the descent distribution of right
dent or not, have an extensive community of in
ment and lifelong intimacy which, if they acc
against others. Cousins, however, not only hav
as relatives than any other co-tribesmen, but
are in perpetual conflict over unresolved issue
formerly belonging to the common grandfather
involve such intangibles as leadership but are
and other compounded aggravations. Informants
observable, that irreconcilable values are in such irresolvable conflict that
individual ownership is the only feasible means to social autonomy.
Social complexity increases by the continuous subdivision of these indi-
vidual proprietorships. All settlements thus approximate the form of a mini-
mum co-residential segment of the tribal patrilineage. Greater or smaller
depending on the ecological capacity of their base and their successful exploita-
tion (or supplementation) of it, all Ghilzai communities take this form, described
by Murdock (1949: 74) as "clan communities". Whether settlement and cul-
tivation appear continuous, dispersed, or nucleated, the underlying reality is
a series of discrete units grouped by common and exclusive descent. Each
comprises a distinct area and is bounded on all sides by equivalent units.
Each is named, usually as the "place" of a founding ancestor, and each is an
overgrown household.
This ancestor is a genealogical point of reference but not always the
actual founder, although Ghilzai conveniently so regard him particularly when
the passage of time obscures the actual facts. Rather, he marks the point of
inclusion : all and only his descendants are identified in contrast to others. It
occurs that a holding is colonized either out of a more inclusive holding by
a member or members of it or out of a government parcel granted to someone
in return for a service. Where the actual history of such communities is ascer-
tainable, the colonizer typically has invited some of his closer relatives to
join him; and a linking ancestor serves as their focus of identification as a
new community. This reverse creation of descent groupings not only underlies
many individual clan communities but can and does occur more inclusively
in the consolidation of medial segments (perhaps up to and beyond the level
of tribes - the Ghilzai were sometimes thought to have originated this way).
This is happening in parts of Logar as newly settled groups and indi-
viduals prompt reorganization of intergroup alignments. Many places are also
found divided between two or more named descent groups where internal
conflict or some other reason such as the development of a new water source
has prompted the inhabitants to reorganize and symbolize the new arrange-
ment in terms of mutually distinctive ancestries. It is not that Ghilzai auto-
matically organize themselves by descent categories; indeed, political align-
ments are not determined in many cases by descent modalities. Rather,
common descent has an organizational potential and saliency by virtue of
the categorical joint liability for blood feud which they are ready to utilize
in less extreme situations if convenient or if leaders can accomplish it. A
leader conceives some segmentation that serves his purposes or that identifies
some community of interests and then tries to rally those persons included
by appeals to their common blood, pointing out that if worse comes to worse
they are anyway vulnerable by their degree of relation. But more mundane
patronage transactions actually accomplish such incorporations. Internal divi-
sions are common in larger and in contiguous communities where competition
is more widespread and diverse, though it is less a result of size than of specific
integrations in each context.
Local integration varies considerably for reasons too complex for this
discussion; but some comparisons will indicate the range. The mountain-
dwelling Kharoti have a tradition of centralized leadership inherited in a
particular lineage to direct common affairs of the whole tribe, which they
explain by exigencies of their exposed position between the aggressive Sulei-
man Khel and Waziri. Hotak also count among themselves a khan khel (lord
lineage) which once led the Ghilzai in conquering the Safavid empire of Persia
(see Dupree 1973: 322 f.). Leadership among the Andar is so fragmented that
Suleiman Khel, their traditional enemies, say anyone can become a khan but
that such persons would be merely "big" among themselves. Ahmadzai are
similarly fragmented by the nearness of their nomadic past and the oppor-
tunistic nature of recent settlement along an ethnic frontier, although among
them attempts at consolidation are going on. Leaders commonly appeal to
the complex of values and loyalties of common descent in trying to define
inter-community scales ; but in the absence of sufficient common threats, this
potential is marginal and has to be economically reinforced. All leadership in
any case is personally financed rather than based on exploitation. Not only is
common descent a limited principle that must in any event be situationally
mobilized, there are cross-cutting affinai and alliance ties often more com-
pelling in specific cases that complicate this effort. These produce a volatile
mix of alignments on many levels more appropriately considered in the con-
text of group identity and organization. Those that come together in co-
residence are relevant to Ghilzai cultural ecology.
In addition to exigetical restraints of organizing various planting and
irrigation cycles by which Ghilzai farmers partially integrate their separate
operations of the total community holding, there are scaled residua of rights
to use and acquire land that qualify absolute personal proprietorship. These
vary for the separate components and for their potential users. Each proprietor
in a community, and by extension his dependants, has a right to graze animals
and collect brush for household fires (but not for sale) on the uncultivated
land of his neighbors in the community. This is a right of neighborhood and
extends to all proprietors whether kin or not. All residents have a right to
as much water for personal use as needed regardless of their share for agri-
cultural purposes or whether they are proprietors or dependants. Neither of
these has to be requested, though it is customary to ask for the former in
recognition of the proprietor's prior right and option to refuse. No one has
the right to refuse washing and drinking water,

say, if an owner has any in excess of his perso
grazing or collecting privileges if he were going
for his own household or for sale, though it
proprietors may also usually plant wheat on
(excluding that specifically in fallow) by arr
owner. This can be refused without serious viole
of co-residents ; but to grant it, or more common
nership whereby the owner gets a share of the m
the requester which establishes a social debt m
graze or collect on another's land. Irrigated field
can only be used by a non-owner on strict share
a patronage arrangement of specifically contra
to the owner and does not involve any general
it involves haggling over every detail. Co-propri
kin or not, may enter such voluntary arrangeme
other is a policy decision of the owner about
favors regardless of generalized reciprocities.
sharecroppers bound only to their patrons? O
multiply bound by the generalized reciprocities
tors? Or some mixture of these two? It also o
declare unirrigated land not in constant use
common property of the proprietors in order
dependencies at the expense of individual ones
community cohesion. This is likely only where in
ing are equal enough to preclude the economic as
or where one member is so ascendent as to be able to focus those mutual
dependencies for his own policies, or where such land is extensive or suitable
only for grazing.
More important for the settlement pattern, however, is the residual right
of neighbor co-proprietors to first option if land is sold. Informants explain
that since selling land "robs the heirs" of their potential right, the order of
precedence to this option should be that of potential inheritors. They are
quite clear that this is intended to maintain the genealogical structure of the
community which is in theory and fact a kind of diluted private space. But,
they add, after a brother (sons never have separate economic identity from
their father during his lifetime) or perhaps a father's brother or his son, the
owners of adjacent plots, regardless of relationship to the seller, should exclude
any non-resident, co-descended or not. Ideally, the purchaser would be a
brother, uncle, first cousin, etc. and a neighbor. But if a purchaser is not a
member of the community, then anyone who is should exclude anyone other
than a brother who is not because such purchasers are a kind of stranger to
them. This is only a right to be preferred buyer, not the only one, for land
can be sold outside this range (and often is) if no one within it can meet the
price. Negotiation or even coercion may be required to persuade a seller to
favor an entitled buyer over an outsider or to discourage outsiders' interest.
Though the right to sell is absolute, a seller is obliged to find the "closest"
buyer. If he does not, there is no traditional recourse, though he can be made
to suffer in other ways, for he has cut himself off from his neighboring kin
by such action. This right is a recognition of the community of interest and
sympathy among co-residents; but it is confused by attempts to reinforce it
with the other community of interest and sympathy of co-descendants.
The problem is that rights of co-residence do not distribute solely with
co-descent, but Ghilzai try to act as if they do ; and their coincidence in most
cases tends to obscure the distinction. Outsiders sometimes acquire land and
residential rights in a community by purchase or otherwise when inhabitants
cannot or will not prevent it. Those persons then share in community rights
and responsibilities, but never in descent group ones no matter how empathetic
they become with their neighbors. Participating in decisions about planting,
rotations, watering schedules, or community improvements is qualified by
proprietorship alone; and non-proprietor kin have no rights in such matters.
Conversely, questions of descent group responsibilities such as feuding and
all personal offenses do not involve non-kin neighbors. In fact, they can play
important neutral roles in such cases, though in daily life their individuality
is problematical.
The prime reason for trying to keep the local community within a descent
framework is that outsiders introduce complications by their own individual
extra-community ties and by their lack of multiple ties to the natal members.
Pashtun abhöre pluralism in inverse proportion to social distance. Reflecting
the nature of the Ghilzai clan community as an overgrown household is their
treatment of the entire community space as within the margins of domestic
privacy, specifically the progressive seclusion of women from less close rela-
tives. Familial privacy is a core Pashtun value; hence non-kin residents are
invading a privacy that is harder to maintain on a day-to-day basis the more
they are integrated into the life of the community. This non-coincidence of
kinship and co-residence underlies their paradoxical mixture of strong xeno-
phobia and lavish hospitality to guests (which informants will reluctantly
admit is a device for keeping outsiders at a controlled social distance) . Where
the complex character of the community as a small group is compromised
by numerous non-kin residents, internal stresses unmodified by compounded
reciprocities seriously undermine its very purpose as a secure social base. This
may happen where there are large numbers of diversely originated sharecrop-
pers, where numerous unassimilated outsiders acquire property rights, where
a community becomes populous by internal growth, where settlements expand
to meet in a continuous belt, or where any other decrease in local isolation
occurs. The measure of this is the notable increased seclusion of women where
public traffic increases. In effect, the presence of outsiders "urbanizes" a
Pashtun community of any size by confronting them with the multiplex bases
of their schemes of relationships; and, recognizing this, they try to minimize
it by restricting access.
These situations are common sources of variation, though their impacts
differ according to who the non-kin co-residents are as well as by their
overall proportion. Most communities have som

other employees of the proprietors who are ou
do not include the use of any land or facilities b
sibilities unless jointly agreed by all proprietors.
for irrigated fields or for herding since other op
tal, or risky to depend on alone. Other emplo
or shorter terms appropriate to specific jobs on
trees or vines, operating machinery, or some oth
and barbers, who are joint employees of the enti
proprietors), are supported like sharecroppers wi
production rather than salaries 9. Any of these i
may be extended auxiliary rights as a guise for i
alized reciprocities, but to do so is a political d
on the part of the proprietors, who alone have t
these persons are social as well as economic de
and, because they are not independent agents, th
ance of their respective sponsors, who are respon
compromise community or an individual's securit
is responsible to discipline, protect, or expel t
to do so. A non-kin co-proprietor is harder to
from ownership equal to any other proprietor
terrorism could he be gotten rid of. Apart from
action are the penalties such a course would e
kinsmen. For this reason ultimately, only a disin
trable in the first place. The disintegration of
who cannot or will not hire only kinsmen and
labor, in a seller who cannot or will not favor a
his land. Each of these is a social as well as an economic decision.
Sources of disintegration derive from the personalization of ownership
and interests which introduce the fickleness of individual fortunes. These are
many and not always mortal. The most general is a proprietor's inability to
maintain his holding, thereby making it liable to alienation. He may be tem-
porarily assisted by his neighbors and kin, but generalized reciprocities are
quickly overdrawn, and chronic failure can only lead to alienation. Short of
that he has the option of refinancing by borrowing or supplementary employ-
ment; and the former often leads to the latter to redeem mortgages. Social
or even subsistence expenses exceeding an individual's productivity are com-
monly met by borrowing money against land. The arrangement is disguised
as a kind of conditional "sale" to circumvent the Islamic prohibition of usury;
but accomplished economic actors know the result is the same. Since repay-
ment ("return purchase") must be in a lump sum, a debtor only compounds
his insolvency by mortgaging his land and often ends up working his holding
9 Villages used to contain smiths and carpenters on a similar basis ; but now their
services are available only in bazaars and only for cash.
as a kind of sharecropper, giving an annual portion of the already marginal

return as interest. To avoid losing land entirely, debtors or some members
of their households often migrate temporarily in search of employment. While
some of these reverse nomads are seeking to diversify their personal networks
with outside ties, most are simply trying to earn money to finance the costs
of community life that exceed the proceeds of their holdings in it. Of those
attempting to aggrandize their positions this way, the more desperate are
debtors trying to regain lost positions as independent actors. The minimum
position is to retain a dwelling, the smallest symbolic as well as physical
presence maintainable. When he can no longer do this even with outside sup-
plements, a tribesman is reduced to the status of guest or, worse, a menial
dependant. To finally sell his holding is a tribesman's last extremity, for
whether he migrates permanently or becomes a dependent sharecropper or
pensioner, he is no longer an autonomous actor and thus is as good as not
present socially.
In addition to the potentials for dissolution Ghilzai recognize opportu-
nities for expansion and consolidation of settlement. Nomads and rich traders
(often former nomads) are notable for filling up land, especially in Logar, with
monuments to their ambitions. Huge new fortresses are installed on newly
purchased lands, often surpluses to which pre-existing communities could not
afford to bring water but for which the new settlers have capital to invest.
Parcels of government land have been granted to nomads for establishing
more modest settlements in parts of Ghazni, as well as in Logar and elsewhere,
where there are extensive government holdings. Voluntary settlement is pre-
dominantly by Ahmadzai in Logar and Kharoti by Qarabagh, each of whom
have prior tribal presences in their respective areas. This is more marked
when existing settlements can be seen expanding. Along tribal frontiers or
other places such as old migration routes where government-enforced peace
has made historic insecurities obsolete, previously unoccupiable or unneeded
land becomes available. Where Andar, Tarraki, and Suleiman Khel groups
meet near Ghazni on a plateau of the Jarkana Ghar that used to be a major
passage for their and other nomads, permanent communities of these tribes
were historically few, nucleated, and sited for security in the shelter of the
surrounding hills with large tracts of land too exposed to farm. As the dangers
from transiting and camping nomads and the palpable insecurity of their
frontier position has declined with the suppression of raiding and the decline
in nomadism, individuals and sub-groups of these communities have moved
into outlying parts and established new subdivisions contiguous with the old.
Whether because nomadic components of the local sub-tribe have relocated
north of the Hindu Kush under government programs or whether they are
more skilful developers of marginal farmland, Andar who claim most of this
plateau as under their water have expanded the most (and offered both rea-
sons!). They do this not only because they are able, but because they must.
Untaxed land (i. e. any unirrigated or not plotted) is considered by the govern-
ment to be public domain and has in more than a few cases been granted to
landless nomads or others outside the groups that traditionally claimed it.
Anthropos 70. 1975 38
This is a sore point that once would have been a

subject to endless litigation, for only so long as the
boundaries with other groups, Ghilzai have always b
their claimed watersheds and have always done
secure occupation. (They say given sufficient room
in detached single-proprietor farmsteads.) In this a
sions have crossed local inter- tribal boundaries. The few cases where different
tribes are within the same watershed are said to stem from conquests so ancient
as to have been ratified by time. (In Suleiman Khel Zurmat similar cases are
laid to ancient grants of asylum to Jadran and Mangai from the hills or, more
recently, to purchases.) The only economic hindrance to local expansions has
been the investment cost of developing water and field systems, and this too
has become less restrictive with the government peace that facilitates security,
supplementary labor migration, and the investment of outside funds. In the
last-mentioned part of Ghazni, expansion is motivated by serious agricultural
interests; but closer to towns, and particularly in Logar, this is less the case.
There investment in agriculture is often slight or incidental, and a new fortress
continues to be financed from external sources, serving only to symbolize the
social and political pretensions of the owner.
Because land holdings enable enactment of valued social-political identi-
ties in the tribal sphere, tribesmen struggle to secure them with variable
results depending on opportunities and on more or less successful achievements.
In combinations varying from place to place, the kinds of factors mentioned
on the one hand underlie the potential for socially organizing territory and
on the other they diversify the range of specific cases by their differential
local impact.
2. Group Identity and Organization
Group identity and organization are complementary reciprocals of these

enabling and contingent factors. Fitting individuals together socially and
spatially is a matter of abstracted as well as of practical considerations, since
the latter do not so much determine as enable the former. This is more than
theoretically problematical because these ecological and social features do not
mark the Ghilzai exclusively.
In all directions there are continuities with surrounding groups. This is
not a culture area, but a transitional portion of the total Pashtun distribution
between the Indus, the Hindu Kush, and the Baluchistan deserts 10. The
intermontane plains of the Ghilzai ecologically phase into higher and lower
hills and valleys, and Ghilzai are sandwiched between those in different ways
on all sides. In the Kabul drainage, they occupy intermediate portions below
Wardak and Tajik districts but above Khogiani and Shinwari country, where
10 It is, however, the core of a distinctive climatological, topographic, and vegeta-

tional zone (see Humlum 1959 for details).
a milder climate and riverine irrigation afford a distinctive agricultural system

featuring citrus, rice, multiple cropping, and a much denser population more
complex ethnically than their own. To the south, the plains grade into the
desert and riverbottom country of the Durrani, who cultivate it oasis-style
and have a history of landlord-peasant stratification markedly different from
the Ghilzai (see Dupree 1956). Mountain boundaries east and west are as
much social as ecological. High altitude ecologies in the Hazarajat do discourage
settlement but have not stopped Ghilzai or other Pashtun from dominating
it once the social boundaries were overcome by conquest. Small Pashtun tribes
in the Suleiman mountains hold their positions as much for strategic reasons
as for tenure and settlement schema similar to the Ghilzai. Government and
cosmopolitanism kept the Ghilzai from tribalizing the Kabul basin. Where
they have expanded - in Logar, Laghman, Qarabagh, the Hazarajat - it is
because social boundaries broke down under events external to tribal society.
Though their long-term success in their chosen niche is problematical as the
contexts that define it change, in the shorter term of real time prizes go to
the busy; and it is in just this frame that patterns of group identity and organi-
zation matter.
Until now it has been convenient to treat Ghilzai tribes as a unity. This
is not inaccurate, for those features are the combined sociological basis of real
and distinguishable identities. But there is an unavoidable temporal context
to the way they have construed those terms, and Ghilzai identity is a histori-
cal phenomenon. In the past, they formed a tribal confederacy through the
familiar devices of segmentary opposition in ramified patrilineages, and with
it they conquered the Safavid empire of Persia in the 18th century in the
immemorial pattern that Asian tribes have followed since the Achemenids or
their predecessors showed the way. The confederacy no longer exists because
it was in turn succeeded by another tribal empire-state, and contemporary
contexts do not occasion its mobilization. This is the historical result first of
the Durrani Pashtun consolidation of Afghanistan and later of that govern-
ment's successful policies to divert the tribesmen's identities to greater (ethnic)
and lesser (local) collectivities.
They speak of themselves today ethnically as Afghans (i. e. Pashtun
rather than citizens of the state) as opposed to Farsiwan or other ethnic-
linguistic groups; and they speak of themselves in local tribal or sub- tribal
terms as opposed to other Pashtun. They were last Ghilzai in opposition to
the Durrani and, to a lesser extent, the British. They were the first other
tribes incorporated in the Durrani empire-state and subsequently for a long
time the main opponents of Durrani hegemony. Vis-a-vis the British they were
the "tribe" that blocked the establishment of a "natural frontier" for India
in the Hindu Kush and somehow seen as not "pure" Pashtun, which the
British emphasized as an ethnological justification for their partitioning poli-
cies n. Even if this were ultimately correct, it is in this period an ethnographic
11 W. K. Frazer-Tytler, a strong proponent of the "Foreward" border policy,

represents this view (1967: 51-54).
fable for rationalizing frontier politics. Political

Amir Abdur Rahman and Mohammad Nadir S
this identity obsolete. Among Afghans there
tribes; and "Ghilzai" identity is an historical re
Elphinstone, Broadfoot, and the composite
tribes observed today: Suleiman Khel, Andar,
and Kharoti. Many, but not all, of the furthe
fiable. Only Ali Khel and Ahmadzai, which were
branches of the Suleiman Khel, are now also rega
are the most inclusive categories short of "Afgh
name unprompted. Beyond this they know they
ogy relates them to the putative father of all
but only few know the scheme and fewer descri
ities. Since it is not currently relevant, only e
often asked what the "books" said). Rather, wh
groupings today, they are more likely to speak o
to those south of the Kabul sphere, in contras
lower Kabul valley, or Kandahari (the Durrani
mants occasionally list the Hotak because the
making such distinctions, they will emphasize
but implicitly they are categorizing contempo
patterns of association and privilege. The indiffe
at the most inclusive levels only emphasizes th
practical significance in current contexts.
Less inclusive categories than these tribes ar
nificant. Short of analyzing the full complexity of
for present purposes to catalogue the principal k
monly occur and to outline their processes. The m
household which may be a nuclear or extended fa
iary dependants. It is the only group in which th
are subsumed under that of its head. The mor
munity, sub-tribe, and tribe are, in Pashtun thin
of the smaller, as if they were dilute solutions o
weaker as they include more people. These ar
alignments and enmities, group stereotypes, and
ing from relative propinquities, past and present
and leadership. The organizational potentials of t
cisely diversify than dilute the common desce
and, recognizing this, tribesmen characteristic
this general model. They are successful to the
to emergent territorial groupings tend to fit
with genealogy and less successful to the exten
all identity-giving schema. And success or failu
part of the cultural environment with which tri
The general model of successively more in
distant agnates is summarized in their concep
can be applied to any category of common patrilineal descent that persists

through time as a group identity from a particular community to the totality
of Pashtun. Informants emphasize, however, that most applications are meta-
phorical and comparative ; that the idea refers to any large category of common
patrilineal descent; but that it usually designates the outer limit of common
interest and sympathy, or at least the one with greatest salience. Its corpo-
rative potential is based on joint liability for torts, scaling downwards from
murder through lesser offenses. Each tribesman lives with the possibility of
having to share liability for the actions of his fellow tribesmen, and each
counts on it to reinsure his own vulnerability. Normally, liability can be
calculated as a product of genealogical closeness to a victim or offender and
the seriousness of a crime. But involvement in distant or minor affairs is all
too imaginable and too often experienced to discount. Revenge taken against
qawmi of an offender or on behalf of a victim by persons distant from the
involved parties is a quixotic usurption of responsibilities lodged in the closest
agnates; but it can in circumstances be expectable and even noble in its
excessiveness when the proper persons do not act. Although the proximate
basis of specific groups is personal association and interaction, this is the
ultimate sanction of grouping. And it is a model of more than theoretical
potentiality because tribesmen prefer to regard most situations as potentially
threatening; hence, it is latent in all.
Old enmities and alliances underlie many intermediate groupings which
were ratified by their perpetuation for those or other reasons. The same pro-
cesses of conflict that cause communities to split and of realignment by reverse
incorporation apply to larger groupings. Traditions that account for the dif-
ferent tribes usually represent versions of division as the models of explana-
tion: they say it is the conflict of brothers, like Cain and Abel. On the ground
it is usually more complex. Medial segments of the Suleiman Khel appear to
have split up during this period to vitiate former oppositions by simply seced-
ing and defining themselves out of an issue. The reverse occurs when groups
try to incorporate their neighbors by emphasizing a common ancestor. Some
newly settled Ahmadzai in Logar resist incorporation in (hence subordination
to) existing arrangements by defining themselves after a less inclusive ancestor.
Incorporation of these is marginal in any case in proportion to the relationships
members have outside agnatic frameworks. The boundaries that mark these
agnatic spaces off from each other are in specific cases residua of historical
events, and it is their existence rather than their genesis that is definitive in
the present.
The most general of these residua are the symbolics of group stereotypes.
These are compounds of pecularities in dress, dialect, features, customs, behav-
ior, and past encounters that condense folk psychologies about own and other
tribes in songs, stories, jokes, and caricatures 12. As summary models of mutual
12 Probably much of the vividness of Elphinstone's depictions of the different

tribes is attributable to the fact that all his information on them was hearsay from other
Afghans (See Janata's notes in Elphinstone 1969: vi-vn).
expectations and stereotypes, these coincide to a

man Khel neighbors of the Andar say they are "sof
about women in courtship customs, and Andar
austerely strict and suspicious. Ahmadzai will say
and violent country people and are called clever a
are also known for traditional specialties that imply
are famous for water engineering and agricultural s
ise in tribal law and in trade, Suleiman Khel for f
merchants and officials. Smaller groups are know
sometimes by infamous slanders from homosexualit
For instance, a Suleiman Khel sub-tribe called Minzai is said to stem from
a concubine (minze = "servant girl"), and others have less flattering names. To
the extent that such stereotypes about groups indicate respective emphases
in prestige competition, tribesmen try to project favorable interpretations of
them in their public behavior; and vis-a-vis members of other groups they
display symbolic representations of differentiating characters. These theatrics
of role-playing are a serious business of self-assertion in relation to others in
the aggressive competition that marks Pashtun social interaction, where
transgressions of amour propre can escalate into mortal matters. In Pashtun
thinking, personalities stay true to type ; and such images are real group traits
because they treat them so. When strangers meet, they exchange such informa-
tion by their behavior as well as by direct solicitation in order to know what
to expect from each other until such time as their interaction becomes more
personal by longer association.
The proximate bases of specific intermediate groupings between local
communities and the maximum tribe are consolidations of interests. Relative
propinquity affects the reciprocity between genealogical and physical space in
many cumulative ways. Its general impact is due to the Pashtun preference
for generalizing social relationships as indicated above in the multiple ties of
co-residence. On larger scales these are compounded by involvement with
outside systems, one of the most important of which is governmental presence.
At various times different tribal groups have received special privileges or
attentions from the government that, by their indivisible character, reinforce
jointure of interests. This amounts to indirect rule and corporate responsibility
in many cases, and such rights are jealously guarded. In other areas the
government interferes, in local estimations, to consolidate or dissolve specific
combinations by recognizing or not recognizing them, most commonly through
the requirement that each "village" have a headman (malik) for official com-
munication with the civil authorities. Intentional or not, manipulation is often
suspected by tribesmen, because access to government services to influence
their distribution is a resource which the adept, well-connected, or outright
agents can mobilize in local affairs.
The most general way governmental presence affects local arrangements
besides the suppression of tribal warfare (which removed one way of changing
these and defused the potential of segmentary opposition) is through its official
district organization. Each district post includes officials of the major ministries
and is the smallest unit where most official business can be transacted. These
posts further attract or sponsor the establishment of bazaars, so that many
official and commercial needs converge on them. More important, each sub-
governor's district (woluswali) elected a representative to Parliament under
the regime that lasted until 1973. This created new constituencies for political
activity (see Dupree 1973 : 458 et passim) that in many cases refocused extant
groupings because most districts correspond to the grosser local groupings.
Where they do not, tribesmen often suspect a purposeful intention to under-
mine local alignments. In some cases, it has led to increased fragmentation
because no group can organize a permanent majority or because there are
permanently unrepresented minorities. These are important arenas, but not
the only ones; and their overall impact is to compound already complex
situations by the emphasis, albeit restricted, added to territory outside its
genealogical organization. The combined result of peace, the structure of civil
administration, and political entitlements is to increase the potential for varia-
tion in supra-local groupings as these diversify specific interests from confine-
ment to genealogical modalities. But this is relative, for Pashtun were already
accustomed to manipulating the various terms of this equation to achieve
their integrations.
The actual consolidation that results in marginal corporative identities
has to be achieved and maintained by leaders drawing those interests together
in specific instances. Problems of leadership have been sufficiently sketched
to indicate their outline. Many kinds and levels of leadership emerge in prestige
competition as tribesmen seek to influence each other. From within the com-
munity to nationally, individuals seek fame for morality, wisdom, religious
piety, oratory, wealth, or political connections and seek further to convert
this into influence over others. The public arenas are crowded with accom-
plished or would-be influences of others, all trying to make their presences
felt in intense competition. Integrative leadership must combine as many of
these kinds of influence as possible across a wide range of contexts. When it
is oriented toward a local group exclusively, it must be more multi-purpose
than appeals to non-localized constituencies; so tribesmen recognize khans
(lords) as social creditors. A khan, they say, feeds people and does favors for
them: that is, he invests his time and economic capital in social relations as
an indigenous public servant. These personally compound qualities, abili-
ties, and inclinations to solve problems and to act as broker and mediator
both between tribesmen and with the government on their behalf. Insofar as
assembling the constituencies that give one weight to do this is costly and
cumulative, leadership tends to outlive individual leaders as successors attempt
to maintain a valuable resource. Tribesmen think of this as a kind of trusteeship
held by virtue of these combined personal qualities and passed on to the
similarly qualified; so while anyone theoretically could become a khan, the
heirs of a former holder have the advantage in proving their qualifications.
Thus the office tends to stabilize with a local constituency to the degree that
contingent factors and individual fortunes permit. They tend to be self -per-
petuating by monopolizing the field; and groupings endure where this can be
accomplished or divide where it cannot. Leadersh

organization depend sociologically on being m
because there is no single basis of corporation
directing that purpose and success into the integ
are not dissipated in multiple personal presti
absence of a defined situation of co-liability a
full potential individualization latent in Pashtun
Summary
Pashtun intend to organize land and society in congruent schemes

whereby each upholds the other. To the extent that they believe and achieve
it, these are facts with which they must cope like any other. As variable
patterns aggregate or the schemes have unintended consequences, results skew
in explainable ways that they try to account for. These provide both valuable
comparisons for ethnographers and instructive lessons for the Pashtun because
there is an empirical reciprocity between process and result of which they are
well aware and which they try to manipulate. Ghilzai both apply general rules,
sometimes arbitrarily, and opportunisticly break rules to take advantage of
factors not envisioned in them. There is nothing automatic or causal about
these patterns. Social organization is maintained by eternal effort with re-
sources at hand and varies according to what individuals make of them.
Comparisons with other societies in South West Asia or considerations of
these facts in terms of the adaptive aspects of segmentary acephalous lineages
(e. g. Sahlins 1961) are compelling and could alter this presentation. Either
is worth pursuing; but my interest here is how internal dynamics in Pashtun
society relate to its spatial distribution, and to go further would exceed the
preliminary nature of this report.
Bibliography
Barth, F.
1959 Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. London.
Broadfoot, J. S.
1886 Reports on Part of the Ghilzai Country, and Some of the Tribes in the Neigh-
borhood of Ghazni, and the Route from Ghazni to Dera Ismael Khan by the
Ghwalari Pass. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. Supplementary
Papers 1 : 341-402.
Caroe, O.
1958 The Pathans, 550 BC - AD 1957. London.
Dupree, L.
1956 The Changing Character of South-Central Afghanistan Villages. Human
Organization 14: 26-29.
1973 Afghanistan. Princeton.
Elphinstone, M.
1815 An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul. Reprinted with an introduction by
[1969] A. Janata. Graz. Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.
Ferdinand, K.
1962 Nomadic Expansion and Commerce in Central Afghanistan. Folk 4: 123-159.
Frazer-Tytler, W. K.
1967 Afghanistan. London. [3rd edition.]
Gazetteer of Afghanistan
1910 Vol. 4. Kabul. Calcutta. [4th edition.]
Humlum, J.
1959 La géographie de l'Afghanistan. Copenhagen.
Kakar, M. H.
1971 Afghanistan, A Study in Internal Political Development, 1880-1896. Kabul.
Kraus, W. [edit.]
1968 Nomadismus als Entwicklungsprobleme. Bochumer Schriften zur Entwicklungs-
forschung und Entwicklungspolitik. Gütersloh.
Murdock, G. P.
1949 Social Structure. New York.
Sahlins, M.
1961 The Segmentary Lineage : An Organization of Predatory Expansion. American
Anthropologist 63: 332-345.
Statistical Pocketbook of Afghanistan

1972 (1350 AH.) Ministry of Planning, Kabul.

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Tribe and Community among the Ghilzai Pashtun.

Preliminary Notes on Ethnographic

This is a preliminary report on some basic ethnographic features of

1 Field research, supported by U. S. National Science Foundation grant GS-

without substantially altering the basic tribal

Ghilzai 3 Pashtun (or Pakhtun in the "hard" or "northern" dialects

5 Caroe's (1958) map reproduces the cis-Durand portion of a Government of India

The Ghilzai Territory of Afghanistan

Jabar Khel Ahmadzai center on the upper Surkhrud and Hisarak

amounting to land investments that more ofte

numerous and cover the largest territory, from Z

Problems of the Distribution

6 Information east of Kelat is solely from informant reports and confirmations of

The northern margin seems to have witnessed an Ahmadzai-Suleiman

ism of labor migration from these expanded settlem

Staple agriculture is only possible with irrigation, and its provision is

ish (at which time fertilizer can be applied), f

demands against the sustaining potential of local systems. Traditionally the

II. Ghilzai Adaptation

1. Tenure and Settlement Patterns

The relations of groups to their spaces can be understood initially through

holdings that only accidents of inheritance cou

the right to refuse washing and drinking water,

overall proportion. Most communities have som

as a kind of sharecropper, giving an annual portion of the already marginal

This is a sore point that once would have been a

2. Group Identity and Organization

Group identity and organization are complementary reciprocals of these

10 It is, however, the core of a distinctive climatological, topographic, and vegeta-

a milder climate and riverine irrigation afford a distinctive agricultural system

11 W. K. Frazer-Tytler, a strong proponent of the "Foreward" border policy,

fable for rationalizing frontier politics. Political

can be applied to any category of common patrilineal descent that persists

12 Probably much of the vividness of Elphinstone's depictions of the different

expectations and stereotypes, these coincide to a

accomplished or divide where it cannot. Leadersh

Pashtun intend to organize land and society in congruent schemes

Statistical Pocketbook of Afghanistan

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