A fading khaki tapestry

Until a few years ago, Mohammad Sat Sayeed – from Kalkatak village in northwestern Pakistan, on the eastern bank of the River Chitral – was the last speaker of a language on the verge of extinction. Fellow villagers used to hear Sat's supplication in his native Kalasha: "O, mi ganahxudai mi muafkeri; O! Almighty, please forgive me." He was the last speaker of this language, and would often speak it in public. With Sat's death, the last vestige of a forgotten chapter of the region's history has vanished, when Kalasha was a part of Kalashgoom, or the land of the Kalashnon-Muslims.

The death of language and the loss of Kalash cultural identity at Kalkatak can be seen as the culmination of a long process of subjection to other dominant cultural and religious influences. Colonel John Biddulph, a colonial official and author who visited Chitral, noted in his Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh (1880) that many villagers in Jinjret, Loi, Suwir, Nager and Shishiare Kalash had converted to Islam. He also noted that those villagers who lived in the vicinity of Kalkatak followed their ancient customs and spoke the Kalash language.