A Last Dance Before Extinction?

It is Joshi, the spring festival of the Kalash tribe in isolated northeastern Pakistan. Pakistan's last pagans, the Kalash are a mountain tribe living in the inaccessible ranges that block northwest Pakistan from Afghanistan's isolated and radical eastern provinces. Celebrating rebirth, the festival is performed under a heavy police presence at a time of rising tensions between the 3,000 remaining Kalash and their Muslim neighbors, among which are several missionaries who believe that the conversion of the polytheistic tribe is Allah's work. Using financial and religious incentives equally, the missionaries have set up tens of madrassahs in the three mountain valleys inhabited by the Kalash. A Greek NGO active in the area seeks to teach the Kalash -- a people scorned by their Muslim neighbors for generations as heathens -- self-respect and confidence in who they are. Its director, Athanassis Lerounis, estimates that conversions have dropped from five a month in the 1990s, to one or two a year today. Due to their light coloring and colored eyes as well as claims to be descended from the armies of Alexander the Great, the Kalash are a tourist draw. But poor tourist infrastructure, a volatile security situation, and the valleys' proximity to Afghanistan's al-Qaida-infested Nuristan Province are acting as strong disincentives to all but the most intrepid of travelers.