Gilgit Agency Research Articles

Identity matters: Hunza and the hidden text of Britain and China

ABSTRACT How do stateless people embody identity when that identity is fixed to changing sites of knowledge? Such is the case for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan who reside in a territory that legally belongs to no nation-state. In particular, many people of Gilgit are aware of their ambiguous political situation but not of a stalemate between British India and China that predates the Kashmir Dispute. The matter hinges on an unremarkable issue: Britain’s colonial Gilgit Agency was in itself a legal governing instrument of British India but did not operate on British sovereign territory. The stalemate challenges the reductive view that the Kashmir Dispute rests solely on Pakistan’s and India’s perceived inheritance to British India. A question raised here is whether after so many years a suppressed history, like the one here, can make any difference to Gilgitis living in the twenty-first century; or if matters have shifted so much under the guise of the Kashmir Dispute that an alternative colonial history of political deception is inconsequential? The paper is constructed as a metaphor comprising three parts: the first and third parts focus on post-partition state identity. Studied between them – anachronistic and discordant – is a little known hidden text.

Studies on Pakistan Lizards: Cyrtopodion baturense (Khan and Baig 1992) and Cyrtopodion walli (Ingoldby 1922) (Sauria: Gekkonidae)

The taxonomy of Eurasian angular or thin-toed geckos has undergone a great deal of revision over the last 30 years. However, it is clear that a desirable level of taxonomic resolution has not yet been attained as their taxonomic assignments are somewhat arbitrary. In this paper, we discuss two lesser-known gecko species, Cyrtopodion baturense (Khan and Baig 1992) and C. walli (Ingoldby 1922). One adult specimen of Cyrtopodion baturense (the only known specimen other than the type series) and a series of 53 C. walli collected by Walter Auffenberg and the Zoological Survey Department of Pakistan (ZSD) and subsequently deposited in the University of Florida Herpetology collection were compared to the type specimens. Specimens were examined for 46 morphological characters and measurements. Cyrtopodion baturense and C. walli are diagnosable and confirmed to be distinct species. Cyrtopodion baturense is known only from the holotype locality of Pasu and the nearby village of Dih, Hunza District, in the Gilgit Agency, Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANA), Pakistan, at 2,438–3,078 m elevations. Cyrtopodion walli is known from Ayun, Chitral, Bamburet Valley, Bermoghluscht, Drosh Tehsil, and 7.0 km N Drosh, in the Chitral District, Northwest Frontier, Pakistan, at 1,970–2,120 m elevations. We also conclude that the likely paratype (BMNH 1922.5.22.1) of Gymnodactylus walli is not conspecific with the holotype (BMNH 1910.7.12.1) and is most morphologically similar to Cyrtopodion tibetanus (Boulenger 1905). We concur with Khan (1992), based on our own examination of the syntype of Gymnodactylus chitralensis Smith, 1935, that G. chitralensis is a junior synonym of Gymnodactylus walli Ingoldby, 1922. Furthermore, the tail associated with the holotype of G. walli does not belong to that individual.

Three Forgotten Accessions: Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar

The August 1947 transfer of power in India brought to the fore questions regarding the future of the areas which had long been leased by the government of India from certain princely states. Focusing on the Gilgit Agency, parts of which were leased from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, this article traces the nature of the agency and the manner in which it ultimately became a de facto part of Pakistan while Kashmir acceded to India. Conflicting accounts exist as to who was actually responsible for the revolution in Gilgit which led it towards Pakistan. This article uses all available sources to relate clearly and analyse the actual course of events during the tumultuous months of October and November 1947. The article also assesses the status and then formal accession of the two small states of Hunza and Nagar, adjacent to Gilgit, which had been erroneously treated as being under the complete suzerainty of Kashmir.

Colonial Routes: Reorienting the Northern Frontier of British India

Between 1846 and 1947, the British colonial state in India forged a region out of the western Karakoram Mountains, which it labeled in 1889 as the Gilgit Agency. Through an analysis of maps, colonial representations, local writings,and oral histories, this article critically examines the importance of routes,the politics of linkages, and the structuring of circulation in producing a regional space and transforming it over time. This article argues that space is constituted through access and patterns of circulation as well as the cartographic project defining borders. The structuring of mobility along particular routes and the emerging state mechanisms to construct and maintain access produced a region and continuously transformed it, integrating the region and the people into the British colonial state.

Rumours and Politics on the Northern Frontier: The British, Pakhtun Wali and Yaghestan

This paper deals with the British policy towards an area adjacent to the Gilgit Agency on the ‘northern frontier’ of British India during the years of 1914 and 1915. It highlights some aspects of the relationships between the British and the inhabitants of this area which was called ‘Yaghestan’ at that time. But my purpose is not simply to offer a contribution to the regional history of a rather neglected part of the Western Himalaya in colonial times. More importantly, I intend to show how the British policy toward that country was entangled in rumours of local as well as almost global scale. Both local rumours, referring to revolts within the area, and global ones relating to the First World War, reporting that the German Kaiser together with his people had converted to Islam and joined the Turkish Caliph in jihad against the British, were perceived as highly threatening by the local British officers on the grounds of their construing the people of Yaghestan as most unreliable tribals, characterized especially by their ‘fanatical’ adherence to Islam. I will show that in spite of all intelligence efforts the British remained unable to subject these ‘fanatical others’ to the colonial regime of control and information. Rumour, as a multidirectional, uncontrolled form of communication, effectively intervened in the British strategies of power, rendering their colonial informational regime in that area almost impotent.

EARLY ORDOVICIAN AND DEVONIAN CONODONTS FROM THE WESTERN KARAKORAM AND HINDU KUSH, NORTHERNMOST PAKISTAN

Extensive tracts of Devonian and older sedimentary and igneous units occur within the axial region of the western Karakoram Block of northernmost Pakistan over a distance in excess of 200 km between the the headwaters of the Karambar valley in northwestern Gilgit Agency to southwestern Chitral. Conodont data indicate that the oldest sedimentary unit so far discriminated within this belt, the Yarkhun Formation, includes horizons of Ordovician (Arenig) age, consistent with an earlier-presented acritarch-based Arenig age for part of the same unit. Conodont data from the Lun Shales, a stratigraphic potpourri with little-known Silurian and Devonian tracts, demonstrate the presence of Early Devonian (early Emsian) horizons. The Shogrâm Formation, widely distributed through the region, spans an appreciable interval of the Middle and Late Devonian mid-Givetian through until at least early Famennian. A major lacuna in sedimentation may be present, represented by all or most of the earlier half of Frasnian time. A biostratigraphically and possibly biogeographically important new species, Icriodus homeomorphus, is described; it is encountered in horizons of early Famennian age (Late triangularis Zone to ?Early crepida Zone).

Characterization of Foxtail Millet, Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv., in Pakistan Based on Intraspecific Hybrid Pollen Semi-sterility.

Sixteen strains of foxtail millet, Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv., originally collected from Pakistan were crossed with three strains which had previously been used as testers for classifying six landrace groups based on hybrid pollen sterility. Wide variation was observed in pollen fertility of the F1 hybrids, ranging from 14.2% to 94.7%, while pollen fertility of all the selfed Pakistani strains and testers was normal. Pakistani strains were classified into type C (8 strains), type BC (2) and type X (6) on the basis pollen fertility of more than 75% is normal fertility. No A, B or AC type strains were detected. Type C was found in land-races collected from Punjab Province, the southern part of the North-West Frontier Province (N. W. F. P.) and Baltistan. Type X was distributed in the northern part of N. W. F. P. and an adjacent area of the western part of Gilgit Agency, in the northeastern part of Gilgit Agency and in Baltistan. Different landrace groups were suggested among the strains of type X by the variation in hybrid sterility observed with each tester. This observation was strongly supported by an almost sterile hybrid between type X strains from N. W. F. P. and the northeastern part of Gilgit Agency. Type BC was found in Gilgit Agency and Baluchistan. Landrace groups classified by hybrid pollen fertility did not show any clear relationship with morphological groups which had a different geographical distribution. The present results imply that S. italica, with various phylogenetic backgrounds, might have been introduced into this region several times, and subsequently evolved into three distinct morphological groups.

Endemic goitre in the Gilgit Agency, West Pakistan with an appendix on dermatoglyphics and taste-testing.

A study has been made of an iodine-deficient population living in an extended village in the Karakoram Himalayas. There is evidence that the incidence of goitre increases towards the lowest part of the village, in accordance with the findings of McCarrison, who worked in the same region in the early years of the twentieth century. McCarrison ascribed the variation of goitre incidence to increasing pollution of drinking water as it travelled downstream, and postulated a bacteriological goitrogenic factor. However, the observations reported here show no correlation between goitre incidence and the bacterial concentration of drinking water, nor are there iodine-metabolizing micro-organisms present in the water. It may be that a differential iodine deficiency throughout the village can account for the variation in goitre incidence, since the soil can adsorb appreciable amounts of radio-iodine. The indices of thyroid function show that all the inhabitants are exceptionally iodine-deficient, although most of them are clinically euthyroid. As well as having a greatly enhanced mean thyroid iodide clearance the population has a mean renal iodide clearance which is lower than normal. Intra-muscular injections of iodized oil were acceptable to the villagers, and 477 injections were administered. Fingerprints and palm prints were collected from a sample of the population, yielding a pattern distribution comparable with other populations in the Indian subcontinent. The ratio of PTC tasters to non-tasters among the inhabitants is not significantly different from the ratio found in Europe.

New species of chiggers of the subgenus Leptotrombidium from the mountains of West Pakistan (acarina: trombiculidae).

Thirteen species of Leptotrombidium (Leptotrombidium) are reported from West Pakistan. Four of these, new to science, are described and illustrated, viz : (1) L. (L.) dihumerale n.sp. from various small mammals, particularly the vole, Alticola roylei, in the mountains of the Kaghan Valley, Himalayan Range, but also from the high-altitude forests and deserts of Gilgit Agency. (2) L. (L.) abidi n.sp. from Mus and Cricetulus (hamster) in the Urak Valley of Quetta, Baluchistan. (3) L. (L.) rupestre n.sp. from Alticola voles and other small mammals in the Kaghan Valley and (4) L. (L.) irregulare n.sp. with a similar host and ecological range. Of the remaining 9 species, seven are reported from West Pakistan for the first time. Thus far, the presumed vector of scrub typhus in the plains of Sialkot, L. (L.) deltense (Walch 1922), has not been found in other habitats or regions surveyed, such as the Himalayas, the semi-deserts of Lahore District, etc. The known hosts and the geographic distribution of these species in West Pakistan are tabulated and discussed.

The occurrence of scrub typhus infection in unusual habitats in West Pakistan

The presence of scrub typhus infection in rodents or trombiculid mites in the following unusual habitats and geographical areas in West Pakistan is discussed: (1) in alpine terrain at 10,500 ft. elevation in the Kaghan Valley of the Himalayas, where the snow remains on the ground 9 or 10 months of the year; (2) in the mountain deserts of Gilgit Agency, 36°N latitude; (3) in the semi-desert of Multan; and (4) in the plains of Lahore District. In these areas, unlike Sialkot District where Leptotrombidium ( Leptotrombidium) deliense (Walch 1922) is abundant, known vectors of scrub typhus have not been collected, but related forms of the subgenus Leptotrombidium occur, and several of these are new to science. Natural infection with Rickettsia tsutsugamushi was demonstrated in almost all the habitats, virtually all from tissues of rodents. The highest rate of such positive isolations was from the temperate, coniferous forest zones of the Kaghan Valley (29 of 119, or 24%), primarily from indigenous mice, such as Apodemus, Alticola and Hyperacrius. Notes are included on the possible role in R. tsutsugamushi infection of the following rodents: Alticola roylei, Hyperacrius fertilis, H. wynnei, Millardia meltada, Nesokia indica and Tatera indica. Of the 3 strains recovered from the trombiculid mites (chiggers) 1 was from the endemic area at Sialkot; the others from chiggers from Alticola voles at 8,000 ft. in the Kaghan Valley. In the midst of the desolate mountain deserts of Gilgit occur “ecological islands” atop of peaks or in sheltered valleys watered by glacial streams, where the major elements of the flora and fauna are the same as those in the Kaghan Valley. Many of the species of small mammals and ectoparasites are probably relicts of aeons when the whole area was forested, and hence the infections associated with the fauna of the earlier period may also be present. The “oasis scrub typhus” theory would explain the isolation of R. tsutsugamushi from Apodemus at Gupis, Gilgit Agency.

A new subgenus of Ophthalmopsylla from Gilgit, West Pakistan, and a new Hopkinsipsylla from Libya (Siphonaptera: Leptopsyllidae).

Ophthalmopsylla (Eremedosa) celata, a new subgenus and species of flea primarily from Cricetulus (hamsters) and Apodemus (field-mice) in Kohighizar, Gilgit Agency in W Pakistan, is described and figured, along with Hopkinsipsylla occulta praeceps n.ssp., from Libya. The new subgenus is characterized by the reduction of the eye and presence of 2 rows of bristles on the occiput and the absence of spiniforms on the movable finger. Hopkinsipsylla occulta praeceps is immediately separable from the nominate form (from Egypt) by the relatively straight frontal margin of the head.

A Small Collection of Bryophytes from Kashmir

Theriotia kashmirensis and Tortula websteri are described as new. The genus Theriotia is reported for the first time outside of Korea and Japan with both T. lorifolia and the new species occurring in Kashmir. Amblystegium compactum is added to the flora of Asia. A floristic list of 60 species is given. In 1955 Grady L. Webster and Eugene Nasir accompanied the Harvard Mountaineering Club Karakorum Expedition under the 1 Smithsonian Institution, U.S. National Museum, Washington, D.C. 20560. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.159 on Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:50:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 314 THE BRYOLOGIST [Volume 68 auspices of the Catherwood Foundation and the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Their collections of bryophytes were originally submitted to Narinder Chopra, a student at the University of Tennessee, for determination. Unfortunately Mr. Chopra died, leaving the work incomplete. The following list is the result of a complete re-examination of the collections. Specimens are to be deposited in the U.S. National Herbarium, the Herbarium of Purdue University, and a partial series at the University of Tennessee. Four general localities are given for the collections: Hushe Valley and Shyok River Valley in the Karakorum Range, Baltistan; Satpara Nullah in the Himalayan Range, Baltistan; and Nanga Parbat in the Himalayan Range. Gilgit Agency. The collection numbers in italics are Webster and Nasir's.

Archæological Notes form the Hindukush Region

This is a preliminary account of some finds of archæological interest which have recently come to my notice in the tracts comprised within the Gilgit Agency south of the Hindukush. Separated by high ranges from the northern extremity of the Indian North-West Frontier, these tracts are too remote for their population of Dardic speech to have directly shared in the development of Indo-Aryan civilization in the great plains along the Indus and Ganges. Nor have they been immediately exposed to the invasions and cultural influences from the west which have affected that civilization within historical times. Apart from reliable but very scant notices in the Chinese Annals, such written records of the past of these tracts as exist do not reach back much further than the advent of Islām. Hence any relics attesting the conditions prevailing there in earlier periods may claim special interest.

Reviews

Between the Oxus and the Indus. (The Gilgit Agency.) By Colonel R. C. F. Schomberg. 8⅞ × 8⅜. Pp. 270. Illustrations. Hopkinson. 1935. 15s. China's Problems and Their Solution. By Wang Ching‐wei, President of Executive Yuan. “China To‐day” Series, No. 2. Shanghai: China United Press. $4.50. Security: A Study of our Military Position. By Major‐General H. Rowan Robinson, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. Pp. 288. Methuen. 5s. Disraeli. Gladstone and the Eastern Question: A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics. By R. W. Seton‐Watson. Pp. xiii + 590, with eight illustrations and one map. London: Macmillan ("Studies in Modern History"). 1935. 21s. More Moves on an Eastern Chequer Board. By Sir Harry Luke. 8⅞″ × 5¾″. Pp. x + 269. Lovat Dickson. 12s. 6d. The Black Tents of Arabia. My life amongst the Bedouins. By Carl R. Raswan. 9″ × 6″. Pp.280. Illustrations. Hutchinson's. 1935. 18s. The Fighting Cameliers. The Story of the Imperial Camel Corps. By Frank Reid. With a Foreword by Brigadier A. S. Mills and Lieut. F. Davidson. 7½″ × 5″. Pp. xiv + 226 + 27. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. 1935. 6s. Turmoil and Tragedy in India 1914 and After By Lieut.‐General Sir George MacMunn, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O. 9⅜″ × 6⅜″. Pp. viii + 294. Illustrations. Jarrolds. 1935. 18s. A Plant Hunter in Tibet. By F. Kingdon Ward. 8″ × 5½″. Pp. 317. Illustrations and map. Jonathan Cape. 12s. 6d. Where China Meets Burma. By Beatrix Metford. Pp. 231. Blackie and Son. 12s. 6d. Forest Life in India. By the Hon. James W. Best, O.B.E. 8⅝″ × 5⅝″. Pp. 313. London: John Murray. 10s. 6d. I'd Live it Again. (The Career of an Officer in the I.M.S.) By Lieut.‐Colonel E. J. O'Meara. 8″ × 5½″ Pp. 324. Jonathan Cape. 12s. 6d. The Glories of Hindustan. By Dr. Alfred Nawrath. 240 illustrations and map. Methuen. 1935. 25s. The Mahabharata: Analysis and Index. By Edward P. Rice. 9″ × 5½″. Pp. xv + 112. Oxford University Press: Humphrey Milford. 1934. 7s. 6d. net. The Indus Civilization. By Ernest Mackay, M.A., D.Litt., F.S.A. 7⅝″ × 5⅛″. Pp. 210. Map and plates. Lovat Dickson and Thomson. 6s. The Spirit of Man in Asian Art. By Laurence Binyon. Pp. 217. Seventy plates in half‐tone. Harvard University Press. 1935. $4 or 17s. Byzantine Art. By D. Talbot Rice. 8vo. Pp. xiii and 255, with 48 half‐tone plates, 10 text illustrations, and 4 maps. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The Holy Quran: English Translation and Commentary with Arabic Text. By A. Yusuf Ali. Part I. containing the First Sipara. India, Lahore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, Kashmiri Bazaar. Lady Precious Stream. An old Chinese play done into English according to its traditional style by S. I. Hsiung, with a Preface by Lascelles Abercrombie. 7½″ × 5¼″ Pp. vii‐xix + 1–169. London: Methuen and Co. 1934. Facing Labour Issues in China. By Lowe Chuan‐Hua. With an introduction by Chen Kung Po and Julean Arnold. 8⅜″ × 6″. Pp. xvii + 211. Allen and Unwin. 7s. 6d. Far Eastern Front. By Edgar Snow. Illustrated. 9¼″ × 6″. Pp. xvii + 308. London: Jarrolds. 1934. 18s. The Last Strongholds. By Colonel P. T. Etherton. 9″ × 6¼″. Pp. xiii + 392. Jarrolds. Moscow Mirage. By J. H. Rubin. 8¾″ × 5¾″. Pp. 320. Published by Geoffrey Bles. 10s. 6d. Afghan Journey. By Ben James. 8″ × 5½″. Pp. 286. Illustrations. Cape. 10s. 6d. Sunrise Over India. By Cicely Farmer. Pp. 286. London: Gollancz. 1934. 10s. 6d. Turkey. By T. L. Jarman. 7½″ × 5″. Arrowsmith. (Modern States Series, No. 8.) 1935. 3s. 6d. net. Beyond Damascus. A Biography of Paul the Tarsian. By F. A. Spencer. London. 1935. 12s. 6d. Letters on Imperial Relations, Indian Reform, Constitutional and International Law, 1916–1935. By A. Berriedale Keith, D.C.L., D.Litt. 10″ × 6″. Pp. xx + 370. Oxford University Press. 16s. The Great Wall Crumbles. By Grover Clark. 8¾″ × 6″. Pp. xx + 406. New York: Macmillan. 15s.

195. A Composite Bow from Hunza, Gilgit Agency.

195. A Composite Bow from Hunza, Gilgit Agency.

The Conjugation of the Transitive Verb in the Principal Dialects of Shina

The paradigms given below are the result of efforts to obtain what may be regarded as standard conjugational forms of the Transitive Verb in the chief dialects of Shina.Shina (Ṣiṇ'a) is the principal language of the Gilgit Political Agency. It is the sole or primary language of the people inhabiting:—1. The portion of the Indus Valley lying within the Gilgit Agency, i.e. from the neighbourhood of Haramosh to Thor; including the whole Chilas District;2. The Gilgit Valley from Dahimal, 14 miles west of Gupis, to the junction of the Gilgit River with the Indus;3. The lower portions of the Ishkoman and Hunza-Nagir Valleys;4. The valley of the Astor River and its tributaries;5. The Gurez Valley in Kashmir proper.6. It is also the language of the people inhabiting the Darel and Tangir Valleys, situated in Independent Territory to the south of the mountain range that forms the southern boundary of the mid portion of the Gilgit Valley. These valleys drain southwards into the Indus. The use of Shina does not stop here, but extends further down the Indus Valley, according to Dr. Grahame Bailey, to a point more than halfway from Chilas to Amb.