Shimshal

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Shimshal is a small village located in Gojal, in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The village remained cut-off from the Tehsil Headquarter Gulmit for centuries and only in 2003 for the first time a jeep went there after the new road from the Karakoram Highway was constructed. The famous Shimshal River comes from this area and then transforms the shape of Hunza River, which mixes with the Indus River below the capital city Gilgit. Shimshalis use numerous seasonal mountain grasslands, located several days walk from the village, to sustain herds of yaks, goats and sheep. Most of these grasslands are located within what has been declared as the Khunjerab National Park.The people of Shimshal are Wakhi and they speak the Wakhi Language. They belong to the Ismaili sect of Islam.

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Shimshal Valley

Shimshal is a farming and herding community of some 1100 inhabitants, situated at the north-eastern extreme of both the former principality of Hunza (now part of Gilgit Administrative District), and the modern state of Pakistan. The settlement occupies the upper portion of a valley of the same name, which descends west into the Hunza River valley at Passu, and which separates the Ghujerab and Hispar Mustagh ranges of the Karakoram mountain system. Shimshal’s villages are situated on a series of glacial and alluvial deposits that form a broad strip between the river's floodplain and steep mountain slopes to the south. These deposits have been terraced for several hundred years. They are irrigated by the meltwater nullahs which currently dissect them. In addition, the lowest terraces are irrigated from the river itself. The cultivated area, covering about 250 hectares, lies between 3000 and 3300 metres above sea level, at the upper limits of single crop cultivation. Shimshalis grow hardy cereals (wheat and barley), potatoes, peas and beans, apricots and apples. Small quantities of garden vegetables are also grown by some households. Shimshalis are one of the few communities remaining in Pakistan's Northern Areas that grows enough agricultural produce to feed itself.

Shimshalis complement their irrigated agriculture with extensive herding of sheep, goats, cattle and yaks. Indeed, they tend more livestock per capita than any other Hunza community, and earn much of their money from the sale of dairy produce, yaks, and yak hair carpets. This is due, in part, to the community's exclusive control of vast areas of high altitude land. Shimshal pastures cover about 2700 square kilometres of the Central Karakoram. Within that area they maintain their three dozen individual pastures, including three large and highly productive alpine areas. Also within Shimshal territory are innumerable peaks, glaciers and trekking routes, including nine peaks above 7,000 metres. Although the environmental potential for adventure tourism is high, relatively few trekkers visit this area. However, with the opening of road from Passu to Shimshal, now the influx of the international as well as the domestic tourists is gradually increasing.

Historical Background

According to one of several popular histories of the community, the village of Shimshal was founded some four centuries ago by Mamu Singh, a Burusho from Baltit (Central Hunza), and a member of the Wazir's (prime-minister's) family. Mamu Singh was sent to Sarikol, Central Asia, as ambassador, but later fled Sarikol with his Wakhi wife Khodija, when relations with Hunza deteriorated. They were pursued into the Upper Hunza River Valley, as far as Avgarch Pasture on the slopes of Qarun Pir, where they made their home for several years before migrating into the lower reaches of the Shimshal Valley. There Mamu Singh built up his flocks of sheep and goats, and explored up the Shimshal Valley, eventually discovering a hole in the ground, whose mouth was covered with a great piece of slate. When he succeeded in removing the stone, water gushed from the hole and flowed along the remains of a channel that had been built by earlier travellers who had passed that way on their way over Pamir to Chinese Turkestan. Here in disrepair, but already constructed, was a channel from which Mamu Singh could build a village. At this time he was an elderly man, without children. However, after a miraculous visit from a holy man named Shams, Khodija gave birth to a son, by the name of Sher. Sher grew quickly to be big and strong, and an especially fine hunter. On one of his hunting trips he wandered up a side valley onto the Pamir, where he met a group of strangers, who had with them a number of horses and one small yak. Both Sher and the party of strangers claimed the Pamir as their own. Eventually they agreed to resolve the dispute with a polo game, using all Pamir as the playing field: if Sher drove the ball over Shimshal Pass toward Shuwert, he would win title to all territory from Shimshal to Raskam; if the Chinese succeeded in carrying the ball to Shuijerab, Sher must relinquish all lands from Pamir to the Hunza River. Riding the yak, against the strangers' horses, Sher succeeded in driving the ball over Shimshal Pass and beyond Shuwert. Having won the territory Sher began at once to explore it as far as Raskam. Half a year later, when his family had finally given him up for lost, Sher returned to Shimshal. He eventually married a Wakhi women from Sarikol, who bore him several sons, the descendants of whom founded the three main lineage groupings of Shimshal: Gazikator, Bakhtikator and Baqikator. Soon after, their forefathers established fealty with the ruler of Hunza, becoming the first Wakhi-speaking community in Hunza, the first permanent settlement in what is now Gojal (Wakhi speaking upper Hunza), and one of Hunza's first communities to be a mix of Wakhi and Burusho social and cultural organisation from its origin. Fifteen generations have passed since Sher's adventures. Late in the last century a missionary from Sarikol ventured into Hunza, and preached the Ismaili gospel to the ruler of Hunza, who accepted the faith and endeavoured to convert his subjects. Shimshalis have been devout Ismailis since then.

More recent historical events are also recounted in local stories, and are corroborated in the published accounts of foreign visitors. Some dozen parties of foreigners visited Shimsili community during the period from 1891 to 1975. Since the mid-eighties foreign and down country travellers have visited Shimshal with increasing frequency. Early exploration accounts stressed the community's isolation, its apparent autonomy from the kingdom of Hunza, its usefulness as a place from which to stage raids across Shimshal Pass on caravans travelling the Leh to Yarkand route, and its susceptibility to catastrophic glacier dam-burst floods. The most recent of these floods occurred in 1964, destroying many terraces and half the original clustered settlement. Since then Shimshalis have rebuilt on a dispersed pattern, and have redoubled their land settlement efforts, extending the area of terraced fields, improving (and re-improving) pasture areas, and developing terraces and plantations in some pastures and along the route into Shimshal.

Shimshali men are amongst the world’s best mountain climbers. Some of them have been to all 5 Peaks of Pakistan higher than 8,000 meter. Quite recently (In May 2006), a 15 years girl of Shimshal Village, alongwith her two brothers, climbed the Malongdati Sar, a peak in Shimshal, higher than 6,000 meter. She has the owner to be the first and the youngest Pakistani female mountain climber.

Wildlife

The Shimshal area is rich in fauna and many threatened wildlife species are found in this area. It is the only place where Tibetan Wild Ass (Equus bemionus kiang), and Blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur) are found. Snow leopard (Uncia uncial) and Himalayan ibex (Felis lynx) are, Golden Marmots (Marmota caudate) are also found in Shimshal.

Source: http://www.snt.org.pk/shimshal.html

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