Tsyam
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Tsyam is the mythological homeland of the Kalasha people according to their folklore, but nobody knows where that place is. At present, these people live along the summits of the Hindukush mountain chain between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The region, an ethnic pagan isle in the Muslim world, comprises three valleys, Rumboor, Bumburate and Birir in Chitral, Northwest Pakistan. In these valleys there are about 27 small villages.
Legend has it that the god Dionysus founded the Kalasha settlement during his journey to the lndies. It is also said that during his expedition to the Far East in the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great passed through the region where many of his soldiers settled. According to a study published online on 18 October 2006 by Biomedical and Genetic Engineering Division in Islamabad, Pakistan, “in addition to Alexander’s armies, an admixture between Greek slaves brought to the region by Xerxes about 150 years before Alexander’s arrival, and the local population, cannot be discounted.” [1]. At that time, Afganistan and Pakistan were part of the Persian Empire.
Historians still cannot determine who the actual descendants of the settlers in Dionysus’ time or of the soldiers of Alexander the Great are: the Kalash, the Khowar, the Nuristanis who live in the Nuristan Province of Afghanistan, the Hunza people, Burusho or all of them together. Their languages are related to varying degrees. Hence “a land in the Orient”, writes anthropologist and writer Duccio Canestrini, “inhabited by blond people with clear complexion and blue eyes,” who have been there since 2000 BC or earlier. [Airone No 98 June 1989, Among the Kalash, the last infidels, digilander.libero.it/kisp/focus/airone1_ e _ home.htm]
“The Kalash came from Tsyam, a place in the West”, says the myth. Myths are illusive, colorful myriad shells of truths, which lie mute inside, waiting to be challenged and explained by the human mind. They are later products of fantasy drawing their source from the ancient people's perception of the harsh reality they lived in. There are as many truths as there are myths.
So far, there have been two opinions as to the place of origin of the ancient Kalash.
According to a Greek researcher, Yannis Manolidakis, “in Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan and in some Arabian dialects, the word ‘Chain’ means Syria. According to the American Ethnologist, Gail Trail, Tsyam is Syria, the seat of the Seleucid Empire.” This opinion contradicts the myth about “Tsyam” being a place in the West. The word “Tsyam” in Kalasha is far from being similar to “Chain” or to “Syria”. The Kalash are more likely to call their country of origin using a term in their own mother tongue, which is “Tsyam”, a place name, rather than one borrowed from other languages, which are not related to Kalasha.
Samuel Howard Sloan (alias Ismail Sloan) stresses, “the Nuristanis themselves claim that they are the original Qureish, the tribe of Muhammad, the Prophet. When the people of Mecca converted to Islam, there were a few who kept the old religion and were therefore driven out of Mecca. They migrated to Afghanistan and became the Nuristanis, or so the Nuristanis say. However, nobody other than the Nuristanis themselves seems to believe this story to be true.”
According to the same Greek researcher, “the Kalash and the Nuristanis have used chairs and tables since ancient times, even though the use of chairs is not known in the oriental tradition. In their greeting as they say “Ishpata”, they embrace and kiss each other”. As they shake hands, Albanians of today also embrace and kiss each other. “Ishpata” could mean “I shpatës” in Albanian [shpata = sword, I shpatës = of the sword]. If paraphrased, originally, it could mean “Are you a man of the sword?”. In other words, when they greeted each other, they wanted to make sure whether they were equals in bravery and still could wield and use a sword. The use of the sword is a sign of bravery especially for people boasting a longstanding fighting tradition. This greeting is similar to another phrase used in Albanian “I pushkës” [pushkë = gun, rifle]. If paraphrased, it means “A man of the gun, the rifle.” In popular tradition, only those who can wield a gun and use it bravely, are real men. This holds true for the ancient people, too. The sword, being the main weapon in their time, was also a sign of manliness. “Ishpata” probably derives from the Greek verb “Ispasthin” (past tense of Aspazomai = kiss, embrace) though it sounds absurd for people to greet each other by saying “I kissed you or I embraced you”. The similarity may be mere coincidence.
The myth that “Tsyam” is a place in the West can also be supported by other arguments. The Kalasha people’s winter solstice festival held in December is called the Chamos festival, which may mean the festival of the Chamos, the Chams. The two terms, which draw one’s attention, are “Tsyam”, the name of their mythological homeland and “Chamos” in the phrase “the Chamos festival”. These two terms are similar to “Tsameria”, Chameria (Albanian Çamëria, Greek Tsamouria) and “Tsams” (Chams), the Cham people. The Chams of Tsameria in the West should not be taken for the Cham communities in the East, in contemporary Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Chinese Hainan Island. These communities are descendants of the Cham Malayo-Polynesians who settled in the mainland from Borneo in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC.
“Tsameria” (Tsam-eria, Cham-eria) is the name of a region located part in southern Albania and mainly in northwestern Greece, namely, to the west of the region where the Kalash live today. “Tsam” (Cham) denotes the inhabitants of Tsameria, who speak a dialect of the Albanian language, or anything that has to do with the Tsam people or the region of Tsameria. This region, except for Butrint and seven neighboring villages, was annexed to Greece by the 1913 Conference of Ambassadors, which delineated the border between Greece and Albania. Though most of Cham territory is within the borders of the Greek state, the majority of the Cham people live in Albania today. In the years 1944-45, these unfortunate people were subject to the first ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe after World War II at the hands of Greek forces led by Napoleon Zervas, a Greek general accused of collaborating with the German forces. Civilians were forced from their homes and those who survived the massacre, fled to Albania. The only Chams still living in Greece today are those who profess the Orthodox religion.
Obviously, the place name “Tsyam” is very similar to or almost the same as “Tsam”. With the passage of time, “y” must have dropped and today we are left with the term “Tsam”.
On a 205 Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani Words list on line compiled by Ismail Sloan, about 15 percent of the words are similar to or the same as the words of the Albanian language. Better knowledge of the Chamos dialect of the Albanian language would help find more such words. One example: On the list, “Nan” (Kalasha) and “Nu” (Khowar) mean mother. The Tsam (Cham) people call their mothers Nan or Nu even to this day. Nana is also the name for the great goddess of Asia Minor.
Today, part of the region of Chameria is within the jurisdiction of the Greek prefecture of Thesprotia, which is bounded by Albania in the north, the prefecture of Ioannina in the east and Preveza in the south. The ancient Thesprotians had the Chaonians on their northeast frontier, the Molossians to their central frontier and the Illyrians to their north. According to the fifth-century historian Herodotus, Thesprotia had also been called Pelasgia. The Oracle of Dodona devoted to the god Zeus is located in Thesprotia. Zeus was also worshipped there as “Zeus Molossos”. ‘Molossos’ may be a pre-Greek (Pelasgian) name attached to the name ‘Zeus’.
There are two legendary rivers in Thesprotia: the Thyamis (Kalamas) river and Acheron whose meaning can be explained by the Albanian language.
"Acheron", known as ‘the river of sadness’, is “(H)akëron”: (H)a + Kë + Ron in Albanian. (H)a = eat / Kë = him, her, whoever / Ron = live. Hence, (H)akëron means “(It = death) eats him, her or whoever that lives”. In the Albanian language, the use of the subject is sometimes not necessary thanks to the verb, which enables the reader to infer the subject. In this case, the inferred subject is ‘death’. The ancient people in the region carried the deceased into the river after having placed a coin under their tongues to help them pay their way to the underworld Hades. Albanians call the underworld ‘Hadhes’. Hence ‘Hade(s)’ or ‘Hadhe(s)’ = Ha + de or dhe. Ha = eat / dhe = dirt, soil, earth in Albanian). Hades is the place where people eat dirt. They die and are buried in the ground where there is only dirt, earth. In other words, Hades is the kingdom of dirt eaters.
There is another argument, which prompts us to think that the term ‘Tsyam’ is linked to the ancient history of the region of Chameria. According to an opinion, the name of Thesprotia derives from the same ancient Illyrian root as the name of Thyamis (or Kalamas) river. Thyamis is very similar to ‘Tsyam’, the already mentioned mythological homeland of the Kalash.
The terms ‘Tsyam’, ‘Chamos’, ‘Tsameria’ (Chameria), ‘Thesprotia’ have either co-existed with the name of the Thyamis river since ancient times or they have all evolved from it over time.
The Greeks called the three ancient tribes, Chaonians, Molossians and Thesprotians barbarians. The ancient Illyrians and Macedonians were also barbarians according to them. Scholars claim that they were ancient proto-tribes who had Pelasgian roots. The origin of Chameria and its authentic Cham inhabitants dates back to a very ancient civilization, older than thought. To understand this, scientists should dive back through time, mentally recreate life of past ages in the region and analyze the harsh reality these ancient people had to face when creating mythology and the first religious concepts in the world.
As descendants of the Pelasgians, the Chaonians, the Molossians and the Thesprotians were akin to the Illyrians and the Macedonians. Alexander the Great’s mother Olympias was from the Molossi tribe and her maiden name was Myrtale, which cannot be a Greek name. Olympias was the second name she assumed as was customary at that time after marrying Philip II of Macedon or, as they say, as recognition of Philip's victory in the Olympic Games of 356 BC. They were all participants in Alexander the Great’s campaign in the Far East and as such some of them may have settled there. Hence, the presence of a distinct population today in Afganistan and Pakistan, which may date back to Alexander the Great’s time or earlier.
Authentic Chameria covers a wider area than the prefecture of Thesprotia. It extends from Butrint in Albania, north to Lake Prespa, east to the Pindus mountains, south as far as Preveza, which is part of it. In fact, it is the Chaonians, the Molossians and the Thesprotians who inhabited this entire region. Lord Byron writes that Chameria was mainly populated by Albanians in the 19th century. In the entry on Chameria, the first Great Hellenic Encyclopedia, vol. XXIII, p. 405, stresses, “... as to topography, ethnography and folklore, Chameria constitutes a unique region in Albania. Therefore, as far as Christianity is concerned, it has had its own Episcopate over a very long time with its seat in Paramythia… The Cham dance is the Albanian dance of the Chams, which has now become a “panhellenic dance”, a Hellenic national dance. It is a men’s dance, levent style, applaudable, that brings out the elation and performance of the dancer whose appearance is very elegant when he wears a fustanella..."
This and other facts indicate that the region of Chameria has been a source of cultural wealth that has always fed Greek culture. Instead of studying these facts, drawing conclusions and applying them to the realm of myths, the mythologists, as in the past, today also, deal with later products of fantasy and overlook the reality as perceived by the ancient people. As well as this, although there are historians and linguists including the Albanian scholar from Greece Aristidh Kolias, who point out that Albanian is a direct successor to Illyrian and Pelasgian, many scholars have failed to delve into the importance of the Albanian language as the missing link between Greek and Latin. Kolias also holds that, while Albanian is the direct continuation of the trunk of Pelasgian, Greek is a branch of the latter.
The study of the history and geography of the Chameria region, Albania, Kosovo (ancient Dardania) and Macedonia as well as knowledge of the Albanian language are the sine qua non for the explanation of the ancient myths and the origin of the Kalash, Hunza people and their kinsmen in the Far East.
