Pakol

Pakol (Khowar: پکول, Balti: بروقپی نتینگ, Shina: Pakhui, Wakhi: Seeked, Brushashki: Phartsun, Urdu: پکول, Persian and Pashto: پکول ) is a soft round-topped men's cap, typically of wool and found in any of a variety of earthy colors: brown, black, grey, ivory or dyed red using walnut.[1][2] The Pakol is believed to be originated from Chitral.[3][4]

Pakol hat of the Chitral Scouts.
Chitrali villagers pictured wearing the pakol in 1906.

Pakol is primarily worn by the Kho people (also Chitrali) and was later adopted by some Iranic peoples, of northern Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistani-administered Gilgit-Baltistan, northeastern Afghanistan and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.[5] However, as with areas home to Pashtuns and Chitralis, it was introduced in the Kashmir Valley later by Shins of northern Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, who are locally known as Dards.[6]

Origin

The Pakol originated in Chitral, present day Pakistan.[7] It appeared among the northeastern Pashtun tribes in the early 20th century as a replacement for the large turban. It used to be worn by shepherds in northwestern Pakistan southeast Afghanistan, today the pakol is used by men of all social classes. The pakol bears a resemblance to the ancient Greek kausia.The main source of production is Chitral in Pakistan.[8] It is also worn in some regions of Gilgit-Baltistan, Dir and Swat valley in Pakistan, also by Afghans such as Tajiks, Nuristanis, Pashayi, and Pashtuns as well as parts of Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi.

Overview
Pakistani street vendors operating a pakol shop in Gilgit-Baltistan; the cap is slightly different from modern Chitrali caps.

Some authors have compared this hat with those worn by ancient Sogdia (modern Uzbekistan) and ancient Greek headdresses (kausia hat).[9] Some romantize the link of the pakol to Alexander the Great’s campaigns in the Bactrian-Greek and Indo-Afghan borderlands in the late fourth century BC.[9] The pakol has a short modern history in Nuristan (19 century), and the same goes for neighbouring Chitral (Willem Vogelsang, 2006, p. 149-155).[10] The pakol gained a glamorous image during the Afghan civil war (1980s), have popularized it too which is now known all over the world. Its been said that Ahmad Shah Massoud started to wear the pakol when he was in Nuristan (1978). Ahmad Shah Massoud was responsible for the sudden popularity of the cap.[9] The pakol became the symbol of the new leading elements of the country.[9] In Pakistan, it's worn in Chitral, Swat and Dir and is considered a staple of their ethnic background.

In Swat, east of Chitral, people tend to wear a slightly different type of pakol. It is beige in colour and distinctive for its ‘pie-crust’ stitching along the rolled brim. In Waziristan, the Waziristani pakol is a bit large in size and the edges are ups & down and curved. It is made of pure wool just like a normal Pakol and available in different colors and sizes.[11] Pashtun in neighbouring Pakistan seem overwhelmingly to have adopted the pakol, such as Peshawar.[9] Pictures from Peshawar from very recently, show a city dominated by turban-wearing Pashtun instead of a pakol.[9] In the past, the pakol has also been worn in India, especially in parts of Jammu & Kashmir (mainly by the Shina and other Dards) and Delhi.[6][5] In Kashmir, it was introduced by seasonal migrants of ethnic Shins/Dards, hailing from the Gurez and Tulail areas in north Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipora district.[6] The similar caps are worn in the Chinese/Turkestani/Indian borderlands.[9] These modern twists isn't a feature that Alexander’s soldiers picked up in Afghanistan in the late 4th century BC but rather a modern staple of the 1900s.[9]

History
A statue of a Macedonian boy wearing Kausia which is thought to be the source of the pakol. Terracotta, made in Athens, ca. 300 BC

Kausia and Alexander

The pakol is remarkably similar to the ancient Macedonian kausia hat, worn by men in Ancient Greece, which may have been its ancestor.[12][13] According to Bonnie Kingsley the kausia may have came to the Mediterranean as a campaign hat worn by Alexander and veterans of his campaigns in India.[14] but according to Ernst Fredricksmeyer the kausia was too established a staple of the Macedonian wardrobe for it to have been imported from Asia to Macedonia.[15]

However Willem Vogelsang of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, showed that the pakool is actually a simple adaptation of caps with rolled rims worn all over the borderlands of China, India and Central Asia.[16] At the juncture of the 3 regions lies Chitral forming a watershed.[17]

Chitralis from Upper Chitral pictured wearing the Pakol in 1906

Origin, Discovery and Documentation in Chitral

The modern Pakol is believed to have originated from Chitral where it was made and found exclusively until the end of the 19th century.[18][4] The word Pakol is a chitrali word derived from another chitrali name of the hat Khapol. The Pakol is made from a special type of wool known as the Chitrali patti locally known as 'Shu' which is procured from the sheepherders from its valleys. The earliest mention of the Pakol is attributed to Donatus O'Briens' book (1895) on the language of Chitral, where describing the ethnic dress of Chitralis he states that:

"The dress worn by most men consist of a homespun cap black, brown or grey made in the shape of a bag and rolled up until it fits the skull."[19]

Later on in 1896 George Scott Robertson denoted the cap with the name "Chitrali Cap".[20]

Chitralis wearing the Pakol pictured in 1929.

Early mentions of its nativity and homogeneity to Chitral and its English and local nomenclature paired with documentation of it not being worn in any of the regions surrounding Chitral make it evident that the Pakol most probably originated from the Chitral region of Northern Pakistan where it was worn exclusively till the end of the 19th century.

Initial Prominence in Pakistan

The Pakol first found for itself prominence in Pakistan by Chitrali traders and businessmen who expanded their businesses.[21] The Pakol began to be worn in many parts of Pakistan, especially the adjoining areas to Chitral such as Dir, Swat, Malakand and Bajaur.

Initial Prominence in India

The Pakol has been worn traditionally in India by the Shina people of northern Jammu and Kashmir's Gurez Valley (including Tulail).[6] Like Indian-administered Gurez, it is also worn in the Shina/Dard region of Pakistan (accurately Upper Neelum (Gurez), Astore and Chilas), up to Gilgit and Hunza... in the whole belt up to Chitral, which was once a part of Kashmir.[6]

The Pakol has also been worn in the Kashmir valley occasionally for decades, where it was introduced by seasonal migrants of ethnic Shins/Dards, hailing from Gurez.[6] A columnist with a valley based newspaper, said about the cap that it became popular in the 1950s after being sported by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.[6]

Initial prominence in Afghanistan

Pakol is worn within Afghanistan in many provinces, in particular, Nuristan and nearby provinces. Although, it is now commonly worn throughout Afghanistan. Alexander Gardner, an American adventurer visited Nuristan twice between 1826 and 1828.

Abdal Kadir, last malik of the Red Kafirs of Kunisht (Afghanistan); "The Man Who Was King" by T. S. Eliot, an ardent admirer of Kipling, about Nuristan, a remote part of Afghanistan.

In the 1980s, the pakol was worn by a special unit of the Afghan Mujahideen who fought against the Russians (Soviets). The pakol owes its global celebrity to the Tajik-majority members of the Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan, who, following their leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, wore it amongst their ranks.

See also

References
  1. Mir, Ziab R (1 October 2016). "My Cap, My Identity: Men's caps from Gilgit-Baltistan". Pamir Times.
  2. Blackwood, William (1968). "Blackwood's Magazine". Vol. 303. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  3. "From Alexander the Great to Ahmad Shah Massud: A social history of the pakol". Afghanistan Analysts Network - English (in Pashto). 2014-01-03. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
  4. Chico, Beverly (2013-10-03). Hats and Headwear around the World: A Cultural Encyclopedia: A Cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-063-8.
  5. Saxena, Shivam (4 March 2015). "Inside Delhi's lil Afghanistan: Aroma of Kabuli pulao, murmurs in Dari". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 16 March 2018. Several shops run by Afghani refugees at Sharif Manzil now have flourishing businesses of imported carpets, pakol and karakuli caps (below), shawls and vasket (jackets). “We import these caps from Kabul. They are now becoming popular in India too,” says Sikander Khan, who runs a small garment shop in the area.
  6. Naqash, Rayan (11 March 2017). "Kashmir's stylish and aspirational caps come at a hefty price". Scroll.in. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  7. Chohan, Amar Singh (1989). A History of Kafferistan: Socio-economic and Political Conditions of the Kaffers. Atlantic Publishers & Distri.
  8. "Chitrali Pakol a popular choice for cold nights". The Express Tribune. 2019-03-17. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
  9. Vogelsang, Willem (2006). "The Pakol: A Distinctive, but Apparently not so Very Old Headgear from the Indo-Iranian Borderlands". Khil'a. 2: 149–155. doi:10.2143/KH.2.0.2021290.
  10. Vogelsang, Willem (2006). "The Pakol". Khil'a. 2: 149–155. doi:10.2143/KH.2.0.2021290.
  11. Fashion, Seengar. "Waziristani Pakol". Seengar. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  12. Worthington, Ian, ed. (1994). Ventures into Greek History. Clarendon Press. p. 135. ISBN 019814928X.
  13. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940). "καυσία". A Greek–English Lexicon. Clarendon Press.
  14. Kingsley, Bonnie M (1981). "The Cap That Survived Alexander". American Journal of Archaeology. 85 (1): 39–46. doi:10.2307/504964. JSTOR 504964.
  15. Fredricksmeyer, Ernst (1986). "Alexander the Great and the Macedonian kausia". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. 116: 215–227. doi:10.2307/283917. JSTOR 283917.
  16. "Did Alexander wear my hat?". Lugubelinus. 2016-06-04. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
  17. Journal of the Society of Arts. The Society. 1874.
  18. Chohan, Amar Singh (1989). A history of Kafferistan: socio-economic and political conditions of the Kaffers. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. OCLC 21872163.
  19. "Grammar and vocabulary of the K̲h̲owâr dialect (Chitrâli)". digital.soas.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
  20. Robertson, Sir George Scott (1896). The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush. Lawrence & Bullen, Limited. p. 515. chitrali cap.
  21. Ferrari, Fabrizio (2011-03-07). Health and Religious Rituals in South Asia: Disease, Possession and Healing. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-84629-8.

Literature
  • Willem Vogelsang, 'The Pakol: A distinctive, but apparently not so very old headgear from the Indo-Iranian borderlands'. Khil`a. Journal for Dress and Textiles of the Islamic World, Vol. 2, 2006, pp. 149–155.
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