CHAPTER XVII.
WAZIRISTAN AND ITS TRIBES.[[134]]
On the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 by the Indian Government, and our consequent occupation of Kohat, the inhabitants of Waziristan became our neighbours for one hundred and forty miles along the boundary line—from the north-west corner of the Kohat district to the Gomal Pass west of Dera Ismail Khan. Waziristan, the frontier Switzerland, is in shape a rough parallelogram, averaging one hundred miles in length from north to south, with a general breadth of sixty miles from east to west; at the north-west corner a wedge of hilly country juts into the Kohat and Bannu districts. It is bounded on the west and north-west by Afghanistan; on the north-east and east by the British districts of Kurram, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan; and on the south by Baluchistan.
The chief inhabitants of Waziristan are:
1. The Darwesh Khels. 2. The Mahsuds. 3. The Batannis. 4. The Dawaris.
The two first named are the only Wazirs proper, and all four have but little in common with each other, and for many generations have been in a perpetual state of feud.
Origin of the Wazirs
Bellew and Ibbetson are inclined to think that the Wazirs are a tribe of Rajput origin, and it is probable that ethnologically they are an Indian race with a large admixture of Scythian or Tartar blood. Their own traditions, however, represent them to be the descendants of Wazir, who was the son of Suleiman, who was the son of Kakai, himself the son of Karlan and grandson of Ghurghusht, so that they are usually described as being a tribe of Karlanri or Ghurghusht Pathans. From this common origin come the Wazirs, a title which properly includes both Darwesh Khel and Mahsuds, but the name Wazir has now been practically appropriated by the former. The ancient home of the Wazirs appears to have been in Birmal, in Afghanistan, whence they began to move eastward at the close of the fourteenth century, ousting the Khattaks from Shawal and the Kohat border north of the Tochi. In process of time they took possession of the mountainous region about Shuidar, and the whole country as far as the Gomal River, south of which but few of their settlements are to be found. The Darwesh Khel and Mahsuds differ greatly in habits and characteristics, and are practically separate tribes; but despite the enmity existing between them, their villages are much mixed up, and many of the leading men of each are connected by marriage.
Waziristan has been described by Oliver as “a land of high and difficult hills, deep and rugged defiles, brave and hardy people, in their way as independent and patriotic, and, in the presence of the common enemy, hardly less united, than the famous compatriots of Tell. Geographically and politically the two have several points in common; and as regards the mass of hills that lie between the Gomal and the Tochi, or Dawar Valley, of which Kaniguram is about the centre, this is more especially true. The east front is protected by the bare hills, held by the Batannis; beyond which are ravines, flanked by precipitous cliffs, which occasionally widen out to enclose small valleys fairly fertile, from one hundred to one thousand yards wide, but narrowing again as they ascend. Not unfrequently the mouth is a mere gorge or tangi (waist), where the water forces its way through a range crossing it at right angles and forming a colossal natural barrier. In these valleys, and the small strips of alluvial land which border the base of the higher mountains, locally called Kaches—which are quite a distinctive feature of the whole range—there is often a good deal of cultivation, the whole carefully terraced, and irrigated by means of channels cut out of the hill sides, a great deal of ingenuity and skill being expended in leading the water from field to field.”
The principal rivers in Waziristan are the Kurram, Kaitu, Tochi and Gomal; the valley of the last-named is particularly barren, there being hardly any cultivation to be seen between Murtaza and Khajuri Kach, and no villages along the river itself. The tributaries of the Gomal in southern Waziristan flow through the wide and open, but stony and barren plains of Wana, Spin and Zarmelan. Indeed, Waziristan answers to the description Pathans give of their country when they tell us, that “when God made the world there were a lot of stones and rocks and lumber left over, which were all dumped down on this frontier, and that this accounts for its unattractive appearance.”
Their Country