In India the Afghans are called Patan.
Their language is called Pushtu. It is allied to the Persian—but less closely than the Bilúch.
Fully and accurately described in the admirable work of Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone, the Afghans have long commanded the attention of the ethnologist; and all that has been said about the Judaism of the Biluchi has been said in respect to them also, though not by so good a writer as the one just quoted. No wonder. Their tribual organization, if not more peculiar in character, has been more minutely described; a[179] greater massiveness of frame and feature has been looked upon as eminently Judaic; and, lastly, an incorrect statement of Sir William Jones's, as to the Hebrew character of the Pushtu language, has added the authority of that respected scholar to the doctrine of the Semitic origin of the Afghans. Against this, however, stands the evidence of their peculiar and hitherto unplaced language. I say unplaced, because the criticism that separates the modern dialects of Hindostan from the Sanskrit, disconnects the Pushtu and the old Persian. Nevertheless, it is anything but either Hebrew or Arabic.
Similarity of political constitution, and its attendant spirit of independence, have given a political importance to both the Bilúch and the Afghan. Each is but partially—very partially—British; and each became dependent upon Britain, not because they were the Afghans and Bilúch of their own rugged countries, but because they were part and parcel of certain territories in India. It was on the Indus that they were conquered; and it as Indians that they are British.
Four great patriarchs are the hypothetical progenitors of the four primary Afghan divisions—though it is uncertain whether any such quaternion be more of an historical reality than the four castes of Brahminism. Subordinate to these four heads is the division called Ulús (Ooloos).[180]
A minuter knowledge of the Afghan affiliations—real or supposed—is to be gained by premising that khail has much the same meaning as the Bilúch khoum, so that it denotes a division of population which we may call clan, tribe, or sept; whilst the affix -zye, means sons or offspring. Hence, Eusof-zye is equivalent to what an Arab would call Beni Yusuf; a Greek, Ioseph-idæ; or a Highland Gael, MacJoseph. All this is clear. When, however, we try to give precision to our nomenclature, and ask whether the khail contains a number of -zye, or the -zye a number of khails, difficulties begin. Sometimes the one, sometimes the other is the larger class. And a khail in one case may be divided into groups ending in -zye; in others, a group denoted by -zye may contain two or more khails. Each is a generic or specific designation as the case may be.
However, to proceed to instances, the following groups of Afghans may be constituted.
1. Three sections—the Acco-zye, the Mulle-zye, and the Lawe-zye—are subdivisions of the—
2. Eusof.—The Eusof and Munder being branches of the—
3. Eusof-zye.—Now the Eusof-zye is one out of four divisions of the—