ETHNOLOGY KALEIDOSCOPE : 'O! East is East: and West is West, …' and the 'twain did meet at great cost & will continue to meet in the Punjab: 5 'Aab': the Land of the Five rivers: JEHLUM, CHENAB, RAVI, BEAS, SUTLUJ; which since ancient times continue to flow from the roof of the world: the Himalayas, along the plateaus, foothills, plains, deltas; into the Arabian Sea: for all successive R. INDUS VALLEY civilizations: a very sacred land: every inch an imprint of almost all the major ancient religions of the East and of the West: whose priests and soldiers, one after another, all had their wave and ways, wars and warriors, sword and sway, seekers of fame and faith: forging each other here, till some seekers from amongst themselves, led by Guru Nanak, revolted proclaiming -'Naa Mai Hindu! Naa Mai Musulmaan'- Neither am I a Hindu! Nor am I a Muslim! - ushering in the latest revolutionary religion :Sikhism, of -'Ek Onkaar Sat Naam'- There is One God: The True Name - :: and the Seekers/ followers of this new faith -'the Sikhs' ! Hence this pot pourri *excrepts glimps facets: before/ during/ after: - 'The Gurus'- of the Punjab & their Punjabiat:-
" …Ethnologically: the followers of the Gurus, the Seekers i.e. the Sikhs,
initially embracing
Sikhism, started coming out of the same stock of the people inhabiting the '5
Aab', the land of the
five rivers, -the Punjab- which, as the North-West Frontier of the Indian sub-continent,
also
includes the eastern part of the Afghanistan or 'land of the Afghans,' which
is essentially a Pathan
or Afghan country; and yields to no other Province in ethnological interest
and variety.
Consisting for the most part of the great plains of the five rivers and including
some of the most
and some of the least fertile tracts of India, and stretches up to and beyond
the peaks of the
Central Himalayas and embraces the Tibetan valleys of Lahul and Spiti; and while
on the
east it included the Mughal capital of Delhi; and the western borders of Hindustan;
and on
the south encroaches on the great desert of Rajputana, and on the west it embraces,
in its
trans-Jhelum territory, a tract which except in respect of geographical position
can hardly
be said to belong to India.- Nor are its inhabitants less diverse than its physical
aspects.It
does not indeed contain any of the aboriginal tribes of India, at least in their
primitive
barbarism ; and its people, in common with those of neighbouring Provinces,include
the
peaceful descendants of the old Rajput rulers of the country,the sturdy Jat
Peasantry
form the backbone of the villages of North-Western India,and the various races
which are
allied to them. But the nomad and still semi civilised tribes of its great central
grazing
grounds, the Baloches of its frontier, so distinct from all Indian races,the
Khatris, Aroras,
Suds, Bhabras and Parachas who conduct its commerce, and the Dogras, the Kanets,
the
Thakurs and Ghirths of its hills, are almost peculiar to the Province;
while the Gakkhars, the Awans, the Kharrals. Kathias, Khattars and many other
tribes of
the Rawalpindi and Multan Divisions present a series of problems sufficiently
intricate to
satisfy the most ardent ethnologist
[ * Excerpt from : A GLOSSARY OF THE TRIBES AND CASTES OF THE Punjab and North-West
Frontier Province Based on the Census Report for the Punjab, 1883, by the late
Sir DENZIL IBBETSON, K.C.S.i., and the Census Report for the Punjab, 1 892,
by the Hon. Mr. E. D. MacLAGAN, C.S.i., and complied by H. A. ROSE. pub. By
LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT, PUNJAB ]