Chilam Joshi Festival

Chilam Joshi is the most exuberant of the three great Kalash festivals, celebrated each May when the high pastures turn green and the herds return from their winter enclosures. The Kalash — one of the last remaining polytheistic peoples of South Asia — inhabit three remote side-valleys of Chitral District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Bumburet (Mumoret), Rumbur, and Birir. At elevations ranging from roughly 2,000 m to 2,500 m, these verdant valleys are carved by glacial streams and enclosed by soaring Hindu Kush ridgelines. During Chilam Joshi, the entire Kalash community pours into shared dancing grounds, and visitors are welcomed to observe — and often join — the celebrations.

The festival's centerpiece is the unbroken chain of communal dances performed by women wearing their iconic black wool robes (shushot) heavily adorned with cowrie shells, glass beads, and elaborate headdresses (kupas) strung with hundreds of buttons, shells, and colored pompoms. Men play double-ended drums (dau) and wooden flutes while women link arms and sway in tight circles, singing praise-songs to their deity Jestak, protector of the home and family. The festivities also include the ritual preparation of fresh cheese, the offering of first-milk products, and the blessing of livestock before the summer grazing season — deeply practical rites that have sustained this agro-pastoral community for millennia.

Our guided Chilam Joshi tour departs Chitral town and travels the 35 km dirt track into Bumburet, the widest and most accessible of the three valleys. Accommodation is in comfortable guesthouses run by Kalash hosts who provide meals of chapshoro (meat-filled pastries), walnut bread, and mulberry wine. Over five to seven days you visit all three valleys, meet local families, hear the oral history of Kalash cosmology from community elders, and capture the vivid colour of one of Pakistan's most visually arresting cultural events.