Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier Part 1

Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier.

by T. L. Pennell.

INTRODUCTION

This book is a valuable record of sixteen years' good work by an officer--a medical missionary--in charge of a medical mission station at Bannu, on the North-West Frontier of India.

Although many accounts have been written descriptive of the wild tribes on this border, there was still plenty of room for Dr. Pennell's modestly-related narrative. Previous writers--e.g., Paget and Mason, Holdich, Oliver, Warburton, Elsmie, and many others--have dealt with the expeditions that have taken place from time to time against the turbulent occupants of the trans-Indus mountains, and with the military problems and possibilities of the difficult regions which they inhabit. But Dr. Pennell's story is not concerned with the clash of arms. His mission has been to preach, to heal, and to save; and in his long and intimate intercourse with the tribesmen, as recounted in these pages, he throws many new and interesting sidelights on the domestic and social, as well as on the moral and religious, aspects of their lives and characters.

During a long career in India I myself have seen and heard a good deal about these medical missions, and I can testify to their doing excellent and useful work, and that they are valuable and humanizing factors and moral aids well worthy of all encouragement and support.

No one can read Dr. Pennell's experiences without feeling that the man who is a physician and able to heal the body, in addition to being a preacher who can "minister to a mind diseased" as well as to spiritual needs, wields an influence which is not possessed by him who is a missionary only.

As the author himself writes: "The doctor finds his sphere everywhere, and his hands are full of work as soon as he arrives (at his station). He is able to overcome suspicion and prejudice, and his kindly aid and sympathetic treatment disarm opposition, while his life is a better setting forth of Christianity than his words. There is a door everywhere which can be opened by love and sympathy and practical service, and no one is more in a position to have a key for every door than a doctor."

These few words fairly sum up the situation, and I fully agree with the view they express.

On such a wild frontier as that on the North-West Border of India the life of a doctor-missionary is beset with many perils. A perusal of Dr. Pennell's most interesting story shows that he has had his share of them, and that in the earnest and zealous discharge of his duties he has faced them bravely and cheerfully. I cordially recommend his book to all readers, and my earnest hope is that medical missions will continue to flourish.

ROBERTS, F.M.

December 19, 1908.

PREFACE

After sixteen years of close contact with the Afghans and Pathans of our North-West Frontier in India, I was asked to commit some of my experiences to paper. The present book is the result. I have used the Government system of transliteration in vernacular names and expressions, and I beg the reader to bestow a few minutes'

consideration on the table of corresponding sounds and letters given on p. xvi, as it is painful to hear the way in which Englishmen, who, with their wide imperial interests, should be better informed, misp.r.o.nounce common Indian words and names of places which are in constant use nowadays in England as much as abroad.

Nothing is recorded which has not been enacted in my own experience or in that of some trustworthy friend. In Chapters XIII. and XIV. it would have been unwise to give the actual names, so I have put the experience of several such cases together into one connected story, which, while concealing the ident.i.ty of the actors, may also make the narrative more interesting to the reader; every fact recorded, however, happened under my own eyes. In Chapter XXII., the night adventure of Chikki, when he met an English officer in disguise, was related by him to me of another member of his profession, and not of himself.

I wish to thank the Church Missionary Society for allowing me to reproduce some articles which have already appeared in their publications, notably Chapter XX. and part of Chapter IV. I tender my best thanks to Major Wilkinson, I.M.S., Major Watson, H. Bolton, Esq., I.C.S., and Colonel S. Baker, for some of the photographs which have been here reproduced; and to Dr. J. Cropper for his kindness in reading the proofs.

We are at present engaged in building a branch dispensary at Thal, a place on the extreme border mentioned several times in the text, where the medical mission will have a profound influence on the trans-border tribes, as well as on those in British India. This will be known as the "Lord Roberts Hospital," as that place was at one time of the 1879-80 campaign the headquarters of his column.

The Author's profits on the sale of this book will be entirely devoted to the building of the hospital, and carrying on of the medical mission work at Thal.

T. L. PENNELL.

P. and O. s.s. "China,"

Gulf of Suez, September 24, 1908.

AMONG THE WILD TRIBES OF THE AFGHAN FRONTIER

CHAPTER I

THE AFGHAN CHARACTER

Paradoxical--Ideas of honour--Blood-feuds--A sister's revenge--The story of an outlaw--Taken by a.s.sault--A jirgah and its unexpected termination--Bluff--An attempt at kidnapping--Hospitality--A midnight meal--An ungrateful patient--A robber's death--An Afghan dance--A village warfare--An officer's escape--Cousins.

The East is the country of contradictions, and the Afghan character is a strange medley of contradictory qualities, in which courage blends with stealth, the basest treachery with the most touching fidelity, intense religious fanaticism with an avarice which will even induce him to play false to his faith, and a lavish hospitality with an irresistible propensity for thieving.

There are two words which are always on an Afghan's tongue--izzat and sharm. They denote the idea of honour viewed in its positive and negative aspects, but what that honour consists in even an Afghan would be puzzled to tell you. Sometimes he will consider that he has vindicated his honour by a murder perpetrated with the foulest treachery; at other times it receives an indelible stain if at some public function he is given a seat below some rival chief.

The vendetta, or blood-feud, has eaten into the very core of Afghan life, and the nation can never become healthily progressive till public opinion on the question of revenge alters. At present some of the best and n.o.blest families in Afghanistan are on the verge of extermination through this wretched system. Even the women are not exempt. In 1905, at Bannu, there was a case where a man had been foully murdered over some disputed land. It was generally known who the murderer was, but as he and his relations were powerful and likely to stick at nothing, and the murdered man had no near relation except one sister, no one was willing to risk his own skin in giving evidence, so when the case came up in court the Judge was powerless to convict.

"Am I to have no justice at the hands of the Sarkar?" pa.s.sionately cried the sister in her despair. "Bring me witnesses, and I will convict," was all the Judge could reply. "Very well; I must find my own way;" and the girl left the court to take no rest till her brother's blood, which was crying to her from the ground, should be avenged.

Shortly after this I was sitting in a cla.s.sroom of the mission school teaching the boys. It was a Friday morning, when thousands of the hillmen come in to the weekly fair, and the bazaars are full of a shouting, jostling throng, the murmur of which reaches even the schoolroom. Suddenly a shot was heard, and then a confused shouting. Running out on to the street hard by, I found a Wazir, quite dead, shot through the heart. It was the murderer who had escaped the justice of the law, but not the hand of the avenger, for the sister had concealed a revolver on her person, and coming up to her enemy in the crowded bazaar, had shot him point-blank. She was arrested there and then, and the court condemned her to penal servitude for life. I met her some weeks later as she was on the march with some other prisoners to their destination in the Andaman Islands. Resignation and satisfaction were her dominant feelings. "I have avenged my brother; for the rest, it is G.o.d's will: I am content." Those were the words in which she answered my inquiries.

The officer who has most power with the Pathans is the one who, while transparently just, yet deals with them with a strong hand, whose courage is beyond question, and who, when once his mind is made up, does not hesitate in the performance of his plans. To such a one they are loyal to the backbone, and will go through fire and water in his train.

"Tender-handed grasp a nettle, It will sting you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, Soft as silk it then remains."

This has its counterpart in a Pashtu proverb, and is no doubt a true delineation of the Afghan character.

Some years ago some outlaws had fortified a village a few miles across the border, and had there bidden defiance to the authorities while carrying on their depredations among the frontier villages, where they raided many a wealthy Hindu, and even carried off the rifles from the police posts. The leader of the gang was Sailgai. His father was Mian Khan, a Wazir of the Sparkai clan. When still a boy Sailgai showed great apt.i.tude and skill in archery, and when about fifteen he commenced rifle-shooting, and soon became a noted marksman. This, however, led him to a.s.sociate with the desperadoes of the clan, and before long he became the leader of a gang which used to go out at night-time to break into shops and into the houses of rich Hindus. When this occupation began to pall on him he became a highway robber, and lay in wait with his confederates in various parts of the Kohat-Bannu road to waylay and rob travellers both by day and night. The next step onward--or downwards, we should say--was to become the leader of a gang of dacoits. These men would enter a village, usually in the late evening, and hold up the inhabitants while they looted the houses of the rich Hindus at leisure. On these occasions they often cut off the ears of the women as the simplest way of getting their earrings; and fingers, too, suffered in the same way if the owner did not remove his rings quickly enough. At the same time Sailgai became a professional murderer, and used to take two hundred to four hundred rupees for disposing of anyone obnoxious to the payer.

Still, up to this time he had contrived to keep clear of the police, and had never been caught. If anyone informed against him he soon discovered who the informant was, and paid him a night visit, only leaving after he had either killed him or taken a rich ransom. Some eight years ago he took two hundred rupees for killing a Bizun Khel Wazir, and went to his house one evening with fifteen of his followers. The Wazir, however, got a warning, and made a bold stand, and Sailgai had to fire seven times before he despatched him, and by that time the brother of the deceased had fetched some police and followed up in chase of Sailgai. When, however, the police saw that they had a well-armed band to contend with, although about equal in number to the Wazirs, they beat a hasty retreat, with the exception of one man, who opened fire on the murderers at two hundred paces, but was. .h.i.t and disabled, so that Sailgai and his party got away in safety. Government gave a reward to this, the one brave man, and put a price on Sailgai's head, so that he could no longer enter British territory except by stealth, and he retired to his fort at Gumatti, which he strengthened and made the base for marauding expeditions on Government territory.

These subsequently became so frequent and so successful that the Indian Government was finally constrained to send up a column under Colonel Tonnochy, who was in command of the 53rd Sikhs at Bannu, to destroy his fort once for all. Before the guns opened fire the Political Officer, Mr. Donald, walked up alone to the loopholes of his fort to offer Sailgai and his fellow-defenders terms. Knowing well the long list of crimes that would be proved against him, he replied that he had determined to sell his life as dearly as possible in the fort where he had been born and bred; and we must say, to his credit, that they restrained their fire till Mr. Donald got back to his own lines. Colonel Tonnochy brought the guns up to within sixty yards of the fort, and while directing their operations he was mortally wounded. When the tower was finally taken by storm, all Sailgai's companions were dead, and he himself wounded in four places. He, however, with a last effort took aim at the British officer, Captain White, who was bravely leading the a.s.sault, and shot him dead, and was almost at the same moment despatched by that officer's orderly. Wazirs from Gumatti, as well as from all the rest of the neighbourhood, are constantly coming to the mission dispensary, and some of them have been in-patients. The police munshi who made the bold stand above mentioned was himself treated for his wound in our hospital.

The Afghan has in some respects such inordinate vanity in connection with his peculiar ideas of sharm, and is so hot-headed in resenting some fancied insult, that he sometimes places himself in a ridiculous position, from which he finds it difficult to extricate himself without still further sacrificing his honour.

An instance of this occurred in December, 1898. The mission school athletic sports were in progress in the mission compound, and the political officers of the Tochi and Wano were engaged not far off in a jirgah of the representatives of the Mahsud and Darwesh Khel sections of the Wazirs. Suddenly the cry was raised, "The Wazirs have attacked us!" and for a short time all was confusion. Wazirs were seen rushing pell-mell into school, bungalow, and other buildings, and a great part of the spectators who had gathered to see the sports fled in confusion. It transpired, however, that, so far from the Wazirs desiring to do us any injury, they were the Mahsuds in flight from the Darwesh Khels, who were hot in pursuit, chasing them even into the mission buildings where they had sought refuge. The council had been proceeding satisfactorily, and with apparently amicable relations on both sides, when a Darwesh Khel malik, in the excitement of debate, gesticulated too close to the seat of the Political Officer. A Mahsud orderly, thinking he was disrespectful to the officer, pushed him back with needless force, so that the malik slipped and fell. The Darwesh Khels round him at once set on the orderly, saying he had done it of malice prepense, and began to beat him. In another moment the whole a.s.sembly were frantically attacking each other; but the Mahsuds, being very decidedly in the minority, found safety in flight, and, our mission compound being the nearest rallying-place, had come down upon us in this unceremonious manner, with the Darwesh Khels in hot pursuit. Fortunately, no serious injury resulted, and both parties were soon laughing at their own foolish hot-headedness.

Bluff is a very prominent characteristic of the Afghan, and this makes him appear more formidable than he really is to those who are not acquainted with his character. He is also a great bully and exults in cruelty, so that he becomes a veritable tyrant to those who have fallen into his power or are overawed by his bluff. At the same time, he has a profound reverence for the personification of power or brute force, and becomes a loyal and devoted follower of those whom he believes to be his superiors. It is often asked of me whether I carry a revolver or other arms when travelling about among these wild tribes. For a missionary to do so would not only be fatal to his chance of success, but would be a serious and constant danger. It would be impossible for him to be always on his guard; there must be times when, through fatigue or other reasons, he is at the mercy of those among whom he is dwelling. Besides this, there is nothing which an Afghan covets more, or to steal which he is more ready to risk his life, than firearms; and though he might not otherwise wish harm to the missionary, the possibility of securing a good revolver or gun would be too great a temptation, even though he had to shed blood to secure it. My plan was, therefore, to put myself entirely in their hands, and let them see that I was trusting to their sense of honour and to their traditional treatment of a guest for my safety.

At the same time, I was rather at pains than otherwise to let them see that the bluff to which they sometimes resorted had no effect upon me, and that I was indifferent to their threats and warnings, which, as often as not, were just a ruse on their part to see how far they could impose on me. Once, when I was in a trans-border village, resting a few hours in the heat of the day, some young bloods arrived who had just come in from a raid, and were still in the excitement of bloodshed. Some of them thought it would be a good opportunity to bait the Daktar Sahib, and one of them, holding his loaded revolver to my chest, said: "Now we are going to shoot you." I replied: "You will be very great fools if you do, because I am of more use to you than to myself, and you would as likely as not poison yourselves with my drugs if I were not there to tell you how to use them." At this the senior man of the party rebuked them, and offered me a kind of apology for their rudeness, saying: "They are only young fellows, and they are excited. Do not mind what they say. We will see that no harm comes to you." On another occasion I came to a village across the border rather late at night. There were numerous outlaws in the village, but the chief under whose protection I placed myself took the precaution of putting my bed in the centre of six of his retainers, fully armed, in a circle round me, one or two of whom were to keep watch in turns. I had had a hard day's work, and was soon sound asleep, and this was my safety, because I was told in the morning that some of the more fanatical spirits had wanted to kill me in the night, but the others said: "See, he has trusted himself entirely to our protection, and because he trusts us he is sleeping so soundly; therefore, no harm must be done to him in our village."

Not long ago there was a notorious outlaw on the frontier called Rangin, who had been making a practice of kidnapping rich Hindus, and then holding them to ransom. I was in the habit of visiting our out-station at Kharrak about once a month, and usually went alone and by night. Information was brought that Rangin, knowing of this, intended one day to kidnap me, and hold me to a high ransom. The next time I visited Kharrak, I purposely slept by the roadside all night in a lonely part, that the people might see that I was not afraid of Rangin's threats. Needless to say, no harm came of it; but the people there in the countryside spread the idea that, as there was an angel protecting the Daktar Sahib, it would be a useless act of folly to try to do him an injury.

Although the honour which an Afghan thinks is due to his guest has often stood me in good stead, yet sometimes the observance of the correct etiquette has become irksome. A rich chief will be satisfied with nothing less than the slaying of a sheep when he receives a guest of distinction; a poorer man will be satisfied with the slaying of a fowl, and the preparation therefrom of the native dish called pulao. On one occasion I came to a village with my companions rather late in the evening. The chief himself was away, but his son received me with every mark of respect, and killed a fowl and cooked us a savoury pulao, after which, wearied with the labours of the day, we were soon fast asleep. Later on, it appeared, the chief himself arrived, and learnt from his son of our arrival. "Have you killed for him the dumba?" he at once asked; and, on learning from his son that he had only prepared a fowl, he professed great annoyance, saying: "This will be a lasting shame (sharm) for me, if it is known that, when the Bannu Daktar Sahib came to my village, I cooked for him nothing more than a fowl. Go at once to the flock, and take a dumba, and slay and dress it, and, when all is ready, call me." Thus it came about that about 1 a.m. we were waked up to be told that the chief had come to salaam us, and that dinner was ready. It would not only have been useless to protest that we were more in a mood for sleep than for dinner, but it would also have been an insult to his hospitality; so we got up with alacrity and the best grace possible, and after a performance of the usual salutations on both sides, we buckled to that we might show our appreciation of the luscious feast of roast mutton and pulao that had been prepared for us.