The Kho people likely spread throughout Chitral from the northern part of the region, specifically from the Mulkhow and Torkhow valleys. According to Morgenstierne, the original abode of the Kho was northern Chitral in the valleys around Mastuj. The Kho started expanding into southern Chitral around the early 14th century under the Rais dynasty. Later on, the Kho expanded eastwards into the Yasin and Ghizer valleys under the Khushwaqt dynasty in the 17th century. They also expanded into Kalasha valleys from the south.
In ancient times the Kho people practised a faith akin to that observed by the Kalash people today. In the 14th century, many of the Kho converted to Islam though some previous customs continue to persist. With respect to Islam, the Kho are primarily HanafiSunniMuslims although there exists a substantial population of Isma'ili Muslims in the upper Chitral region.
The Khowar language shares a great number of morphological characteristics with neighbouring Iranian languages of Badakhshan, pointing to a very early location of proto-Khowar in its original abode in Upper Chitral, although from its links with the Gandhari language, it likely came from further south in the first millennium BC, possibly through Swat and Dir.
The ethnologists Karl Jettmar and Lennart Edelberg note the Khowar language to be the most archaic of modern Indic languages, with it "retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form.”
Khowar is spoken by around 800,000 people in Pakistan. Many of the Kho people also use Urdu as a second language.
Culture
Chitrali folklore lays great emphasis upon supernatural beings, and the area is sometimes called Peristan because of the common belief in fairies (peri) inhabiting the high mountains. The Barmanou is a popular local legend, often referred as the indigenous equivalent of the Yeti of the Himalayas.
Polo is a popular sport and pastime for the Kho people. Polo traditionally played by the Kho has no strict rules or organisation. The Shandur Polo Festival is a sports festival held annually during summer at the Shandur Polo Ground, the world's highest polo ground at an altitude of 3,700 meters (the Shandur Pass itself is at 3,800 meters). The polo tournament is played between the teams of Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral, under freestyle rules. Kho people also celebrate a spring festival, known as Jashan-e-Qaqlasht, at the Qaqlasht Meadows in Upper Chitral.
Traditional Chitrali clothing includes the shalwar kameez and the pakol (Chitrali hat).
Genetics
According to Aziz et al. 2019, the western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups were observed predominantly and mostly shared in Kho samples with overall frequency of 50%. These include HV8, H19, H57, H24, C and, C4a haplogroups. The South Asian haplogroups and its relevant subgroups including U4, U4c, U6, U5a, and W were also found in Kho samples with overall 37.5% frequency. Another South Asian haplogroup, M30 was also identified for Kho samples with frequency of 6.2%. The haplogroups and haplotypes specify the origin and linkages of an individual and population. The mtDNA haplogroup analysis eventually demonstrates the western Eurasian ancestral origin of Kho samples. However, the presence of few South Asian haplogroups with a minor proportion revealed that Kho might be an admixed population of western Eurasian and South Asian genetic component.
12"Khowar language is losing its essence -Faizan Aziz - Chitral Times". 2 December 2021. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 1 May 2023. Khowar is one of the regional languages of Pakistan. It is spoken in different parts of Pakistan and more than 0.8 million people speak Khowar over in Chitral, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Swat Valley. Meanwhile, in Chitral, Khowar is considered as a lingua franca or the main communicative language of the area.
↑O'Leary, Clare F.; Rensch, Calvin Ross; Decker, Sandra J. (1992). Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan: Languages of Chitral. National Institute of Pakistan /* Location and demographics */ at Quaid-i-Azam University. p.22.
↑Olson, James Stuart (1998). An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of China. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.177. ISBN978-0-313-28853-1. The Kho people are the most important ethnic group in the Chitral region of northern Pakistan. They are an Indo-Aryan people who are Muslims, primarily Sunnis of the Hanafi tradition.
↑Dani, Ahmad Hasan (2001). History of Northern Areas of Pakistan: Upto 2000 A.D. Sang-e-Meel Publications. p.66. ISBN978-969-35-1231-1. Kalasha came from the south, from present day Afghanistan where the Waigal valley is still called Kalashum. It seems that the Kalasha speaking people were expelled from this territory by Nuristani tribes some centuries ago; they left it and pushed up to settle in lower Chitral, which they occupied entirely to be later pushed back in their present location by the Khowar speaking Chitralis or Khos, whose original abode is clearly Northern Chitral.
↑Bashir, Elena; ud-Din, Israr (1996). Proceedings of the Second International Hindukush Cultural Conference. Oxford University Press. p.viii. ISBN978-0-19-577571-6. Before conversion, the Kho people had the same beliefs as the Kalasha have even to this day.
↑Bashir, Elena (1996). Proceedings of the Second International Hindukush Cultural Conference. Oxford University Press. p.140. ISBN978-0-19-577571-6. This was a pre-Islamic custom in Kho society which has continued to exist even after the people converted to Islam in the fourteenth century, even though there is not any room for such beliefs in the religion.
↑Jettmar, Karl; Edelberg, Lennart (1974). Cultures of the Hindukush. F. Steiner Verlag. p.3. ISBN9783515012171. Khowar, in many respects the most archaic of all modern Indian languages, retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form
↑Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2017). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twentieth Edition. Dallas: SIL International.
↑Rensch, Calvin Ross (1992). Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan: Languages of Chitral(PDF). National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. p.21. Munnings (1990:21) observes that people in Chitral seem to have a general dislike for Pashtoons and their language. Some Chitralis reported that they prefer to use Urdu or Khowar with a Pashtoon unless he is monolingual in Pashto.
↑Munnings, David (4 December 1990). "Towards a Sociolinguistic Profile of the Khowar Language". Chitralis, however, seem to have a general dislike for Pathans and their language. Several Chitralis have told us that Pashto sounds like a stone rattling around in a tin can. Perhaps more to the point, they regard Pathans as an uncivilized, uncouth, and violent people (blood-feuding, which is endemic in the Pathan tribal territories, has not been a factor in Chitrali society). This view was once graphically illustrated for us when we were discussing the cover design of a booklet with a Chitrali friend. He suggested that the image of a mosque and an open book be superimposed on an outline map of Chitral--with guns juxtaposed to the right and left (east and west)--symbolic of the fact that Chitral is a land of peace and civility and faith surrounded by barbarians.
12Nizam, Muhammad Huzaifa. "Chitrali Mythology". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
↑Aziz, Shahid; Nawaz, Mehwish; Afridi, Sahib Gul; Khan, Asifullah (1 April 2019). "Genetic structure of Kho population from north-western Pakistan based on mtDNA control region sequences". Genetica. 147 (2): 177–183. doi:10.1007/s10709-019-00060-8. ISSN1573-6857. PMID30887215. S2CID81976969.
Islam (majority Sunnism, followed by Isma'ili Shi'ism)