6541671 History and the Heroic Pakhtun

7/28/2019 6541671 History and the Heroic Pakhtun

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/6541671-history-and-the-heroic-pakhtun 1/7

History and the Heroic Pakhtun

Charles Lindholm; Michael E. Meeker

Man, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 3. (Sep., 1981), pp. 463-468.

Stable URL:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-1496%28198109%292%3A16%3A3%3C463%3AHATHP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

Man is currently published by Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/rai.html.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.orgSun Feb 10 10:02:54 2008


http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html

http://www.jstor.org/journals/rai.html

http://www.jstor.org/journals/rai.html

http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html




CORRESPONDENCE

History and the heroic Pakhtun

I f a continued ability to stir controversy 1s themark o f classic, then Fredrik Barth's work onSwat (19590) s assured a place in anthropologybeside that o f Evans-Pritchard on the Nuer andMalinowski on the Trobriands. Micha51Meeker (1980) has joined the ranks o f com-

mentators who have alternately extended, a p -plauded or disputed Barth's original analysis.For a time, the pendulum ofcriticism seemed tohave swung against Barth. Asad (1972)casti-gated him for ignoring class differences inportraying the Swatis as free lndivlduals en-gaged in dyadic contracts. Ahmed (1976)wrotean extended rebuttal o fBarth's views on the roleo f he Salnt in Swat, as offering too much o fanelitist viewpoint and over-emphasising the roleo fviolence.

Meeker's article presents another perspective,

redeeming Barth from many o f those crltlqueswhich had been most accepted, while simul-taneously attacking him from a new direction.

As one who has done extensive fieldwork inSwat, I found much o f Meeker's work a

welcome corrective, but also found some o f ~tquestionable. I would like to set right some o fhis factual errors and to discuss a much deeperproblem: h ~ sonjectural approach to hlstory.

The major value o f Meeker's article i s to re-assert the Swat Pakhtun as pre-eminently a

political man, a man for whom land i s more o fa

political tool than a source ofl~vel~hood.olit~csand political manipulation are at the core o fPakhtun social life In Swat, a picture upheld inAhmed's recent (1980)study o f a related peopleand in my own work Lindholm (1977;1979).Therefore, Meeker says, Barth was correct infocuslng on political leadership and strategy.Barth's plcture o f factlons cutting across thecommunity and forming two grand blocs is alsoapproved by Meeker and validated in m y ownresearch.

But Meeker's rebukes to Barth are moreproblematic. He says that Saints are notmediators but rather figures ofsolace in a land o fsenseless violence. They embody moralitywhich 'could be conceived In Swat only in a

realm apart from political life' (Meeker 1980:697-8). Thls is in line with Meeker's consistentdepiction o f Swat as a society torn by irresolv-able contradictions and historical tragedy. In

fact, Meeker's major criticism is that Barth hasmystified an image o f order In a society pulled

asunder by disorder. Thus the men's house,seen by Barth a s a centre o f Swati social life, isviewed b y Meeker a s socially marginal; a placefrom which armed brigands voyage forth in'heroic' ventures o f violence and pillage whichrend the natural community o f he village.

In Meeker's view the polity (or non-polity) o f

Swat i s a consequence o f conquest by theYusufzai Pakhtun o f he indigenous local farm-ing community four hundred years ago. This'disaster' led to the Imposition o f mobile'heroes', governed by codes o f honour andvalour, upon a pre-exlstent 'territorial com-munity o f agr~cultural production' (Meeker1980: 692) . The result was four centuries o fterror and v~olence . wat's anarchic society, inMeeker's analysis, rests upon a fundamental op-position between the 'heroic' life o fviolence andwar and the peaceful co-operation necessary for

intensive agriculture. Hierarchies are preventedfrom arising because o f the 'heroic' self-imageo f the Pakhtun elite, who refuse to co-operatewi th one another, and because o f ~ve s h ,an In-stitutionalised redistribution o f lands andvillages whlch prevented the elite from formingclose ties with their tenants. But the contradic-tions o f Swat are too great to be malntalned,Meeker cl am s, and he points to the breakdowno f he wesh, the rise of feudal' andlords, and theemergence o f King in Swat a s proofs ofmove-ment toward centralisation: 'constant thrusts

towards the formation o f a wider-based religi-ous or political authority were specificallydriven by a revulsion against agrarian land-owners wlth heroic identltles' (Meeker 1980:694). Barth's fault is thus in seeing Swat as a

system, whereas it is really an antl-system, outo f balance and chaotlc, maintained only byviolence and social disintegration. ' I f ts tribalanarchy were so adaptive, ~ t solitical aestheticsso satisfying, ~ t solitical structure so balanced,society in Swat should have been free ofstralns,and therefore free o f change and dissent'

(Meeker 1980: 99).All thls is very much in line with the recentand valuable revisionist trend in anthropologytowards a focus on conflict rather than con-sensus In social organisation. But is it accurate?Let me begin with a look at Swati social struc-ture, a subject notably ignored by Meeker, whospeaks o f anarchy but not o f order. Violence inSwat i s not unstructured, as Barth has beencareful to point ou t, and as Ahmed (1980) nd I



464 CORRESPONDENCE

(1981) ave discussed at length from slightlydifferent perspectives. The structure in question

is, o f course, the much maligned but nonethe-

less quite real segmentary lineage organisation,

which operates in Swat under the considerable

constraints o f a dense population and an agri-

cultural economy (for another example, see

Salim 1962).

The oppositions between near neighbours

leading to the formation o f cross-cutting blocs

do not arise simply because o f the 'Pakhtun

notion o f honour and valour' as Meeker sug-

gests (1980:690). Rather, close neighbours are

patrilateral parallel cousins who are rivals for the

property o f heir common ancestor. Tarbuu~uali,

~nstitutionalised opposition between paternal

cousins. is a consequenceoEa land tenure system

structured genealogically. As a result, proxim-

ity in space is ~somorphicwith genealogical

proximity in the patriline. Genealogical struc-

turing and opposition holds throughout the

Valley, so that individuals stand opposed to

nelghbours wlthin a ward, wards opposed to

other wards within a vlllage, and villages op-

posed to neighbouring villages according to

genealogical distance within a district. Finally,

the whole valley stands united agalnst external

opponents.

This seems clear. The compl~cationwhich

makes the system appear chaotic is the bloc

oppositions which divide lineages. Villages are

genealogical units against other villages, but

they are also internally dlvided In two, with

each division havlng party allies In other vil-

lages. This conflict can be reconciled by looking

closely at tarbur~vali nd the rules which govern

men's loyalties.

Tarburwali is the nexus o f he bloc system. In

ordinary life, a man's daily opponent 1s his most

powerful cousln, and he allies with others

against him on the ancient political principle

that 'the enemy o f m y enemy is my friend'.

Three elen~entsare really ~nvolvedhere: the

manipulating political Individual, his tempor-

ary allies, and his temporary opponents. Obvi-

ously membership in a bloc 1s hardly fixed, and

individuals can and do switch sides with alacrity

whenever advantage is perceived. For instance,

i f one cousin is very successful in his political

manoeuvrings, he will quite likely find his allied

cousins joining his enemies to level him. The

constant fluidity o f party loyalt~esends In a

long-term balance ofoppositions (Barth 19596).

Manipulation withln the context o f arbur~vali

and the subsequent ramifying o f loose, indi-

vidual centred party blocs is an important part

o f Swati life but not the whole. By focusing

only on the personal aspect o f Swat1 politics,

Meeker places the Pakhtun within a true war o f

each against all, sustained only by the rarifiedai r

o f 'heroic' history. But the party system i s a

secondary phenomenon, born o f a land-based

economy which obliged near relatives to remain

spatially close and to battle over a fixed sum o f

land constantly fragmented by partible inheri-

tance. Surrounded by his patrilineal rivals, the

Pakhtun can survive only through continual

struggle. Where nomad oppositions are gener-

ally between large groups fighting over grazing

land or raiding one another for the mobile booty

o f can~els r sheep, the Pakhtun faces his own

cousins in eternal competition over a mutual

patrimony in land. Individual alliances are

therefore made and broken with more distantly

related men who themselves are involved in the

same personal and localised antagonisms,

thereby creatlng the fluld party blocs. It is essen-

tial, however, to note that genealogical con-

nexlon takes precedence over party in cases o f

vengeance. Wh en a man is killed, his party allies

do not avenge him; that duty falls upon near

relatives, Including those who have been his

daily opponents. Furthermore, should a man be

killed, his opposing cousins will not protect his

killer, even i f he is a party ally. (See Salzman

1978a, 19786 contra Peters 1967 on this polnt.)

Indeed, a l l violence in Swat is highly structured

on the two principles o fgenealogical segmenta-

tion and tarl~urwali, ith the former taking pre-

cedence (Lindholm 1981). y ignoring the or-

dering function o f kinshlp, Meeker has falsified

the real experience o f Swat Pakhtuns, present-

ing a portrait o f chaos instead. Violence, in fact,

is generally a highly restricted affair between

cousins and there is no evidence that internal

violence in the past was ever particularly viru-

lent. Historically, the most terrlble violence in

Swat has always been a result o f external intru-

sion, another factor disregarded in Meeker's

discussion.

This brlngs me to Meeker's account of the

Swati state arising from popular revulsion

against 'heroic' landlords. This is simply not

true. The state o fSwat arose through confronta-

tion with a powerful colonial force bent on

subduing the unruly Pakhtun. To understand

the mechanics o f state evolution in Swat, we

must look again at structure, particularly in re-

gard to the function o f he Saintly class.

For Meeker, the cult o f Saints in Swat 1s

primarily a solace to ordinary men alienated by

the vlolence and coercion o f daily life. He does

not assign them any political role per se , and

notes qulte correctly that Saints who do dabble

in politics are oft en indistinguishable from the

Pakhtun. But Barth argues that Saints were also

used a s mediators In disputes (and my data cor-

roborate Barth's view) particularly between vil-

lages. Saints are useful a s mediators because o f

the inability o fdisputants to back offbecauseo f

their rootedness in land, the genealog~cally al-

idated equality o f l l opponents, and the interest

that a l l other Pakhtun have in prolonging a dis-

pute which does not directly involve them In





466 CORRESPONDENCE

ity life. The men's house is not only the place for

planning battle, but also where the irga o f ocal

elders meets to decide cases and where the ward

community gathers to denlonstrate their own

unity o f commensal meals and the donat~on f

lavish hospitality.

From this, let me turn to Meeker's puzzle-

ment over the Pakhtun landlords 'counter-

intuitive' failure to reunite against their al-

legedly resentful tenants. This pattern is only

counter-intuitive when the system i s seen a s

hopelessly violent and unrewarding. It is a fact

that landlords'did take a good percentage o f

their tenant's produce, but at the same time they

filled the traditional roles o fpatron, judging the

tenant's cases, assuring him o f ood in times of

famine, even making sure he found a w ~ f e . h e

system was also loose enough to allow for up-ward mobili ty, and land-grants were awarded

by landlords to some favoured tenants, who

thereby 'became Pakhtun'. Finally, the hie-style

o f he landlord elite, revolving around bravery,

honourable action, and generosity, is one which

tenants themselves admire and wish to emulate.

Meeker claims the recyling o f luesh prohibited

close ties from forming, but it seems that most

tenants moved with their patrons, leaving only

the Saintly lineages and a few other people per-

manently in the villages.

The luesh itself is seen by Meeker as terr~bly

unfair, an attempt to legitimate and to enshrine

violent expropriation o f agrarian resources'

(Meeker 1980:688). But could the wesh not be

seen as similar to land redistribution among

other closed corporate communities, such as the

Russian mir, but on a larger scale? There is no

need to legitimate conquest; victory itself had

done that. The e ffort instead was to assure the

cont~nuedequality o f all parties by red~stribu-

tlon. There is no question that the system was

too unwieldy to persist on a wide scale for long,

but it did function at the D~strict evel unt ~l

halted by the Wal i. In many villages redistribu-

tion continues, and the people themselves call

this ~ u e s h . It i s true that some are landless

(though not so many as Meeker intimates), and

that domination and exploitation enter in, but

so does a sense o f airness and equity.

Throughout h ~ srticle Meeker has portrayed

classical segmentary systems as 'degenerate',

while more centralised organisations are

idealised a s more efficient, better defined, more

co-operative and less fearful (cf.Meeker 1979).

Th e image o f Pakhtun-type societies a s de-

generate and chaot~c oincides w ~ t h unilineal

view o f evolution and romanticism o f he agra-

rian community: Given he character ofanagra-

rian society [the luesll] system was essentially

unjust and for this reason basically "imperma-

nent"' (Meeker 1980: 688) . T o categorise a

cultural trait, and, indeed, a whole culture, an

unjust and thereby condemned to imperma-

nence is a mystification of history far more

hazardous than Barth's supposed moral

humanism.

I have hesitated to write such a harsh critique

o f Meeker's w ork, especially since much o f t is

theoretically brilliant, and since his concern

wi th tragedy and contradiction in social life is a

concern I share. But he has been too quick to

make judgements, too reliant upon a pre-

conceived concept o f history and too free with

moralising.

In conclusion, we might ask why the Swati

political system has survived for so long and

shown such resilience i f t is so imbalanced and

unsat isfying, and why the Pakhtun and their

clients have defended their 'anarchy' with such

undying strength? Finally, we might ask what it

is that makes a social order valid and worth

preserving? Sir Evelyn Howell, who worked

with the Pakhtun for many years, gave a Pakh-

tun's answer to this question: ' Acivilization has

no other end than to produce a fine type ofman .

Judged by this standard the social system in

which the (Pakhtun)has been evolved must be

allowed immeasurably to surpass all others.

Therefore, let us keep our independence and

have none o f your qanun (law) and your other

institutions . . . but stick to our own rewaj

(custom) and be men like our fathers before us'

(Howell, 1931: ii).Charles Lindholm

Barnard College, N e ~ u ork

Ahmed, Akbar 1976. millennium and cllnrisma

Atnorry Pathans. London: Routledge & Ke-

gan Paul.

1980. Pukhtun ecorrotny and society.

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Asad, Tala1 1972. Market model, class structure

and consent: a reconsideration o f Swat

political organisation. M an (N.S.). 7,

7 5 9 4 .Barth, Fredrik 1959~.olitical leadenhip among

Swat Pathans. London: Athlone.

19596. Segmentary opposition and the

theory o f games: a study o f Pathan organi-

sation. J . R. antllrop. Irrst. 89, 5-21,

Howell, Evelyn 1 9 31 M i z h : a rnonogrilpll orr

Governmerrt's relations with the Mahsud tribe.

Simla. Government o f ndia Press.

Lindholm, Charles 1977. The segmentary

lineage system: its applicability to

Pak~stan'spolitical structure. In Pakistarr's

luesterrr borderlarrds (ed) Ainslie Embree.

Durham: Carolina Univ. Press.

1979. Contenlporary politics in a. tribal

society: Swat District, NWFP, Pakistan.

Asiarr Survey 19,485-505.

1981. Th e structure o f violence among

the Swat Pukhtun. Ethrrology 20, no . 2 .

Meeker, Michael 1979.Literature and violence in

North Arabia. Cambridge. Uni v. Press.

1980. The twilight o f a south Asian



heroic age: a rereading o f Barth's Study o fSwat. Marl (N .S .) I S ,682-701

Peters, E.L. 1967. Some structural aspects of thefeud anlong the camel-herding Bedouin o f

Cyrenaica. AJrica37, 261-82.Salim, S. M . 1962.Marsh d~vellen j-theEuphratesdelta. London. Athlone.

Salzman, Philip 1978a. Does complementaryopposition exist? Atn. Anthrop. 80, 53-70,

1978b. Idealogy and change in MiddleEastern tribal societies. Man (N.S)13, 618-

37.Wa dud, Abdul 1962. The story of Swat.

Peshawar. Ferozsons.

AsI

have noted, m y article touches upona

sensitive idealogical issue: the relationship o fanthropology to a certain vision o f man. DrLindholm's reply illustrates my point. He doesnot understand that I am discussing a dimensiono f political history in Swat. He believes in anauthentic and tinleless Pakhtunness, which heconceives as mirrored by a set ofintegrated andadaptive institutions. A discussion o f how a re-sort to force played a part in the origins o f a

political tradition is therefore for him an asser-tion that the Pakhtun are savage and violent.

Reacting to what he believes to be an insult toa

people whom he knows and respects, he wildlyattributes to me a variety o f conceptions andattitudes (not to mention 'moralisms' and'judgements ') that I do not hold and have neverexpressed. In m y response, shall restrict myselfto those which misrepresent the central thrust o fm y article.

Nowhere have I written that Swat is or everwas 'a land o f senseless violence,' nor have I

used terms and phrases such a s 'unstructured,''degenerate,' 'anti-system,' 'war o feach against

all,' 'four centuries o f terror and violence'.Preoccupied with converting my argument intoa straw man, Lindholm has con~pletely osttrack o f what I have written. Take for examplehis statements that '[Meeker] ays that Saints arenot mediators. . . ' and 'he does not assign[Saints] any political role per se. . . .' On

pp. 6 9 6 1 7 , describe the Saints a s nlediatorsand peace-makers in at least six different places.O r consider his free play with metaphors. Inorder to suggest that the traditional politicalsituation in Swat was never wholly at rest and

never in compl?te equilibrium,I

have used thephrases 'off-balance' and 'out-of-kilter.' Lind-holm loses sight o f m y point when he claimsthat I have described political experience in Swata s 'out o f balance and chaotic.' Finally his out-rage leads him to overlook the dialecticalcharacter o f m y arguments. Because agrarianpeoples have a stake in peace and security, theproliferation o f a resort to force in an agrariansociety fosters a preoccupation with personal

integrity and conlmunal harmony. This kind o fproposal is read by Lindholm as a claim thatagrarian peoples are non-violent.

Lindholm does not recognise that I have ac-

cepted the criticisms o f Asad and Ahmed whoargue that Barth has over-emphasised the de-gree o fconflict in contemporary Swat. Even m ytitle, which employs the term 'twilight', em-phasises that we are dealing with a problem o flong-term political history rather than an attemptto write an ethnography o f political experiencein Swat at any given nlonlent. I quote fromp. 684: 'I n [his book] Barth analyses processesthat lef t in their wake peculiar cultural invest-ments and social arrangements.' I have tried toexanline problems that shaped rather than de-

stroyed traditions and institutions in Swat.Something must also be said about my'factual errors' and 'co~~jecturalpproach tohistory.' Lindholm has revised and bluntedBarth's study in his reply, substituting anumbero f a d hot observations in the place o f a book-length argument that is well developed andhighly consistent. But i f he does not acceptBarth, I shall cite Ahmed (1976)where we findan emphasis on the historicity o f political ex-perience in Swat. ( I do not mean to implicateAhmed in m y theses, but only to suggest thatLindholm has freely adjusted what we know o fSwat for the purpose o frefuting m y analysis.)

Let us begin with Lindholm's attack on m yview o f he Pakhtun intrusion into Swat and itsclose association with the formulation o f thewesh system. Ahmed writes:

. . . that in the absence o f ine evidence to thecontrary, 'wesh' is to be viewed more a s a

mechanism to preserve the mythology o fterritorial rights based on tribal conqueststhat underlines Yusufzai brotherhood andequality than a recent and recorded land

tenure system. It is the conceptualization o fpastoral-nomadic egalitarian social philos-ophy which asserts the rights o f everymember o f the tribe to equal shares in thejoint possessions by defining positions withinhomologous segmentary groups. In Swat,however, it served t o create both economicand ethnic divisiveness (1976: 8 ) .

The wesh system in Swat was most certainlyideologically associated with tribal conquest.Likewise, the wesh system perpetuated the

legacy o f conquest, that is to say, 'economicandethnic divisiveness'. Th e discussion o f his issuedoes not entail a condemnation o f Pakhtunculture.

From here let us move on to Lindholm'sargument that m y notion o f political evolutionin Swat is pure conjecture. Ahmed writes:

As a result [ o f he end o f 'wesh' in parts o f19th century Swat] shifting and ephemeral



468 CORRESPONDENCE

land ownership became permanent and a

feudal, hierarchical stratification began to

emerge, symbolized by the presence of the

Khan's 'hujra' (men's house) and its socio-

political functions. This is a crucial de-

velopment in understanding the growth ofpowerful feudal warlords surrounded by

hierarchically ranked and supporting oc-

cupational groups and vassals, theoretically

equal in the ideological bellefin an egalitarian

religious system but exhibiting many caste-

like qualities of social hierarchy (1976:39).

There is no doubt that the wesh system was

impermanent. Ahmed (1976: 38) designates the

early nineteenth century as the end of universal

wesh, thereby demolishing Barth's view of luesh

as a decisive feature of contemporary Swat.When Lindholm notes that ~uesh-likepractices

persist in Swat today, he invites us to ignore the

difference between eighteenth-century 'tribal-

ism' and nineteenth-century 'feudalism' as well

as more fundamental contrasts between the

latter two periods and contemporary Swat.

I af i also surprised that Lindholm raises the

issue of agnatic rivalry. (This issue was treated

in the original version of my article, but had to

be eliminated for lack of space in the Journal.)

He seems to think landowners in stateless

societies are everywhere in conflict with theirneighbours. On the contrary, the historical

combination of heroic identity, tribal oc-

cupation and land-owning is, I contend, what

leads to agnatic rivalry and specifically to the

equation of the term for 'cousin' with the term

for 'enemy'. Interestingly, agnatic rivalry con-

tradicts vengeance obligations; however, the

two institutions are closely linked in the political

history of Swat. While vengeance obligations

reveal the close association of personal identity

and a resort to force, agnatic rivalry indicates

how this feature of personal identity was em-

bedded in the circun~stances f land tenure. We

are dealing with a configuration of institutions

which reflects an epoch cf. Ahmed (1976:

43-45). Like wesh, this configuration is not to be

found just anywhere, certainly not in Russia and

not in Mesopotamia, nor is it fully explained as a

logical response to present conditions.

Lindholm also feels that I have distorted the

role of the men's house (hujra). Ahmed dis-

tinguishes between the hujva as a political and a

cultural association (1976: 39, 65, 72). Unlike

Ahmed, I would argue that the cultural

dimension is historically connected with the

political dimension. Honour through hospi-

tality and generosity, the ideals and values

celebrated in the contemporary men's houses,

are the latter-day reflection of past political

involvements. Ahmed also describes how the

cultural dimension has been growing in impor-

tance since the last century and even in recent

decades, at the expense of the political (1976: 65;

cf.p.132). This reflects what I have called the

'twilight' of a heroic identity, a form of civility

(whose future is uncertain) as the heritage of a

more turbulent period in the distant past.

In closing, I would comment on Lindholm'simage of a political system in Swat ('individuals

stand opposed to neighbours', 'wards opposed

to other wards' , 'villages opposed to neighbour-

ing villages', and so on). This image is meant to

illustrate his point that violence is structured in

Swat, a matter that I would never question.

Rather I would ask him to consider why it is that

institutions are oriented around the problenl of

political conflict and violence to the degree that

they are. What is the historical background of

Swat that led to a situation which does not

characterise all stateless societies? But then ofcourse I do not accept Lindholm's neat scheme

of political segmentation. First, there is the Issue

of whether this 'structure' is an idelogical resi-

due of political history rather than a feature of

the present. Second, there are concepts of com-

munal solidarity in Swat that can be conceived

as a reaction to the past fact and present fiction

of political contestation. Lindholm's ultra-

segmentarism would be a kind of war against

all, if it really represented the essential frame-

work of relationships in Swat, but it does not.

As Ahmed tells us, there are Mullahs who rep-resent the sacred Law of Islam and Sufis who

have a more mystical perception of the unity of

men and the unity of man and God. Historically,

this religiosity did not 'complenlent' Pakhtun

political involvement; it was to an important

degree in opposition to it.

Furthermore, Lindholm is quite wrong-no

matter how much time he may have spent in

Swat-when he suggests that the true Pakhtun

recognises 'custom,' but rejects 'legality.'

Despite the charm of Howell's 193 quote, one

need not read very far in the writings ofBarth orAhmed to realise that the oppositions between

tribal custom and Islanlic law, and therefore

between factionalism and community, go back

several centuries in Swat. Failing to come to

grips with this complexity, Lindholnl reverts to

a garbled notion of political segmentation,

which he sees as the basis of a tribal regime in

Swat. In doing so, he sets back the ethnography

of Swat several decades. Fresh from the field,

Lindholm's impressions are interesting, but

seriously confused by a failure to keep in m~ n d

the difference between past and present.

Michael E. Meeker

University of'calijbrnia,

San Diego

On sharecropping

Experience derived from fieldwork conducted

in the last ten years in Chiapas (Mexico) and

Documents

6541671 History and the Heroic Pakhtun