When you're the last surviving pagans of the Hindu Kush, I suppose you get used to the fact that every now and then you're going to be up to your ears in anthropologists.
And sometimes that's a good thing.
Wynne Maggi had come to the three remote valleys in Northwestern Pakistan where the Kalasha, a people some 4000-strong, continue to practice their ancestral religion, in order to study the women of the culture and, in particular, the role of the basháli, the moon-house, in their lives. Generally, when the missionaries come, the moon-house is one of the first institutions to go, and surprisingly little anthropological study has actually been done on the subject as a living concern.
One morning, while she was drinking tea with her hostess Wasiara Aya, two of Wasiara Aya's relatives, both converts to Islam, came to visit.
After some general conversation, one of them asked Wasiara Aya point blank: "Why don't you convert to Islam so you can go to Heaven, and not burn in Hell forever?"
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I would like a middle position. I think that steve is right that we can never assume that we are individually morally superior. -
I honor your many years of experience, Elle; as a community, we are fortunate in our elders. Who is a pagan? In the absence of an -
My understanding is that the gunman is also heathen (or, at least, claims to be heathen), although the article that you reference
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I think, until you can provide some proof that the gunman was "pagan, or a heathen", I will err on the side of the present facts.
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On April 13, 2014, a pagan guy gunned down three people on the (mistaken) belief that they were Jewish. Does that (despicable) act
