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XXVI. Some Border Ballads of the North-West Frontier
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
In the first place acknowledgments are due to M. Kuli Khan, lately Naib-Tahsildar at Sarwekai, who at my request took down these songs from the lips of the singers, and gave me an Urdu translation of them, which is in the main distinguished by insight and accuracy, and secondly to Mr. Lorimer's Grammar and Vocabulary of Wazīrī Pashtu (Government Press, Calcutta, 1902), without which I should have been unable to trace many of the words used in these songs.
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page 796 note 1 The notorious mulla Powinda, who is still de facto, if not de jure, head of the Mahsūd nation.
page 796 note 2 Werḳ 
ma ka. M. Kuli Khan translates “Khudāvand usko kharāh ne kare.” ‘Werk’ means literally ‘lost’; ‘werḳ sha’ (= ‘be lost,’ ‘get out,’ ‘go to the devil’) is a common expression. ‘Werḳ ma ka,’ therefore, means ‘do not make him lost,’ ‘do not destroy him.’ 
presumably is another form of 
though I have not been able to find it in the lexicons. However, the word ‘khwaedād’ (‘God granted’), which is familiar, may be sufficient justification for the rendering.
page 796 note 3 Kăpīr, not kāfir, ‘infidel,’ but probably kāfūr, ‘camphor,’ in the sense of a fragrant tree.
page 796 note 4 De Pérangī na. The sense is clear, but why the ‘na,’ the sign of the ablative case, should follow the ‘de,’ the sign of the genitive, when the sense requires the accusative, I have been unable to determine.
page 797 note 5 
literally ‘fat,’ is used in the same sense as in the Biblical “Jeshurun waxed fat.”
page 797 note 6 Duldul, the mule of the prophet Muhammad.
page 797 note 7 Sāhib, i.e. the mulla.
page 797 note 8 Brāga ṭīlai. ‘Brāga’ means ‘speckled,’ or perhaps ‘bright’; ‘ṭīlai’ appears to be a variant of 
which means a bracelet, and may perhaps be used figuratively for a company or band of men. In this case we should render conjecturally, “bright is the company of the martyrs.”
page 798 note 9 Shudar I have been unable to find in the dictionaries. M. Kuli Khan renders by ‘sūār’ (‘pig’). I understand the phrase to mean that in the fury of the attack Gulzam was seen by his companions to leap upon some British officer, and as it were to ride upon his back.
page 798 note 10 Kajal is rendered by Raverty as “collyrium prepared from soot.” Ronj (v. infra) is antimony. It is the custom amongst all Pathans for all young bloods to paint their eyes round with these abominable mixtures to enhance their beauty (see Lorimer’s, “Wazīrī Vocabulary,” p. 211, S.V. 
). I have known a Mahsūd lad under sentence of death for a brutal and unprovoked murder spend his last half-hour before mounting the scaffold thus employed with the aid of a pocket mirror. I was told at the time that he was making his toilet for the houris of paradise.Google Scholar
page 798 note 11 M. Kuli Khan gives the word here as 
which he transliterates as ‘birgit’ and translates ‘picket,’ i.e. picquet. The word also occurs below— II, 5 (2), line 3 (Jon Khon)—where it is given bigat, and translated in the same way. It is possible, considering the spread of English military terms amongst Pathans, that the word intended here is really ‘birget,’ i.e. brigade. In this connection such phrases as ‘pa ḍabal laṛsha’ = ‘go at the double,’ i.e. quickly, ‘pālin sha’ = be ‘fallen in,’ i.e. prepared, which are of common use, may be worthy of mention.
page 799 note 12 Ṭanḍadon. The Yusufzai ‘sanḍagān’ is hard to recognise in this outlandish form, but this must be a variant of it.
page 799 note 13 Pa yawe or. M. Kuli Khan renders “ek dafa ” ‘once’; in that case ‘or’ is a variant of ‘wor,’ meaning time or turn.
page 799 note 14 M. Kuli Khan renders “minadār ki jawanī ustāz ne banāī hai,” and gives a note, “bahut khubsurati se matlab hai”; ‘īstogar’ is therefore to bo understood as a dialectic form of ustāz, ‘a master workman.’
page 799 note 15 The ‘na’ added to this word and to 
at the end of the third line appear to have no meaning and to be purely metri gratia. The same practice appears in, I think, every verse of III, 6. But for that I should be inclined to read here 
which would give the same sense and a better rhyme. In the song as copied for me by M. Kuli Khan, however, there is no trace of this.
page 800 note 1 Lewedalé do. From alwédel or lewédel, ‘to fall,’ of which the causal ‘alwawel’ or ‘lewawel’ appears in the fifth verse. The ambiguity of this expression, “has fallen upon Wana,” is probably intentional.
page 800 note 2 Paujdor = Faujdār.
page 800 note 3 Galeshai, a section of the Shāman Khel branch of the Mahsūds; Mal Khel, a section of the Alizai branch.
page 800 note 4 “Werta, from ‘wertlel’ = ‘to go to him.’
page 800 note 5 The last three lines of this verse are very obscure. M. Kuli Khan thus translates into Urdu—
”Sīmān Malik kā kamar tum se ṭuṭ jāegā.
Jo tum ma'raka nang ke kīyā karte the
Shobi Khelon se khubsurat phul girāyā huā hai.”
may fairly be rendered kamar or loins, but 
is from ‘paredel’, meaning ‘to run,’ unless there is a verb ‘pré-del,’ a sort of neuter to ‘prékarél,’ which means ‘to cut or break.’ If this be so, the line may fairly mean, “In thee,” i.e. by thy death, “the loins of Sīmān Malik are broken,“ that is, I suppose, his line becomes extinct, a rendering which is countenanced by M. Kuli Khan's note: “Mattab yihhai ki afar tum māre gaye, to Malik Sīmān baghair kamar rah jūegā. Beghair kamar ke admi kuch nahīn hota hai.”
The connection and sense of the third line are yet harder to see. ‘Máraka’ is a word in common use in Wazīristān for a council, or deliberation, or palaver. ‘Wai’ is the irregular but invariable form of the auxiliary for the protasis of a past conditional sentence. ‘De kawale’ means literally ‘of doing,’ wa, ‘and,’ de nang, ‘of help.’ So the whole seems to mean, “whenever there was a discussion of making [an attack] or [of giving] help”—a protasis to which no apodosis is present. Such discussions are, of course, common occurrences in Wazīrī life, where temporary alliances of former enemies for a common purpose are frequently made.
The Shobī Khel are a section of the Alizai branch of the Mahsūds.
page 801 note 6 Shāhidī = ‘martyrdom.’ Vide Lorimer, “Wazīrī Vocabulary,” p. 190,Google Scholar s.v. Shāhid.
page 802 note 1 Kasar. M. Kuli Khan states the name of this poem to be Kasar. It is very confused and difficult, and has, I suspect, not been very carefully written down.
page 802 note 2 
M. Kuli Khan has written 
Mosīd,’ and translated ‘báz Mahsūd’ = ‘some Mahsūds,’ but the reading given seems preferable.
page 802 note 3 Josīs is, of course, “Wazīrī Pashtu for the Persian ‘jāasūs’ = ‘a spy.’ The underlings of the political agent's intelligence department, some of whom, in the time of the blockade, were no doubt used as guides, are all callẹd by this name, and the office is already almost hereditary in some families.
page 803 note 7 
, a cairn of stones, heaped over the place where a man has been killed or is buried. Such cairns are, as may be imagined, neither few nor far between; but, as the “whole country is a mass of stones, they are not conspicuous.
page 803 note 4 M. Kuli Khan translates “Mahsūd usko nahin choṛte,” but what exactly the Pashtu means is not clear.
page 803 note 5 Kotké refers to Kot Shingi. Kot is a fortified homestead. Kotké, a diminutive in form, has much the same meaning. The Shingis are an important section of the Bahlolzai branch of the Mahsūds. The words ‘kotké sam shaṇ, ranḍ shaṇ,’ mean literally ‘kotké became flat, became ranḍ,’ which I have not been able to find. It may be a mistake for ‘rang,’ which occurs in verse 3 below, meaning ‘destroyed, razed.’ In this case the expression refers to the destruction of Kot Shingi, which was the occasion of the battle.
page 803 note 6 The word ‘babrai’ means luxuriant growth, whether of hair or plants.
page 804 note 7 There is a play on the words ‘nīm’ (‘half’) and ‘tol’ =(1) ‘whole,’ (2) ‘weight,’ which is beyond my powers of translation; ‘é’ would seem to mean ‘he,’ but may be ‘they,’ the English.
page 804 note 8 Dīrāné. This is interesting as showing a claim to descent from a distinguished race, with which the Mahsūds in general have no known connection.
page 804 note 1 Guri Khel, a section of the Alizai branch of the Mahsūds.
page 804 note 2 
means ‘unruly,’ ‘rebellious,’ primarily, and secondarily is applied to those tribes which live beyond the administrative border, whose country is known as 
It is thus rather difficult to translate; ‘asserts himself,’ ‘raises his head,’ ‘is out,’ all convey something of the meaning, but are all equally unsatisfactory.
page 805 note 9 The line is difficult. ‘Bīté’ means ‘a plant,’ ‘saṇṛe’ apparently means ‘hemp,’ and the rest of the line means ‘a yellow neck like a parrot.’ It is just possible that ‘bīté ’ means hair, and ‘saṇṛe’ refers to its colour or the appearance of the ringlets.
page 805 note 10 Barobar = equal, sc. to any fate that might befall him.
page 806 note 3 Wa dé uṛi = ‘let him carry away.’ It is not clear whether the subject is Asal Khon or the current. Anyhow the sense is clear, though the metaphor is a strange one for a Mahsüd in whose country there are no navigable rivers.
page 806 note 4 Che pa tamom, lit. ‘that in it all,’ i.e. either ‘in which [were] all’ or ‘in which [were] finished,’ the commoner meaning of ‘tamom.’
page 806 note 5 Asat Khon. Whether the change of name be due to error or not I cannot say, but probably it is not.
page 806 note 6 Tér de pa 
bondi. M. Kuli Khan translates ‘gardan se guzarā thā,’ lit. ‘had passed from his neck,’ i.e., I suppose, ‘cared no more for his life,’ as we say ‘neck or nothing.’
page 806 note 7 There seems to be a line missing here.
page 806 note 8 M. Kuli Khan gives the word as ‘zanjīrī,’ which makes no sense except that of a ‘chain-sword,’ which is not very intelligible. I think what is meant is perhaps 
means a two-edged dagger, with a cross-guard above the hilt, and so 
would be a two-edged sword for cutting and thrusting.
page 807 note 9 Sterge na ko = ‘he makes no eyes [at],’ i.e. is not afraid of.
page 807 note 10 Meṛgine. This word, like ‘janatine’ in the chorus, seems to be in the plural solely metri gratia.
page 807 note 11 Wukaṛala 
M. Kuli Khan translates ‘bahut koshish kī,’ ‘made a great effort.’ But though ‘khauré’ is a masc. noun of the declension numbered by Raverty as the first, and the construction and rhyme alike require a feminine noun of Raverty's sixth declension, I have ventured on the above rendering because the next line, which mentions the kinsman of Asal Khon who will take up the feud for his killing, makes some account of his death in this line essential.
page 807 note 12 Shabōsh dé pā dā wï, lit. ‘let it be bravo! for this [that].’ The whole verse is rather obscure.
page 808 note 1 Jon Khon was the son of a very well-known Mahsūd named Badshah Khon, who is still alive. Jon Khon, if all the tales told of him be true, really deserved some of the epithets showered upon him in this song, which is, I think, decidedly the best of the songs of war.
page 808 note 2 A line seems to be missing.
page 808 note 3 Metre, sense, and the example of I, 1 (9), line 3, alike require the insertion of the verb (waṇ = ‘was’).
page 808 note 4 Cf. I, 1 “(6), 1. 2, and II, 4 (3), 1. 2.
page 808 note 5 “Wa ta pa wor waṇ, or perhaps it should be ‘werta pa wör waṇ,’ with the same meaning, ‘was in his turn,’ i.e. was about to he cut down by him in turn. A trace of the old feeling against “villanous saltpetre” reveals itself here.
page 809 note 6 The phrase implies not only that he slew Englishmen but that by so doing he earned the title of martyr.
page 809 note 7 Kashīda, lit. ‘embroidered.’
page 809 note 8 Cf. I, 1 (1), 1. 2.
page 809 note 9 I.e. burnt his body, thereby depriving him of paradise. I do not know if the allegation is true.
page 809 note 10 But for the metre this verse would appear to belong properly to II, 4, and the fourth verse of that song here in its stead.
page 809 note 11 Pa awal wör, ‘at the first turn,’ must be contrasted with 
(namāz-i-khuftan) in the next line, in which case the meaning would be as given.
page 810 note 1 I have heard this song sung myself; and at any rate, on the principle laid down in the song called Alkalá,
“So long as the tune has a right good swing
It does not much matter what words you sing,”
it deserves to be classed as a good song, though very difficult to follow. I regret my inability to reproduce the air.
The song is obviously a duet, in which the first and third verses are sung by the woman, the second and fourth by the man. After that confusion follows, as the fifth verse, which may reasonably be suspected of some coarseness of idea, would seem to fall to the man's part. Verses 6, 7, 8 are pretty enough in their way, but there is nothing to show whether they belong to man or woman, and their sense is not very clear. Verse No. 9 is certainly in the mouth of the man, and the tenth is unintelligible.
These songs are, I believe, though largely put in the mouth of the woman, always sung by men.
page 811 note 2 Meaning presumably, ‘I will not let thee go.’
page 811 note 3 A very curious verse, which sounds rather ridiculous translated.
page 811 note 4 Kalkundi. I have been unable to find. M. Kuli Khan's Urdu rendering gives 
which has been crossed out and replaced by ‘bilkul gol.’ If 
be right, the word should be ‘klakawandī.’
page 811 note 5 M. Kuli Khan renders ‘uske sar dikte hain,’ but ‘sarpashti’ ought probably to be written 
meaning ‘rough play, violence.’ The ‘-na’ tacked on to the verb in this and other verses has no meaning, and is inserted solely for the rhyme.
page 811 note 6 Woshe. Wosh is either the thong of a sandal (vide Lorimer, , p. 226Google Scholar s.v.) or a silver anklet worn by the women, as explained by M. Kuli Khan.
page 812 note 7 Lyā means ‘yet, still,’ but when duplicated ‘either—or,’ vide Lorimer, , p. 148, S.V momla, example (2).Google Scholar
page 813 note 8 A difficult verse. 
means ‘a ditch,’ though rendered by M. Kuli Khan ‘diwār.’ In either case the meaning is beyond my conjecture.