The Swati

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This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on The Races, Castes and Tribes of the People in the Report on the Census of the Panjab published in 1883 by the late Sir Denzil Ibbetson, KCSI Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees with the contents of this article.

The Swati

The Swatis have without exception returned them selves as Pathans. They number 28,906 soids, of whom 28,429 are in Hazara and 392 in Rawalpindi. The original Swatis were a race of Hindu origin who once ruled the whole country from the Jahlam to Jalalabad. But as has already been recorded in sections 408-9, the Dilazak first drove them out of the plain country into the northern hills of Swat and Buner, and later on the Yusufzai expelled them from those fastnesses and drove them east and west into Hazara and Kafu-istan. As now existing they are probably a very mixed people, as the name is commonly apphed to all descendants of the miscellaneous

Trans- Indus they are always known as Gadun; Cis-Indus, as either Gadun or Jadun. following of Saiyad Jalial mentioned in section 412.^ They occupy the whole of the Mansalna tahsil of the Hazara district excepting the south-western corner which forms part of Tanawal, and extend into the hills beyond its western border. The Pakhli tract is their chief seat. But the population of his tract is very mixed Gujars forming by far the largest element, while Awans and Saiyads are numerous. The Gujars are chiefly graziers in the frontier glens of the northern mountains; the Awuns he chiefly to the south, while the Saiyads of Kagan are well known to fame. The Swatis are coward ly, deceptive, cruel, grasping, and lazy and of miserable physique.

Their bad faith is a proverb in the country ; and they are credited with even attempt ino- to cheat the devil by the old device, famous in European folklore, of dividing the crop above and below ground. They are all Musalmuns of the Sunni sect. They are divided into three great clans, Gheliari, Mamiali, and Mitrawi, of which the first claims Tajik, the Mamiali Yusufzai, and the Mitrawi Durrani origin ; but all three claims are almost certainly unfounded. At present the Mamiali and Mitrawi, known as the sections of the Tarli or lower Pakhli, hold the southern and south-western portions of their tract, while the Ghebari, a section cf the Uth or upper Pakhli, occupy Kagan and the north-eastern portion. The Swati are often wrongly confused with the Degan, another branch of the original Hindu inhabitants of north-eastern Afghanistan, now only found in Kunar, Bajaur, Lughman, and Ningrahar.