Chamois celebrated for two weeks at the winter solstice (Dec. 7-22), at the beginning of the month chamois struck in two weeks. Chamois is celebrated without musical instruments in the Rumbur and Bumborate villages but with instruments in Birir village. Chamois comes after the Kalash finish their fieldwork and store their cheese, fruit, vegetables, and grains for the year. Rituals of Chawmos The first week of Chawmos (7 to 14 Dec) is for the Kalash people only. The Kalash girls select their bridegroom after some rituals. The entire population remains indoors. It is celebrated by feasting until the elders, who sit on a hilltop,
watching the sun reaching the orbit, declare the advent of the New Year. Children go up to the mountain, where they divide into boys and girls, and respectively make a big bonfire. In the second week of Chawmos (15 to 22 Dec), the people thank their God by dance and music.
This part of the festival is public. It involves much music, dancing, and the sacrifice of many goats. It is dedicated to the god Balmain who is believed to visit from the mythical homeland of the Kalash, Tsyam (Tsiyam, tsíam), for the duration of the feast. kalash winter festival.
Food sacrifices are offered at the clans' Jeshtak shrines, dedicated to the ancestors. At Chawmos, impure and uninitiated persons are not admitted; they must be purified by waving a firebrand over women and children and by a special fire ritual for men, involving a shaman waving juniper brands over the men.
The 'old rules' of the gods (Devalog, dewalōk) are no longer in force, as is typical for year-end and carnival-like rituals. The main Chaumos ritual takes place at a Tok tree, a place called Indra's place, "indrunkot", or "indréyin". Indrunkot is sometimes believed to belong to Balumain's brother, In(dr), lord of cattle. Ancestors, impersonated by young boys (ōnjeṣṭa 'pure') are worshipped and offered bread; they hold on to each other and form a chain (cf. the Vedic anvārambhaṇa) and snake through the village. The men must be divided into two parties: the pure ones have to sing the well-honored songs of the past, but the impure sing wild, passionate, and obscene songs, with an altogether different rhythm. This is accompanied by a 'sex change': men dress as women, women as men (Balmain also is partly seen as female and can change between both forms at will). During the Chawmos prayers, a procession is made to a high plateau outside the village in Balangkuru where the long night of dancing begins. The festivals continue for many more days moving on to different locations within the valleys.
It is the most exciting of all the kalash winter festival. Girls dance in cold weather and snowfall and boys play various winter games in the festival. Tourists rarely visit the kalash winter festival due to the blockage of roads and heavy snowfall. References
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