1 168 PANJAB CASTES.
2 emigrants from Khorasan who settlt'd iu thi? Panjab not later than 300
3 A.D., and points out that, like the Persians and unlike the other tribes of
4 the neighbourhood, they are still Shiahs. It is at any rate certain that they
5 held their present possessions long before the Mahomedan invasion of India.
6 Ferishtah writes of them diuing Muhammad Ghori's invasion in 1206
7 A.D. :—
8 " Dviriug the residence of Muhammad Ghori at Lahore on tliis occasion, the Ghakkars who
9 " inhahit the country along the hanks of the Kilah up to tlie foot of the mountains of Siwalik,
10 " exercised unheard of cruelties on the Muhammadaus and cut off the communication between the
11 " provinces of Peshawar and Multan. These Ghakkars were a race of wild harharians, without
12 " either religion or morality. It was a custom among them as soon as a female child was born, to
13 " carry her to the door of the house and there proclaim aloud, holding the child in one hand and a
14 " knife iu the other, that any person who wanted a wife might take her otherwise she was im-
15 " mediately to he put to death. By this means they had more men than women which occasioned
16 " the custom of having several husbands to one wife. When this wife was visited by one of her
17 " hiishands she left a mark at the door, which being observed by any of the other husbands, he with-
18 " drew till the signal was taken away. This barbarous people continued to make incursions on the
19 " Muhammadaus till in the latter end of this king's reign their chieftain was converted to the tnie
20 " faith while a captive. A gi'eat part of these mountaineers, having very little notion of any
21 " religion, were easily induced to adopt the tenets of the true iaith ; at the same time most of the
22 " infidels who iuliahited the mountains between Ghazni and tlie Indus were also converted, some
23 " bv force and others by persuasion, and at the present day (1609 A.D.) they continue to profess
24 " the faith of Islam. " Briggs' Ferishtah, i, 183/
25 The Gakkhars however did not hesitate to assassinate Muhammad Ghori
26 on his return from Lahore.
27 General Cunningham identifies the Gakkhars with the Gargaridse of
28 Dionysius, and hold.s them to be descendants of the great Yueti or Takhari
29 Scythians of the Abar tribe, who moved from Hyrkania to Abryan on the
30 Jahlam under either Darius Hystaspes (circa 500 B.C.), or still earlier under
31 one of the Scytho-Parthian Kings. The whole origin and early history of
32 the tribe will be found discussed at pages 2;i to 33, Vol. II of the Archaeolo-
33 gical Reports, and at pages 57-i to 581 of Griffin's i'anjdb Chiefs ; while
34 much information as to their early history is given in Brandreth's Settle-
35 ment Report of the Jahlam District. As Mr. Thomson says : " The
36 " Turanian origin of the Gakkhars is highly probable ; but the rest of the
37 " theory is merely a plausible surmise. On the whole there seems little use in
38 " going beyond the sober narrative of Ferishtah, who represents the Gakkhars
39 " as a brave and savage race, living mostly in the hills, with little or no religion,
40 '' and much given to polyandry and infanticide. " They have now, in
41 apparent imitation of the Awaus, set up a claim to Mughal origin ; and
42 many of the Rawalpindi Gakkhars returned themselves as Mughals, while
43 I am told that some of the Gakkhars of Chakwal entered themselves as
44 Rajputs.
45 464. At present the Gakkhars are practically confined to the Rawal-
46 pindi, Jahlam, and Hazara Districts, where they are found all along the
47 plateaus at the foot of the lower Himalayas, from the Jahlam to Haripur
48 in Hazara. To the figures given in Table VIII-A should be added 1,543
49 persons who returned themselves in Rawalpindi as Mughal Gakkhar, and
50 perhaps 4,549 others who returned themselves as Mughal Kayani, of whom
51 3,861 were in RawaliJiudi, 592 in Jahlam, and 93 in Kohat. This would
52 raise the total number of Gakkhars to 31,881, of whom about half are in
53 Rawalpindi. They are described by iVIr. Thomson as compact, sinewy, and
54 vigorous, but not large boned ; making capital soldiers and the best light
55 cavalry in Upper India ; proud and self-respecting, but not first-class