1 BILOCH, PATHAN, AND ALLIED RACES. 61
2 however small; has its leading man who is known as Malik, a specially Patham
3 title. In manjj but by no means in all trilsesj there is a Khan Khel or Chief
4 House, usually the eldest branch of the tribe, whose Malik is known as Khan,
5 and acts as chief of the whole tribe. But he is seldom more than their leader
6 in war and their agent in dealings with others ; he possesses influence rather
7 than power; and the real authority rests with the jirffah, a democratic council
8 composed of all the Maliks. The tribe is split up into numerous clans, and
9 these again into septs. The tribe, clan, and sept are alike distinguished by
10 patronymics formed from the name of the common ancestor by the addition of
11 the word Zai or Kkel, Zai being the corruption of the Pashto zoe meaning
12 " son, ■'•' while Khel is an Arabic word meaning- an association or company.
13 Both terms are used indifferently for both the larger and smaller divisions.^
14 The stock of names being limited, the nomenclature is exceedingly puzzling,
15 certain names recuri'ing in very different tribes in the most maddening
16 manner. Moreover the title which genealogical accuracy would allot to a
17 tribe or clan is often very different from that by which it is known for practi-
18 cal purposes, the people having preferred to be called by the name of a junior
19 ancestor who had acquired local renown. The frontier tribe whether within or
20 beyond our border has almost without exception a very distinct corporate
21 existence, each tribe and within the tribe each clan occupying a clearly defined
22 tract or country, though they are in the Indus Valley often the owners merely
23 rather than the occupiers of the country, the land and smaller villages being
24 largely in the hands of a mixed population of Hindu origin who cultivate
25 subject to the superior rights of the Pathans. These people are included by the
26 Pathans under the generic and semi-contemptuous name of Hindki ; a term
27 very analogous to the Jat of the Biloch frontier, and which includes all
28 Mahomedans who, being of Hindu origin, have been converted to Islam in
29 comparatively recent times.2
30 394. Constitution of the Pathan nation.— The words Pathan and Afghan
31 are used indifferently by the natives of India to designate the nation under
32 discussion.' But the two words are not used as synonyms by the people
33 themselves. The original Afghans are a race of probably Jewish or Arab
34 extraction ; and they, together with a tribe of Indian origin with which they
35 have long been blended, still distinguish themselves as the true Afghans, or
36 since the rise of Ahmad Shah Durrani as DiuTanis,* and class aU non-Durrani
37 Pashto-speakers as Opra, But they have lately given their name to Afghanis-
38 tan, the country formerly known as Khorasan, over which they have now
39 held sway for more than a century, and which is bounded on the north by the
40 Oxus, on the south by Bilochistan, on the east by the middle course of the
41 Indus, and on the west by the Persian desert ; and, just as the English and
42 Scotch who early in the 17th century settled among and intermarried with the
43 Irish are now called Irish, though still a very distinct section of the popula-
44 tion, so all inhabitants of Afghanistan are now in common parlance known as
45 • When our ill-fated Resident Major Cavagnari was lately living at Kabul under the Amir
46 Yakub Khan, those who favoured the British were known as Cavagnaiizai, and the national party
47 as Yakiibzai. The ending zai is never used by tlie Afridi.
48 2 The Dilazak are often called Hindkis by the ti-ue Pathans, as having come from India and
49 not from Afghanistan.
50 3 In Hindustan they are often called Rohillahs, or Highlanders, from Rohi the mountain
51 country of the Pathans {Roh = Koh, a mountain.)
52 ■* Either from Durr-i-Danrdn " pearl of the age " or from Dun-i-Durrdn '• pearl of pearls."
53 The title was adopted by Ahmad Shah Abdali when he ascended the throne, in allusion to th«
54 Abdali custom of wearing a pearl stud in the right ear.