A little Kalash girl at Chilim Joshi Festival 2013
Photo By: Aqeel Baig

The Kalasha (Kalasha: Kaĺaśa, Nuristani: Kasivo) or Kalash, are a Dardic indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. They speak the Kalasha language, from the Dardic family of the Indo-Aryan branch, and are considered a unique tribe among the Indo-Aryan peoples of Pakistan.

The neighboring Nuristani people of the adjacent Nuristan (historically known as Kafiristan) province of Afghanistan once practiced the same polytheistic religion as the Kalash. However, by the late 19th century much of Nuristan had been converted to Islam, but the Kalasha of Chitral maintained their own separate cultural traditions.