Kasi of Quetta

The Makhzan-i Afghani, in Dorn's translation, makes Kasi a son of Kharshbun, son of Sarbanni, and gives Kharshbun three sons: Gond, Jamand and Kasi. Kasi in turn had twelve sons, whom it names as Mohammedzye, Alozye, Zamrani, Shinwari, Kithur, Salba, Kubhar, Sanizye, Musalagh, Salat, Hasmar and Sabarval. Dorn's annotations add a second account from the Khulasat al-Ansab, in which the Shinwari, Zhabaryani, Alozai and Katran are descendants of Kasi. The Shinwari live between Peshawar and Jalalabad near the Khyber, and the other three nations live on the borders of Barohi Baluchistan. The same note says that Kasi had no son at all, and the three nations come from a nephew he adopted.

The Quetta-Pishin gazetteer of 1907 places the Kasi in the Sarban division of the Afghans and repeats that Kasi was a son of Kharshbun, one of whose brothers is said to have been Zamand, ancestor of the Zamand. The Zhob gazetteer, quoting the 1901 census report, gives the same pairing: Kharshbun's immediate descendants are the Zamand, a few of whom are found in Pishin, and the Kasi, who live close round Quetta.^1–4

پر دې ولاړ: دودیزې شجرې · استعماري اسناد

In 1901 the Quetta-Pishin gazetteer counted about 1,064 Kasi, 528 males and 536 females (the printed scan reads 1,001 for the total, which does not match the sexes). It calls them numerically insignificant. They had more women than men, 1,015 females to 1,000 males, which the gazetteer puts down to the prosperity of the Kasi and their ability to marry several wives and employ female servants. The Kasi's own tradition, it says, is that their seven sections left their home round the Takht-i-Sulaiman about seven centuries ago and made their first settlement at Samli, a village in the Kuchlak circle of the Quetta tahsil, the site of which is still marked by a mound. They then spread to other parts of the tahsil. The Katir, said to be of Kakar origin, and the Samli, said to be of Musa Khel origin, hold land jointly with the Kasi and share in their good and ill. The Kasi village itself had 1,649 people in 1901.³

پر دې ولاړ: استعماري اسناد

The leading families of the Kasi were the Arbabs. The senior branch is the Ahmad Khanzai, and the gazetteer records that by 1905 the descendants of Masti Khan of the Akazai, who live in the Kasi village, had become the richest and most influential. In earlier times the Kasi suffered from attacks by the Kakars on the north and the Brahui on the south. They paid revenue to Ahmad Shah Durrani, the gazetteer says, and in the time of Mir Nasir Khan I of Kalat a fixed annual assessment of 300 kharwars of wheat, 300 of barley and 3,000 rupees in cash was laid on them. A sanad granted by Nasir Khan I to the Kasi headmen, dated 11 Muharram 1172 AH, defines the limits of the Shal valley. Before British rule the Akazai and Ahmad Khanzai Arbabs took either a small fixed assessment or a share of the produce, usually one-sixth, and from it paid their own fixed assessment to the Khan. They lost this income in 1890 when a share of the crop replaced the fixed assessment, and in 1891 were granted Rs. 1,800 a year in perpetuity as compensation.^3,4

پر دې ولاړ: استعماري اسناد