Pashtun culture
Pashtun culture
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Pashtun culture

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Pashtun culture

Pashtun culture (Pashto: پښتون کلتور) is based on Pashtunwali, as well as speaking of the Pashto language and wearing Pashtun dress.

Pashtunwali is the baseline for the social behavior in Pashtun society. Pashtuns are traditionally strict and conservative regarding the preservation of their culture.

Being the world's largest tribal ethnicity, Pashtun society is guarded by a code of common rules, customs and social behaviors, known collectively as Pashtunwali. The code is based on personal honor and promotes courage, self-respect, independence, leadership, justice and hospitality.

Hospitality (Pashto: مېلمستيا, romanizedmelmastyā́) is one of the core tenets of the Pashtunwali. Historically, it was not regarded as just good manners, but a social obligation. Travelers in Pashtunistan record being provided food, shelter and protection regardless of being known to the host. This was first noted in English by Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1815 who said "The most remarkable characteristic of the Afghans is their hospitality. The practice of this virtue is so much a point of national honor, that their reproach to an inhospitable man is that he has no Pushtunwali."

Almost 100 years later, this was expanded on by British writer and orientalist Theodore Leighton Pennell, who noted that this generosity even extended to former enemies, he goes to explain that the host assumed responsibility for him and risked his life to defend him.

My plan was, therefore, to put myself entirely in their hands, and let them see that I was trusting to their sense of honour and to their traditional treatment of a guest for my safety.

During one journey he stayed overnight in a village in the North West Frontier occupied by numerous outlaws. Although some younger men reportedly wished to kill him during the night, the village elders refused to allow any harm to come to their guest. As one elder explained:

See, he has trusted himself entirely to our protection, and because he trusts us he is sleeping so soundly; therefore, no harm must be done to him in our village.

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