Hunzukuc
The Burusho people (often wrong than Hunza called) are in the Karakorum based -region residents of Hunzatals ( Pakistan ). The population is estimated - depending on the source - at 15,000 to 80,000 people.
Húnzukuc , Hunzukuts or Hunzakuts (depending on the transliteration) is the plural of Húnzo , which means "inhabitant of Hunza" in Burushaski . The speakers of Burushaski - the language of the majority in the Hunza Valley - are called Burushin , pl. Burusho .
history
In earlier times the Hunzukuc were known and feared as courageous warriors and robbers. Since the Hunza Valley was the fastest route to Swat and Gandhara , it was and is used for the transport of goods. The impassable terrain and the mountain roads, some of which were barely more than half a meter wide, made transport with beasts of burden impossible, which is why the goods were transported by caravans. They made slow progress, found it difficult to defend themselves against attacks and had to pay taxes to the Hunzukuc for crossing the valley. If the travelers refused to pay this toll , the Hunzukuc refused them passage or they were attacked.
The Baltit Castle of Mir (“Prince”) in Baltit (Karimabad), which was renovated at the end of the 20th century and has 62 rooms and adjoins a fortress , still bears witness to the fortunes that were bestowed on the Hunzukuc through the trade route. The easily defendable and isolated location of the Hunza Valley enabled the Hunzukuc to live in seclusion and largely independently for over 950 years. In 1889 the British tried to conquer Hunza, but were repulsed. In 1892 the British were able to gain the upper hand and conquer the Hunza Valley and the neighboring Nagar Valley . The Mir of the Hunzukuc fled to China, but the final end of the Mir rule did not come until 1974. The last Mir was Muhammad Jamal Khan.
The Hunzukuc live mainly from agriculture. The cultivation takes place mostly on terrace fields that are irrigated with water from the glaciers in the area.
language
The main spoken in the Hunza Valley is Burushaski , an isolated language that occurs only in Northwest Kashmir and the northern regions of Pakistan. In addition, be Wakhi , Shina , Khowar and Dumaki spoken with Dumaki is a dying language that is no longer used, especially by the youth.
religion
Most of the Hunzukuc belong to the Ismailis , a liberal branch of Shiite Islam .
tourism
The Karakoram Highway to China , which was completed in 1978, leads through the Hunza Valley and today makes it easier to get to the once inaccessible region. The area is not very well developed for tourism, but there was a weak but steady flow of tourists to Hunza until September 11, 2001. This consisted mostly of alpinists and mountain bikers . The area in and around the Hunza Valley enjoyed increasing popularity among them. However, after the events of September 11, 2001, this tourism suddenly almost completely ceased. Among the mountains, the 7,788 m high Rakaposhi is particularly worth mentioning. More rarely, but to be found again and again, are people looking for the legendary Hunza of the modern Hunza myth. The palace of the Mirs can be visited.
Hunza myth
There are many modern day myths about the Hunzukuc that mainly focus on diet and life expectancy. Since the 1960s, these ideas have been spread commercially as the Hunza myth in connection with various Hunza products or transferred with esotericism and dietetics.
Causes and effects
According to the descriptions, the Hunzukuc are a particularly peaceful indigenous people who enjoy their low-meat or meat-free diet, especially water enriched with minerals and precious metals , a legendary and so far undetectable whole-grain bread (often called Hunza-Pie ), and special " Himalayan salts " an extraordinary longevity and Health owes. The Hunzukuc are also often represented as vegans who only eat raw vegetables, similar to the East African Matyodi . Various sources assign the Hunzukuc a life expectancy of up to 130, sometimes even up to 145 years. On top of that, they allegedly have few or no diseases and are extremely agile into old age, which means that men over 100 years of age still father children, cultivate fields and usually die without previous complaints.
These legends are largely based on a book by the American Jerome Irving Cohen, who published a book called The Healthy Hunza in 1947 , which cited British military personnel as a source. The book had no significant public response until the 1960s, when there was increased interest in healthy eating in the United States. Scientific studies that prove the opposite have not shaken the popularity of the "Hunza myth".
This may be due to the fact that the "Hunza myth" was originally made known by Ralph Bircher, the son of the Swiss doctor and nutrition researcher Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner . Ralph Bircher published the anthropological book Hunsa in 1942. The people who know no disease . in memory of his father, who died in 1939, who saw the Hunza as living proof of the correctness of his nutrition theory. However, Ralph Bircher has never been to Pakistan. The first to assume that the Hunza were in exceptionally good health was the Scottish doctor Robert McCarrison (1878–1960), who was a British medical officer in the northern border area of Kashmir. One of his tasks was to monitor the health of the population. 1913–1928 he headed a health research institute in Coonoor, India. His nutritional studies on thousands of rats fed various types of diet became famous. The rats, which, in McCarrison's opinion, were given a diet analogous to the Hunza diet, were trusting, playful and healthy, as the autopsies and histological examinations of the animals showed. On the other hand, the rats on the bourgeois English diet were aggressive, vicious and sick. However, McCarrison's work was not placebo controlled and has never been replicated. McCarrison was knighted for his nutritional studies, Studies in Deficiency Disease .
Reality of the Húnzukuc
The geographical location and the type of terrain in the Hunza Valley make pasture farming with cattle largely impossible, which is why the Hunzukuc limit themselves to poultry and goats . Meat, but especially milk and dairy products, are part of the traditional diet. Butter, especially butter made from goat's milk, called ghee , is served with almost all dishes, dissolved in tea, drunk hot or consumed as butter balls.
The hard life in the barren and less advanced region takes its toll, which leads to a state of health comparable to that of other and neighboring mountain peoples. Demographic data from the Hunza Valley have not yet been published. According to Pakistani information, the average life expectancy for Pakistan is just over 60 years. However, one cannot draw any conclusions from this about the life expectancy of the Hunzas, as their diet and way of life, due to their remoteness and development history, must be assessed completely differently.
Like the entire region, the Hunza Valley is an iodine deficiency area , which is why Hunzukuc with goiter are not uncommon. Eye damage such as cataracts as well as skin damage such as premature skin aging and skin cancer, which can be attributed to high altitude UV exposure, are also increasing. Japanese doctors have found numerous cases of cancer , heart disease and tuberculosis in examinations and found little evidence of a particular longevity in people. The infant mortality rate is with a death rate of 30% before age 10 is extremely high, ten percent of adults die before age 40.
The lack of birth records due to the fact that the Hunzukuc do not have a written language, as well as the high social status of the elderly, have resulted in the anecdotal myth of the Hunzukuc's longevity.
marketing
Alleged Hunza products are marketed internationally, especially in the USA and Europe. From bottled glacier water , which does not always come from the Himalayas, to Hunza apricots and Hunza crystal salt , many products are available in Germany and around the world. However, there are no salt deposits in the Hunza Valley. With some of the quite expensive salts advertised as “Hunza Salts” it has been independently proven that they come from completely different areas in Pakistan. The latest Hunza product traced back to Hunzukuc is a controversial therapy in which apricot kernels , more precisely the amygdalin contained in them , are recommended for combating cancer.
Web links
- Ludmilla Tüting : New esoteric rip-off: The "fountain of youth" Himalayan salt. Article on www.tourism-watch.de about Himalayan salts ( Memento from December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 17, 2012.
- Stiftung Warentest for Himalayan salt . In: test 12/2005 (accessed on December 28, 2012)
- Travel report ( Memento from May 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). In: Tagesspiegel
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lynn Martin: Secrets of the Happy, Healthy Hunza ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Ralph Bircher: Hunsa. The people who know no disease . Hans Huber, Bern 1942
- ^ Alfred Janata: Hunza Humbug . EPN 7-8 / 1987, Austrian Information Service for Development Policy (ÖIE), Vienna
- ^ Robert McCarrison: Studies in Defieciency Disease . Oxford Medical Publications, London 1921
- ↑ Audrey H. Ensminger: Concise Encyclopedia of Foods and Nutrition . 2nd ed. 1995, p. 619
