The Ancient Greek Origins of the Pushtuns' Attan Dance

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Athena, according to Greek myth, was born out of Zeus' head, with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The Oracle, Gaia, had predicted a god from the 3rd generation of the Mt. Olympus pantheon to take over the reigns from Zeus.

Revered by the ancient Greeks as the goddess of both war and intellect, Athena was believed to be that god/goddess.

To celebrate her during festivals dedicated to her worship, Athenians would perform the Pyrrhic dance. The Pyrrhic dance was an inter-tribal athletic competition at the Panathenaica festival performed in armor by young Athenian men. According to Roger Dunkle, a Professor of Greek Mythology in the Classics Department at Brooklyn College, the dancers, in a kind of ballet, would emulate offensive and defensive movements derived from warfare. The dance is said to have been first performed by Athena herself in a celebration of her fellow Olympians' epic victory over the Giants. This dance, and other athletic events from the Panathenaica Festival basically continued until Christianity came to Greece and eliminated much of the Ancient Greek pagan traditions from the region.

When Alexander the Great came to power after the assassination of hs father, Phillip of Macedonia, in 336 BC, the newly appointed 20-year-old king saw himself as a second coming of Achilles, with a destiny devoted to defeating 'barbarians'. He began by quelling Greek rebellions, and moved on to revenge against the Persians. Along the way, he conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, before subduing Persia. He then went further and defeated Transoxania before reaching as far as the Indus River, before being forced by his troops to turn back. On his way back, en route to taking over Arabia, he fell ill and died.

Alexanders army consisted of over 30,000 Greek and Macedonian soldiers. Each trained with a Greek-style military training.

Alexander the Great, wherever he went, settled new cities. It is estimates that he created over 70 cities. Every city in which he conquered, he supplanted Greek men to govern ad intermarry with the local population. His brief empire was called the Hellenistic Empire. After his death, the empire fell into three Hellenistic kingdoms; Egypt, Bactria, and Macedonia/Greece.

It is towards the Eastern end of Bactria that I now shift my focus. During Alexanders stay, and continued conflict with the Pushtuns (or who would come to be known as Pushtuns), in what we know today as the Federally-Administered Tribal Area along the border of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, Greek soldiers mixed with some local Pushtun tribes. Chief among the tribes making claims to some kind of Greek ancestry are the Khattak tribe and the Ghilzai tribe. Genetic studies have shown a small trace of Greek ancestry among some Pushtun tribes, confirming these historical claims.

It also helps to clarify the origins of the Attan Dance. Te dance itself is now an umbrella name for numerous variations of the dance, including the Kibali Attan, Wardaki, Logari, Paktia/Khosti, Kochyano/Kuchi, Kattak, and Nuristani styles.

The dance itself is believed to hve originated from the Greek Pyrrhic dance, performed for the Greek goddess Athena. Among the countless aforementioned variations, the Khattak style is thought to be the closest version to the Pyrrhic dance.

According to VirtualAfghans.com, the Khattak style is as follows:

...men performed this dance with their weapons in their hands. A Khattak dancer performs with the zeal of a hero, displaying his physical fitness through body movements, while holding one, two, or even three swords at a time. Each sword weighs about one-and-a-half kilograms. The dance is a 5 step routine involving spins, with the swords crossed over their backs and elbows outward, or it can be performed with the swords out the sides and typical Attan half-spin in place while landing to a full spin. Depending on the rhythm of that beat, this spin can be completely reversed in full synchronicity. This dance is performed with the musician tuning the beat to the technique of the performers.

Today, the Attan dance is considered a traditional Afghan dance. It was accepted into the fold of Afghani-Islamic society during the rule of the Mughal Dynasty, when the dance was modified into a Muslim dance soldiers used to get 'closer to God' before try advanced on their missions. A concept that no doubt is attributable to Afghanistan's rich Sufi history.

Today, the dance is often performed at large Pushtun functions, like wedding celebrations.

The beauty of the Attan dance is that it is like a microcosm of the long-standing impact foreign invasions have on people and cultures. No other significant remnants from Alexander the Great outwardly remains in Northwest Pakistan, and the Pushtun-dominated areas of Afghanistan, yet this dance, a very core ritual in Ancient Greek tradition, used to celebrate the very foundation of their society, lives on, and thrives not on those tiny Mediterranean islands, but rather, in some of the most culturally and religiously conservative communities in all the world. Atop mountains, and among people that have had more foreigners attempt to invade over the past 2500 years than just about any other current-standing civilization.

Islamoblog: The Ancient Greek Origins of the Pushtuns' Attan Dance