PukhtunWomen

(This article first appeared in Newsline)

Childless women in the Frontier go to great lengths in practicing fertility rites.

In a Pakhtun society, a woman without a child is a woman lost.

Referred to as someone's daughter, wife, or sister, a childless woman is seen as an inadequate wife-an incomplete human being. Childless women are considered deprived, mere objects of pity. In order to survive socially, it is vital for a rural woman to have children of her own.

Child-bearing gives a woman a culturally acceptable identity that is otherwise obscured by an all enveloping burqa. Not only is it a new form of identity that bonds her to yet another male kin, but also a symbol of security. In fact, the more male children a woman produces, the higher her status in the family and community. If she fails to bear children, she is given to name ‘meeraata' (a woman with no children). During arguments, women often end up cursing each other by saying, meeraata shay' (may you become childless).

In Pakhtun society, the centrality of child-bearing to marriage cannot be overstated. After marriage, if there is a delay in bearing a child, not only do social pressures begin to mount, advice on infertility treatments start pouring in.

Administered by the older women of the community, folk methods of treatment are practiced. Prayers are offered and shrines visited. If all fails, the husband remarries in order to have a child.

Therefore, in marriages, while looking for a suitable girl, practical considerations overshadow emotional ones. A physically sturdy girl, who would be able bear several children is considered a good catch.

Most Pakhtun marriage customs symbolise the need for the continuation of the family line. Such rituals are practiced with great reverence, often supervised by the community's order women. At a wedding ceremony in rural Kohat, a little boy was thrown into the lap of a decked-up bride.

Expressionless, she held him, while her downcast eyes revealed only the modesty that was expected of her. The child, who wriggled out of her lap in no time, was used as a symbol of good luck for the bride, with the hope that she would also be blessed with male offspring. At the same wedding, Shahida, the bride's sister, was excluded from bridal customs such as applying henna on the bride, because she was childless. Her participation in the rituals would have been perceived as a bad omen-bringing bad luck to the vulnerable bride.

A child is perceived as a ‘gift of God.' At times, women, who are deprived of the gift, approach God through prayers and through rituals at shrines. Different customs are accompanied by religious chants. Different customs are accompanied by religious chants. Folklore methods are usually adopted to cure infertility – professional medical help is rarely sought.

Amidst the hustle-bustle at a Kohat bazaar, a group of people seem to take special interest in some freshly skinned goats' hides that are on sale. Black and brown in colour, the hides hang on a wall or lay piled onto a cart. Anxious buyers hover around the cart, haggling with the man who announces on top of his voice, “Cure forall ailments!”

Saima's husband stretches out his arm to pick a black hide of his choice as was demanded by his wife. Bought for 50 rupees, the hide is thought to have healing powers. Besides treating other ailments, a goat's hide is believed to be able to treat barren women. Childless for the last three years, Saima plans to lie in a secluded room with a gooday (goat's skin) clinging to her body, particularly her stomach, in such a way that the animal's skin is in direct contact with Saima's. the hide's pungent odour would be enough to keep away any visitors from the dark room where she plans to isolate herself for three days. While covering her body with a gooday, Saima must follow a special diet plan that excludes meat. The hide, when it starts drying, sticks to the body. When it is peeled off, it is thought to take away all ailments. In the words of an old woman of the community, “It absorbs all the impurities from the body.”

In some areas, ‘Katwaai' (meaning cooking pot) is practiced.

According to this ritual, a flat circular lump of dough is placed on a barren woman's belly. While the barwaza leaves are still smouldering in a large pot the utensil is placed upside down on the dough. While following this procedure, the mid-wife recites some verses from the Quran in hush tones. Later, the dough is peeled off from the stomach. And with this, the ailment is believed to be extracted out of the body. This traditional method also involves a special diet and rest plan.

Where all healing rituals fail to work, a woman unable to produce any children opts for a co-wife. Bizar Jana, from Swat, relates the story of how she had gone to ask for a girl's hand for her husband. “My husband would have, in any case remarried for the purpose of continuing the lineage. So, I thought if I get him married to a girl of my choice it may not be that painful to bear,” recalls Bizar Jana.

Despite her optimism, she recollects how difficult it was for her to accept the presence of another woman in her house, sharing her husband, all of the sake of an offspring. She remembers how she would console herself by reminding herself, “Os day da, as teenga sha warta (now that you have taken this step, face it).”

After a year-and-a half, which seemed like an eternity to Bizar Jana, the co-wife conceived a son. While in labour, in their small mud house, the co-wife begged for Bizar Jana's forgiveness. It is customary, in some rural areas, for women to ask for bakhana (forgiveness) during labour. It is believe that if an older member of the family prays for the well-being of the mother-to-be, her painful ordeal becomes less unbearable. Likewise, if the person curses her, the agony could worsen. In the case of Bizar Jana and her co-wife, although they had a terrible spat on the day the latter was about to give birth, Bizar Jana decided to forgive her for the sake of the baby.

Now a stepmother of two sons, Bizar Jana proudly shows them off at village functions. “They love me more than their real mother,” she happily claims.

Ostracized in the past, she now feels secure in the presence of her two stepsons.

But for Bizar Jana, this bliss has come at a heavy price. While fighting for her marital harmony, neither ritual nor any folk medicine worked. Her community appreciates her act of sacrificing her happiness for the continuation of the family line.

It is no surprise that in such societies, all cases of childlessness are attributed to the shortcomings of the woman, never the man. Discussing the physical inadequacy of a man is taboo, let alone considering the possibility of treating it.

In a small mud house in Kohat, two women work busily, sharing the household chores. Both are married to the same man and both are childless. Both have bandoonas, long interwoven strands of thread, on which a pir (holy man) has recited incantations, tied around their wrists and necks. The childless women have been instructed to drink water, in which small pieces of paper with Quranic verses written on them have been immersed.

Their mother-in-law, reclining on a charpoy, seems quite disillusioned with the tedious process. She laments, “We have spent whatever money we had on spiritual healers, but nothing has helped. We even paid a thousand rupees to a pir who assured us that our wish would come true. Years have passed, but nothing has changed. I have even taken both the daughters-in-law to a lady doctor. She insists that my son should have a check-up. He refuses to go because he says there is nothing wrong with him.”

In the view of the second wife, childlessness is the ‘will of God.' Along with her husband and the co-wife, she is still hoping for a miracle. In the meantime, she plans to visit yet another shrine famous for blessing women who wish to conceive.

To preserve their marriages childless women try every available ritual, often going to some frightening extremes. A barren woman in Mardan would scavenge for fresh corpses at midnight by digging graves for bodies of little children. Upon finding a body, she would sit besides it and knead flour on its stomach. She had beeen told by a local pir to repeat this procedure forty times. The morbid ritual did not scare her because the holy man had claimed that at the end of the fortieth ritual she would be blessed with a child.

One night, the police, who had been called in by the villagers, intercepted the woman's nightly routine. The desperate woman confessed that her husband had threatened to bring a new wife, if she failed to produce a child. She was left with no choice but to try out this ritual as a last resort.

Indulging in such practices is testimony to the strong faith these women have in the power of ritual. A faith bolstered by the traditional stories told with great reverence and awe relating to the efficacy of such practices.

In many traditional societies of the northwest, the very idea of conception is seen as something supernatural. The physical relationship of a couple is not enough to conceive a child-the ritualistic element is vital. Gul Saanga, from Chaarsada, relates how her daughter-in-law was able to re-conceive the dead child that she had miscarried. “My daughter-in-law lost her baby at a very early stage of her pregnancy. I cooked the miscarried fetus into a halwa for her to eat. And with the wil of God, she became pregnant after two months,” said Gul Saanga in a matter of fact way.

Further elaborating this indigenous theory of conception, she stated, “If you do not save the fetus for cooking, you have lost the child for good!”

Gul Saanga could count on her fingers all the women who were able to ‘get back their lost babies' by actually consuming the fetus camouflaged in a traditional dessert. A local gynecologist in kohat remembers a patient from Sadda, a girl in her early twenties, who was nearly choked by her mother-in-law while she shoved the fetus into the girl's mouth. In this case, the mother-in-law did not take the trouble of camouflaging the fetus in food. The girl, who started vomiting profusely, had to be rushed to the hospital.

The symbolic nature of such an act represents the actual incorporation of the dead individual into the person who consumes it. It is believed that the dead child has been ‘reborn without having been wasted.' Faith and belief in the powers of rituals and miracles overpowers both reason and the grotesqueness of the actual action.

However, the journey of such faith does not end with the birth of a child. In fact, a newborn baby and his mother are believed to be highly susceptible to evil spirits. As a famous Pashtu saying goes, ‘Langay khazay ta sal kholay baakay wee day balagaano. (A hundred gaping mouths of djinns are open to harm a new mother).' For this reason, mother and child are discouraged from leaving their home till at least 40 days after the birth of the child. In some areas, if a woman comes out of her room, another one accompanies her by holding a Quran over her head for protection from the forces of evil.

Safina, from Kohat, walks around with a dagger in her hand. Ten days ago, she gave birth to her second child and feels the need to protect herself from the evil spirits that are out to harm her.

Meanwhile, besides her 10- day old son, swaddled tightly in a white cloth, lies a small knife, again to keep away the evil forces.

From cradle to death, the village women cling on to their rituals. Indeed, for them, life without ritual would seem unprotected and even hopeless.