General Ecology and Ethnology of Swat

The Pashto-speaking people of the Swat valley belong to a group loosely called Yusufzai Pathans or Afghans. This category includes all the descendants of a common distant ancestor, Yusuf, and those persons who are politically dependent on them. The Pathan population supports itself by the intensive cultivation of grain, which is highly developed. This is supplemented by some cattle breeding, particularly for dairy products and manure. Agricultural land falls into four main categories: unirrigated; artificially irrigated; naturally irrigated; and irrigated garden. Wheat, barley and mustard are grown in the spring, mainly on unirri-gated land which depends on late winter rains and accumulated moisture from the winter season. The fertility of the land is maintained by manure from the domesticated animals, which is allowed to decompose, mixed with some vegetable matter, in deep compost pits, before it is spread through the fields.

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