I want to start posting a bit more about the pre-Islamic history of Nuristan when it was still called "Kafiristan" (the land of unbelievers).
First stop: my collection of pictures showing pre-Islamic hairstyles.
First stop: my collection of pictures showing pre-Islamic hairstyles.
Below you see Čanlü, co-headman of Břɘgomaṭol (Khowar: Luṭdeh) as depicted by R.G. Woodthorpe of the British Gilgit Mission 1885, i.e. 11 years before the islamization. Note the shaved forehead and the outgrown hair in the back. 
This hairstyle was known as the "golden (=precious) lock" to the people of Kafiristan. Its cutting played a large symbolic role in the conversion of the country to Islam. Morgenstierne was able to record a folk-song dealing with the experience (in the northeastern Katë language):
Karẽ́ǰi nɘ́-přetum, ī̃ karẽ́ǰi
Barmúk Gumaró mamḗ, Kolyá!
Arṣɘ́m, sun karẽ́ǰi-vo, Kolyá!
I will not give up my Kafir lock, my (own) lock!
O Koli, son of my maternal uncle Gumaro, son of Barmuk!
O Koli, with the silken, 'golden' Kafir lock!
Morgenstierne 1967, my transcrption
Barmúk Gumaró mamḗ, Kolyá!
Arṣɘ́m, sun karẽ́ǰi-vo, Kolyá!
I will not give up my Kafir lock, my (own) lock!
O Koli, son of my maternal uncle Gumaro, son of Barmuk!
O Koli, with the silken, 'golden' Kafir lock!
Morgenstierne 1967, my transcrption
Robertson (1895) gives some details of the "golden lock":
"The whole of the head is shaved except a round patch some four inches in diameter over the occiput, where it is not cut at all. A tiny lock in front of each ear is often permitted to remain also. (...)
"The whole of the head is shaved except a round patch some four inches in diameter over the occiput, where it is not cut at all. A tiny lock in front of each ear is often permitted to remain also. (...)
... A Káfir's hair is not very long, seldom more than twelve or fourteen inches, and, with very rare exceptions, is quite straight. It is usually extremely dirty, and matted into rat's-tails."
Inhabitants of the Katë village in Bumboret, photographed around the beginning of the 20th century.
This village is part of Chitral district in today's Pakistan. A number of Kafirs fled there to escape conversion to Islam. The hairlock thus survived a a few decades longer here.
This village is part of Chitral district in today's Pakistan. A number of Kafirs fled there to escape conversion to Islam. The hairlock thus survived a a few decades longer here.
One last picture: Some unconverted Katë people, summoned to Chitral for "anthropological measurings" in 1906 and photographed by Aurel Stein. Today all Katë people, including those living in Chitral across the former British border, have converted to Islam ...
... though some of their neighbors, the Kalasha, still practice a non-Islamic religion up to the present. Accordingly the pre-Islamic haircuts have essentially completely vanished, though I was surprised to see a similar cut on these two dancers recently:
