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Concept
Shina people
Summary
The Shina (Shina: ݜݨیاٗ, Ṣiṇyaá) are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group primarily residing in Gilgit–Baltistan and Indus Kohistan in Pakistan, as well as in the Dras Valley and Kishenganga Valley (Gurez) in the northern region of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in India. They speak an Indo-Aryan language, called Shina and their geographic area of predominance is referred to as Shenaki.
In Pakistan, the Shina, who are also known as Gilgitis there, is the major ethnic group of Gilgit-Baltistan and the Shina language is spoken by an estimated 600,000 people living mainly in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan. People belonging to the Shina community people are also settled in the upper Neelum Valley in Pakistan, as well as in Dras, in the far north of the Kargil district of Ladakh in India. Outliers of Shina such as Brokskat speakers are found in Ladakh, Palula and Sawi speakers in Chitral, Ushojo speakers in the Swat Valley, and Kalkoti speakers in Dir. Many Shina people have also migrated to Karachi and Islamabad for employment, carrying out business, and education purposes, and many of them have permanently settled in these cities.
The Shina expanded to the Gilgit region from their homeland in Shinkari, in the Kohistan region on the Indus River sometime around the 9th or 10th century. Soon after the Shina began settling in Chitral, parts of the Nagar Valley, and as far as Baltistan and Kargil.
The Shina people historically practised Hinduism, as well as Buddhism. However, both Hinduism and Buddhism were regulated to being the religion of the ruling and upper class although Hinduism had more success among the masses. Their chief peculiarity was their feeling towards the cow, which they held in abhorrence and was considered by them as unclean. Even after the majority of the ethnic group's conversion to Islam, orthodox Shins would continue to neither eat beef, drink cow's milk nor touch any vessel containing it, because a dead cow or a suckling calf is considered especially unclean, so that purification was necessary even if the garments touched it.
Official source
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