Pashtun gun factories were tratiditonally located in the Afridi Adam Khel area just north of the Kohat Pass where the road descends towards Peshawar. This was outside of British India and later Pakistan law..part of the then "FATA" (Federally Administered Tribal Area), They could make anything....Google it... I sent back a bunch of Pashtuns copy Enfields, Sniders and Martini Henry's (I won't go into why I was selected as the guy to mail these back). Here are some..and one in my house now (They were made to look antique):
(I've tried to upload photos but the internet is crashing). So since I'm talking about the Afridi....let me manually type some of the points from my treatise on the Afridi tribe"
B. Religion: Hanafi sunni: Some early writers claimed they were intensely superstitious and were in fact Muslim in name only (I agree - they are).
C. Location: Located in Kurram and Khyber Agencies, FATA. They have traditionally controlled both the Khyber and Kohat passes and occupy the heart of the south watershed of the Safed Koh (White mountains).
D. Comments: Because they controlled both the key passes Khyber and Kohat, the Afridi were always great robbers and were always ready for a fight. They fought the Moghuls and the Emir in Kabul. The British mounted a number of punitive expeditions against them.
......- They are organized into 7 great Khels; the British, however, always regarded the Adam Khel as being a separate problem from the rest of the Afridis; the Adam Khel insisted on trying to control the Kohat Pass.
.......- They were noted as being extremely "democratic." (British speak for anarchic). Once when the British were trying to come to an agreement with the Afridi in a jirga in Peshawar, 800 Afridi Maliks assembled; However, the jirga had to be delayed until another 500 showed up. Even then the elders were unable to control individual members of the tribe or keep them from waylaying caravans and travelers in the Khyber.
E. History: The British put Robert Warburton as political commissioner for the Afridi and his book,
18 years in the Khyber, Is worth reading. The Afridi were induced to attack the Khyber forts August 1897 (after Warburton departed) during the "rising of the mad Faquir," (The Khyber Rifles were an Afridi militia). Their country including the Tirah valley was then attacked and invaded by the "Sirkar" (The name the Pashtuns called the British empire in India) and in very hard fighting was devastated.
F. Writers' Comments:
.....1. Following is an early British commentary on the nature of the Afridi (which is likely no longer valid but is an extremely interesting historical counterpoint):
. . . . . .a. "The Afridi is the most barbarous of all the tribes on our border. All the Karlanri with the single exception of the Khatak, are wild and uncontrollable; but most of all the Afridi. Ruthless, cowardly robbery and cold-blooded, treacherous murder are to an Afridi the salt of life. Brought up from earliest childhood amid scenes of appalling treachery and merciless revenge, nothing has yet changed him; as he lives, a shameless, cruel savage, so he dies., Yet he is reputed brave, and that by men who have seen him fighting and he is on the whole the finest of the Pashtun races of our border, His physique is exceptionally fine, and he is really braver, more open and more treacherous than other Pashtuns.
. . . . . . b. "This much is certain., That he has the power of prejudicing Englishmen in his favor and few are brought into contact with him who do not at least begin with enthusiastic admiration for his manliness, He is tall, spare, wiry, and athletic: hardy and active, but impatient of heat. His women are notoriously unchaste. He is only nominally a mussulman, being wholly ignorant and intensely superstitious. The Zhaka Khel Afridi removed to odium under which they suffered of possessing no shrine at which to worship, by inducing a sainted man of the Kaka Khel to settle among them, then murdering him in order to bury his corpse and thus acquire a holy place of their race. The Afridi are intensely democratic; their nominal chiefs having but little power."
. . . .2. A similar commentary on the Zakha Khel Afridi: "The Zakha Khel are the most wild and lawless of the Afridi clans. Their children are Christened by being passed backward and forwards through a hole made in a wall after the fashion of a burglar, this while the parents repeat, "Be a thief, be a thief." --- an exhortation which they comply with scrupulously, when they arrive at years of discretion. They are notorious as liars and thieves, even amongst the lying and thieving Afridi."
. . . 3. Mackeson: "The Afridi's are a most avaricious race, desperately fond of money. Their Fidelity is measured by the length of the purse of the seducer. And they transfer their obedience and support from one party to another of their own clansmen, according to the comparative liberality of the donation.,"
. . . 4. Warburton: "The Afridi lad from his earliest childhood is taught by the circumstances of his existence and life to distrust all mankind, and very often his nearest relations, heirs to his small plot of land by right of inheritance, are his deadliest enemies, Distrust of all mankind and readiness to strike the first blow for the safety of his own life, has therefore become the maxims of the Afridi."
I wrote this 18 years ago....there' a lot more. But when you talk about the Safed Koh range (White Mountains), where Usama Bin Ladin took refuge before disappearing the Afridi are on the South, the Shinwari and Khugiani on the North (Afghan side) it explains a few things.
I went into depth writing about 170 different tribes and Khels and breaking them down into sub-tribes, families, etc...And have a Libray of 150 books written by British and Fench travelers in the area 1770-1940.
Maybe when the internet calms down, I can post some photos.
