Vintage Kashmir Photographs from the book A lonely summer in Kashmir (1904) by Margaret Cotter Morison.
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| Temple of Payech, south of Pulwama district. |
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| A family of Hanjis |
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| Kashmiri Boatman |
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| Kashmiri Villagers |
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| House Boat and the Cook boat |
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| The Mar Canal |
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| Shah Hamadan |
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| Temple at Chemar Bagh |
[Update March, 2017]The house on the left belongs to Ravinder Raina, now living in Jammu post violence of 1990. |
| Near Wular Lake |
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| Rice boats for rasad |
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| View of Haramuk peak from Gangabal Lake |
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| Ruins of temples in the Wangat Valley |
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| Women at the river bank |
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| Bridge over Liddar |
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| ‘Honeymoon Cottage’ at Dulai, now on the other side of the LOC |
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| Bridge at Kohala, now in Pakistan. |
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| The Pir Panjal Pass |
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| Lal Mandi |
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| Fishing on the Jhelum |
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| Camping near Haramuk (previously) |
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| Sind Valley |
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| Balti people |
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| A Hanji woman with Kanz and Muhul |
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| Previously: Post about Kashmiri hair braids and other things |
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| A Kashmiri Doonga boat |
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| Gulmarg |
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| Rare photograph of a Kashmiri Sweet shop |
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| House on Canal. (Something like that from present time) |
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| Irrigation wells of Kashmir. [Called ‘Tol’e’ in Kashmiri] |
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| Kolohoi near Pahalgam |
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| Pahalgam |
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| Ruins of Martand Temple. (Previous posts about these temples: post1, post2 ) |
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| Islamabad or Anantnag. The locals must have already started calling it Islamabad back in early 1900s. |
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| Fakirs. (previous post about Kashmiri Fakirs) |
The Kashmiri people in vintage photographs appear to have darker skin than they seem to be these days? Something to do with the photogrpahs or have people become fairer because of lifestyle change?
Its photographs! If you’ll see the old pictures of ladakh or central asians or iranians they too appears to be black but in reality non of them including kashmiris are dark or black skined. Kashmiris are of Dardic race soo naturally their completion is European. Later these dardic people got mixed with Iranians , Turks, pre mongolid central asians, brahmins and afghans. Cameras back then weren’t advanced enough to work with perfection!!
I believe that the 'fairness' of kashmiri people is actually as exaggeration of casual observation. The some of theearly Europeans, having heard about a lot about beautiful kashmiris from Indians (who maybe back even then equated fairness with beauty ), were in fact disappointed by what they saw. I have posted their observations here under 'Fables of Kashmiri Beauty'. The fact is that just like most of the population of the sub-continent, the fairness of Kashmiris also varies. Most people tend to forget it, or may be even ignore but Kashmiri people as they exist today actually come from all sort of ethnic groups – groups from mainland India as far as Bengal to the extremes of central Asia area. So the skin tones come in all sort of ranges.
And yes, Kashmiris also judge beauty by fairness. Fairest of fair is the one who is fair as'Do'dth M'ath' or the Milk cakes.