There are certainly three tongues spoken, besides many dialects, that used by the Siah-Posh being of course the most common; and although it has many dialects, the employers of one seem to understand all the others. It is a Prakritic language. Of the remaining two, the Wai and the Presun have no similarity; they are also unlike the Siah-Posh. Kafirs themselves maintain that very young children from any valley can acquire the Wai speech, but that only those born in the Presungal can ever converse in that language, even roughly. To European ears it is disconcertingly difficult, and it is perhaps impossible to learn.
Before their conquest by Abdur Rahman all the Kafirs were idolaters of a rather low type. There were lingering traces of ancestor-worship, and perhaps of fire-worship also. The gods were numerous; tribal, family, household deities had to be propitiated, and mischievous spirits and fairies haunted forests, rivers, vales and great stones. Imra was the Creator, and all the other supernatural powers were subordinate to him. Of the inferior gods, Moni seemed to be the most ancient; but Gísh, the war-god, was by far the most popular. It was his worship, doubtless, which kept the Kafirs so long independent. In life as a hero, and after death as a god, he symbolized hatred to the religion of Mahomet. Every village revered his shrine; some possessed two. Imra, Gísh and Moni were honoured with separate little temples, as was usually Dizáni goddess; but three or four of the others would share one between them, each looking out of a small separate square window. The worshipped object was either a large fragment of stone or an image of wood conventionally carved, with round white stones for eyes. Different animals were sacrificed at different shrines: cows to Imra, male goats and bulls to Gísh, sheep to the god of wealth; but goats were generally acceptable, and were also slain ceremonially to discover a complaisant god, to solemnize a vow, to end a quarrel, to ratify brotherhood. The ministers of religion were a hereditary priest, a well-born chanter of praise, and a buffoon of low station, who was supposed to become inspired at each sacrifice, and to have the power of seeing fairies and other spirits whenever they were near, also of understanding their wishes. The blood of the offering, together with flour, wine and butter, was cast on the shrine after the animal and the other gifts had been sanctified with water sprinkled by the officiating priests, while he cried "Súch, súch!" ("Be pure!"). Dense clouds of smoke from burning juniper-cedar, which crackled and gave forth pungent incense, added to the spectacle, which was dignified by the bearing of the officials and solemnized by the devout responses of the congregation. There was no human sacrifice except when a prisoner of war, after a solemn service at a shrine, was taken away and stabbed before the wooden tomb of some unavenged headman. Kafirs believed in a kind of Hell where wicked people burned; but the Hereafter was an underground region entered by a guarded aperture, and inhabited by the shapes which men see in dreams. Suicide was as unknown as fear of dying. Melancholy afflicted only the sick and the bereaved. Religious traditions, miracles and anecdotes were puerile, and pointed no social lesson or any religious law. Music, dancing and songs of praise were acceptable to the gods, and every village (_grom_) had its dancing platform and dancing house (_grom ma_), furnished with a simple altar. No prayers were offered, only invocations, exhortative or remonstrant.