What Is a Pakol? Meaning, Origin and How the Afghan Hat Is Made

A pakol is a soft, round wool cap with a flat top and a thick rolled brim, worn by men in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. The word is the hat's own name in the languages of Chitral and Gilgit, where it comes from, and it is also spelled pakul or pakool.

Few pieces of clothing say Afghanistan as clearly. The pakol sits on the heads of shepherds in Nuristan, traders in Chitral, elders in Panjshir and students in Kabul, and it has been photographed on enough famous faces to be recognised around the world. Yet it is a mountain hat before it is a national one, and its story starts in the valleys of the eastern Hindu Kush.

What a pakol is

A pakol is made from a tube of thick woollen cloth. One end is gathered and stitched to a flat, round crown; the other is rolled up on itself, several turns, to form the brim. The roll gives the cap its weight and warmth, and it can be let down in bad weather to cover the ears and the back of the neck, which is what a mountain hat is for. A cord inside the base adjusts the fit. Traditional colours are the colours of sheep: white, cream, fawn, brown, grey and black, though dyed versions exist.

What the word pakol means

Pakol is simply the name of the hat. It has no second meaning. The word belongs to Khowar, the language of Chitral, and Shina, the language of Gilgit, and it passed from them into Urdu, Dari and Pashto. You will see it written pakul and pakool as well. In Pakistan the same hat is as often called the Chitrali cap, and in the valleys it has local names too: khapol in Khowar and khoi in Shina.

Where the pakol comes from

The pakol's home is the far north of Pakistan. The geologist Frederick Drew noted a rolled woollen cap among the Shina people in 1862, and John Biddulph described the same cap in Gilgit and Astore in 1880. By the nineteenth century it was worn in Chitral, and from there it spread through the whole eastern Hindu Kush, into Dir, Swat and Kunar, and into Nuristan.

In Nuristan the hat arrived at a precise moment. Until the 1890s the men of Kafiristan wore their hair in a distinctive style and went largely bareheaded. After the conquest and conversion of 1895 to 1896 the valleys opened to trade with Chitral, the old hairstyles were given up, and men began to cover their heads. The Chitrali cap was what came over the passes, and within a generation it was Nuristani. Today Nuristanis wear it as their own, and the Nuristani pakol and the Chitrali cap are one hat under two names.

You will read that the pakol descends from the kausia, the flat cap of Alexander the Great's Macedonians, who crossed these mountains in the 320s BC. The idea is attractive, and the historian Willem Vogelsang, who has studied the question most closely, rejects it: the flat crown that makes a pakol a pakol is a recent development, not something a Macedonian soldier could have left behind. The hat belongs to a wide family of soft caps worn across the borderlands of Central Asia, India and China, and its immediate ancestor is local.

Who wears the pakol

The pakol became a national symbol in the 1980s, when it was the hat of the mujahideen fighting the Soviet army. Ahmad Shah Massoud, the commander of the Panjshir valley, wore one in almost every photograph taken of him, and the cap became shorthand for the resistance. Since then it has been worn across ethnic lines, by Tajiks, Nuristanis, Pashtuns of the east and anyone else who wants a warm hat, and it has been adopted abroad as a symbol of Afghanistan by people who have never seen the Hindu Kush.

Styles and colours: Chitrali, Peshawari, black and white

The Chitrali pakol is the original. Chitral is where the hat spread from into Nuristan and the rest of Afghanistan, and it still makes the best ones in the view of Fabrizio Foschini, who described the Kabul pakol trade for the Afghanistan Analysts Network in January 2014. He rated caps from Swat as superior and those from Chitral as better still.

In Chitral the white pakol carries the most honour. The Chitral Scouts wear theirs white, with a feather, and Chitralis present the cap to famous guests as a mark of honour. Princess Diana was given one in September 1991, when she was made an honorary member of the Chitral Scouts, and Catherine, now Princess of Wales, wore an almost identical cap in Chitral in October 2019. On festive days men tuck flowers or feathers into the roll; Foschini adds pheasant feathers and porcupine quills picked up on the road.

A Peshawari pakol is the cheap, common one. Foschini found that most pakols on sale in Kabul were made in Peshawar, and some in Lahore. Many had been sewn by Afghan refugees in the camps near Peshawar before the work moved into the city's Qissa Khwani bazaar. At the time an average Peshawari pakol cost a trader about one dollar in Pakistan and sold for three or four times that in Kabul, while the few made in Afghanistan, in Kunar or Jalalabad, cost 15 to 20 dollars. Some Kabul shopkeepers sold Pakistani caps as Afghan. Foschini's tip is to look inside: small holes in the lining usually mean the maker's label has been cut out.

The shape changed as the hat spread across Afghanistan in the 1980s. Massoud's men from the Panjshir valley liked theirs very thick, with fat rolls like a helmet, and Massoud wore his at a slant. In Paktia, one of the first provinces to take up the pakol in the early 1980s, it became broad and flat with a tight, thin roll, stiff enough to give the wearer the outline of a mushroom. Nuristanis tend to roll theirs high and wear it pushed back.

Black is no newcomer. A grammar of Khowar published in the 1890s describes most Chitrali men in "a homespun cap black, brown or grey made in the shape of a bag". None of the sources we cite gives black or white a religious or political meaning.

How a pakol is made

A good pakol starts with wool from local sheep, spun by hand and woven on a narrow loom into the dense cloth known in Chitral as patti. The cloth is cut and sewn into a cylinder, the crown is stitched on, and the base is rolled by hand, turn over turn, until the brim is the right depth. Because the cloth is thick and the roll is tight, a handmade pakol holds its shape, keeps out wind and can last for many years. Some are made from felted rather than woven wool, and cheaper versions are machine-knitted from wool blends or acrylic.

How to roll and wear a pakol

A new pakol often arrives unrolled, as a long wool bag. To fold it, turn the open edge outwards and roll it up on itself, turn over turn, keeping the roll even all the way round, until the brim reaches the height you want. Then:

• Set it on the crown of the head, not pulled down. The rolled brim rests above the ears.
• Adjust the depth of the roll to suit your head. A taller roll sits higher and looks smarter; a lower roll is warmer.
• In cold or rain, unroll one or two turns and pull the sides down over the ears and neck. Roll it back up when the weather clears.
• Tilt is a matter of taste. Nuristanis often wear it pushed slightly back; in Kabul it sits flatter.

Telling a handmade pakol from a factory one

• Feel the cloth. Handwoven patti is dense, slightly uneven and faintly greasy with lanolin. Machine cloth is uniform, light and often shiny.
• Look at the roll. A hand-rolled brim is firm and keeps its shape when you set the hat down; a loose, springy brim points to a knitted copy.
• Check the inside for the cord and for hand stitching around the crown.
• Weigh it. A real pakol has heft. A hat that weighs almost nothing is not made of wool.

Buying a handmade pakol

We source handmade wool pakols to order, a single hat or a wholesale order. Tell us how many you want, the colours and sizes, and where they are going, and we will reply with a price.

Caring for a pakol

Hand wash in lukewarm water with a mild wool soap, squeeze without wringing, and dry flat away from direct heat. Re-roll the brim while the wool is still slightly damp so it sets in shape. Kept dry between wearings, a pakol will outlast most of the clothes you own.

Is the pakol a religious symbol?

No. It is a cultural garment, not a religious one. It was worn by the Kalash of Chitral, who follow their old religion, before it was worn by Muslims in Nuristan, and it carries no religious meaning for either. Its associations today are with the mountains, with hospitality and, since the 1980s, with the idea of Afghanistan.