The Tanoli are a Hazarewal

Hazarewal

Hazarewal or Hazarawal is another name or term for the Hindkowan people, a Hindko speaking community who belong to the Hazara region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ,Pakistan. The Hazarewal/Hindkowan/s are not to be confused with the ethnic Hazara people inhabiting parts of Baluchistan province in Pakistan...

 tribe of the Tanawal valley, Hazara region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

. Although not usually acknowledged as Pashtuns, the Tanoli have to an extent assimilated many Pashtun cultural features and become Pashtunified

Pashtunization

Pashtunization is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which something non-Pashtun becomes Pashtun Pashtunization (also called Afghanization) is a process of cultural or linguistic change in which something non-Pashtun becomes Pashtun Pashtunization (also called Afghanization) is a...

. Tribally allied with the Pathans,. The Tanoli participated in the frontier wars c. 1840s with the British and in Charles Allen

Charles Allen (writer)

Charles Allen is a British writer and historian. He was born in India, where several generations of his family served under the British Raj. His work focuses on India and South Asia in general. Allen's most notable work is Kipling Sahib, a biography of Rudyard Kipling.- Selected works :* 1975...

's analysis of these wars were described as "extremely hostile" and "brave and hardy and accounted for the best swordsmen in Hazara.".

Though today the Tanawal area is part of the Hazara division, in the past the larger portion of it comprised the two semi-independent native states or principalities of Amb

AMB

Amb may refer to:* Amb , a town in the Azad Kashmir, Pakistan* Amb, India, a town Himachal Pradesh, India* Amb , a region in the former Indian Empire* Amb special form, a nondeterministic programming construct using continuations...

 and Phulra, ruled over by Tanoli chiefs of the same family, c 1840s to 1972.