Gorals

thumb|right|A Goral with bagpipes from the region of [[Podhale in Poland]] The Gorals (; Goral ethnolect: Górole; ; Cieszyn Silesian: Gorole), also anglicized as the Highlanders, are an ethnographic group with historical ties to the Vlachs. The Goral people are primarily found in their traditional area of southern Poland, northern Slovakia – especially Orava, Spiš and Zamagurie, and in the region of Cieszyn Silesia in the Czech Republic, where they are known as the Silesian Gorals. There is also a significant Goral diaspora in the area of Bukovina in western Ukraine and northern Romania, as well as in Chicago which is the seat of the Polish Highlanders Alliance of North America.

==History== The Gorals as a distinct group began to form in the 14th century with the arrival of the first Polish settlers from Lesser Poland, who would settle and farm the lands around what is today Nowy Targ and along the Dunajec valley beginning in the early twelve hundreds. Prior to that, Podhale was an uninhabited region sparsely populated by bandits who chose the inaccessible mountainous terrain to hide from justice. Then between the late 13th and 15th centuries, Vlach shepherds migrated to the region, gradually moving northwest from the Balkan peninsula over the Carpathian Mountains and settling on Polish lands there. The initial contact of the locals with the Vlachs was difficult. The medieval chronicler Jan Długosz described the nomadic shepherds as brutish. However, the newcomers brought with them a distinct method of raising livestock in the mountains, which was different from the one practiced by the settlers from the lowlands of Lesser Poland and thus with the merging of the two cultures, a new local way of life began to emerge, and the subsequent assimilation of the Vlachs. thumb|The funeral of a Goral, 1860 thumb|', colored wood engraving by Władysław Skoczylas