and depicts the colorful life of the Loba people from different perspectives. Sherpa, Pasang. Your Guide to Tibetan People and Cultural Life, Uncovering the great Himalayan mystery: the Yeti, The Essence ofTibetan Culture Seen through The Attire and Accessories They Adorn, Leisure life in Lhasa, Tibetan life style, {{count}} Questions and Answers On "Lhoba People in Sountheast of Himalayas", Sorry, E-mail has not been sent successfully. Anthropology and Humanism 36 (2): 193214. This is done to avoid confusion regarding the current reality of a people group, to fix grammar and spelling and to avoid potentially offensive wording. They have become less dependent on the parental property as they have diversified their livelihood system, including but not limited to labor migration and engagement in trade and commerce, including in the tourism industry. On May 23, 2011, the "Legend of the The roofs are extremely uniform and smooth, and on each corner a small square is constructed so that prayer flags may be hung there. They are supposed to contribute compulsory labor to maintain the irrigation system. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. The temperature is rising at 0.048 degrees Celsius per year, and the annual rainfall is decreasing by three millimeters (mm) per year (Khattri 2021; Khattri & Pandey 2021). All Lhoba tribes celebrate The New Year after heavy harvesting and many also like to hold wedding ceremonies during the new year celebrations. 1996. 2017. 3000 years of agriculture in a valley of the high Himalayas. Khattri, Man Bahadur, and Rishikesh Pandey. As we were nearing Chumrung, our group of three began to experience the first rumblings of a mutiny. Frer-Haimendorf, Christoph Von. and his descendants were Bogars. When singing, Mustang's later poverty may have preserved the original wall paintings. 2023 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. The artwork of the Luba Kingdom was also appreciated by Europeans, and was traded too. This region has also been recognized as a meeting place for Buddhist scholars of different sects, both by native and foreign origin, even from distant places such as Magadha (India), Simhala (Sri Lanka), Balyul (Kathmandu), Khache (Kashmir), and Bod (Tibet) (Dhungel 2002). A cell culture media or growth media is a solid, liquid, or semisolid media that is made up of various contents and nutrients to stimulate the growth, propagation, maintenance, and storage of . Crate, Susan A., and Nuttall, Mark. The region and culture In Upper Mustang the Tibetan culture, religion and traditions are believed to be at their purest, harking back to a Tibet before the Chinese occupation in 1951. Regional Environmental Change 11 (S1): 6577. The indigenous institutions are place-based, and their evolution is concerned with reducing vulnerability and enhancing the resilience capacity of place-based communities to cope with and adapt to local natural and socio-cultural environmental dynamics. Traditionnal political system in Mustang, Nnepal. These children are mostly sponsored by donors. Upper Mustang is a trans-Himalayan desert (cold) area with an annual average precipitation of less than 20cm. Gorgeous grey and brown cliffs, looking like exquisite shades of raw silk, shimmered in the backdrop. The dominant sect is Ngorpa, a sub-sect of Syakyapa. The monarch also protects the livelihood of the Loba community by maintaining peace and harmony among the Loba people through formal rules and regulations. We crossed several passes, including Nyi La, the highest pass on this route. In the past, they were obliged to perform all sorts of work, cooking, cleaning, collecting dung or fuel wood, and fetching water for the monastery and the palace. Recently, new issues have emerged in irrigation management from the people who have migrated to Kathmandu and Pokhara and could not cultivate their lands. 2009. Earlier, the land of the Gomba used to be cultivated by those households who sent their children to the Gomba as Lama or Anis. In the past, rich and well-off dhongba families used to send their second son and daughter to the Gomba, who were contributors to Gomba. Indigenous knowledge-based systems of farm, labor, and resource management, accompanied by changes in food preference (food value) and linking agriculture with spiritual practice, followed by occupational modernization and migration, are a high priority in the adaptation process (Khatri & Pandey 2021) that the Lobas have demonstrated through their indigenous institutions. Whichever direction you turned, there was nothing but cobalt blue skies. Education and trade also take turns seasonally. The area was forbidden to foreigners until 1992, so it used to be recognized as the forbidden kingdom of the Himalayas. The Government of Nepal adopted only the high-yielding and controlled-flow of tourists after 1992. In this way, the local institutions are supporting Loba communities to adapt to the changes, although the level of success in adaptation in a traditional way is limited, so the institutions, not only the community, demonstrated their dynamism to adapt to the change. However, the house structures found at Mustang could pose a question as to whether the society has been derived from feudalism. Kathmandu: Center for Nepal and Asian Studies, T.U., Nepal. The first name is given by a lama, or Buddhist monk. The ghenba, the village head, is an age-old local institution built upon the socio-cultural and political reality of Loba people and their environmental condition. World Bank. I was the first to announce that I would much rather go back to Pokhara and fly to Jomsom to commence the Upper Mustang trek from there than continue on this treacherous high-altitude trail all the way to Lo Manthang. Because of As animists, Lhoba people believe that everything has an immortal spirit called Wuyong. to take holidays, and the festival atmosphere is warm from the city to the Field observation was one of the principal methods of collecting primary information, followed by Key Informant Interviews (KII). The legend of the ancestors of the Loba In Knowledge systems and natural resources: Management, policy and institutions in Nepal, ed. "Southerners" and is the Tibetan appellation for them. Rich agricultural land was only available in pockets and in-between these were large uninhabited areas used for hunting. This paper investigates how different institutions of Loba communities of the Upper Mustang work together and facilitate the community to cope with the environmental dynamics in the region. Amchi Gyatso Bista informed that the number of village council members increases up to eighteen when they need to decide a date for the crop harvesting and electing the next ghenba. Dhongba households are ancestral property holders, which is transferred from generation to generation, mainly to the eldest son. They work in the royal fields and look after the royal herd on a turn basis. Of course, we did not know this when we decided to hire an SUV, at extortionate rates, to get to Jomsom. These institutions are built-in social bonds, known as social cement, with reciprocity for mutual benefits (Yaro et al. Lhoba societies are patriarchal and in the feudal past, women had no rights and had inherited nothing from their husbands and fathers. Nepal-Tibet relation 18501930: Years of hopes, challenges and frustrations. The area became restricted to foreigners for centuries and opened for controlled tourism only after 1992. Frequently and even customarily in the Tibetan cultural world, faded gompa murals in a state of deterioration were overpainted. District Development Committee, Mustang. The second name will be the name they received from their parents at birth. We plunged our feet into the cool waters of the Kali Gandaki before returning to our hotel, which faced the Nilgiri (well, all the hotels in Jomsom do). ), Anthropology and Sociology of Nepal: Cultures, Societies, Ecology and Development (pp. New voices are raised against these age-old rules. crab porridge is a snack in Macao. The roofs are extremely uniform and smooth, and on each corner a small square is constructed so that prayer flags may be hung there. Chuksang village (2,965 m) en route was ripe with apples, plums and apricots. However, the ghenba system has been able to play a crucial role in mobilizing water users, and is useful in the entire Upper Mustang region to mobilize local people for community development and local, ecosystem-based adaptation. The seasonal labor migration from the region started about 50years ago. Peterson, Nicole, and Broad, Kenneth. @ Hu Zuxin @ Nyingchi window In Lo-manthang, a drought-prone region, cultivation without irrigation is impossible. the Tibetan calendar October 1, is the most grand festival of the year in The forms of performance are solo, duet and chorus. Pasture is managed in turn by splitting them into plots. These rules include a 48 hour fast and a vow of total silence. Thus, Lamas are always supportive of the overall ecosystem, and warding the socio-cultural and psychological well-being of Loba people whenever they are in pain, panic, and trouble. This issue has been a subject of public discussion, but not yet decided, said Indra Dhara Bista, the local elite and then member of parliament of the Gandaki Province, Nepal. The path to Kagbeni is along the riverbed, mostly dry, with an occasional crystal stream meandering over the grey pebbles. Social equity in farmer-managed irrigation in the Terai of Nepal. The semi-structured checklist was prepared to guide the KII to seek information on institutions that govern their unity with the Lo kingdom, craft their norms, values, beliefs, perceptions, and adaptive strategies to cope with the changing socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions. The Loba are primarily farmers, shepherds, or merchants. Today, most Lhoba live at the foot of the Himalayas, in the high mountains and deep valleys. However, a new problem in the ghenba system has emerged since some Loba households are not interested in taking responsibility of ghenba and chhime. Shrestha, Arun B., and Raju Aryal. Please try again or contact inquiry@tibettravel.org. Himalayan traders: life in highland Nepal. Agrawal, Arun. Introduction / History. According to the Amchi Ghyacho, there are three kinds of human life situations in which a Lama needs to perform rituals: Nakchi rituals are performed for sick people; Sinchi rituals are performed for dead persons; Karcha rituals are performed during the marriage and the birth of a child in a family. Ellen, Roy F., Peter Parkes, and Alan Bicker. Changes in institutional role in the changing socio-economic, and environmental context. 1993. Data is not as precise as it appears. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Cambridge University Press India. We moved on, to Tsaile across the river where we would have our lunch and halt for the night. 191225. The Loba nationality mainly distributes Ancestors of the Loba Nationality" declared by Milin County of Tibet In-depth interviews with 15 farmers, 10 traders, 5 Buddhist monks (Lamas/ religious leaders), 1 Amchi (Himalayan traditional healer), two development practitioners, two local teachers, and two village heads have been conducted by the researcher, along with field research assistants. Because the Lhoba language do not have a written script and prior to 1950s all Lhoba people were illiterate, almost nothing is written by Lhoba people about their culture and history. The study was conducted under the PhD in Anthropology project of the first author at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Both the men and women grow their hair long and often wear it braided. The first author who wrote this paper also presented at the international seminar held at the Central University, Jharkhand, Ranchi, India. A PhD Dissertation Submitted to Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. years, Loba men usually cross long knives, wear fur hunting clothes and fur By the afternoon, newspapers in Latin America and Spain teemed with tributes. Lhoba women wears skirts made from sheep's wool and narrow-sleeved blouses. (ABC News: Zoe Osborne) "In earlier times, there were nearly 125 monks here," says Sakya monk, Jabyang Sonam. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523. Gongbu area (Milin County, Linzhi County, Gongbu Jiangda County). 2015. Until 1992, this area was closed to the outside world. still using the original way of slash and fire to engage in agricultural They produce single seasonal crops of few varieties (wheat, naked barley, mustard, potatoes . We have also used secondary data to evaluate the facts and ideas, from published scholarly journals to grey literature on the related themes. told reporters that due to the dispersed living and inconvenient transportation Occasionally, the villages get access to allopathic medical care, when flying doctors from Medicines Sans Frontiers set up medical camps. The Lama plays a major role in reinforcing local rules, while the Ghenba is an agent who mediates the Lo King and people in materializing rules and operationalizing institutional mechanisms. Blanks mean an unknown value. It is common for a Loba woman to be married to several men, a practice known as polyandry. Our travel agent, Suman, who is in his forties and an avid trekker of yesteryear, sits in distant Kathmandu. This was to be the easiest part of the Mustang trek. Buddhism seems to have been integrated into the original Bon faith. his two sons westward and southward through the Lilonggou, and crossed These changes have made Upper Mustang even drier since the snow in the spring melts faster, increases runoff, and reduces water storage in the form of snow, therefore decreasing the availability of water but increasing landslides and flooding. They roast both animal and plant based food. The Newars: An ethno-sociological study of a Himalayan community. In old days, Lhoba people were divided into two classes - 'maide' and 'nieba'. Mario Time is still not over, as the animated film has broken another record, becoming the first film of 2023 to pass the $1 billion mark at the global box office. Lama teaches ordinary people about offering water (tho) and light (chhume) to God. Evangelicals = 2% Professing Christians > 50% 4 They harvest their crops first and common people harvest crops later. Kagbeni is the jumping-off point for the Upper Mustang trek and Muktinath. District Development Committee, Mustang. Tashi Gephel Foundation. Lhoba people are the smallest of the 56 ethnic groups in China and live in South-eastern Tibet. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology The common people are obliged to follow the rules fixed by the ghenba. United Asia Publication. Ethnography of climate change: Loba strategies to adaptation in Lo-manthang, Upper Mustang, Nepal. Nepali, Gopal Singh. The main cause of monogamy is quarrel among the brothers (Gurung 2012) and new family law of Nepal. Despite the harsh surroundings, villages in Upper Mustang seemed like veritable oases. The Luba are savanna and forest dwellers who practice hunting, food gathering, and agriculture (cassava, corn [maize]), keep small livestock, and live in villages of a single street, with rectangular thatched-roof huts along either side. It spans 27 50 '- 29 16' n and 103 36 '- 105 20' E. The cit. They focused on the role of local institutions in enhancing adaptive capacity to maintain the livelihood system (food, fuel, shelter, health, education, communication system, sovereignty over resources, and their management) in resource-scare ecological regions. Cambridge University Press. Lo is home to three beautiful gompas with exquisite murals, Choede, Jhampa and Thubchen, all in various states of disrepair. The dun-coloured dunes in the foreground contrast with the rainbow-hued rocks in the distance. The Loba are primarily farmers, shepherds, or merchants. 2068. Ojha, N.P. The communities near Tibetan people, the cuisine also includes potatoes and spicy food. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v11i0.18822. Marcus, George E. 1995. They inhabit the Mustang and Dolpa districts in the northern part of the region (Dhawalagiri Zone), close to the Nepal-China border.. People Group Location: Omid. Kottak, Conrad Phillip. Amchi Gyatso Bista, a local traditional medicinal healer, royal ancestral priest and former ghenba said that the present King was asked if local people should support first to collect fodder from his field and harvest crops by residents, but the King denied to receive support from local people as he would hire labors. A new ghenba takes responsibility for one agriculture cycle, which begins from the performance of sakaluka ritual and works until the next sakaluka. This system was followed also in Varanasi India during winter trade. Agricultural adaptation to climate change in the trans-Himalaya: a study of Loba community of Lo-manthang, Upper Mustang. Stealing and lying are considered heavy crimes and stealing is punished heavily, usually expelling from the village. Chapter But in general, Lhoba men clothing reflects their hunting lifestyle. They also mediate and hear the local disputes relating to the civil law of the village. The Loba people living in the northern part The Lo Kingdom and Loba King played a role in achieving and maintaining the autonomy of the region and local resources land, water, forest, and pasture. The area is experiencing a high rate of climate change. Yellow school buses were plying on this single street, presumably bringing children from surrounding villages. The concept of Wuyong has a significant influence on the life and work of Lhoba people. Kings role has been positive in opening tourism in Upper Mustang since 1992 and the family has also been involved in the tourism sector. Khattri, M.B., Pandey, R. Indigenous institutions as adaptive measures to environmental dynamics: an ethnographic study of Loba Community of Upper Mustang, Nepal. It is surrounded on three sides by Chinese-occupied Tibet. Ask God to send Christian tourists and hikers to Nepal who will share the love of Jesus with the Loba. Two Both men and women of the Loba nationality like The traditional role of the Gomba in the Loba community, as described above, is an institution that maintains a peaceful and just society, as per the values of Tibetan Buddhism. The fieldwork in Lo-manthang, Upper Mustang started in 2012, but regular interviews and observations were conducted in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2023 respectively. Armed with a torch, we toured the gloomy interiors to catch a glimpse of the vivid and vibrant colours, smudged by seepage in places and peeling off here and there. 1). Known as Donggeng Gurumu (meaning something like congratulate the safety of the current year and look forward to a bumper harvest in the coming year), the festival witnesses Lhoba people butchering cattle and pigs to be given as presents to the maternal relatives. The trade routes of the Luba extended all the way from eastern Africa to the distant shores of India. Aani Gomba was found in Thinger, Tsarang, and Lo-manthang in the past. National population and housing census 2011 (village development committee/municipality).