Tulachan, Pushpa V. 2003. The denizens of Lo Manthang are true custodians of a vanishing culture and way of life. Although the formal monarchy of the region was abolished in 2008 from Nepal, Loba communities still follow the monarchy institution informally and the King has not lost the respect of the Loba people. One interesting fact about Lhoba people is that they do not lock their doors. They produce single seasonal crops of few varieties (wheat, naked barley, mustard, potatoes, buckwheat, vegetables). Dangbang, the second was Dangjian, and the third was Dangjian. The turn system is widely followed in different spheres of Loba life. The Lhoba fortune-telling practice is quite unique as they read patterns (colour, shape and blood vessels) in a freshly harvested liver. Earlier, the land of the Gomba used to be cultivated by those households who sent their children to the Gomba as Lama or Anis. Dhongbas work for the King during crop cultivation and harvesting time. 2008. 2015. Nevertheless, some households are bound by the customary rules developed in the past and are still sending their second son/daughter to the Gomba. The Loba live in the Mustang District of northern Nepal, at altitudes of between 11,000 and 13,000 feet. To support the palace, some households were categorized as the nagjin to work inside the palace: cleaning rooms, carrying loads, processing and cooking foods, and grinding or preparing tsampa were their main tasks. Levine, Nancy E. 1981. Village municipality developmental works are mostly done by these in-migrant workers since the members of the Loba community are not much interested in such labor works. The social and cultural hierarchy of the Lo Kingdom is significantly different from the caste and ethnicity system of Nepal. They wear knee-length, sleeveless, buttonlessblack jackets made of sheep's wool with hats made from bear skin or bamboo stripes. The roofs are extremely uniform and smooth, and on each corner a small square is constructed so that prayer flags may be hung there. In Pokhara, we gorged on delectable cheesecake and plum pudding and got our pile of clothes laundered in one of the many laundromats that line the streets. They build their homes out of stone, making the roofs out of thinly chiseled stone squares. In such situations, the ghenba system looks for another person/household who takes the responsibility and pays that money to the person/household. The new year is celebrated three times, as each harvest is seen as a different year (on November the 1st, December the 1st and January). It is not even a dirt track but a boulder- and rock-strewn unpaved road prone to landslides. However, this practice is being changed slowly as new generations of Loba began to marry outside the cross-cousin relations. Field observation was one of the principal methods of collecting primary information, followed by Key Informant Interviews (KII). They speak the following languages: Luba-Katanga, Luba-Kasai, Luba-Maniema, and Swahili. However, as Loba people prioritize cash income away from agriculture, the practice of half-share crop production system hardly exists. world and the social development is slow. They prayed for the blessings of ghosts and gods, often killed The household (dhaonba) is the smallest unit of production of any given local social-ecological system (Pandey & Bardsley 2015), and follows the rules, norms and values prescribed by the other three institutions that sustain their livelihood. Lhoba people In the past, the Loba followed the reme ghapkin to serve the palaces kitchen management, rituals, water, fuel, fodder, livestock, security, and handling other business as well (Table 2). The ghenba system in Lo-manthang is led by eight households from Bista/Kutak clan. Taylor Weidman/LightRocket/Getty Images On a cold evening in 2012, anthropologist Jiban Mani Poudel sat sharing tea and snacks with mountain herders huddled around a cattle pen in Nepal's Nhson Valley. Culture is a very deep topic but the simplest way to define it is that culture is a group of people's values, norms, assumptions and behaviors. He Climate and Development 7 (3): 235245. University of Illinois Press. At Tangbe, A Nepali teacher from Lower Mustang teaches kids basic education in one of the only school in the village. The Lhoba engage in barter trade with the Tibetans, trading goods like animal hides, musk, bear paws, dye (locally knowns as tamen or botanically known as Rubia cordifolia) and captured game for farm tools, salt, wool, clothing, grain and tea from Tibetan traders. The Upper Mustang lies on the northern side of the Mustang district, Gandaki Province of Nepal. The Loba are believed to practice the oldest strain of Tibetan Buddhism in existence, but it's losing its pull. Central Asian arts - Himalayan cultures of Nepal and Tibet The dhongba households, however, still have certain community obligations such as maintaining Gomba (monastery); support in rituals with food, labor, materials, and fuel; organizing important community festivals/rituals like Yartung, Tenchi Chiram (Tiji); and looking after their entire family members, including the parents and brother and sisters until they become adults. But in general, Lhoba men clothing reflects their hunting lifestyle. Article Women wear short shirts with round collar and narrow sleeves, skirts with Blanks mean an unknown value. What are examples of culture? - My Clever Mind 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. Depending upon the case, the norms defaulter may be asked to be present in front of the village assembly, where, the senior Lama from Chodea Gomba and the Lo King might also be attended. his two sons westward and southward through the Lilonggou, and crossed In Loba society, a person may have as many as three names. They had practiced polyandry marriage until the recent past. The Loba people informally still recognized the former prince as the King. Gongbu Festival, organs, enterprises and institutions in Linzhi District have California Privacy Statement, The ranchunchube/dhawa is represented by the monastic Lama. tight lower body and wrapped legs. Dove, 121. - Few evangelicals and few who identify as Christians. Part of 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. Irrigation management led by ghenba as the local institution has at least ten designed principles in Lo-manthang as presented in Table 1. The first author is the primary researcher. Nayuene is celebrated once or twice a year and there are a number of rules that must be followed in order to observe it. Correspondence to area of Nanyi). Indigenous institutions as adaptive measures to environmental dynamics As Nina Wegner explained via email, "A new school in Lo Manthang offers the national curriculum in the Loba's native language of Lowa, while an amchi (Tibetan doctor) school instills young people with the science, art and . In less than a month of release . 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). told reporters that due to the dispersed living and inconvenient transportation 300 per day per person. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2014.951018. Dhongba households are ancestral property holders, which is transferred from generation to generation, mainly to the eldest son. Tribhuvan University, Nepal. One tradition says that the eldest son will inherit the family's property. The Mustangi King Gyam Parabal led the Nepal Government delegates in 1895, during the dialogue on the border dispute, with Chinas Tibet, related to the salt and grain trade in Mustang. Gurung, Juddha Bahadur 2012. In great need of spiritual renewal and commitment to biblical faith. Shrestha, Uttam Babu, Shiva Gautam, and Kamaljit S. Bawa. Nepali, Gopal Singh. In Krishna B. Bhattachan, Pasang Sherpa and Pasang Dolma Sherpa (Eds.) We visited the local gompa and the attached monasteries where young monks were being schooled in Buddhist scriptures. Lama Phuntchok said: Chhode Gomba owns big plots of agricultural land, which were to be cultivated by those people who do not produce enough food for their families from their land. of Metou County use Tibetan, while the other Loba people use Loba. Cultural life centered around the kitenta, the royal compound. The Loba are primarily farmers, shepherds, or merchants. The single growing season a year in the region where the minimal size of farmland is available causes inadequate local food production that has challenged food and livelihood security in the region (Pandey 2017). The Newars: An ethno-sociological study of a Himalayan community. The legend of the ancestors of the Loba When Bang took Its territory includes the source of the Kali Gandaki River. Ask the Holy Spirit to cause the Loba to become dissatisfied with their traditional religions, and to make them hungry for the Bread of Life. Lama teaches ordinary people about offering water (tho) and light (chhume) to God. The barter animal hides, musk, bear paws and other items with Tibetans in exchange for tools and clothing. Suhasini would have preferred us to stick to our original plan but was outnumbered when Parvathi endorsed my suggestion. They began with running a travel agency and network building with tourists, and also running a curio shop in Lo-manthang, and recently they have been running a hotel for high class tourists in Lo-manthang. Our travel agent, Suman, who is in his forties and an avid trekker of yesteryear, sits in distant Kathmandu. Two Buddhist sects, the Kargyupa and the Sakyapa, are dominant in upper Mustang. Many of the young Loba people are waiting expectantly and anxiously for the road's completion, but many older residents are hesitant about what it will mean for their culture and identity. The co-author contributed in framing, refining, and pointing out laps in the manuscript facilitated to enhance the quality of the paper. The wind whistles eerily. After one beautiful legend after another, Zhuji Ancient Lane is one of the national 4A scenic spots and one of t. Daxian opera is a local traditional drama in Huaxian and Puyang counties of Henan Province, and one of the intangible cultural heritage at the national level. This is one of the odd traditions that is existing in the world.This old culture is followed by the residents of Spain since 1620.This culture was mainly organized to keep the devils away.According to this culture, children are laid on the mattresses in the street and heavy crowd gather to watch.Usually the jumpers wear traditional costumes to Women are the ground . We had to clamber on hands and feet to reach Tsaile but decided to move on after lunch to the next camp, in Samar. In the polyandrous family, male members follow the reme gyapkin system to maintain a harmonious relationship among the brothers in the household. Mio Yuanhoon, Quan Chen, the son of Saul fruit of the tribal chieftain of the Qing Dynasty, the founding fathers . The province used to be an independent kingdom within Nepal until 2008 when Nepal itself became a republic and the Mustang king lost his title. We stopped for a bite at the Yak Donalds restaurant. Lobas have maintained some traditional practices of livelihood and added new livelihood strategies. Each household had a turn of 7days. After a few hours, we reached Kagbeni, one of the bigger villages in Upper Mustang, at a height of 2,810 m. It is home to 1,600 people living in 229 households. Frequently and even customarily in the Tibetan cultural world, faded gompa murals in a state of deterioration were overpainted. These institutions are built-in social bonds, known as social cement, with reciprocity for mutual benefits (Yaro et al. 2015). It was probably the toughest stretch in our entire trek, even tougher than the trudge in the dark to ABC. In lieu of their services, King has provided highly fertile land to dhongbas, as Funjok Gurung (39) told us that dhongbas are entitled to become village chiefs. Their leadership is selected from each household of the Phalwa (Gurung) community on the basis of turn system. Nationality. It is inhabited by the Loba and the Khampa. Yaro, Joseph Awetori, Joseph Teye, and Simon Bawakyillenuo. 2015. Most of the time, the eldest brother remains at home. Buckwheat had just been harvested and left out in the fields to dry. feeling and sends out, exports for the song. But, it is not known the ancestors of Lhoba people were occupying the region at that time or came from somewhere else later. 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). Life in Lo Manthang - Google Arts & Culture Pandey, Rishikesh. Mustang's later poverty may have preserved the original wall paintings. The next day, we drove to the Chosar caves near the Tibetan border to see the many caves on the mountainside that were once home to monks. For this reason, people often sleep on the terraces during the summer to escape the heat. Chhetri, Ram Bahadur 1999. society, and a way of existence of the folk life of the Loba people. - Evangelicals have a significant presence. the Tibetan calendar October 1, is the most grand festival of the year in They are part of the South Asian Buddhist people cluster within the South Asian Peoples affinity bloc. Kottak, Conrad Phillip. The popular way of cooking is putting the game in fire and covering by ashes to prepare for eating. Adapt or Abandon? Hard Choices in the Himalayas - SAPIENS The Lo King and his officials sponsored to arrange religious councils between 14721475, where over nine hundred monks attended the meetings (Dhungel 2002). We had to descend rapidly before our condition escalated into full-blown acute mountain sickness. This people group is only found in Nepal. Two households were responsible as nechhang nerpa, the economic manager of the palace during the Kings rule.