Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual cultural and religious country.
Our country has more than one hundred ethnicity and caste group who speak more
than 90 different languages. Indigenous people are descendants of the original
inhabitants of many lands strikingly diverse in their cultures, religions and
patterns of social and economic organizations. In simple word, the
term ethnic groups or Janajatis refer to people with distinct language,
culture, and native area.
Chepangs are also one of those Janajati (native people) who live in the
upper slopes of the central region of the country. There are 81000 Chepangs all
over Nepal where more than 98% of the Chepangs are residing in Chitwan,
Makawanpur, Dhading, and Gorkha districts. Recently, there has been an increasing
rate of migration to centrally developed locations (cities and sub-urbans) for
better opportunities. Now they are scattered in districts like Gorkha, Tanahun, Lamjung,
Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Nawalparasi and Bara.
Origin of Chepang
"Chepang” is derived from the word Chyobang or Che Pang
“Chyo” means on the top and bang means stone. In other words, people
living in the hills. (Caulghly, Dahal, Bandhu, 1971). Chepangs claim that
their ancestors lived and sheltered in caves and most believed that they
originated from stone. However, in chepang language, “Che” means dog and Pang
means “Arrow”. Therefore, tradition has it that these people used to take dog
and arrow for hunting purpose long time ago.(Gurung,
1989)
Physical Attributes
Round face, flat and short nose, dark brown complexion, and thin
and medium ears, dark eyes, and small in heights. In short, they are in resemblance with Mongolian features.
Social life
Chepangs started building huts for housing in early 2000s. These
huts are narrow and small; two storied, covered by thatched roofs and are built
on the wooden pillars kept few feet below the ground. The wooden planks and
clay fence the walls. The construction materials are easily available locally.
The huts do not have separate compartments and it consists of only one single
room. On right and one side of the corner of the kitchen, a bamboo platform is
placed which is used for drying goods such as meat, corns etc. They have few
utensils in the kitchen, earthen pots (made out of clay) for water and aluminum
for dishes. These tribal groups use Paddy and millet straw, dried leaves of
banana and wooden planks as the mattress. They spread little ash under their
mattress before sleeping on the ground for their bodies to make them warm. They
claim that they belong to Kirati group (group of people living in caves and
forests) of people and their language belongs to Tibeto Burman strains.
Culture
All culture provides identity to ethnic community and as so, it’s
not different for these people. The Chepangs have their own cultural practices
including language, rituals, art and artifacts, personal behavior and
tradition. They worship and pray nature (consider it as a god). They
worship god they believe in and the nature in every season (there are
four seasons) wishing for better weather and crops. As superstitious as it sounds, they
believe in witch doctors called Shaman ( Pandey/ Phal). The Pandey is the main
person in the community and these native people believe that the Pandey can get
rid off every sickness and diseases.
They have their own Kul puja (A kind of ritual performed by the Chepangs
where they worship particular gods their ancestors believed in) called
Tongkolan or Sangma. In this ceremony they sacrifice pigs, goats, chickens led
by the oldest person of the community followed by tribal singing and dancing
(they perform particular dance and sing their own specific song). In addition
to this, Chepangs also entertain themselves with the unique baja “Dhyangro” (indigenous
musical instrument) in their community.
The bow and arrow is the main weapon of this community. These ethnic
groups have their own ethnic songs. (A) Mansa geet (B) Eunrai geet
The Eunrai geet (song) represents and describes human civilizations. This
represents formation of the earth, the sun gives rays, the god takes space, and
plant takes space.
The Mansa geet represents and describe the love story. These songs have their own melodies (laya) sung by the elders of the society. They sing a song
and ask questions and get answers from Kuldevta like Sime and Bhume. They sing
this song at the time of harvesting.
Duties
Among Chepangs, women look after the household works while men look after
their affairs outside the house. The pande (shaman) takes leadership role in
almost all the religious and social activities of the Chepang society. The Chepangs
have the practice of propitiating ancestors (kulpuja) and observing dewali.
The superstition is the main problem for development in this
society. The relationship between men and women is not based on domination.
Women participate in every decision making process actively. The communal
system, Parma system (labor exchange system) shows community has strong
cohesion for social integration. After the death of husband, women do not have
to remove Sindhur and Pohte (traditionally worn by only married women) and also
can remarry. At the same time, women do not hesitate to interact with
each other inside the community.
Individual
characteristics
Simple, trustworthy, lazy,
ashamed habit, do not want to understand the external thing and want to be
far from outdoor environment, tolerant, unmanaged residence, and dressing system and politeness are the individual habit and
culture of Chepang community.
Source of living
The natural resource is the main source for their livelihood. They have
indigenous knowledge to use the natural resource. However, it needs to be
improved with new technology.
Life cycle
Begins with birth ceremony, the naming ceremony (Nwaran), Pasni ceremony
(first time when the baby eats food), the hair trimming ceremony (Chhewar), the
marriage ceremony and the death ceremony.
Conception/ Birth
Offspring is considered as the blessing of god. A pregnant woman
and her husband have to follow certain taboos. To touch a dead body, kill
snakes or any other animal is considered sinful. The Pandey gives the sacred
rice and water to the mother for the safe delivery of the baby. Generally,
father cuts the Saal (umbilical cords) with the sterilized knife and is buried in
a safe place. The period of seclusion varies from ten days to one month. After
one week, the mother resumes her normal household works.
The naming ceremony among Chepangs takes place on the ninth day of the
birth of a child. During the ceremony the Chepang Shaman (pandey) reads sacred
texts over a Rooster, a hen, thread colored with turmeric, thin Roti(bread)
made of maize flour, totala flowers, egg and takes them outside for worship.
The child and mother are tied with the thread; and a name is given to a child.
The mother and the baby are purified by Sun-pani (water touched by gold) and Cow
urine followed by tying a Dorra (sacred thread) on the wrist of baby and
mother.
After five or six month of baby’s birth they start to feed with “celebration
feast” to their relatives known as Pasni. The Chhewar is another ceremony but
it is not equally important to this, as concept of Chhewar is transferred from
the other higher caste.
Wedding
They accept the kinship marriage and inter caste marriage. However,
the endogamous marriage is prohibited. The Chepangs have arranged marriages,
capture marriage and love marriage. They welcome the new couple with sacred
Diyo (light) and Tika (mark worn on the forehead on certain festivals and
religious ceremony and considered as a blessing). This community also accepts
marriage with widow or widowers. This community accepts marriages with
higher caste and it’s just the opposite with lower caste. The chicken (Rooster
from groom and Hen from bride), alcohol, banana and Jand (yeast) etc are the
most important aspects for matrimonial ceremony. In this ceremony they offer
pigs, Rakshi (alcohol), banana, rice, fish etc. The number 22 is very
good for the marriage ceremony. Therefore the quantities of 22 dharni,
pathi, kainyo kera, sikka (measuring Techniques) are needed to complete the
marriage.
Death Ceremony
The death ceremony is another important culture of this community.
The dead body is bathed and covered with white clothes and put garlands (made
of flower) on their body and wrapped with burial cloth. The relatives of family
give last condolence with flowers, garland and red powder. The funeral
procession is akin to the practices enshrined in the Hindu religion. Chepangs believe in the rebirth of the people. So they pray to the
god and carry out all the funeral procession as described by the pandey. After
13 days all kin and clans are purified. Chepang
men wear single piece of clothes around their waist and the Chepang women wear “Majetro”
(two meter long cloth) covering up to their necks.
Religion
The religion of Chepang is known as bon (forest) as they worship nature.
The Chepangs follow animisms, although they are strongly influenced by both Hinduism
and Buddhism. They observe all kinds of Hindu festivals of Dashain, Tihar, and
Sankrantis-transmigration of
the Sun from one Rashi (constellation of the zodiac in astronomy) to the next. Apart from this, they have their own tribal
festivals like Nawagi, which is performed on Tuesday during third week of Bhadra
(between August and September).
Social Cohesion
The community has different type
of social structures: both homogeneous and heterogeneous settlements are observed. They want to live in homogeneous settlements as this type of
settlements is strong, consistent and has the strong social integrity. This
community is gradually moving towards modernization. Information technology
plays an important role to increase awareness. Due to poverty and
vulnerability, they have no access to the resources. The Patriarchal system
dominates women but all women enjoy independence. The local elite class control
natural and government resources.
The daily routine of the Chepang community is to collect feeding
materials from the jungles to overcome famine period. They live in scarcity,
hard life, and severe oppression by the local elite class. The homogeneous
settlements have strong interrelation among them and carry out democratic decision-making process. After transformation into the heterogeneous
settlement, they lose their own system and identity. The women participate in
labor equal to man and they have strong social spirit.“Parma system” (labor exchange system) is popular in all types of
work, especially in agricultural works, manufacture and building
houses, cattle shed etc.
Although Chepang are backward in education, health, sanitation and personal hygiene
including all basic infrastructure, this can be
changed over time with proper mission and vision.
There are certain things that
we have in life but we can’t understand it all, mainly because understanding is
not necessary, or even possible. Same thing happened to me. I was there trying
to understand why I was doing this campaign for these mountain people but the
answers were not there. I still don’t have it. As far as I know, I simply
wanted to do this project without worrying about the consequences. Last but not
the least I want to specially thank all these people for their help and support
for this “Self Sustaining Campaign” 
