Changpa
The Changpa are pastoral nomads in the over 4000 m high valleys and plains of Ladakh, which belongs to India .
Way of life
The homeland of the Changpa is the highlands of Changthang, which stretches from northwestern Tibet to southeastern Ladakh. The nomads of the Changpa belong to the Tibetan culture, which is evident from their social structures and their religion ( Buddhism with shamanistic rites).
No other people live permanently at such high altitude. As a clan, they move with their herds of goats and yaks between summer and winter pastures, and live in leather tents. Their animals provide them with meat, dairy products, furs, leather, wool and fuel. The Changpa live, among other things, from the sale of a special type of wool that their “Chang ra” goats only grow at great heights and in extremely cold winters. It is obtained from the warm undercoat that is then created and sold as pashmina . In addition to goats, they raise cattle, sheep and yaks. The people, feared in earlier times because of their raids, once had large herds and precious jewelry. The number of their leather nomad tents is steadily decreasing, however, as the younger generation increasingly migrate to the cities and give up the barren nomadic life.
In the past, the Changpas were sought-after mountain guides who led yak caravans from neighboring Tibet to the southern entrances of the Silk Road .
literature
- Ina Rösing : trance, obsession and amnesia. With the shamans of the Changpa nomads in Ladakhi Changthang. Weishaupt, Gnas 2003, ISBN 3-705-90174-5 .
Web links
- The gold of the Himalayas - nomadic life in Ladakh on docufilms.com (film documentation)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Trance, Obsession, and Amnesia. on weishaupt.at, accessed on May 9, 2014.
- ↑ The Gold of the Himalayas - Nomadic Life in Ladakh on swr.de, accessed on May 9, 2014.