A Lepcha Story

Darjeeling Chowrastra
It is the heart of Darjeeling: the Chowrastra. There are higher places, but none so flat and open, wide open, a sight unseen on this crowded tumbling hill, overrun with monotonous hotels and iridescent tea bushes, shoebox shops and cold cement buildings, narrow winding roads and concise, steep stairways. The Chowrastra is nothing but precious, open space.

Morning to night, it moves with life, all kinds of life, flowing in, flowing through, or stopping for a rest on the slatted wooden benches. Part playground, part park, a promenade and grandstand, a meeting ground, and a place to while away the hours. It is the grand central station of Darjeeling, the place to see and be seen. It is lazy and active, constantly shuffling into something new.

It is a stage for all of life’s stations. Screaming, tottering children give chase to spools of waddling, cooing pidgins. Youth, neither here nor there, cluster in small packs, boys with boys, slicked hair and leather jackets, and girls with girls, tight jeans and pearly sweaters, eyeing each other with hints and dares, a visible sexual pulse that beats with surprising clarity and volume for conservative India. The great middle; parents cradling children, distracted and watchful, shouting families on mountain holiday, the quickened flow of commerce, pointed and direct, and the wandering eye of the police. And on the edges, the aged and the old, creased eyes on creased faces, filling the benches and watching the flow, humming mantras and spinning rosaries, sipping tea and sharing words, with nothing but time.

It is the union hall, protest ground, and rally point. Politics is everywhere, hanging from the posts, coming from the megaphones, rallies, and slogans, within each walking, breathing person: Gurkhas and Lepchas, Tibetans and Bengalis. Every day, another rally, strike, or march. It all starts in the Chowrastra.

And finally, the dogs; packs of them, trotting, bristling, and sleeping, cast here and there, chests rising and falling in the stark mountain sun.

A constant flow of politics, people, and life, right up until the second layer of night’s darkness, and then the tide recedes. The benches empty, crowds thin, and the Chowrastra reclaims silence. Wide empty space washed with mist and the cool yellow glow of lamps, except for a few hurried shadows, heading home.

A Lepcha Fairytale: Renu and Rangite
Once upon a time, there were two rivers and they were lovers: Renu and Rangite. Renu was the female lover and she was led by a snake. And so, when she flowed from Kingchunjungbu, the ‘Lucky Forehead Mountain’, she moved like a snake with tight winding curls, back and forth. Rangite was the male lover and he was led by a bird. And so he flowed like a bird, a long curving round arc, as if flying up and then down.

Eventually the two lovers meet, but Renu, the female, arrived first, and she waited, and waited, and waited. Rangit arrived second, and when he saw Renu, he was angry, and he asked her “Tisata” (‘When did you come?’) Renu became furious and said, ‘I’ve been waiting all this time, and you question me?’ and in her anger she turned around and went back to the mountain.

Because Renu refused to flow, the earth shook with landslides and earthquakes and everywhere there was destruction. Rangit felt bad and so he went to the mountain and spoke with Renu- “I’m sorry Renu,” he said, “please come back.” Renu thought for a moment and then agreed, saying, “Ok, I will come back, and you can pass through my body.” From that day forward, the place where the two rivers come together is called “lover’s meet” and the new joined river is called Tisata, or “When did you come?”
(A Lepcha Fairy Tale)

Rosa and S.M. Lepcha
I met Rosa Lepcha on a bench in the Chowrastra, the high-mountain sun beating down with undiluted force. She leaned against the dark green slats of the bench and draped a heavy woolen scarf across her brow, her eyes pulled tight against the glare. “Hot” she said, waving her hand back and forth, as she looked out on the bustling square.

Streams of children came pouring into the Chowrastra, their school uniforms lit by the afternoon sun: maroons and grays, blues, greens and whites. We watched the parade of colors, the pleated skirts and pressed pants, buttoned sweaters and silk ties, as Rosa searched for the gray and blue uniform of her daughter.

During a moment’s lull, I asked Rosa if she was Gurkha, and pointed to the green, white, and yellow flags, emblems of the Gurkha movement, which hung from nearly every shop, pole and fence. “No” she answered in short, precise words, “I am Lepcha.” She paused for a moment and then continued, “We are the original people of this place.”

Rosa’s didn’t speak so much as breathe her words; they started strong but faded at the end, like a slow exhale, and so I cupped my ear and leaned towards her small frame. I asked her if there were many Lepchas in Darjeeling. “No, we are not many. The Nepali culture (Gurkha) is strongest here. People speak Nepali...” Rosa stopped mid-sentence and searched for a word that wouldn’t come. “What to say… I am proud of myself because I am Lepcha. We are rich in everything. We do not borrow our dresses, we have our own language and script, and we have lots of stories, fairytales.”

We fell back into silence. The Chowrastra bore the remnants of yesterday’s Gurkha protest, and somewhere, a loud speaker blasted the movement’s ubiquitous anthem. I leaned towards Rosa and asked if she supported the “Gurkha Land” movement. “Not so much,” she answered, continuing to look out upon the square, “but we don’t have a choice,” and she fell into quick chopped rolls of laughter, covering her uneven teeth with small, curving fingers.

Rosa tilted her head towards me, letting her hand fall back in her lap. “We are fighting to preserve our own culture,” she continued. “It is unique. It is different from others. Lepchas are nature worshippers, but I am Catholic. My daughter is catholic too, but my husband is a nature worshipper. He worships Kingchunjungbu,” and she spelled out the name, letter by letter, translating the meaning of each syllable: “Lucky… Forehead… Mountain”.

I knew this mountain, or at least I knew its other alliteration: Kangchendzonga. I told Rosa, in equally simple words, that two days earlier I had woken at four in the morning and rode up a winding road to Tiger Hill. I, and about a thousand other mostly Indian tourists, watched as the ‘Lucky Forehead Mountain,’ the world’s third largest peak, warmed with morning’s first light.

We settled back into the bench and continued watching the square. I stole glances at Rosa; her small full frame, the twisting mound of dark hair pulled into a thick bun, the wide angular face and teardrop eyes, and the narrow, fine lips, painted a dark ruby red. I couldn’t see any distinct traits from the women passing through the Chowrastra, and so I asked if Lepchas had a different appearance. “If people are coming, I can recognize if he or she is Lepcha,” she answered. “They have little bit eyes that look like this,” and she tapped a finger just below her own. “Our skin is also a little bit fair. Except for my husband. He’s dark skinned. He doesn’t look Lepcha but he is” and again she laughed, ripples of lines streaking from her narrowed eyes.

Rosa picked up her cell phone and ran her thumb across the numbers. “If you want to know more, you should talk to my husband, S.M. He is a leader of the Lepchas,” and she lifted the receiver to her half-hidden ear. For the first time, I heard Rosa speak with force, a flurry of rolling, full sounds, which she spoke into her phone.

“He is busy,” she said, as she lowered the phone, “but he said tomorrow,” and she paused for a moment, again struggling with a reluctant word. “What to say…I learned from my husband what is Lepcha. When I was in school, I didn’t know anything. Now we are trying to preserve our culture. My husband and I teach Lepcha language classes. We do this on our own. We don’t get any support from the government. If we do not teach the children, we will lose our own language, costumes, and culture.”

Rosa dropped her thought and pointed across the Chowrastra, waving her hand in the air: “my daughter, Sylvia Mayal”. Sylvia walked towards us, her gray pleated skirt rising and falling with each step. She exchanged a few impatient words with Rosa, her lips pouting and feet stomping. Even in the midst of the teen-age tantrum, I could see a resemblance: the same broad face and arching eyebrows, pale skin and flaring nostrils.

We rose from the bench and made plans to meet the next day in the Chowrastra, this time with Rosa’s husband, S.M. I moved to shake hands but Rosa kept her arm at her side, and so with a final quick wave, I turned into the crowds of the Chowrastra, skirting my way across the busy, bustling square.

The next day, the Chowrastra seethed with anger. A Gurkha march had been violently attacked by the state police and several marchers were injured, some severely. The incident had ignited the town, the news spreading from shop to shop, resident to resident.

Protestors poured into the square, chanting slogans and shaking their fists, piling in against each other and taking a seat below the large public podium. A series of speakers roamed the stage, moving back and forth, chopping the air with their hands and feverishly shouting into a megaphone, sparking waves of applause that crested through the crowd.

I found Rosa and S.M standing beneath the shade of a tree, a few steps back from the crush and flow of people. S.M. smiled and offered a firm, thick hand, holding my palm for a prolonged grip, as is the Indian custom. Rosa also offered her hand, small and slight, a brief passing shake before we retreated to a nearby café and ordered a couple of teas.

We found a table around the corner of the L-shaped café, which was empty except for one young couple leaning into each other, their faces huddled together. S.M. pulled back a chair and leaned down into the plastic seat, hands gripping an umbrella for support. He was large, not in height, but in mass, and he dwarfed Rosa, who had pulled a chair to the side, hands resting in her lap, almost removed from the conversation.

S.M tilted two mounding spoons of sugar into his tea, and began listing his responsibilities as way of introduction, stirring as he spoke. “I am Chief Advisor of the Lepcha Community, and a member of the ‘Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association’” he said, his deep, rattling voice pushing against the echoes from the protest. “We are trying to protect the welfare of our Lepcha language. Before 1600 AD, only Lepcha in this place. It was the British who brought all of these migrants here, to build the town and work in the tea plantations.”

I tried to keep pace with S.M’s rambling monologue, asking for clarifications, scribbling notes, and sorting through his words, which knocked against each other in a rolling jumble of sound. “Lepcha are from this place,” he continued, as he rocked the umbrella between his legs. “But we are a minority here. Intermarriage, that’s why our language is decreasing day by day. Our language belongs to this area; it is grassroots. That’s why myself and my wife are teaching this language. We want to survive our language,” and he motioned towards Rosa with a nod of his head.

S.M. sat back in his chair and took a long sip of tea, his thick, tilted glasses filling with steam. A burst of applause blew through the café, as a woman’s voice, amplified and emphatic, rattled against the thin glass windows. I leaned towards S.M. and asked about the Lepcha religion. “Our religion is animist,” he replied. “I worship nature, but most Lepchas are Christian.” S.M. stumbled over a word and turned to Rosa, asking for a translation of a Lepcha word. Rosa hesitated, her brow furrowed with lines, and then answered: “converted”. S.M rotated back and continued, “60% are converted to Christianity, 30% are Buddhist and 10% are nature worshippers. Most Lepchas live in distant villages. Life is very tough. There is no medical treatment and the land is not so good. That is why the Christian missionaries came to this place, to give medicine and education. That’s why the people converted.”

S.M. lowered his dark, veined hands onto his knees, letting the umbrella fall against his knitted blue vest. “I am a nature worshipper,” he continued. “No church, no gompa (Buddhist temple), only river, trees, and mountains. My god is nature. I pray every morning at sunrise. If I don’t see Kingchunjungbu, the Lucky Forehead Mountain, I don’t feel very well. I want to see every morning,” and his face filled with a large, open smile, cheeks pushing out round and high over white, gleaming teeth.

Before I could ask another question, the waiter approached and spoke with S.M., pushing the bill, and a bowl of anise seed onto the table. We still had a half a cup of tea, but the café was shutting early; the Gurkhas had called for a Bandh, (strike). With a few final gulps of tea, we rose to leave, making plans to meet again the next day in front of the same café.

We ducked under the half-closed metal shutter, and stepped out into the fading afternoon light. The rally was finished and the crowds dispersing, flowing out of the Chowrastra in small groups, heads moving back and forth in conversation, flags tucked beneath their arms. The air clattered with the sounds of rolling steel, as shop owners lowered metal curtains over doors and windows. Along the edges, sidewalk vendors packed up their goods: the woolen hats, knitted scarves, and Kashmir shawls. Darjeeling was shutting down, from one end of town to the other.

The next day, the ‘Bandh’ was in full effect. Shops remained sealed and shuttered, row after row of metal curtains and darkened lights. The streets were eerily empty; no cars or buses, no horns or diesel fumes, just a few wandering pedestrians, roaming through deserted streets. Everywhere quiet and still, except within the shadows of the Chowrastra.

Once again, the town square was rally point for the Gurkhas, the crowds heavy and deep, pulsating, filling the Chowrastra from end to end. I nudged my way through the mass of bodies, the air thick and stifling, picking a narrow path towards our meeting place.

Rosa stood waiting next to the shuttered teashop, her arms tightly wrapped around a red handbag. With barely a word, we turned up an alleyway, fighting the current of protesters flowing towards the square. Ten minutes later, we arrived at her small, concrete home, perched like so many Darjeeling houses, on the edge of a steep, cascading embankment. “Come this way to our sitting room,” Rosa said, and we climbed some crumbling cement stairs to the top floor. “We don’t live up here,” she said, as she pushed open the wooden door, “We just have guests come here.”

The “sitting room” was small but attractive, with narrow courses of auburn wood panels, a few vibrant green plants, and furniture draped with colorful Tibetan rugs. I walked over to a prominent glass case, filled with perhaps thirty or forty trophies and medals. “Those are S.M.’s,” Rosa said, without waiting for a question. “He won those for his body-building.” She paused for a moment as I looked over the case. “He should be home soon, he’s just doing business now. I will prepare us some tea” and she turned to leave, her long dark dress sliding across the wood-parquet floor.

I surveyed the space in the quiet, just a few idle sounds filtering from the street. White porous light filled a pair of windows, tendrils of fog rising up the hill, burying the valley in a dense gray haze. Photos and certificates hung from the walls, pictures of a smartly suited S.M. receiving one award or another. In the far corner, a wide, spacious shelf held a scattering of carefully placed kitsch and family treasures: porcelain and plastic Buddhas, colorful Disney characters, a few old family photos, and in the middle, alone and separate, a large sunrise photo of Kingchunjungbu.

Rosa returned with two cups of tea, taking a seat on the edge of the stiff, wicker couch. “This upstairs,” she said, breaking the silence, “is for the son of S.M. and his family. I am S.M’s second wife, his first wife died” and she pursed her lips towards a photo of woman on the shelf.

I took a sip of the sweet, smoky tea, and studied the creased black and white photo, the woman’s pale, round face, and dark raspy hair running to the edge of the silver frame. Rosa leaned from the couch, pulling at a few errant strands of the long trailing braid that landed in her lap.

After another sip, I asked Rosa how she met S.M. “We met when I was on my way to Nepal,” she answered. “I was going to teach in a school there but I only stayed three days. It was too hot. We got married in a small chapel,” she continued, stroking the tail of her braid. “We weren’t allowed to marry in the church. We have a mixed marriage; I am Christian and he is nature worshiper. I married when I was twenty eight, now I’m forty-two, or forty-three, I think.”

Rosa paused to slide a plastic marriage bangle further up her arm. “When I was younger,” she continued, “I was in a training house to be a nun. For three years, I was a novice. Afterwards, I was thinking, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t stay under their wings, I want to be free like a bird and fly’, and so I left the convent and became a teacher,” and she leaned forward with her fluttering laugh, hand pressed tight against mouth.

After she subsided, I asked Rosa if all Lepcha marriages were like hers, a ‘love marriage.’ She started to answer and then paused, turning her head towards the scraping sound of an opening gate. “S.M. is home. Let me go see,” and she quickly rose and left. A few minutes later, S.M. pushed through the door, his large, thick frame filling a red and white gym suit. Rosa followed behind, carrying two cups of sweet, milk tea, handing one to me, and placing the other in front of S.M.

S.M. reached for my hand, and then lowered himself onto the couch, his weight dropping with quickened speed, as Rosa took a seat next to him. “I have been busy here in the village,” he started, “we are trying to resolve some water problems and I am the general secretary of this place. I look after each and every thing. There are only three Lepcha families left in this village but we are a very old family. That is why the people respect us.”

S.M. paused to take a drink of his tea. When he finished, I asked about the strikes and the Gurkha movement for a separate state. “I am not in favor of this particular word, ‘Gurkha Land.’ It is a communal word. This place,” he said, and he pointed towards the floor, “belongs to the mountain Kingchunjungbu. But 90% of the people here in Darjeeling are in favor of ‘Gurkha Land.’ What can I do?” and he raised his palms to the air.

Rosa leaned forward, lifting her face in my direction, and said, “Before you came, Marc was asking about Lepcha marriages,” and then she fell silent, waiting for S.M. to answer. “We Lepchas don’t have court marriages,” he said, as he turned from his wife to me. “Our Lepcha priests pray in front of god, we make promises, and god is witness. We have both arranged and love marriages, but the dowry comes from the boy’s side. The girl’s side demands beef and pork, and one kind of local alcohol drink made from millet. It’s called ‘chit’,” and S.M. spelled the word, the letters tumbling out in one indistinguishable, fluid sound. Seeing my difficulty, Rosa broke in. “C-h-i-t,” she said, her voice drawing up short after each letter, as I wrote them in my notebook. S.M let her finish and then continued- “The girl also asks for clothes for her mother and father, and for fifty-one rupees.”

I asked the obvious question, “why fifty-one.” “Fifty-one is a lucky number,” he answered. “We Lepchas don’t ask for much,” and he rolled with laughter, his belly stretching and falling against the red nylon sheen of his suit.

We sat back for a moment, listening to the sounds of the afternoon. Blurred voices, mostly the shouts of children, poured in from the street, and somewhere, a hammer echoed through the valley. I thought about my next question, deciding to ask S.M if Lepchas have castes. “Yes, yes, we have castes,” he answered, his head bobbing side to side as he leaned forward. “We have 101 castes, each caste is named for a different peak in the mountains,” and he motioned in the direction of the Kingchunjungbu range. “We have high castes and low castes. It depends on the height of the mountain peak, but we Lepcha don’t make any differences. We treat each other as equals.”

When S.M. finished, Rosa pushed to her feet, speaking a few quick words to her husband and leaving the room. As Rosa closed the door, S.M nodded in her direction and said, “My wife is catholic, but I worship nature. Everything from nature is a blessing from god. The name for God in Lepcha is ‘Rum, r-u-m’,” and this time, he slowed his pronunciation, his rumbling, baritone pausing after each letter. “All rivers come from god, that is why they all start with the letter ‘R’,” and S.M. began listing the region’s many rivers: “Renu, Rangit, Ramon, Rangdon,” spelling them as he went.

“We Lepcha, have so many stories, so many fairytales,” and he arched his head back as he spoke. “Every evening when we are together, we tell our Lepcha stories. The names of rivers, valleys and mountains, each of these is a story. How to build a Lepcha house, this is a story. No cement blocks, no metal or nails, only wood in a Lepcha house. Lepcha houses are safe in earthquakes,” and he waved his arms in the air, drawing an imaginary structure, as I copied his motions with a crude drawing in my book. “People don’t build Lepcha houses anymore”, he said, as he lowered his arms, “because they destroyed all the big trees.”

S.M fell silent, as Rosa nudged open the door. “Please excuse me, I will go take my lunch,” and he rose to leave as Rosa placed yet another cup of tea, and a platter filled with shifting salted crackers on the small table. “Drink,” she said, her voice dropping by two notes as she nodded to the tea, “it will get cold.”

I took a sip of the creamy, sweet tea and asked Rosa if she had a favorite Lepcha fairy tale. Rosa paused, whispering, “favorite story, lets see…” repeating two or three times before offering a hesitant, “Yes.” “When I was a child,” she continued, “so many times I dreamt of ‘Ne Maya Ling’, our heaven. When we die, we’ll go there and we’ll become young. Everything will be there, villages, fishes, trees and hunting. In my dreams, I was always playing in white snow. It is a very peaceful place.”

Rosa’s thin voice filled the cool, wooden room, her words riding a high octave, sliding up and down. “We tell lots of these Lepcha stories when we go to Dzoungu. It’s a holy place at the base of Kingchungjungbu” and she gave a small lift of her chin towards the mountains. “That’s where the Sikkim government wants to build a hydroelectric project. They want to put a dam on the Rangit river. We Lepchas are protesting this project, but we don’t know how to fight. Lepchas love peace; we are peacemakers, simple people. That’s why other people, other castes, take possession of the Lepcha land. They take advantage of us, and because of this our people are suffering. Lepchas only fight when they drink alcohol or use drugs.”

Rosa leaned back into the couch and ran her hands across the printed silk shawl that hung off her lap. The room was filling with the color of dusk, the lines, shapes and corners folding together in a hazy gray blur.

She moved to the door and switched on a light, and we could hear S.M. climbing the stairs, his heavy step scraping against the concrete. Before he arrived, I asked Rosa for the meaning of his initials, ‘S.M.’ “It stands for Surja Man,” she said, and she spelled the letters, just as S.M. came into the room. “I go downstairs now. Later you come for dinner, ok” and she said something to S.M. in Lepcha as she turned and closed the door.

S.M. took his place on the couch, running a handkerchief over his thin, graying mustache, which trickled onto his lips. “As a sportsman” he began, “I like to pay attention to food. In the evening, I will have a small plate, not too much. Lunch is my large meal. Today, I had to eat late, it was so busy,” and his voice lingered on, slowly dropping a note, as he dabbed at his brow with the checkered cloth.

I let S.M. get settled and then asked him about the Lepcha protest of the dam. “Yes, yes,” he answered, “we are trying to stop this project. We will make a march from the 14th to the 18th, walking one hundred and fifty kilometers to Dzoungu. Five hundred Lepchas will participate to save our Rangit river against the hydro-project.”

S.M. leaned forward and grasped his knees. “Dzoungu” he continued, “is a very sacred place. I am Lepcha but I’m not allowed to enter this region without a permit from the Sikkim government. If they allow 16,000 engineers, labor, assistant labor into this area, if all these people enter this holy place to build the dams, how will Lepchas survive? There are only 3,500 of us in Dzoungu. It is very wrong to do. Why destroy this holy place? Why destroy this river?” And his voice rose and fell with each question, his palms lifting into the air.

“A river is independent,” he continued. “A river is by nature free. Rivers do not enjoy dams, fish do not survive with dams. That is why we are not in favor of dams. We want the river the same as one thousand years ago. If you make so many dams, his independence is lost.” He paused for a moment, as he drew his arms tight across his chest, a few curling fingers rising up to his sleave. “But I am not worried. With the grace of god we will stop this project.”

S.M. let his weight fall back into the couch. “Every year I go to Dzoungu to visit my daughter. It is so beautiful. When I go, I feel like I must be in heaven. It is green, there is forest and rivers, I can walk to the mountains. There is no difficulty with drinking water, no pollution, no population, it is very sanitary,” and he spoke with quiet deliberation, his head moving side to side in a physical reverie. “Dzoungu is not of this earth,” he continued, as he jabbed a finger towards the ground. “It is just like Shangri-La, just like ‘Ne Maya Ling,’ our Lepcha heaven.”

I recognized the name and told S.M. about Rosa’s favorite Lepcha story. “Yes, yes,” he said, as he nodded his head, “There are many stories of ‘Ne Maya Ling’. After death, our soul enters this place forever. Some Lepchas entered by mistake, while still alive. They got lost in the forest and then entered through the secret gate. It is also told that very old Lepchas stay there, 300 to 500 years old.”

S.M. pulled closer, fixing me with his gaze. “It is an unknown place, but S.M. knows only this gate,” and he tapped his chest with two curving fingers as he lowered his voice. “My father indicate the place, he said ‘go to this type of road, this type of gate, just follow your knowledge.’ I have seen the gate, but I didn’t go in. If I go through, I wont want to come back. After some years, maybe I will introduce to my son, just like my father introduced to me. I will teach my son if he maintains the discipline of the Lepchas. If he is drinking, if he is using drugs, I can’t teach him, because he’ll let the secret out into the world.”

S.M. paused, lifting his glasses to wipe his eyes. “We Lepcha, have two restrictions,” he continued, as he lowered the thick plastic frames. “No climbing mountains and no piercing the nose. If a Lepcha climbs a mountain, they are banished from the community for life. We cannot take food or water from their hand. God is mountain and we must respect god. And the nose,” he said, as he rested the tip of his finger in the flair just above his wide, curving nostril, “is the most prestigious part of the face. That is why Lepcha women must not damage the nose.”

S.M. pushed down the couch and lifted his hand to the wood and glass case on his right, running his fingers over the dark brown frame. “These are my awards from bodybuilding,” he said, settling his hand back on his knee. “I started when I was child. I played in a small ground and there was a gym. I saw big arms, chest, legs, and thighs. I was very impressed and I thought, ‘I want to make my body like this’. Later, when I was in the army, they gave me time to train, and extra money for food. That’s when I started my career as a body builder,” and he rattled off a list of his competitions and prizes, tapping an outstretched finger for each award, his hand gradually unfurling, closing, and again reopening.

He paused for a moment and asked- “What age do you think I am,” and he leaned forward to wait for my answer. “Forty-seven, maybe fifty,” I answered, although I figured a little higher. S.M. leaned back again and said, “Oh, thank you very much,” his face widening into a white, open smile. “I am sixty-four. By the grace of god, I have no diseases. I am very fit,” and his head swayed back and forth.

We sat in silence listening to the sounds that seeped through the darkened windows, dogs barking in the air, hushed voices passing in the streets. After a while, I asked S.M. if the Lepchas use traditional medicine. “Oh yes,” he answered. “In Lepcha communities, we have a ‘Tchang’, a medicine man. That person uses perfect medicine,” and his baritone voice crested and fell a couple of notes. “He goes into the forest alone to collect these things, very carefully he is doing his duty. One leaf can be medicine, one leaf can be poison. I also know some of these medicines, but not many.”

S.M. shifted on the couch and then spoke again. “My first wife passed away,” he said, his words dropping to a deeper hush. “Her habit was drinking. I took her to so many doctors and surgeons but it was no use. She died of cirrhosis of the liver. While I was away in the army she developed this habit. I am very sad that my wife’s habit is like this. This was a very sad period in my life,” and again he fell silent, as two dogs called back and forth.

S.M. pulled back his red nylon sleeve and glanced at his watch. “I think dinner is ready,” he said, “please come” and he pushed up from the couch with a deep burst of air. We felt our way down the dark, crumbling steps to a door sunk in shadows. S.M. nudged it open, the battered green frame scraping against a dark cement floor.

The family’s living space began as a narrow concrete room pinched with furniture: a long, rustic table leaning against the wall, a random scattering of plastic chairs, a heavy, wooden bench, and a low bed frame coated with rugs and blankets. Two hanging bulbs dropped light onto walls scuffed and chipped, like bark pealing from a tree, and the cold damp floor leaned towards the slope of the hill.

S.M and I pulled the plastic chairs to the table and took a seat as Rosa shuffled about the hidden kitchen, her humming voice filling the silence. Sylvia Mayal emerged from a darkened hallway, a shy smile lifting the wide corners of her mouth. She dropped onto the edge of the bed, crossing her legs as she pushed back the frames of narrow, stylish glasses. “This is my daughter Mayal,” S.M. said, his voice riding a note of pride. “Her name means ‘Pure Angel’ in Lepcha”.

Rosa squeezed through a narrow opening from the kitchen, her hands cradling steaming white bowls of pork, beef, rice, and fried potatoes. She served the food, large heaping portions, and then took a seat next to Mayal, leaning forward from the edge of the broad, flat bed. We ate with little conversation, just a few worried glances from Rosa, who kept careful watch over our progress, rising to fill our plates time and again, and the sounds of our silverware brushing against the thin, white china.

Later, after S.M. and I had finished eating, the family guided me down the narrow, uneven road, a few sporadic streetlamps lighting the way, fading ovals of white that collapsed into darkness. I slowed my gate to match S.M., his feet barely lifting above the rough pavement, short hesitant steps occasionally lit by his flashlight, which wagged back and forth from his hand. I could see dots of lights poking up from the immense dark valley, but no sounds, just a cool damp breeze that lifted across our faces.

We walked for about ten minutes, Rosa and Sylvia a few steps back, while S.M. lifted his umbrella and pointed at buildings and businesses, telling short anecdotes and stories from his past. Eventually, they left me on the doorstep of the Chowrastra, a brief parting, my hand wrapping first around S.M.’s firm folding fingers, followed by Rosa, her small hand resting loose in mine. And then I hurried through the silent and deserted square, empty, just a few roaming dogs and the yellow glow of tired street lamps.

Two days before my departure, I called Rosa. I had read in the paper that the Lepcha march had been turned back twenty miles from Dzoungu, “due to safety concerns” according to the article. Rosa filled the scratching phone static with a flurry of questions- “Where are you? What are you doing? You come for lunch? You come,” her voice, rising a note higher with each subsequent question.

In ten minutes, I was knocking on their door as S.M. called, “Come in, come in.” I stepped down into the cool, dark room, letting my eyes adjust to the dampened light that fell through curtained windows. S.M. motioned to the bench, saying, “please sit down,” as Rosa called “hello, hello” from the kitchen, her thin musical voice mixing with the loud hiss of steam.

I took a seat, searching through my tattered woven bag and taking out the blue notebook. S.M. leaned into a thin plastic chair, his round back resting against the flaking cement wall. “So very tired today,” he said, and he let out a deep, slow, breath. “Yesterday, all of our minority communities joined a rally in the Chowrastra for the cause of ‘Gurkha Land,’” and he pulled at his eyes, his glasses bouncing on the hems of his fingers.

I nodded my head and mentioned that I had seen the crowded, calm rally. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I was up on the stage in front of all those people, I led my Lepcha community in the rally,” and S.M. waved his hand back and forth through the air, indicating the breadth of the crowd. “Up there, I’m feeling like a leader, standing in front of a thousand people, and I’m saying in my loud voice, my master voice, the Call of the Lepchas: ‘Muktan Chi Rong Kup!’ (‘We are sons of Nature!’),” and he leaned forward, closing his fingers into a firm, round fist, and punching the air as he repeated the call. “Muktan Chi Rong Kup! In front of thousand other castes I said these words. For us Lepchas,” he continued, lowering his hand back into his lap, “it is sufficient to say this first, and then after ‘Gurkha Land’, that is secondary for us,” and he settled back into the chair, brushing a few strands of hair to the side.

“We are all very minority,” he continued, with a slow release of air, “otherwise we may not do this rally. We are compelled to attend, or we might suffer punishment, we have to move in this mob situation. What can I do?” and he raised his shoulders, his palms turning open and flat. “We are surviving, how do you say… like a parasitic plant. We are less. We can’t do anything. The majority caste are like a big tree. We are just a minority small plant living on this tree. Just like this, we Lepchas,” and he raised his hand into the air, a small glimpse of space shining between his narrowed thumb and finger. “I think our position is just like the red Indian in your country, no?” and as he finished, he leaned his head against the wall, his weight slowly releasing into the folds and courses of the curving plastic chair.

We sat in the quiet, listening to Rosa hum a tune behind the hiss of steam. “Lunch almost ready” she called, sensing the break in our conversation.

I asked S.M. about the Dzoungu protest march and the news in the paper. “Yes it’s true,” he answered, swinging his round face from side to side. “Some political party made mischief, they paid local people to block the road. They pay them one, maybe two thousand rupees to barricade and call out names, and throw stones at us Lepcha.”

S.M. paused to gather in his words. “How I feel today, it is very sad. We were only going to pray for one hour in Dzoungu. Our only holy land in the world is Dzoungu, but even there we are not allowed. This time we Lepchas are feeling very unlucky, the most unlucky person in the world,” and his voice trailed off, riding a long, slow exhale.

“If god wills it,” he continued, “I want to spend a year in Dzoungu, and be close to the mountain. In our Lepcha story, Dzoungu is where the first man and woman were born, just like your Adam and Eve. God took two balls of snow from Kingchunjungbu and created a man and a woman, and then god dropped them in Dzoungu,” and he sprung open his two hovering hands.

“I want to learn all my people’s stories and I want to teach them to my daughter, Mayal. I want her to know our people’s stories. We have so many, every stone, mountain, and cave has a story. If they build the dam all this will be lost. Everything will be destroyed, wild animals, birds, the river, our families, culture and language. That is why our community may be vanishing. How can we survive, us Lepchas?”

After a brief silence, S.M. raised his eyes and seemed to answer his own question. “But, I’m not worried,” he said, and he straightened in his chair. “In 1993, no 1992,” and he paused to ask Rosa, who answered “1994” as she emerged from the kitchen carrying two plates and a steaming bowl of pork momos. “In 1994, I won an all-India award for my social work. Not a state award, a national award. I got one gold medal, a certificate, and a little money from the Government of India. That is why I am very proud,” and as he waited for me to finish writing my notes, he demonstrated his emotion, arching his broad, curving shoulders to the side, and filling his chest with air. Rosa gave a little burst of laughter, and then disappeared into the kitchen. “That’s why I am not worried,” he continued, unfazed by his wife’s knowing smile, “I will continue to work for the Lepchas and other low-caste people.”

Rosa returned with two small bowls of soup and placed them on the table. “Please come,” she said, “you like momos, right?” She knew the answer; two days before, I had mentioned my passion for the pale steamed dumplings, a staple of the Tibetan diet.

S.M. pulled his chair to the table and motioned me to do the same. After scooping several momos onto our plates, S.M. lowered his glasses and pressed two flattened hands against closed eyes, his elbows resting on the cloudy plastic covering that ran the long, sloping length of table. For a minute, his lips moved through a whispered prayer, small trails of breathing sound that barely reached my ears.

“I prayed to God for bringing us together,” he said, when he reopened his eyes. “I also prayed that your voice reaches out and tells our Lepcha story, and that it touches one or two people,” and then after replacing his glasses, he turned to the soup, taking a long slurping inhale of the clear, salted liquid.

We ate in silence, dipping the soft, steaming momos in homemade chili sauce, and taking small, juice-filled bites. Rosa sat in her usual place, across from the table on the wide flat bed, her feet tipped to the floor. She quietly watched us eat, at least until I lifted the last of the momos to my mouth, and then she prompted me to take more, asking- “You not like,” her voice trailing with feigned hurt. And so I relented, scooping a few more dumplings onto my plate.

After the meal, Rosa cleared the dishes, skirting in and out of the kitchen, as S.M. dabbed his mouth and forehead with a handkerchief. “My father was Buddhist,” he said, after lowering the cotton cloth. “At birth, my name was Dorje Chiling Lepcha. That was my name until I entered the Indian army. At that time, only certain, only very few military posts were opened to Lepchas. When the army medical examiner see the structure of my body, my muscles and strength, he said, ‘why not change your name and caste, then we are ready to recruit, but if you stay as Lepcha, I’m sorry we cannot accept you.’ And so I changed my name to Surja Man Rai. My uncle suggested the name. I did this to support my family. We were very poor.”

S.M. leaned back in his chair, his face expanding with a wide, spreading smile. “Fourteen years later,” he continued, “I apply to change my caste from Rai back to Lepcha with the support of my commanding officer. I returned all of those medals that I had won as a body-builder and the army gave me new ones with the name Lepcha engraved on the medal. So many Lepchas like me in the army, but I was the only one to change my caste back. After fourteen years, I was born again as a Lepcha. I am very proud,” and S.M. dropped into a loud, rolling laugh that knocked against the walls of the cool, concrete room.

S.M. lifted his chin, motioning in the direction of the Himalayas. “My sub-caste is a warrior caste,” he said. “The peak is called Kabru peak, it is a very dangerous peak. You cannot point at it with your hand or you may cause an earthquake or avalanche. If people walk by Kabru peak, they go like this” and he lowered his head, covering his eyes. “My position is like this. I am a fighter, this is my blood nature, that’s why my voice is like this, my master voice” and he lowered his tone by two notches, pulling at the skin of his neck, before finishing with a “yes, yes” that trailed into silence.

I asked S.M. why he converted from his family’s Buddhist beliefs to the Lepcha religion. “When I was in the army,” he answered, “I study so many books about Lepchas. I learned that the Buddhist converted us by force. They burned our books, they forced us to change to Buddhism. Deeply going I looked at this, and I felt it is a wrong thing to do, and so I change my religion back,” and as he spoke, he kept tapping at his chest.

“Even though he was Buddhist, my father knew very well about the animist beliefs,” he continued. “He spoke priest language as a child.”

“It’s a different language from Lepcha,” Rosa broke in, her hands pressed flat against a thick Tibetan rug that curled over the edge of the bed frame. “The sound is different but Lepchas can understand. It’s god speaking through a person, like the Christian ‘speaking in tongues’. That’s how we Lepchas know our priests. They start speaking the priest language, both boys and girls.”

When Rosa finished speaking, I asked about her family sub-caste. She paused for a long, quiet moment, and then said, “I don’t know,” her voice disappearing behind a nervous, half-cupped laugh.

“My wife” S.M. answered, as his face spread towards a smile, “doesn’t know her own caste, her parents never taught her, even her name Rosa is from the bible. At this time she is an artificial Lepcha, but I accept,” and he fell into rumbling rolls of laughter, as Rosa shook her head back and forth, saying, “No, no, not artificial,” her voice rising in strength. “I am learning, I speak our language, I can wear my dresses, this is enough for me, I am Lepcha,” and then she also laughed, her quick staccato rolls joining the last of S.M.s deep folding waves.

When the room fell quiet, Rosa glanced at her watch and spoke to S.M. “We are going to visit our cousin,” she said, as she pushed up from the bed. I tucked the note pad into my bag and threw it across my shoulder as we threaded out the door, emerging into the stark white glare of the afternoon.

We walked side by side down the narrow winding street, moving in and out of the shadows of tall, looming buildings. “Twenty years ago,” S.M. said, “this was all jungle, with trees, jaguars, and monkeys. Now look…” and he paused as he waved his folded black umbrella at row after row, layer after layer, of crowded concrete structures. “So much construction, and no planning. It is a very big problem, but what can I do” and he lowered the umbrella, the silver metal tip rapping against crusted, crumbling pavement.

We landed back in the Chowrastra just as another Gurkha rally was drawing to a close. Workers were lowering large, blocky speakers from the stage, and carting them down a path to a waiting van. People milled around the benches, some sitting with a hand above their glinting eyes, others standing, surveying the slowing pace of the afternoon square. I turned from S.M to Rosa, meeting their eyes and holding each of their hands for a brief and grateful shake, and then we turned and went our separate ways.

A Lepcha Fairytale: Ram-Lyang (“Way to Reach Heaven”)
Formerly the people were very ambitious and they cherished the idea of reaching heaven. They were called ‘Naong’ (‘ignorant person’) To this end they started making a tower out of earthen pots. Day after day, the tower of pots had risen higher and higher.

God at first gave no attention but the men’s enthusiasm and progress of the tower at last forced him to make the people foolish and he played trick by making the men deaf. The people could not hear each others voices and as such when the men on top asked the men at the bottom to supply pots (Kik-vim-yang-tab!), the latter heard it to take away the pots from the bottom (Chek-ta-la!).

The people at the top again repeated the same but the latter heard it as before. Then the people at the top were very angry and they said ‘yes, yes’ (Ak, Ak), and the latter took away the pots from the bottom. In this way the tower had broken down and the enthusiasm for reaching the heaven with the help of the tower melted away.

The tower broke and came down forming three hills, Kaijalay Bhanjyan’ in Karmi Estate, Maney Bhanjyan in Relling Estate, and Phedap Bhanjyan in Ilam (Nepal). The tower was erected in North Sikkim and even today, a few indications of it can be seen there. It is said that many ‘Mons’ (Lepcha Priestess) are living there.

(On my last day in Darjeeling, Rosa Lepcha presented me with two gifts: A new quilted shoulder bag, and a stapled packet of notes written in her own curving script, further explanations of the Lepcha people and their ways. This second fairy tale is from Rosa’s notes. If you would like a full copy of her notes, please let me know.)

An Addendum

Sometimes the paths of stories cross in the most unlikely of places; a circle begun years ago comes to a rolling culmination in another land and time altogether.

Nearly twenty years back, I drove a sky-blue Honda across America. I started in the brown, barren hills of a Vermont November, and chased the sun south to North Carolina, before pointing the sloping nose of my car towards the open, expansive west.

The plan was simple, at least on paper. The year was 1989, I was a couple of turns out of college, and I wanted an adventure. For the first leg of the journey, I imagined a road trip to California, where I would deposit my car with my sister amidst the bending hills of San Francisco. Then, I’d head south with a backpack, some vague plans of volunteer work in Guatemala, and an eventual Panama freighter steaming to points west.

Things, however, rarely happen as planned, at least in my own series of quixotic ramblings. On this particular journey, I made it only as far as beautiful, somber Guatemala, a country that starts up high with arching volcano monoliths, and tumbles down to dense, humid lowlands, an endless stretch of flat that disappears towards the vague haze of the ocean.

For the next two years, I worked with kids on the streets of Guatemala City, the country’s capital and lone metropolis, a place with few, if any, redeeming qualities. Those other plans, the freighter, the long slow ride west, including a planned passage through India, all of those gave way to the grimed, drug-laced faces of children, some as young as five, who found both solace and violence on Guatemala City’s sordid streets and avenues.

But Guatemala is a different story, for a different time. This story, which begs completion, took place on the long, lonely drive west. If I remember correctly, I picked him up somewhere on the bone-dry stretches of New Mexico, perhaps a couple of hours west of Santa Fe. He had a thumb jutted to the road, and a narrow pack slung on his shoulder, a single figure on an empty stretch of pavement, caught in the glare of the afternoon sun and the lengthening shadows of prehistoric rock formations.

He was Native American, or as S.M. put it, a “red Indian.” Over the course of the next fifty or hundred miles or so, with subtle vapors of alcohol filtering through the cramped interior of the car, I learned that my passenger was heading to a healing ceremony on the high desert flats of Utah. He was studying, he said, with a Navajo medicine man, and he was late; the ceremony had started a few days earlier.

One of the charms, and risks, of travel is the spontaneous decision, a quick, and potentially reckless impulse to do something without foresight or caution. Somewhere between New Mexico and Utah, I fell sway to spontaneity, deciding to attend this healing ceremony, or as he put it, “Ye-be-che,” (Yea-ba-che) a word whose sound I hold to this day. And so when we came to the anonymous intersection, my road leaning straight into the faltering sun, I deviated with a sharp turn to the right, direction north, into the undifferentiated sands of Utah.

We drove to the edge of darkness, as colors merged and then faded with the dying light. My passenger, whose name I have since forgotten, seemed vague in the directions, using lots of qualifiers such as “I think it’s up here,” and “maybe a little further,” as we searched for an unmarked turn. Eventually, however, he spotted the road, or what he thought was the road, a narrow, seemingly abandoned sand path that jutted off to the right and headed into the folding desert expanse.

I plunged my car off the highway, my high beams lighting two narrow tracks with a rising mound of red, powdery sand in the middle. With each added turn into vast nothingness, another turn away from pavement, civilization, and safety, I felt a growing sense of unease, my heart and thoughts running rampant with images of robbery and murder. These fears were further heightened as my car, with its low profile and spinning wheels, struggled through ever-deeper mounds of shifting, sinking sand.

And then, in the midst of all that fear and trepidation, a fire, a bright curling fire, painting a patch of desert with a dancing yellow glow. “There it is,” he said, as he motioned towards the flames, and I could see a few diagonal structures rising off the desert floor, and a collection of trucks huddled in the shadows.

We pulled into the makeshift encampment, my passenger making quick haste to explain his pale-faced guest, and assuring me, with the slightest hint of doubt, that I was welcome. As it turned out, there was one other “foreigner,” his white skin and lengthy blond hair standing out amidst the circling collection of dark faces and darker hair. He was a professor from Boston’s Leslie College, a personal friend of the medicine man (who was also a professor), and over the course of the next few days, he would occasionally serve as translator and interpreter.

There are many images that remain from that brief moment of life, a few of which I tell below. For three days, I watched, observed, and witnessed, rising with the morning’s first light, the high desert air blowing brisk and cold, and finishing deep into the night, the Milky Way laying a wide creamy path from horizon to horizon. Over the course of those long, full days, I followed the rituals and ceremonies of a Ye-be-che, feeding on lamb and mutton and yucca, never quite comfortable, always a little out of place, a stranger in a strange land. I suspect that is as it should be.

The patients were young, probably in their teens, and both the color of café. The boy was bound to a wheel chair, his large round belly folding onto thin, wasting legs, while the girl, long and straight and beautiful, moved with wavering, unsteady steps. I don’t recall the exact diagnosis, but I do remember that both had received conventional medicine to no avail.

On the first morning, I rose with the distant pale glow, pulling sleep from my eyes as we made our way to a circular patch of desert tucked behind the main Hogan. A shallow but wide rectangle had been carved from the granular, sandy soil, and the medicine man’s assistants, including my hitchhiking friend, were feeding a newborn fire, laying long curving limbs of wood into dense curling smoke and timid flames. Later, after the fire grew and then receded, we dropped stones onto the red crackling embers, and they hissed and snapped in the intense, searing heat.

The medicine man approached the edge and began a chant as he dropped herbs onto the stones and fading coals, wisps of smoke trailing behind his circling hand. Then he laid fresh loping boughs of pine over the stones, layer upon layer of green and gray that blunted the waves of rising heat.

The patients emerged from a small shed, their bodies wrapped in wool blankets, as they were propped and guided across the cold, arid ground. When they reached the edge of the rectangle, they dropped the blankets, revealing naked trembling bodies, as they climbed onto the pine boughs, lying flat, face up. Then, one by one, they were buried beneath a thick layer of blankets, from head to toe.

For some time after, how long I don’t remember, the medicine man and his assistants chanted a series of uninterrupted prayers, their deep tonal voices mingling with the desert air and a few muffled coughs, which seeped through the wall of blankets. Then, when their chants fell silent, they peeled back the blankets, one by one, revealing two sweating, tired faces, perhaps relieved at the first breath of cool, fresh air. Later, after the ceremony was complete and the patients shuttled away, I was told that they would repeat this on three additional mornings, each time in a different cardinal direction.

On my second day in the desert, I was invited to “take a sweat,” or as the hitchhiker proclaimed; “a Navajo bath, pure and clean, no soap, no water.” There were four, perhaps five of us, and we followed a thin winding trail to the sweat lodge, which was little more than a hunched earthen mound, easily mistaken for yet one more idle desert formation.

A fire burned next to the lodge and large round stones baked in the coals. After a few minutes, a couple of the men scooped the stones out with a short-handled shovel, stretching the glowing metal head into the coals, as they leaned away from the blunt, burning heat. Then, one by one, they pitched the stones into the dark, waiting well.

We removed all our clothes, the only artifice, a small string, which we tied around our foreskin, sealing the penis shut. Then we lowered ourselves into the earthen cave, nudging along the edges, careful not to step on the smoldering stones that fell in a small mound in the center. The opening, not larger than the mouth of a hermits cave, the only source of light until two draping blankets fell in place, burying us in a black so complete, I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face.

The medicine man began the chants and others joined in, the chorus reverberating off the small hollowed interior, blurring the line between voice and ear. I listened, drunk with sound, the dark fierce air searing my lungs, feeling sweat pop onto my skin and then slowly merge, coursing down and through my crouching body.

Before ducking into the lodge, I had been warned, I had been told, “do not leave in the midst of a chant, wait until the chant finishes, then get up if you want.” How long I endured, in seconds and minutes, I couldn’t say. But for three cycles, three moving walls of sound, and three shifting moments of silence, I sat, my body awash in water and salt, until I could sit no more. Then, with a brief word to the others, I lifted the blankets and crawled up into the light, cool air swimming over my pink, glistening body, naked in the desert, alive with a “pure clean”.

On my final night, we gathered in the main Hogan, perhaps thirty people in all, squatting on carpets and rugs, our backs leaning against the thick, tan canvas. The medicine man sat across from the entrance next to a prominent, battered chest, the metal gray lid clamped shut. The evening began when the two families presented their payment for his services, placing one by one, a growing stack of new woven blankets at his feet, as he nodded his head in approval.

Later in the evening, the medicine man began a slow, measured unveiling, opening the lid, reaching into the knee-high chest, and removing one item after another, masks, feathers, beads, and gems. We watched, all of us, our eyes fixed on his, as he placed each of the sacred beings in its correct place, a reasoned array, like the stars and planets of a galaxy, slowly spreading outward from his curled feet, his face filled with affection and care. And then, with the final piece lowered to its place, the universe in balance and order, the Hogan filled with chants, the medicine man leading the way.

The ceremony carried on deep into the night, as chant after chant rippled through the canvassed room, thirty voices riding a deep, undulating wave of sound. I watched and listened, my head growing heavy, swaying and then tilting to the side, as the resonant chants steeped and bled into my dreams.

At some point towards the break of dawn, I was nudged awake. Small white bowls were circling around the room, passing from hand to hand, each with a different content, from which we took small pinching samples. Some contained food, while others held powders, ashes and liquids of certain effects. I took my cues from an old toothless man sitting to my right, his hands motioning the instructions, and his face slipping into occasional wide, gaping smiles. Then, when the last bowl had completed its rotation, the last act performed, and the last chant sung, the medicine man announced, “now we go rest,” and he rose and moved stiffly towards the door.

Later that same day, just prior to my departure, I had a brief meeting with the medicine man, our heads crouching in the back of a pick-up truck, lime-green light filtering through narrow tinted windows. A few others dozed on the cab floor, their bodies wrapped in thick down bags, snores rattling off the corrugated metal cap. I remember his words, perhaps as well as I remember anything from those three long days. With his eyes thick with fatigue, he said- “I hope you will share what you have seen here. We don’t want any help, we just want the space to practice our ways and beliefs, to honor and preserve what is ours.”

I have told the Ye-be-che story many times since, to friends and fellow travelers, family members and strangers. Each time I recreate the details, whether the intricate workings of the evening healing ceremony, or the reeling black heat of the sweat lodge, I feel as if I’m keeping a distant promise. I think that is probably what the medicine man intended, as we said goodbye, and I climbed out of the old, battered truck.

It would be trivializing to the experiences of both the Lepchas and the Navajos to draw too many parallels. Still, I think S.M. was drawing a shade of truth when he said “our position is just like the red Indian in your country, no?” Each community is caught in a struggle for survival, not from extinction, but from absorption into the shifting migrant mass of humanity. They fight, with a healthy dose of pride and courage, to conserve their culture, their “ways of dress, language, and beliefs”, and their very identity, which is mirrored not only in the shape of their eyes and color of skin, but in the unique stories, gods, and myths of their vulnerable ancient landscapes.

I hope, for their sake and perhaps ours, that they are successful.