Stories That Shape Us

This story is from a place called Tumprong which is an hour's walk from Leek. Most of the Land here belongs to people from Tingvong, they come during the makkai (maize) plantation time, plant the makkais and go back to Tingvong. An old couple used to live there at the time. Every Makkai season the land owner [(Dawa and Ugen) brothers] from Tingvong used to find their makkai being eaten, when asked to the couple, they shrugged it off blaming the bear who also used to come down occasionally to eat makkai during the season. This happened for a long time. The brothers were unconvinced with that story and decided to stay back one time and check who the real culprit was. They prepared their bows and arrows for the night, warned the old couple not to venture into that area.  The old man decided to go and steal makkai anyways, so he wore his bear skin and went to the fields. Dawa realizing that there was someone there gives a first warning ordering if it were human to move away to...

The  Lepcha  name for this caterpillar is called ' Pachek - bu '. Pachek means an individual who wanders and eats. It also means 'Almost' for example if you use it in a sentence - I almost got killed!! Apparently Pachek-bu used to be eaten by hunters strolling by, whenever anyone comes by they start waggin their lower part of the body vigorously. Legend says that they made negotiations with the hunters in the ancient time, that whenever they moved their body like that they spoke to the hunters convincing them that they should leave and not eat them this time and should come tomorrow when they would be fatter and juicier as they are voracious eaters, only for the hunters to realize that they were fooled as they would never be seen in the same spot twice.

Getting married in Lepcha tradition involved the son family to adhere to rigorous rules to win the trust of the daughter's parents and herself. This system was called AFAR. The son in law had to request the parents for the girls hand along with many gifts ( dokos of brewed millet, dumvuns for the ladies, an entire pig, arok and many other customary gifts ) Besides the son in law had to spend the next 2-3 years in the girls house and help the family in their work. This custom proved too expensive for most Lepchas and therefore a lot of boys and girls never married. The widows and spinsters had the opportunity of remarrying again. This time the entire AFAR equation was not applicable.  They therefore either married each other or the boys and girls who couldn't because of the AFAR system.  There is also a system where a spinster was allowed to remarry her NAMKUP, if they and their families agreed. This was considered acceptable and the concept of AFAR did not appl...