Lepchas or more properly Rongs are a most extra-ordinary though little known Indian tribe. Confined mainly to Sikkim and Darjeeling hills, their population is hardly eighty thousand. Sociologically, they are unique for they have eschewed aggression in their social mores. Their women are on equal footing with men in every sphere of life. Also, they possess abundantly what keats called ‘negative capability’ and can quietly shrug off adversity with a simple expression like ket ma nin, it does not matter.
General G.B. Mainwaring, then a colonel in the British army, first drew the eyes of the West to these unique aborigines in the nineteenth century. The redoubtable Dr. Joseph Hooker had also mentioned about the beauty of their music and mind in his famous Journal.
Surprisingly, such endowments have not endeared Rongs to a succession of people, who have mercilessly trodden their right and culture from age to age. Despite their gift of expression term ‘Lepcha’ (in plain English, Stupid) first used about them by Nepalis. The plight of such a people, who are strangers in their own home, connot fail to what our curiosity about them.
The book on Lepchas and their Heritage opens a new vista on them.
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