A Himalayan Arcadia
[Published in the Wide World Magazine 1909]
By Lieutenant Colonel R. H. Tyacke
[While Tyacke’s account is flawed by its colonial biases and generalizations, it still offers an engaging reading experience for those who appreciate rich descriptive writing, early travel narratives, and cultural history. Approached with a critical eye, the article can be both an enjoyable read and a thought-provoking exploration of how places and peoples were portrayed in colonial-era literature.]
A description of the Kulu Valley, in the Central Himalayas, which might well be called the land of laziness, for the men folk have ideas of their own on the subject of work, and allow their women and beneficent Nature to do most things for them. The Kulu people have some very curious customs, which are here described and illustrated.
THE Kulu Valley, the interesting region with which I propose to deal in this article, lies in the Central Himalayas, a hundred and twenty miles due east of Simla. It runs due north and south, and is about fifty miles in length and from two miles in the broadest to half a mile in its narrowest part.
Issuing from the main valley are several lateral valleys called “nalas,” running back to the higher ranges which surround it. The longer of these valleys lead up to the eternal snow, the smaller ones to an undulating plateau, above the limit of forest, which is also snow-covered, generally, until the end of June. The country, excepting the central portion, which is cultivated, is covered with dense forests of deodar and firs, with several natural clearings called “thaches,” where sheep are folded in the summer months.
There are two entrances to the valley from the south, one by the Dulchi Pass, six thousand feet, and the other by the Buboo Pass, ten thousand feet. There is only one entrance from the north—namely, by the Rohtung Pass, fifteen thousand feet.
Unfortunately, the inhabitants have not much in their favour. They are an effeminate race and hate work, as all natives do who can use the soil to provide them with their material wants. They are an agricultural people, working “small holdings.” The fields are arranged in terraces, cut out of the hillsides around the villages, which are built on the crest of spurs, or wherever a minute area of level ground can be found.
The men, generally speaking, have no pretensions to good looks, though the women—or, rather, the girls, for they are old and wrinkled at five-and-twenty—are often pretty. Their religion, if they have any at all, is a debased form of Hinduism, but there is no fanaticism about them. Each village has a “deota,” a kind of local god, to whom the people appeal through the “chela,” or guardian, for rain, fine weather, the fixing of a propitious day for the commencement of their harvest, etc., but this is done more as a matter of form than from any feeling of trust in the power of the “deota,” and is often only an excuse for a big feed. It is usual to propitiate the deity with the gift of a sheep, which is, of course, eaten by the people themselves. If their supplications to the “deotas” are not attended to, they not infrequently proceed to administer punishment to the unheeding god—take him out of his temple and leave him outside at the mercy of the elements, turn him upside down, or even beat him with shoes!
The people of Kulu are extremely superstitious, and go in extensively for demonolatry. Many trees are held to be sacred, and have tiny temples dedicated to them. The demons are popularly supposed to live at the tops of trees, and if a tree falls in such a way that it is possible to pass under it, as is often the case on the mountain sides, every man before going beneath the trunk will place on it a stick or a stone to propitiate its guardian spirit. Certain streams are also sacred, and no one is allowed to wash dirty clothes in them. During 1908 some strangers came into the valley, and happened to pollute the water of a river in this manner. It chanced to be a year of extraordinary rainfall, and the people implicitly believe that the excessive rain was sent by the outraged “deota” of the stream as a punishment.
The houses in Kulu are all built after the same pattern, consisting of one storey and one room, without windows or any other opening than the door. The cattle are housed on the ground floor, which is cleared only once a year, in the spring, when manure is required for the fields. The people have absolutely no idea of sanitation, and were it not for the pure mountain air that penetrates into their ill- lmade habitations they would surely be visited by terrible epidemics. There is a veranda round the living portion of the houses, in which the crops are stored; in the upper portion of the valley, when the snowfall is heavy, these verandas are shielded by planks during the winter months and opened up again in the spring.
The dress of the men-folk is a tunic-shaped coat of homespun wool called “pattoo,” fastened at the waist with a cummerbund; pantaloons of the same material, tied with a string and tight below the knees, are also worn, but these are discarded altogether in the warm weather. A cap of homespun, shaped something like a railway travelling-cap without a peak, is also worn, and a flower is usually carried behind the ear by way of ornament.
The dress of the women is a warm “pattoo” blanket only, put on in such a manner that the ends come over the shoulders, and are fastened across the breast by two brass pins, and bound round the waist with a cummerbund. Their arms and legs are bare, and excepting at the countless “melas” (fairs), and in the winter, they wear no other clothing. The children wear no head-dress at all, but on arrival at more mature years they cover their heads with a kerchief of cotton, silk, or velvet, or, in some villages, a grotesque erection of twisted wool rising to a point, and ornamented with a spot of red cloth or a tassel of tinsel. The ladies have a great love of jewellery, and when dressed for “melas” are literally covered with bangles, rings, necklets, earrings, and nose-rings. A crescent-shaped band of silver filigree work, edged with a fringe, is worn over the fore part of the head and covers half the brow. This jewellery, except in the case of the richest, is of silver enamel, for which work the neighbouring district of Kangra is renowned.
As in all Eastern countries, the field-work is performed by the women, who are, as a matter of fact, simply the servants of the men. Polygamy is the custom of the country. The richer a man is, of course, the more fields he possesses, and the more labourers he needs, for which reason he acquires a large number of wives. There is no marriage ceremony beyond the giving of presents by the man to the girl’s parents and the drinking of a cup of “loogree” (rice beer), with a feast for all relations and acquaintances. The marriageable age for girls is eleven or twelve, and married women have unlimited freedom.
The agricultural methods in vogue in Kulu are those of ten thousand years ago; the fields, frequently too small to plough, are laboriously dug by hand. By way of harrowing, a heavy board, with a big stone or a child on it to lend weight, is dragged over the field by a man or woman, or both. The harvest is gathered by the tedious process of cutting off each ear of corn separately, except in the case of the rice, when a tiny reaping-hook is used. New grain is trodden out of the husk by cattle, the winnowing being performed by a woman on a platform dropping the grain and allowing the wind to blow away the refuse. Time seems to be of no account at all.
Nobody hates work more than the Kulu man. His one and sole idea is to amuse himself. The country is not over-populated, and the soil produces sufficient for his food and drink. All cereals flourish, and there is an abundance of rice with which to make “loogree,” the native beer. What does the Kulu want more?
His chief delight is a “mela.” A “mela,” translated into English, means a fair, and the original meaning of a fair is a “market” held at stated times. There is, however, no buying, selling, or exchanging at Kulu “mela”. The inhabitants of two, three, or more hamlets join together at a certain place, bring the village idols, place them in a ring, and the men dance round them occasionally. Large quantities of “loogree” are brought out, and drunkenness and debauchery follow. The women and girls of all castes have absolute freedom on such occasions, and they enjoy themselves hugely. It is on these occasions that they wear all their jewellery, but their garment is the same, though it is sometimes—not often—washed for the occasion. Women of other countries like to wear fine clothes on festive occasions, but the Kulu woman knows nothing of clothes, though she has a distinct longing for jewellery not plain gold or silver, however, for the gold must be studded with coloured glass to represent precious stones, and the silver must be heavily enamelled.
The men, when attending “melas,” like to wear a coloured cap, and invariably carry a flower behind the ear. Sometimes a garland of flowers, made in the shape of a daisy-chain, is worn round the neck, and a very large proportion wear continually a necklet of coloured bone beads made to represent coral. Lucky fellows they are, living in an ideal climate, growing sufficient on their own fields to support themselves and their families with food and drink, having enough sheep and goats to furnish them with clothing, free grazing for their flocks and herds, as much fire-wood as they can burn from the forest surrounding their holdings, as many women as they want for wives and servants, and as much amusement as they require in the “melas,” which are held, at some place or other, almost weekly throughout the year. It is interesting to compare the lot of these people with that of the poor in our own over populated towns and cities.
The Kulu people are extraordinarily immune from any serious disease; they suffer in the lower valley during the autumn from malarial fever, as the rice-fields breed the mosquito which is now supposed to be responsible for that malady, but it is not of a severe type, and readily yields to a couple of doses of quinine. In the upper valley rheumatism is the chief trouble, which is not to be wondered at, considering that they have only one garment, which they never change, and which, when wet, they allow to dry on their backs. There is, however, one disease which is very prevalent throughout the whole valley, and that is goitre, the cause of which remains a mystery.
The advantages of life in such a favoured region as Kulu are so readily recognized that in the winter it is visited by hundreds from the surrounding countries—Lahoul, Spiti, Bushahir, Bhutan, Ladakh, Tibet, and even Nepaul. Driven from their own countries by the snow, they flock into Kulu, and live in dilapidated tents or shelters by the banks of the river, or wherever they can find a level camping-ground. Usually accompanied by small herds of sheep, goats, ponies, and donkeys, they live in peace until the snow melts sufficiently to allow of their returning to their own countries. These visitors are generally Buddhist by religion, and are a peace loving, harmless people, but excellent traders, as one soon finds when endeavouring to purchase curios from them. They know the value of them all, and invariably commence by asking three times as much as they expect to get.
The habitation of these nomads, when sojourning in the Kulu Valley, is a shelter made of rags and supported by poles, which, I presume, bears the courtesy title of a tent. They are, however, neither waterproof nor windproof, and but for the look of the thing the people might as well remain in the open. A portion of one of these shelters is usually fitted up as a temple; an old box is covered with a dirty rag, and on this is placed a prayer-wheel or bell and other symbols of the Tibetan Buddhist religion. I say Tibetan Buddhist advisedly, because it differs greatly from the Buddhism of Ceylon, Burma, and Japan. It is in reality a hotch-potch of mysticism, magic, and demonolatry, with only a thin veneer of Buddhism. The essence of their belief is that the air is impregnated with demons and that the chief object of one’s life must be to ward off their malignant attacks. For this purpose their dwellings are covered with flags bearing mystic signs; spears and tridents—on which the spirits are expected to impale themselves—surround them, and the lamas, or priests, are armed with daggers and bells to frighten them. Moreover, every man and woman carries an amulet.
There is a great deal of the outward show of religion in the country. Monasteries, or “lama-serais,” as they are called, are numerous, and are always picturesquely situated on some commanding position. There are simply hundreds of “mani panés” on the road sides, which must always be passed by believers on the right hand. These “mani panés” are long huts of stones, twenty or more yards in length. On each stone is cut the mystic sentence, “Om mani padme hum!” the correct meaning of which is doubtful, but the interpretation generally accepted is, “Hail! the flower in the Lotus,” and in some form or other it is met with everywhere. It is in the prayer-wheel carried by the devout; in the prayer drums turned by water; on the prayer-flags seen flying from every “lamaserai”; in the amulets carried by the people everywhere! The stones for the “mani panés” are carved by the lamas in the winter and sold to the people.
The lamas, practically speaking, are the religion, and so popular is “lamaism” that one in every six of the inhabitants is a lama! There are several sects of them, but those generally encountered are of the “Gelugpa” or yellow sect, or of the “Nin-ma-pa” or red sect.
Kulu is an ideal country for Europeans, for it is possible to get a climate suitable to all conditions of men and their many diseases by moving up or down the valley only a few miles; and there are places where hot sulphur and mineral baths can be had, all free to the world, where one can undergo a “care” under one’s own conditions. For sport there are bears, black and brown, panthers, ibex, and tahr (wild goats), burrhel (wild sheep), barking deer, musk deer, six kinds of pheasants, three kinds of partridges, wild duck, woodcock, and snipe, so that the sportsman can have shooting practically all the year round. Living is cheap, too, and it is possible for a man with a very limited income to have a winter residence at four thousand feet, a house in which to spend the rainy season at seven thousand feet, and tents to camp about for sport on the mountains during April, May, and June, and from the 15th of September till the 1st of November. Where else on earth could a keen man on sport find such country?
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