Lepchas
Lepcha Traditional Music
A group of seven friends have formed a band in Sikkim in order to preserve the Lepcha language and to help popularize traditional Lepcha folk music, both of which are endangered. A news story in the magazine Eclectic Northeast last week described the progress, and setbacks, of the Lepcha folk-fusion band Sofiyum. The founder of […]
Protecting the Dzongu: A Recent History
In 2006, the Lepchas of Sikkim became alarmed about proposals to build dams in the Teesta River basin, including ones in their Dzongu Reserve. Their protests, and their other responses to the dam-builders, form the subject of an article in Live History India, a digital platform that launched in 2017 to examine and reveal the […]
Lepcha Festival Preserves Cultural Heritage
On Tuesday last week, Lepchas celebrated an important festival in numerous villages of Sikkim with dancing, singing by masked performers, and displaying models of their sacred mountain, Tendong. The Northeast Today published an article on Wednesday about the annual festival, called Tendong Lho Rum Faat, as did a number of other websites. In Daramdin, a […]
It’s No Longer Raining on the Lepchas [journal article review]
Global climate changes are having an impact on the Lepchas, who are quite aware of the local disruptions of weather patterns and are trying to cope with them. A journal article by Shukla et al. that was published last year reported the results of a careful study of the Lepcha in the Dzongu Reserve of […]
Butterfly Treasures of the Dzongu
A young Lepcha has turned his fascination for the natural world into a career as a nature writer and photographer. He feels that documenting the environment will be the best way for him to express his love for nature and to pass along his appreciation to future generations. The commitment of Sonam Wangchuk Lepcha, who […]
The Sacred River
Despite protests by the Lepchas that the Teesta River and its tributaries are sacred, the Government of Sikkim continues to press for additional hydroelectric dams. India Climate Dialogue published a review last week by Athar Parvaiz of the reasons for Lepcha opposition to the dams, which are in various stages of planning. The government of […]
School Song from the Himalayas
The staff at the Pangthang Junior High School in Sikkim released a video to YouTube last week that portrays not only the school itself but also the spirit of the Lepchas. Titled simply “Pangthang School,” the three and one half minute video is sung in English by a group of the students, with subtitles in […]
Traditional Lepcha Fashions Reinvented
A young Lepcha woman who has professional university degrees and works as a librarian in Gangtok, northern India, is pioneering the revival of traditional women’s clothing. Tshering Lhamu Lepcha, who goes by the alias Tshela, experiments with fashion designing, particularly clothing that revives the styles worn traditionally by Lepcha women. The regional Indian publication The […]
Recent Lepcha History Retold
Indian photojournalist Nikhil Roshan visited Passingdang, a village in the Dzongu Reserve of Sikkim, to assess the feelings of the Lepcha toward the proposed dams that threaten their culture and society.
A Stairway to Heaven in India
The Lepchas have a myth that their ancestors tried, and almost succeeded, in building a stairway to Heaven. After the original Lepchas came down off the world’s third highest mountain, their sacred peak Kanchenjunga, and settled in the plains of Daramdin in West Sikkim, they developed the idea of building a massive tower out of […]
