Locating Lepcha Identity: Folktales, Myths and Legends of the Lepchas

Abstract

The Lepchas are the indigenous inhabitants of Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills. They call themselves Rongpa or Raongkup or Rumkup and their country Mayel Lyang, meaning ‘the land of the hidden paradise’. Little is known of the history of Sikkim before 700 A.D, when the Lepchas were first recorded as living in the Mayel Lyang Valley. 2 The Lepchas worship Kanchenjunga as their guardian deity and share an intimate relationship with the land on which they depended for subsistence. The Lepcha place names testify to the intimate history the Lepchas share with the region. The Lepcha people had an in-depth knowledge of the flora and fauna plants of the region. They had names for all the plants and insects to which Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the renowned botanist of the “Himalayan Journals” fame prescribed Latin names. In recent times, with the proposal of the Hydel power project in Sikkim and West Bengal, the Lepcha community was threatened with the fear of losing their land. They finally found their voice, though it was a voice of dissent. They were protesting against the building of dams which would change the topography of their land, deplete their resources and anger their deities. They wanted to protect Dzongu, which is now a Lepcha reserve, considered as the heart-land of the Lepcha community. Hunger strikes and public rallies were organized by the Lepchas to make the authorities concerned aware of their sense of hurt at having to part with their land in the name of ‘progress’ and ‘development’.