The Limbus of Eastern Himalayas

The Limbus inhabit in the very large area of mythical 'Limbuwan', which is widely spread over the present-day Sikkim and the North Bengal of the state West Bengal, especially in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. They are well-known as 'Subba' to all the other communities in the Eastern Himalayas and acknowledging this, they also put this in their surname. Once they were the transhumance or pastoral community, now they are settled either on the buffer zone of National Park (as in the field site of Sikkim) or on the fringe of the forests (as in the Darjeeling district). This community has been advanced economically and educationally in the changing socio-economic condition. They have come in contact profoundly with the urban societies. But they have the treasure of indigenous knowledge, which are profound in their oral traditions, economy, cultural practices and conservation ethos, which are based on their traditional wisdom of use, collection, plantation of all kinds of non timber forest products, including medicinal plants. In the cultural practices pertaining to indigenous knowledge system broad range of belief and ritual activity, life-cycle rites, socio-political system, art and customs and interpersonal relationships are well observed. A large number of elements of local biodiversity, are protected by the local cultural practices or norms Their tribal identities are pronounced in the performing arts of various ethnic dances. In their socio-political system their solidarity is well maintained in their traditional jati Panchayat. All these are vividly and empirically illustrated in the book.

Dr. Debashis Debnath (b. 1959) was the former faculty of Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal. He is first class honours' graduate and first-class Masters in Anthropology from Calcutta University. He did his Ph.D from Calcutta University in Social Anthropology in 1992 on submission of his thesis entitled "Tribal Religiosity: A Micro-study in a Common Ecological Setting. He was awarded the coveted "Mouat Medal" (Gold Medal) for successful completion of his "Premchand Roychand Studentship". He was awarded the Raibahadur Saratchandra Ray Research Fellowship from the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. He started his career after doctoral degree being the scientist of Anthropological Survey of India, Government of India. He has 26 years of teaching experiences and completed 27 research projects, 17 consultations, sponsored by Central and State Governments as well as reputed National and international Organizations, and 52 fee-based and sponsored training and Management development programmes He has 112-odd number of publications, including books (3), research papers/ articles(27), chapters in the book (52), Review articles (06), popular articles (15) and research papers in the seminar proceedings (08). His area of Interests: Social Anthropological research, Indigenous Knowledge System and Community forestry, Rural & tribal development, Gender Studies and Climate change Adaptation & mitigation.

Indigenous people and their knowledge system are now important aspects in Anthropology. Indigenous knowledge is local, traditional or environmental wisdom, based-on local-level decision-making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities. Indigenous knowledge is part of the lives of the rural poor; their livelihoods depend almost entirely on specific skills and knowledge essential for their survival.

Limboo is a tribal community living in the different parts of the Eastern Himalayas, which is situated between the Kali Gandaki River in Central Nepal in the west and Myanmar in the east. The Eastern Himalayan forests is a temperate broadleaf forest-ecoregion found in the middle elevations of the eastern Himalayas, including parts of Nepal, India, and Bhutan. Limboos are once good archers, as they were the good hunters. Later they started transhumance as they took their cattle to higher altitudes of the Himalayas in summer and came down to the middle hills during winter and settled as Pastorals in the near-by plain lands. They belong to the population of the Eastern Himalayas, known as 'Kirat', consisting of Monger, Rai, Limboo etc. Kirat is a generic word used to designate related ethnic groups mainly located in the mountains of East Nepal but also numerous in Sikkim and Darjeeling (India).

Book's Contents and Sample Pages