Author: Pradeep Rai

My first encounter with Himalayan Shamanic morality unfolded in a settlement near Darjeeling, at a place known as Thang’Kuh. Elders described it as a site where ancestral presences never withdrew from the landscape. They said the spirits of the ancients stayed there, resting in the caves and the mystical forests surrounding it. I had only begun my research, and my understanding of these worlds was unclear. During the ritual, the Shaman entered a state that allowed the ancestors to speak through her. I listened without knowing what to expect. A question had lived inside me for months. In Himalayan shamanic traditions, did the notion of heaven and hell exist? I never asked anyone. No person seemed capable of a convincing answer. I kept the question to myself and watched the Shaman move through the ritual space. At one point she turned toward me. Her voice changed, and the ancestors addressed me directly. “Hamro maa paap punya hudaina hai, naani.” In our world, my child, there is no sin, no merit.

Years of study and travel through Himalayan villages gave me a passage into moral worlds that never claimed authority from scripture or centralized doctrine. Clan elders described ethics through the movements of ancestral rites, through the dispositions of territorial beings, and through oral narratives and folklore. Their accounts conveyed a system whose logic grew from sacred places, ritual objects, kinship, and invisible agencies rather than from commandments. Morality, then, appeared as an ecological phenomenon. I reached this understanding gradually, after long periods of exposure to rituals where both language and silence held equal importance.

My earliest encounters with ritual elders revealed an idea of purity far removed from codified religion. Purity did not arise from cow urine, sunpani (gold-infused water), or consecrated water. Some of the substances held ritual significance in specific contexts, but the deeper principle placed purity inside the person. Elders insisted that every birth occurred within a state of natural equilibrium. No trace of original sin surrounded the newborn. No cosmic error demanded correction. No divine being demanded submission. The person entered the world as part of the same order that produced the mountain peaks and the subterranean springs. Purity existed in the same register as geological formation and ancestral presence.

This thought shaped my understanding of why Himalayan cosmologies never gave humans a central position in the universe. Humans occupied one node within a constellation of beings. Spirit masters of the forests guarded their territories with an authority that required respect. Ancestral agents watched over lineages with expectations grounded in memory rather than divine decree. Tutelary spirits monitored the moral temperature of a settlement through subtle signs. Humans engaged with these beings through speech, offerings, libations, songs, dances, migrations, and collective events. Moral life grew from attentive interaction with these forces. And the universe? It did not revolve around the human.

A widely shared position in anthropology is that ritual knowledge emerges from the “thickness” of a local world, and not from abstraction. I was able to comprehend this concept when I sat near shamans before the onset of a trance. Their preparations did not follow the logic of renunciatory paths and simply sought balance with their tutelary spirits. Their bodies served as mediums between the physical world and the divine realm that held ancestral imprints. Purity, in this sense, referred to the capacity to align the self with those ‘energies.’ Impurity arose when the lines between these worlds weakened through forgetfulness or broken obligations. And it wasn’t something that couldn’t be remedied.

During conversations with ritual experts, I encountered another dimension of this moral framework. They described the land as the ground we return to. Death wasn’t clouds in the sky or ripple in the ocean. It was simply a place among the ancestors through the ground into their realm. Sacred stones marked events transmitted through lineage narratives. Forest retained the presence of beings who never entered ordinary perception. Yet their omnipresence influenced crops, as much as the health of households. Morality, therefore, functioned as a form of navigation. People moved through landscapes with an awareness of invisible boundaries and ancestral expectations. A person who acted without regard for these presences disrupted the coherence of the environment. The consequence manifested simply as imbalance inside the local field of life. There was no punishment.

In the highlands, I observed funerary procedures that revealed a refined sense of relational ethics. The dead did not leave the community abruptly. Their passage depended on the correctness of ritual acts performed by kin and shamans. Ancestral spirits accepted the deceased only after the living performed and completed their obligations. Morality emerged here as a collective responsibility. The individual never carried moral burden alone. The lineage absorbed, interpreted, accepted, and redistributed it. This idea dissolved the rigid distinctions between personal virtue and communal order.

A Khambu elder once told me that humans do not pursue salvation through detachment from the world. Salvation, as an external goal, held little meaning. The human task involved the maintenance of balance with non-human entities. The ideal state did not resemble liberation from earthly existence. The shaman’s trance did not aim at transcendence. Everything we do is aimed at reestablishing symmetry in ailments or conflict. The self remained fixed in the social and cosmological weave.

As I spent more time with these communities, I recognized that moral life developed through practice. There was no code here, and definitely no doctrine. A person learned ethics through participation in rituals, songs, dances, interaction with elders, and attention to the moods of territory spirits. The land served as both library and teacher. It carried narratives of past rites. Every household organized its activities around obligations to ancestors who hovered within the domestic sphere. These features shaped a moral universe that remained open and grounded in locality.

Purity, in this moral universe, referred to the human capacity to remain in accord with forces that structured life. It never required submission to a supreme deity. It never demanded purification through external substances. The purity of the human person reflected the purity of nature itself. Mountains did not require sanctification. Rivers did not require ritual washing to legitimize their flow. Humans entered the world through a similar state of inherent order. Ritual practice only served to maintain this condition.

This realization shifted the direction of my perspective. I began to view Himalayan morality as an art of placement. Every person occupied a precise position in a network of kin, spirits, ancestors, and landscapes. Ethical conduct involved the correct calibration of these relationships. A misaligned person lost their sense of direction. A well-aligned person moved through the world with clarity.

After many years, I concluded that Himalayan moral thought resists reduction to doctrine. It expresses itself through practice and relational sensitivity. Humans are pure by virtue of their origin. They navigate a universe filled with autonomous beings who expect recognition instead of worship.

I am not suggesting that the Himalayan worldview is superior to others, nor claiming that its people stand apart from the rest of humanity. I am saying that this, too, is a way of life and that it deserves its place in the global conversation about how humans ought to live. In a world crowded with competing philosophies, with arguments about whose God is truer and whose path is correct, it seems reasonable to ask whether a tradition that speaks quietly of balance might also be heard. The lesson I carried from Thang’Kuh was never about difference or comparison. It was about possibility that moral life can be grounded in the simple work of maintaining harmony with the forces that share our world, and that such a philosophy need not compete to matter. It only needs space.

A few weeks ago, I was reading Claude Lévi‑Strauss’ The Elementary Structures of Kinship, where he argues that the incest taboo is a structural necessity that drives exogamy. This, he believes, has persuaded individuals to marry outside their immediate family or clan. Using few words, he explains that customs of cross-cousin marriage too, are examples of elementary structures, and that such marriage rules maintain predictable alliances across generations.

Having long been witness to the prevalence of endogamous marriages in the Himalayas, and saddened by the fact that such practice has endured, I sit down to write this post based on my observations and opinion that may seem anti-traditional, but are, at the very least, forward-looking.

The indigenous peoples of the Himalayas have traditionally maintained a fiercely tribal social framework, and while these cultural norms were once widely accepted, they continue to persist even in the 21st century. Exceptions exist, but in many rural areas, they are still frowned upon.

Endogamy, marrying exclusively within one’s own social or cultural group, is sometimes taken even further in certain societies, with practices like consanguineous or cross-cousin marriages. With the advent of Hinduism and its influence on the region, this practice became further engrained, as the strict caste system merged easily with existing tribal divisions within Nepalese Himalayan society.

However, there are some practical reasons attached to this custom. People often choose endogamous marriages because it helps preserve close social ties. Marrying within one’s own group also protects a shared sense of identity. While traditional societies feel more at ease with partners who understand their family values and traditions, much as food habits, others stress that it ensures that property and inheritance remain within the same group or community.

Nepal’s 2021 census shows that only about 2-3% of household heads nationwide and around 1.6% in the Mountain region are married to someone from a different caste or ethnic group. The data is not comprehensive but it still indicates that exogamous marriage remains infrequent in many Himalayan communities.

Among Himalayan tribes, the practice of endogamy, was a pragmatic choice in the past. But we sometimes do not pay as much attention to the converse, to the significant challenges it could pose in the future. One of the biggest challenges that persists, therefore, is the lack of genetic diversity, which may become detrimental to the long-term health and adaptability of human populations.

When people marry strictly within the same group for many generations, the chances of sharing recessive genetic traits increase, which raises the risk of hereditary disorders. This means that it is likely to reduce overall health resilience, subsequently making communities vulnerable to diseases and environmental pressures. Over time, these genetic bottlenecks could make an impact on the community’s ability to adapt with the changing needs of the modern world.

Strict endogamy carries its own social burdens. As groups narrow and ideas become more rigid rather than organic, living within an integrated and connected framework might become challenging. In many communities, individuals, particularly women, feel the weight of expectation to choose partners only from within their own circle, which quietly limits personal freedom and choice. Demographic pressures too, might increase as smaller groups encounter an even sharper strain due to the gradual shrinking of the numbers of potential partners.

Moreover, when communities stay isolated for long periods, cognitive abilities could be adversely affected. This is not about labeling anyone as less intelligent, but about recognizing that genetic variety often supports wider variation in human abilities.

Limited exposure to diverse customs, languages, values, and the gradual loss of cultural tolerance, now makes it particularly necessary to approach these problems with more urgency. This has the potential to create irreversible division among populations. Over time, it could create a rigid social mindset that resists new ideas and struggles to adapt to changing circumstances.

It should be understood that the clan-based system in the Himalayas wasn’t devoid of exceptions. The classification of clans into sub-clans, a system widely prominent, results from a history of occasional exogamous marriages. Evidence such as the Khambu Pacha system and the clan structures across various Himalayan tribes suggests that exogamy was practiced, at least in part.

Additionally, traditions like bride capture and elopement point to this practice, as such customs typically arose when couples married outside the strict bounds of their tribal system. Recognizing the existence of exogamy does not mean opening a Pandora’s box; it is clear that such practices were already present within our societies, even if only on a limited scale.

Nature favors diversity, and exogamy reflects that principle. Throughout history, human populations have evolved and thrived precisely through intermingling across groups. Many communities owe their resilience and vitality to this mixing. Yet, even among those who profess nature worship, we have often forgotten this fundamental rule: survival and growth depend on interaction, exchange, and the blending of people. Evolution, both biological and cultural, requires that we step beyond rigid boundaries and embrace the diversity that sustains us.

By this, I am not advocating cultural dilution. Culture and tradition can survive only if the people find an environment to thrive. When we look beyond ourselves and engage with other traditions and cultures, we come to understand our own, with more focus. We learn to appreciate both nature’s abundance and the health it provides, and we evolve. This does not mean that we must abandon our roots, but without this openness, our culture risks becoming like a glass menagerie. We may look beautiful, but we would still be confined and fragile.

Finally, we must evaluate the role that women play in sustaining culture. As the primary educators of children who teach language and values, women are truly the custodians of tribal memory. When women are empowered to interact beyond rigid boundaries, they can aid their communities to adapt while also preserving the essence of tradition. In this way, embracing measured exogamy and openness is not a threat to culture. It should be viewed as a pathway to ensure that both people and tradition continue to flourish together.

Perhaps the survival of Himalayan cultures depends less on rigid rules and more on knowing when to loosen them, without, of course, losing your hat. Endogamy has preserved identity for centuries, but exogamy reminds us that growth and resilience often arrive uninvited, usually with a stranger at the doorstep. Our traditions do not vanish when we peek beyond our own circles and they gain depth, like a favorite recipe improved with a pinch of something new. Women carry language, traditions, values, and memory, and quietly guide generations. They are ones who ensuring that the culture survives with a openness and grace.

In conclusion, this is like a delicate balance between preservation and openness, the familiar and the foreign, where the true strength of a people, and the enduring life of their culture lies. Therefore, we must consider to change the tribal mindset and perhaps loosen our rigidity. This is imperative to strengthen our communities by embracing a modest level of exogamous marriage to create a space for new knowledge and perspectives to flow in. This balanced openness can help us remain resilient and adaptable as we face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.

I had always heard of the term animism. Throughout my years learning about my own culture and comparing it with other indigenous traditions across the Himalayas, this word kept appearing in books, articles, and lectures. Scholars and culture enthusiasts used it freely. Some found it fascinating while others dismissed it as archaic. Yet I could not help but wonder, if this word truly captures the essence of our belief system? And if it does, is it really relevant?

The term animism was first coined in 1720 by the German doctor G. E. Stahl to describe a medical idea that the soul directed the processes of the body. Over a century later, the anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor reimagined the term in a broader cultural frame, describing it as the essence of all religions. Tylor viewed animism as the earliest human attempt to make sense of the world, a tentative, imperfect science, an effort to explain life, the difference between the living and the non-living, the human and the divine.

In modern parlance, however, the definition of animism has evolved. As research has deepened, scholars now describe it as the belief that within ordinary, visible, tangible bodies there exists an invisible, intangible being: the soul or spirit. Each culture has its own distinctive animistic beings and its own elaboration of what the soul is and how it interacts with the world. This perspective moves beyond Tylor’s simplistic definition of animism.

In the Himalayas, this definition is remarkably appropriate. Among cultures rooted in Shamanism, people believe in divine spirits inhabiting natural landscapes, guardian entities that watch over human settlements, and invisible divine forces described in mythology. Himalayan animism is deeply intertwined with the way these communities perceive the world. However, when compared with the philosophy of organized religions, their theological scriptures, melodic hymns, and grand rituals, animism can seem, at first glance, archaic. A larger, more persistent question then emerges. Is animism really primitive?

Let us first understand the word ‘primitive’. From an etymological standpoint, the word primitive comes from the Latin primus, meaning “early” or “first.” Over time, however, its meaning became derogatory. By the nineteenth century, it had acquired a hierarchical meaning, used to describe societies that European scholars believed existed at an earlier stage of human development. This language gradually shaped how indigenous belief systems, including animism, were perceived, as remnants of a less rational and evolved humanity.

Although modern scholars no longer equate primitive with inferiority, the term still lingers in subtle ways. Many tribal or indigenous societies continue to be labeled as primitive, and this notion often becomes one of the criteria for defining a “tribe.” In fact, the very word tribe itself can carry connotations of being regressive. This reveals how deeply these colonial hierarchies of thought persist in modern discourse. The word primitive, thoroughly colonial in its making, continues to carry the popular undertone of being “not modern.” In light of this prevailing understanding of the word, it becomes worthwhile to examine whether animism can truly be called primitive.

If we view animism merely as a shaman shaking to the beat of a ritual drum, we do the term a grave disservice. At its core, Animism is a worldview. It is a way of seeing existence as an indivisible whole. It does not split life into subjects and objects, and understands the world through relationships. Every form of being participates in a network of connection and reciprocity. This perspective finds prominence across the Himalayan region. The Kirati Khambu honor Honkumaang, the river spirit, and Thampungmang, the hunter spirit. The Jirel recognize Phu, the mountain spirit, and Nagu, the river spirit. The Magar people respect Bhume, the earth spirit, and Masto, protective ancestral spirits. The Gurung pay homage to their ancestral mother, and Ghyang, the nature spirits. Across this Himalayan worldview, countless other spirits inhabit rivers, forests, and peaks, reminding us that the natural world is inseparable from human life, and that our existence is merely a small part of the expansive whole.

This is what anthropologists Nurit Bird-David and Tim Ingold describe as a relational epistemology. It is a way of knowing that arises through participation. Bird-David explores this idea in her influential essay “Animism Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology”, while Ingold expands on it in his book The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (2000). Both argue that animism is not a primitive misunderstanding of the world, but a sophisticated philosophy of relationship. It is a way of being that recognizes the self only through its connection to others, human and non-human alike.

This concept of relational epistemology represents a deeply sophisticated understanding of how knowledge is born. In the animistic worldview, knowledge arises from participation and relationship. A shaman or the tribes learn from nature by listening or engaging with its flow and entering into dialogue with its spirits. This kind of knowing demands attentiveness and reciprocity. Today, different domains, such as, ecology, phenomenology, and environmental philosophy are being developed through this very concept.  Relational epistemology recognizes that humans are not separate from their surroundings and all sentient beings are a part of a living continuum. It is an alternative view that seeks harmony rather than domination.

Animism invites us to see that consciousness and agency as not confined to humans alone. In this worldview, mountains, rivers, forests, and animals are living presences, capable of acting, responding, and shaping the world around them. A river can protect or punish, a forest can guide or withhold, and a mountain can command attention and respect. This is far from superstition, as it resonates with contemporary ecological and philosophical insights. Thinkers like Bruno Latour (Reassembling the Social, 2005) and Philippe Descola (Beyond Nature and Culture, 2013) describe this as distributed agency. The ability to influence, and sustain the environment is shared across humans and non-humans alike. Animism, in this sense, presents a subtle and sophisticated ontology and it dissolves the rigid boundaries between subject and object, to see life as an interconnected web of beings.

Furthermore, animism offers a sophisticated metaphysics of life and death. In this worldview, death is simply a transformation as the spirit endures, taking on new forms within the world. This perspective requires a subtle understanding of continuity, evolution, embodiment, and, in some sense, spirituality. Even though it does not dwell on theological speculations or scientific notions of nothingness, it offers a distinct way of knowing, that combines spiritual and ecological truths into a cohesive understanding of life. Life and death are part of an ongoing cycle. This dynamic interplay in which humans, animals, plants, and even the landscapes themselves participate, contributes to the evolution and continuity of being.

Animistic thought is also based in careful observation of the patterns and cycles in the natural world. It constitutes an empirical system of active participation and attentive engagement. Cultivated over generations, indigenous ecological knowledge, has often proven more sustainable and resilient than industrial scientific practices. In this sense, animism develops alongside science to form a distinct epistemology grounded in experience and relationships with the world. Its sophistication emerges from participation and a deep understanding of life’s patterns.

Thus, would it be fair to call animism primitive? In the Himalayas, we are not immune to Western thought and ideology. Subtle colonial lenses still influence the way we interpret the world, and the comforts we enjoy are often the fruit of Western science and innovation. But to dismiss animism as primitive is to misunderstand its depth. Animism is neither a relic of the past nor an exclusively Eastern concept, just as modernity is not purely Western. Both are frameworks for engaging with the world. Both are equally capable of revealing truths.

Animism, thus, is about perception. It helps us see the world as a dynamic network of relationships. It teaches harmony and reciprocity, and certainly compatible with scientific understanding. Even if we set aside personified spirits prevalent in indigenous tribal beliefs, animism reminds us that nature is alive and intelligent. Its spirits represent transformation, balance, the power to nurture, challenge, and forgive. In recognizing this, we move beyond ourselves as the center of the universe, and learn to acknowledge that everything around us carries essence. Whether we call it spirit, soul, energy, consciousness, or something else is a matter of personal reflection.

Many years ago, when my grandfather passed away, the ancestral house in Ghaiyabari, near Kurseong, filled with quiet sorrow. People gathered from nearby villages, women sat close together, weeping in hushed tones, while the men spoke softly of his life, his integrity, and his small but steady kindnesses. The rites were performed in the old way, with rice grains, and ritual speeches that had passed unchanged through generations. When it was time, we carried his body to the edge of the nearby forest, a sacred patch of land that belonged to our family, where my grandmother and uncle had also been buried.

The Khambu Rai people have always practiced burials, though I recall a few exceptions, cases where individuals had embraced the Hindu way of life, and were cremated according to it’s customs. But my grandfather, a devout Kirati Khambu to his final breath, would have chosen no other path but a proper burial, rooted in our traditions. I had never visited that part of our land before. It lay deep within the property, dense with undergrowth, past the cardamom fields, across a narrow stream and a stretch of muddy terrain, where weeds grew wild. Among Rai families in the hills, there are no designated cemeteries. The dead are returned to the very soil they once tilled and walked and spoke to. Perhaps that is where the soul feels most at home.

When the rituals ended, five full days of chants, offerings, and sleepless vigils, a concrete tombstone was raised over his resting place, his name and age etched neatly upon it. At the time, it felt ordinary, almost expected. Yet over the years, I have found myself questioning whether this act truly belonged to our way of life. Traditions may shift with generations, but philosophies endure. And so I am left to wonder if, within the Khambu understanding of the world, the idea of claiming a fixed space upon the earth was ever truly ours.

In recent years, I have noticed how tombstones have quietly become the norm among the Rai people. Without much reflection, many have begun to mark burial sites with concrete or marble slabs, what we call Kapur, as if permanence could grant dignity to the dead. These graves, framed in cement or adorned with polished tiles, have become familiar across the hills. Yet, I often wonder whether this practice actually belongs to our lineage. Even in Nepal, especially in the Jhapa and Morang regions, where British rule never reached, similar tombstones have appeared. To me, these feel like later additions, the quiet inheritance of Christian or colonial influence, rather than a continuation of our ancestral ways.

In truth, a Khambu Rai grave is never meant to defy the seasons or the rain. It is a quiet affair, built to return gently to the earth rather than stand against it. A simple layer of clay is spread over the burial mound. The Khaling Rai dig a pit and cover it with bamboo lattice and straw to make a tomb-house known as Salamkam. While building this tomb-house, the side near the feet of the deceased is made slightly lower, and the side near the head a little higher, so that even in death, the body seems to rest in a natural slope of the land. Upon this chamber, the deceased’s personal items are placed, his walking stick, bamboo basket (doko), and other items.

Among the Kulung Rai people, if a person passes before the age of fifteen, a white mourning cloth, is tied in the names of two female relatives. For those older, four names are invoked, and the cloth remains above the grave for three months, bound between pairs of bamboo poles that sway softly with the breeze. This piece of fabric carries the weight of remembrance. The Khaling Rai grave-house is left standing, but the Kulung, after a year, dismantle it and mark the site with simple stones. This task is performed by two men known as Khamphochim, those believed to be untouched by spirits. When death comes by misfortune, the Chihan Ghar is taken down that very day, a humble gesture to restore balance between the seen and unseen worlds. Nowhere in these rituals lies the intent to immortalize the dead through monuments of stone. The Khambu grave, like the body it holds, must yield to rain and time, returning to soil, merging with the earth, and becoming life once more.

Among the Thulung Kirat Rai, burial is a deeply sacred, highly structured practice, guided by the type of death and the wisdom of the Shaman and the elders. Temporary structures, bamboo markers, and ritual objects are placed around the grave, and prayers are recited for the well-being of both the living and the departed. Even when children die or deaths occur unnaturally, the practices adapt, guiding the spirit without permanent monuments. In all of these customs, there is no notion of raising a tombstone or creating a permanent marker; the rituals emphasize spiritual guidance and ancestral connection rather than concrete memorials.

Why, then, have we come to set cold stones above our dead? If the Khambu Rai people are meant to live by the way of Sumnima (the divine earth-mother spirit), why seek permanence in marble or concrete, when our philosophy calls for harmony with the ever-turning cycles of nature? In life, we partake of the earth’s generosity, drawing nourishment from its fields and forests. In death, we are meant to give it back, to dissolve quietly into the soil that sustained us.

Reverence in Khambu Rai culture is expressed through the Samkhalung, the sacred hearthstone, where our forebears’ spirits linger, quietly watching over the living and guiding the household with gentle wisdom. In contrast, tombstones are not part of this tradition; they mark a space, but they do not nurture the ongoing cycle of life. Would it not be more in keeping with our worldview to plant a tree above the burial mound, a living sentinel that grows, blossoms, and bears fruit? Through its roots, it nourishes the soil, drawing life from the same earth that once cradled the deceased, and in turn sustains new life. In this way, even in death, we maintain our dialogue with the earth, giving back more than we take.

In Khambu philosophical understanding, death is neither a final ending nor a reason for sorrow alone. It is a return, a transformation, a rejoining of the eternal cycle that binds all living beings. To mourn by erecting stones is to misread the philosophy we inherit. As Kirati Khambus, our reverence is expressed through life itself: by planting, by nurturing, by letting the earth bear witness and remember. In this way, the cycle continues, and the memory of those who have passed becomes inseparable from the living world they once walked.

I know that my vision may not dissolve the colonial mindset we have inherited for decades. People will continue building tombstones, just as they always have. Yet I am certain, somewhere, someone will be touched by the notion of staying true to our worldview, even as traditions evolve. If my grandfather, who lived and breathed the Khambu way, were to look upon my perspective, I believe he would have agreed. And in that quiet approval, perhaps the cycle of life and memory will find its truest expression, not in a tombstone, but in the living earth itself.

Back in 2014, when I first offered my time to an organization dedicated to preserving the cultural traditions of the Kirati Khambu Rai in Darjeeling, I stepped into a world I had always carried with me, yet scarcely understood. I knew the names of our ancestors, the patterns of our migrations, the outline of our history, but not the cadence of the traditions that bound spirit to soil. I could fumble through Chamling sentences and recognize the offerings of Samkhalung during Chhowa. But the deeper aspects of my culture, the meanings behind the Mundhum, the sacred logic of the rituals, the worldview etched in symbolic actions and inherited ways of life, remained elusive.

For years I had lived comfortably within the architecture of modern life, working in a firm that developed web applications, surrounded by the glowing screens of another world. I wore Western clothes, watched American shows, thought in English, but never once doubted the fact that I was Kirati. It was a knowledge I did not question, though I rarely turned toward it. It was only through years of listening, recording, and slowly learning to see as my elders see that something shifted. The distant became intimate. The inherited became deliberate. Sure, I had always identified as Kirati Khambu, but had I truly understood what that meant? Had I, even then, possessed ethnic consciousness?

Ethnic consciousness is the lived awareness of belonging to a distinct cultural group, marked by inherited identity and a reflective understanding of its meaning, boundaries, and significance in relation to the wider world. As Fredrik Barth observed in his influential introduction to Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (1969), what defines an ethnic group is not the cultural content itself but the boundaries that are maintained between groups. This kind of self-awareness does not always emerge organically. It often surfaces in moments of tension, contact or marginalization. It is when a community begins to recognize its own patterns, beliefs and ways of life as markers of identity rather than just inherited customs that culture becomes conscious. This shift from living culture to self-aware identity is subtle but transformative. It turns tradition into a basis for collective strength, advocacy and survival in a world that demands clear definitions.

Here, it is crucial to understand what ethnicity truly means. It should not be mistaken for far-right notions of ethnicism, tribalism, or racial superiority. Ethnicity is a lived experience of belonging to a people defined by their unique customs, languages, and ways of relating to the world. It is the emotional and cultural attachment to traditions passed down and practiced daily. For elders and cultural stewards, the quiet erosion of this inheritance is a deep and silent wound. For the young, drawn by the pull of cities and the promise of new opportunities, such detachment may feel like freedom. Yet every language forgotten, every rite left unperformed, risks severing a vital thread in the vast tapestry of human possibility.

Ethnic consciousness often intensifies when a culture is under threat. This is a familiar pattern among indigenous peoples worldwide. As John and Jean Comaroff explain in Ethnicity, Inc., communities frequently turn to their ethnic identity as a means of reclaiming visibility and asserting agency when faced with marginalization or cultural loss. In the Darjeeling region and its surroundings, this is evident among communities near Bagdogra and Salugada. There, Kirati organizations and other tribal groups in the Duars have been actively engaged in reviving their ancestral traditions, organizing large annual festivals, and renewing their focus on language and cultural preservation with growing success.

In my experience, exclusion often plants the first seed of ethnic consciousness. When communities are overlooked by institutions, denied access to basic facilities, or left out of larger conversations, something shifts. People begin to turn inward, for survival, and to remember. Slowly, this inward turn can grow into a movement. I’ve seen it happen, where neglected languages are spoken again with care, where long-forgotten festivals are revived. These acts are quiet affirmations. Through every ritual performed, through every endangered word uttered, there’s a message being sent: We are still here.

But exclusion isn’t the only path to awareness. Sometimes it begins in far gentler ways. I’ve watched people become conscious of their roots simply by being part of a cultural organization. In spaces where shared memory is honored, a kind of camaraderie forms that nudges people to look deeper into themselves. Some join out of curiosity, others because they carry a pride in ancient ancestry. And then there are those who seem unsure at first. They may not know the rites, may not speak the language fluently, but carry a quiet, generational awareness. Over time, with every story shared, every ritual observed, they begin to see more clearly. Their journey inward doesn’t come all at once, but gradually, as they begin to understand that their identity has always been there, waiting, just beneath the surface.

At the same time, migration, urbanization, and tourism have created new conditions for reflection. When individuals leave their ancestral lands for cities or foreign countries, they often find themselves re-evaluating what it means to belong. Culture, once taken for granted, becomes a thread of memory and longing. Interestingly, tourism plays a dual role in this process. While it sometimes risks flattening culture into spectacle, it also pushes communities to examine and articulate their traditions with renewed clarity. And perhaps most crucially, cultural transmission, serves as the foundation of ethnic awareness.

Ethnicity today is often spoken of as if it were fixed and self-evident, but as scholars like Jean and John Comaroff argue, it is anything but static. Rather than a single, solid identity, ethnicity is better understood as a living process. It is a set of shared signs, languages, customs, and sentiments through which people come to recognize themselves and one another. Its meaning changes depending on history, politics, and experience.

Among the Kirati communities of the Himalayas, for instance, ethnicity is attached to oral traditions, agricultural rituals, sacred landscapes, and kinship patterns but it is also shaped by the pressures and incentives of the modern state. With the promise of recognition, representation, or access to Scheduled Tribe benefits, some individuals begin to express their ethnic identity more visibly in public, even if those same traditions are fading at home. In such cases, ethnic performance may appear strategic, but it still reflects the larger reality that identity is now being negotiated in a world where visibility matters. As modernization and state narratives press in, this once quiet identity must become conscious and, at times, even performative.

But is this really ethnic consciousness? If identity is displayed only for political recognition or material gain, can it still be called awareness in the deeper sense? This question lingers in many corners of our community, and I’ve often found myself asking it quietly when I see festival costumes worn like uniforms, or rituals performed without memory. When culture is practiced only in the open, but forgotten at home, it risks becoming a performance for the gaze of others, whether governments, researchers, or tourists.

And yet, even strategic displays can carry the seeds of something more meaningful at least among some individuals. Sometimes, performance precedes belief. A young person who joins a festival ritual out of obligation may still be moved by something glorious within it. A checkbox on a form may lead someone to ask, “What does this actually mean?”. While wearing a traditional attire, one might feel a sense of pride. Therefore, while ethnic consciousness may begin in the political, but for it to truly take root, it must become personal. Something to be experienced, remembered, lived, and slowly carried inward.

Over the years, I’ve met many such individuals who first wore their identity for convenience or recognition, but later found themselves asking profound questions. What begins as a borrowed ritual or an attendance can easily turn into an inward journey. Some start picking up books on culture and history, flipping through old photographs, or listening to the elders they once ignored. I’ve also seen people who barely spoke their mother tongue begin to search for its words again. In time, the costume becomes a memory, and the memory becomes meaning. Ethnic consciousness is not always inherited in full. Sometimes it is rediscovered, piece by piece, story by story, until what was once external becomes internal.

So, did I truly have ethnic consciousness back then, when I first began volunteering in 2014? Perhaps not in its full form. I had fragments, memories, names, rituals heard in passing, a sense of belonging that was more intuitive than articulated. What I carried might be better described as latent awareness, a quiet certainty that I was part of something older, though I hadn’t yet turned to face it fully. Over the years, through listening, reading, asking, and sometimes simply being present, that awareness grew. It matured into something more deliberate, and reflective.

But this consciousness has not come without its complications. At times, it has slowed me down and led me to question the paths I might have taken more easily if I had chosen to forget. At other times, it has grounded me. In a world that urges constant reinvention, it offers continuity. In the noise of modern life, it gives coherence. I live fully in the modern world. I embrace technology, learning, and new ways of seeing. I value inquiry, skepticism, and the pursuit of truth. These shape my thinking. My identity as a Khambu moves alongside these values. I live with both. I think with both. I carry both. This awareness has brought clarity to my perspectives. It has shown me that identity forms through engagement, memory, and lived experience. And that to move meaningfully in this world, one must first know where their feet are standing.