For centuries, members of the ancient Kham Magar tribe were left behind and largely forgotten, shielded from the outside world by the towering hills of the north-west Himalayan foothills of Rukum and Rolpa. The community, with a small population of about 40,000 people today, was able to preserve their unique language, religion, and lifestyle and subsequently, their distinctive identity. They also inhabit the upper tributaries of the Sano Bheri, Bari Gad, and Mari Khola on the southwestern flank of the Dhaulagiri massif.  The Kham-speaking Magar, though being from the Magar tribe, try to distinguish themselves from the Magars to the east of Rolpa.

The idea of a pristine self-sufficient location is central to the Kham Magar ideology, where the community, formed out of local lineages, lives as an exogamous unit. Kham Magars are divided into four northern Magar sub-tribes. Pun, Roka, Gharti, and Buda. In some places, there is also a sub-tribe (thar) called Jhakri. These Thars are further subdivided into named localized lineages, each of which has a common mythical ancestor or a commonplace of origin.

These localized lineages, rather than the thars, form the branches that control the system of kinship, inheritance, and marriages among the Magars. Marriages, then, are permitted within a thar but not within a localized lineage group. Because of the preference to marry within the local area, most of the lineages have Maiti and Bhanja relationships with all other lineages with the community.

While their Magar brethren, who live to the eastern hills of Gulmi and Palpa have succumbed to the influences of Hinduism and speak the Magar Dhut language, the Kham Magars have a very strong Shamanic tradition and speak the “Kham Dhut” language which is a distinct unintelligible Tibeto-Burman language. This language has no relation to the Kham dialect of the Tibetans spoken by the Khampas, a tribe in Kham, Tibet. The Kham Magars are also not related to the Khampas of Tibet. Kham Dhut also has three different dialects and has extreme intelligibility restrictions between them.

Kham Magars have a quintessentially pastoral lifestyle. The lands are used for farming and they maintain rather large flocks of sheep and goats. During the non-agricultural seasons and leisure time, which comes rarely, women engage in a variety of activities that are economically feasible. Their primary activities are processing wool and local fibers, making liquor, and raising pigs for sale. They spin and weave local wool for coats and blankets, which are used in the household, sold in the village, or sold during seasonal trips to the big cities of West Nepal. Besides processing wool, women also prepare Hemp and Puwa, which is a fiber made from giant nettle.

Being fiercely Shamanistic in their religious practices, the Kham Magars call their Shamans Ramma or Arma. It is highly probable that Ramma can be related to the “Ramma-Bya” which are words in the Tibetan language. Bya in Tibetan is “Hen” which explains the ceremonial headdress of the Kham Magar Shaman which is adorned with the feathers of the Jungle Fowl. Their religious inclination is based primarily on an animistic view of nature. They see nature represented by divine spirits which affect the physical world of men, their daily affairs, household, health, agriculture, and economy. Shamanistic inclination denotes that certain men are capable of entering into communication with these spirits and serve as functionaries between the physical and the spirit world.

It can be safely assumed that far from having escaped from the light of factual evidence or historical reconstruction, the concept of living within the physical and the spiritual is still very much alive. Such a view is very widespread, being found throughout the Himalayas and in many other parts of the world where Shamanism exists. The Kham-Magar tradition is a particular instance of this worldview or belief system; that it is part of an ancient shamanistic tradition that exhibits the history and structure of its own.

The Kham Magar idea of belonging and connection to the land is also reiterated by this same worldview. What binds a person to his land and territory is also described in Shamanic songs and narratives. In Kham Magar Shamanic traditions, the creation myth always stands along with a central location. This begins from the fireplace of the house where the ritual takes place. The narrative then pans out revealing more of the village as the viewpoint recedes. It talks about the house itself, the alleyways belonging to brothers, the outer portions of the village where local lineages are concentrated and keep panning out farther and farther.

While some might call the Magars fiercely Hinduized, Magar lifestyle, traditions and culture differ greatly from mainstream Hindu way of life. The Magars still celebrate indigenous tribal festivals that borders around nature or earth worship. These festivals are celebrated over homemade beer and dancing to the sound of drums. They revere nature spirits, and also make offerings and sacrifices during their festivals. However not much is known about the origins of the Magar people in the Himalayas. Various writers advocate different theories. The problem is that we do not find many clues or written history in the archives of ancient Nepal. Almost all ancient civilizations or cultures of Nepal have no recorded history and we have to entirely rely on speculations, folklore and logic, along with a few genealogies, to decipher or determine their origins.  

The Magar people are the indigenous inhabitants of the western Himalayas of Nepal, what is today known as the Gandaki region. Various scholars provide anthropological explanations to determine the originality of the Magar people. One of the earliest credible sources of information regarding the Magar people is the copper-plate inscription of Shivadeva which is dated 1110 CE which has a mention of  Mangavara Vishaya. Here, Mangavara seems to hint at the original term for Magar or Mangar (as they are known in the hills of Darjeeling and Sikkim). The inscription, thus, highlights that to the west and south of Dhaulagiri, it was the Magar people who resided or ruled this land. The fact that the Magars inhabited in a large part of the western Dhaulagiri is not a revelation. What is known today as Bara Magarat or the Twelve Magarat Kingdoms can be identified as Gulmi, Isma, Rising, Dhor, Khanchi, Garhu, Bhirkot, Argha, Panyu,  Ghiring, Satahu and Musikot. Many of the places in these regions have Magar names. Towns like Tansen and Rivers like Marshyandi, Daraundi are all names of Magar origin.

Scholars like Balkrishna Pokharel are of the opinion that the Magars first entered the Nepal Himalayas in 2300 B.C and they did so from five directions. Dharma Prasad Shrees, in his book Magarati Sanskriti (Eitahasik Pristhabhumi) concurs with the theory. He claims that the Magars arrived in Nepal in five distinct groups through different boundaries of Nepal.  He goes on to say that the five waves of Magar migration began with the advent of Magars in the Mahar valley of India. The second migration happened around the Rapti and Narayani Rivers. The third came from the North and settled into the Mustang regions and around Dolpa, Mustang, Myagdi, Parbat, Baglung, Pyuthan and Rukum. The fourth went to Nepal from Sikkim and the fifth group settled in the Indian Gangetic plains.

Jiro Kawakita in his book,  Himalayan Habitat and Culture Change among the Magars – Some Hypothetical Views says that Magars are a Mongoloid race who mainly migrated from North to South and initially settled in low hill area near Terai, Butwal and Palpa. Due to close contact with Indian culture, they lost the Buddhist characterstics and attracted towards Hinduism. They are distributed to western and eastern Nepal after attack of Rajputs. Despite of these diversities about the origin stories of Magar, most scholars belive that the Magars are the traditional inhabitants of the region from Gandaki to the Rapti areas.

According to Dr. Budhamagar, the Magars entered Nepal through the Mustang valley in 1500 B.C. From there, they entered Myagdi, Parvat, Baglung, Pyuthan, Rolpa and Northern Rukum and settled there. This theory that the Magars came to Nepal from the North has been concurred by Imansingh Chemjong and Khildhoj Thapa. Khildhoj Thapa also adds that the Magars, who were originally animists had migrated to Nepal much before there were any consolidated kingdoms in the Himalayas. Some history writers have made a different claim in their books. In his book Gurkhas: the story of the Gurkhas of Nepal country, Francies Tuker writes that the Magars actually came from the South. They entered Nepal from Chittorgarh in India who king was Rishi Rana.

Michael Oppitz, who made an incredible four hour documentary on Kham Magars, called Shamans of the Blind Country writes in his book, The Wild Boar and the Plough: Origin Stories of the Northern Magars that there are three variations to the story of Magar origins. They are:

1. The Vamshali of Budha and Hukam
2. The Vamshali of the Gharti from Taka
3. The Oral Origin Story of the Gharti

The common concept of the three versions, though narrated differently told talks about the origin of the first ancestors, their first alliances, later migration movements into their contemporary homeland and the origins of agriculture and of hunting. All three versions state that the first common ancestors emerged from a dwelling place of the Gods, a cave under an overhanding rock, located rouchly to the north of the ridge that divides the Uttar Ganga and the Pelma Khola valleys. The first two versions say that the place of origin is a place called Pimachare. The narrative tells us that the Magars, of those belonging to the Gharti, Pun and Budha tribes do not trace their origin of ancestry to some foreign land. They talk about the story of the creation and origin relating to place where they live today.

The Magar story of origin also mentions the clan divisions between the Baara (Twelve) Panthi and the Atharah (Eighteen) Panthi. The folk myth that speaks of division occurring between different brothers to form broad patrilineal clan structure can be taken into account. Here, we can notice that the Bara panthi magars are found in Gandaki and Lumbini zones. The language they speak is called Magarati language. The Atharapanthi Magars are found in Midwestern region Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan and Pyuthan.

There are many claims, narratives, writings and theories about the origin of the Magar people. However many of them seem merely speculations rather than being based on solid empirical evidence. I believe that more research must be done in order to come to a proper unanimous conclusion about the origin of the Magar people. We can decipher that by DNA mapping, language root and family, original culture and traditions, folklore and oral narratives among other ways.

The fact that Magars are essentially nature worshippers can be derived from their social customs and rituals. Over the many centuries many Magars are known to have accepted both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies but Magars are quintessentially Nature worshippers. Magars worship Semya, Bhumya, Sirung, Sedeni and Banajhakri.

Many rituals that relate to nature worship, such as offering raw eggs or chickens, worshipping stone idols, hoisting religious banners, offering milk, rice grains and turmeric, making offerings on hill tops, using Shamans to ward off evil spirits, offering prayers for safe keeping from lightning and thunder, praying for the rain, can be found in Magar rituals. For the Magars, a year consists of only two seasons. The ascending season (Ubhauli) March to June and the descending season August-February (Udhauli).

According to Magar myth and folklore, there were two brothers. Syopa and Gorpa. Syopa was the manifestation of nature and Gorpa was a human. When it came to dividing their inheritance, Gorpa asked Syopa to leave the farmlands, houses and civilization and go to live in the forests. And so man distanced himself from nature but they couldn’t stay apart for long and each still became dependent on each other.

In the ancient times, the Magars would eat Yam. When the age of agriculture dawned, the Magars realized that all cultivated crops needed to be saved from landslides, floods and droughts. They started offering new crops to nature and celebrated the day in prayer and rejoicing with merriment and dancing. To make nature happy, they would also offer animals in the form of sacrifice to nature. This led the way to the ritual of Bhumye or Earth worship. In many regions, the Magars started this custom during the sowing season and at others, they did so during the harvesting season. But today the first day of the month of Shrawan is the universally accepted date for this ritual.

The last King of the Atharah (18) Magarat region, Darya Jaitam had seen a devastating flood in the monsoon when his entire fortress had been swept away and he issued a decree to start a ritualistic festival in lieu of a Lunar Calendar where young men and women (Dhapa – Dhami) would sing, dance and pray for rid the world from disasters, famine and disease. The ritualistic festival of Bhumya has many names in different Magar inhabited regions.  Some call it Bhumya while some called it Bal Puja or Nokowang/Rangkya Tihar. It may also be called Chokhe parva or Dhodla-Dhodli puja. The purpose of this worship ritual is to pray for abundance and for the elimination of negative energies around one’s birthplace and where one might survive, stay, flourish and thrive.

A month before the actual date of the worship ritual, the festival commences and one can hear people cleaning up their music instruments, practicing and playing it and young men and women gathering in groups to prepare for traditional dances.  A makeshift shrine is made for the ritual where are stone idol is placed. The shrine is made using rice straw and a wicker basket which olds ritualistic items are placed near the shrine. All the village farmers bring in the new crops along with offerings of money to be put across the shrine as a mark of respect and gratitude for a good harvest and abundance. The sacrificial animal is taken around the village and shown to all the residents. Its body is marked with ashes and purified with rice grains as it is circled around every house in the village. After the formal ritual worship ends, all the people get together for “Syai” which is ritualistic, festival dance of the Magar people.