Kinnaur

Kinnaur
Kinnaur
Area	6,553 km²
Population	78,400 (2001)
Population Density	12/km²
Literacy	75.11%
Urbanization	0%

The Kinnaur district is located in the north-eastern part of Himachal Pradesh. Located at an elevation between 2320m and 6816m, it is probably one of the smallest districts in India. There are 12 adminstrative circles and 3 adminstrative sub dividsions, namely the lower, middle and upper Kinnaur. The district capital is Reckong Peo.

Kinnaur enjoys a temperate climate due to its high elevation, with long winters stretching from October to May and short summers extending from June to September. Only the lower parts of the Satluj Valley and the Baspa Valley receive monsoon rains while the upper areas of the valleys fall mainly under the rain shadow area. These parts have a dry climate, similar to Tibet and they are considered as arid regions.

The local people, known as Kinner or Kinnauri, are of mixed Tibetan and Indo-Caucasian origin. According to myth, the Kinners strongly believed that they were the descandants of the Pandavas and were halfway between Men and God, possesing certain supernatural powers. The Kinners, who spoke a dialect belonging to the Tibeto-Burman family known as Kinnauri or Kanauri, generally practice a mixture Lamaism and Hinduism in varying degrees, are classified to those who live in the Adminstrative sub-dividsions. There are still 2,000 speakers of the old Zhang Zhung dialect in the Sultej valley today.

The Kanet monks and nuns of the Upper and Middle Kinnaur are divided into two groups: the Gyolang or celibate, who shave their heads and do not marry, and the Durpu, who do not shave their heads and marry, but there are no restrictions in their marriage. These two groups thus they spent their whole life in lamaseries and edvoting their lives to Lamaism, learning to read Tibetan scriptures or Buddhist doctrines. When the children grow up, the boys become Lamas and the girls become Chomos and all of them are trained from a young age on how conducting religious ceromonies. All Kinners consider the Kinner Kaliash as the most sacred peak in the district, and every year the local people visit the peak on a Yatra (Pilgrimage), by both Hindus and Buddhists alike. Superstions of Ghosts like the Banchir, Rakshas and Khunkch play an important role in their daily life, and Pujas and horns of domestic animals are used to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck.

The Kinners are classified into two scheduled castes; The Chomang and The Domang, who are mainly used by the Kinners of the Lower and Middle Kinnaur, says that the Chomang are clothes makers and tailors, while the Domangs are blacksmiths. The Kinners are made up of the intermingling between the Rajput, Khosias and the Beru people, and thus they can be classified into three different groups, with each group living in one adminstrative sub-dividsion:

Lower Kinnaur: The people here are mainly of the Indo-Caucasian stock, thus they share racial affinities with the Barkawalas and the people living in the adjoining Shimla district. They generally live in places around Sangla and Nichar. As practitioners of the Hindu religion, gods that include Bhairon, Usha or Ukha, Narayan, Krishna, Vishnu, Badrinath, Durga/Chandi and Bhimakali. In addition, Nag Devta may also be worshipped as well. Every village has its own presiding deity as well. Although the people here have come under some Buddhist influence due to ethno-historical factors. The Kinners in this adminstrative sub-divisions preffered two-storyed huses made out of stone and the local wood called bhojpatra. These are either slated roofs or having flat roofs made of layers of bhojpatra tree bark covered with earth. The door are often folding and open inwards.

Middle Kinnaur: The people here are a mixture of the Tibetan and the Indo-Caucasian stock, living inthe areas that consist of kalpa, Moorang Tehsil and Kanam. Many of Kinners here faced varying degrees of racial assimilation between these two groups interchangably. Here, both Lamaism and Hinduism co-exist side by side, with many people worshipping a mixture of two religions, and this can be seen tht many Buddhist monasteries may contain statues of Hindu deities as well. Hindu deities like Chandi/Durga, Gauri Shankar, Kansa and Narayanjee. Besides, the Buddhists in the village of Kanam worship a deity known as Dabla, who has certain features associated with the earlier Bon religion. The image of Dabla is installed alongwith those of Buddha and Guru Rinpoche (Padma Sambhava) in one of the monasteries at Kanam. The structure of the houses generally resemble the people living in Upper Kinnaur. Buddhist Lamas are consulted to conduct religious ceromonies.

Upper Kinnaur: This area consists of the Pooh and the Hangrang valley, which is near the international border between China (Tibet) and India. Due to their ethno-geographical location, the people here are predominantly descended from the Tibetan stock, especially in Hangrang, which consists of 8 villages, though some strains of the Indo-Caucasian or the blending of the Indo-Caucasian and the Tibetan stock can be seen around Pooh. Especially in Hangrang, the religion of the people in this region is Lamaism, though strains of Hindu influence can be seen in Pooh. Almost every village has a monastery with Lamas and Chomos, who are recruited from amongst the Rajput (Kanet) only. Like the Kinnauris in middle Kinnaur, their houses is usually built from stone. However, due to the scarity of wood, earth is used to replace wood and is usually not that strong. To prevent it from toppling, they have flat-roofed two storyed houses with small doors. The ground floor is meant for a cattle shed and upper storey for living purposes. The size and plinth area of the house depends upon the site available for construction. The houses are white washed in lower as well as upper Kinnaur. Besides these traditional houses, modern RCC houses built in modern designs are also coming up.

The Kinners have households have some wooden chest for keeping grain and dried fruits. In addition most of the houses have separate wooden grain storage structures locally called Kathar. Khayarcha is a mat meant for sitting purposes, which is made out of goat's hair. Pakpa which is skin of sheep or goat or some wild animal as often placed on khayarcha for sitting. Traditionally the people used to use utensils made of brass, bronze and aluminium. However, now a days with the increased outside contact they are fast adopting the china crockery and utensils made of stainless steel.

Owing to its cold weather, Woolen clothes is worn. The Thepang, a grey woolen cap with a white colour velvet band on the outer fold. Band of green colour is most liked. Crimson blue, yellow etc. may also be worn. The menfolk generally woolen shirts called Chamn Kurti made of woolen cloth and tailored in the village. The Tibetan Chhuba, which is actually a long woolen coat somewhat resembling like an Achkan, is worn. A sleeveless woolen jacket is worn outside the Chhuba. Men too, wear the woolen Churidhar Pajama. The womenfolk wrap up a woolen shawl-like garment called Dohru. The first wrap of Dohru is on the back with embridered border displayed throughout its length up to the heels. Darker shades of colours are preferred for the Dohru. Besides, beautiful coloured shawls are also worn over the shoulders. Choli, a sort of full sleeves blouse is worn by the women, many of them with decorative lining also. The traditional footwear made of wool and goat hair with the sole made from goat hide is worn.

Little is known about the history of Kinnaur except for the fact that it was known as Kanaurra or Kinnaura, and whatever is known are mainly either legendary or mythlogical accounts spreaded by the word from the mouth. However, it is known that it was placed under the control of the Magdha kingdom followed by the Mauryan empire during the 6th Century B.C. and so on, inhabited mainly by the Kiratas, Kambojas, Panasikas and Valhika.

Kinnaur is divided into seven parts, known as Sat Khund. There was further splitting up of and the area came to be covered with many small hegemonies, which were constantly warring against, or allying with, each other as conditions required. The neighbouring Bhots also found time to jump into the fray and did not desist from creating trouble. There are various forts like labrang, Morang, and Kamru forts telling the story of that age, until the Mogul empire conquered the area under Akbar reunited the entire area and incoporated this area into the empire.

After the collaspe of the Mogul empire, Kinnaur valley acted as a bulwark to the Bushahr state. However with the lapse of paramountcy, the Kinnaur then known as Chini tehsil was merged to form a part of then Mahasu district, created by then ruler Tika Raghunath Singh. The Pargana Atharahs Bish comprised of village Nichar, Sungra, Kangos, Ponda, Baro, Bari, Tranda, Chaura village with patwar circle at Ponda. The Paragana Bish consisted of the revenue estates of Nathpa, Kandhar, Barakamba, Chhotakamba, Garshu and Rupi with patwar circle at Rupi were in Rampur tehsil. By 1960, however, the importance of reorganising border area was realised and consequently in view of ethnic and cultural considerations the areas which were partly in Rampur tehsil were reorganised into a separate District forming the present Kinnaur district.

External Links

• Government's district website (http://hpkinnaur.nic.in/)
• The Himalayas-Kinnaur Himalayas (http://library.thinkquest.org/10131/kinnaur.html)
• Photo Documentation of Lahul-Spiti and Kinnaur-November 2003 (http://www.klausdierks.com/Himalaya/photo_documentation-2003.htm)
• 24 pages of Information by Hindubooks (http://www.hindubooks.org/temples/himachal/kinnaur/index.htm)