Uttarakhand 103
The folktale
There is a pretty story told of the first advent of the Bhotias
or Sekpas, into Johar, where they followed a people who had
covered with hair even to their tongues. In those early days
there lived a great bird of prey on the gori glacier, which daily
fed on one of these hairy inhabitants, and by its ravages reduced
their number to a mere handful. To free them from this curse a
holy lama, who with his magic powers of flight used to fly to
Lapthal and other places, sent his servant with a bow and arrow
to kill the evil bird, and gave him for a guide a man who ever
changed his form. This guide changed into the form of a dog,
hence the pass Kingri-Bingri, the former word meaning a dog;
then he became a stag, hence the name Pol Dunga; then a bear
hence Topidhunga, then a camel, hence the pass of Unta
Dhura; then a tiger, hence Dung-Udiyar; and finally a hare at
Samgaon. Thus the route from India to Tibet was first shown,
for uptil then there was no way known. The servant killed the
bird of prey, but by this time all the hairy inhabitants were dead,
and the servant, although wishing to make a colony there
himself, denounced to do so owing to the want of salt. The
holy Lama then took the salt and sowed it over the land like
grain, sufficient to provide to this day and it so saturated with
salt that there has never been any want for the Bhotia flocks. The
lama then flew out of sight, but when Buddhist priests visit the
valley they still ask for alms in the name of the lama who gave
the people salt.
Customs and cultural belief of Jehads
The residents of Johar were at one time completely out of
the main current of Hindu culture, instead they were pursuing
pastoral religion and culture which had its own pantheon of
local Gods and Goddesses and they have a different version on
the laws of propriety-impropriety, law of inheritance, adoption,
woman's property and principles of adoption. The Hindu idea
of a joint family was quite unfamiliar to them. The Bhotia
father is the absolute owner of all family property Including
ancestral, and can mortgage on his own without reference to his
sons, a state of things quite unknown to a Hindu. As regards
child bkth and other ceremonies the Joharis were at some vari-