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This is largely an account of my experience on
the spring, northward migration of the Gaddi shepherds of Himachal
Pradesh; from Kangra over into Bramour, Chamba district. But first I
should mention something of who the Caddis are and why they migrate.
 Gaddi shepherds are not nomads. They
have homes, substantial village houses, and they own land which they
or their family cultivate, Their homeland is Gadderan, Bramour
tehsil, in the west of Chamba district. It comprises the valleys of
the upper Ravi and its tributary the Budil which form a V meeting at
Karamukhjust below Bramour. These two rivers here run more or less
east-west and divide the Dholar Dhar range to the south from the Pir
Pinjal to the north. Karamukh, the lowest point, is 4,500 ft., the
high peaks to the north over 19,000 ft. and the valley sides and
high alps are precipitous and inaccessible. The only road into
Gadderan is from Chamba, 50 km of a narrow, untarred, precipitous
'fairweather' road The country is surmounted by Mount Kailashl.
18,500 ft., the seat of Lord shiva and his consort Parvati. Gaddis
are staunch Shaivites and wherever they may wander, feel an
unusually strong cultural and religious involvement with their
homeland, also referred to as Shivbhumi, the land of Shiva.
During the last hundred years or so many
Gaddis have bought land and built houses on
the southern slopes of the Dholar Dhar- the northern edge of Kangra
valley but whether or not they stiU have land or relations in
Bramour tehsil, they consider themselves as belonging to Gadderan.
It is thought that there are about 80,000 Gaddi
people. About half of these do not own flocks, and are
agriculturalists only. Of the 3,000 or so men who accompany the
flocks of sheep and goats, some take turns months at a time, in
shepherding and in cultivation with brothers, uncles or sons. Others
are away fron; home throughout the year except for a couple of weeks
in the spring and in the autumn when the flocks pass through their
own villages. It is nor the flocks that
dictate the annual pattern of the shepherds' 1ives.
The winter pastures are in an approximately
horizontal line in the foothills, south of the Dholar Dhar , from
Nurpur in the west to Bilaspul in the east. Here the flocks spend
four or five months, moving only locally from a base. The terrain is
scrub forest, semi-tropical jungle at 2 to 3,000 ft. Traditionally
it has .been the extent of available winter grazing that has
controlled numbers and the size of the flocks.
 However recent cultivation and the increase in the domestic
head of cattle and goats are encroaching on these old pastures. The
shepherds at therefore anxious to move north as early as possible,
usually towards thc end of the month of chaet, about mid-April. But
how early depends entirely on how quickly the snow melts on the
higher passes and pastures. Last year, a year of particularly heavy
snow, they moved a month or so later than usual. migration from
Kangra over Jalsu, the lowest of the passes, and therefore the first
to be clear of snow The way was crowded with flocks and men, also
with women and children. For during the winter grazing months, as
opposed to the summer, some families do accompany the shepherds and
flocks Many others, in fact most of the Gaddi population of Bramour
, emulating the migratory movement of their flocks, come down in
winter to work with relations or live in rented accommodation in
Kangra.
(It is believed that even Lord Shiva moves from his
seat on Mount Kailash to winter at Pujalpur.) They were now on their
journey home, some taking a week, some two or more to reach their
villages. Everyone was full of chat. It was a real pleasure to be
one of the company. I had a glimpse of what it must have been like
on pilgrimages when large groups of people travelled on foot for
days at a time. Canterbury Tales-style jokes and incidents that you
have all shared are retold and embellished. Snippets of an old
woman's life and anecdotes about her relations soon make you feel
you know her well.
There were men and women who looked old
enough to have crossed this way twice a year for three score years
and ten, and there were babies of a few weeks. Then there were the
winter's purchases being taken home -chickens proudly carried in the
crook of an arm; handsome spotted house goats with large udders;
Jersey-type heifers and young bulls; baskets; winnowing trays;
Image By P R Bali plastic jerry cans; brightly-coloured nylon sweaters; radios;
dholkis, drums. Babies and young children are carried sideways,
across the rest of the luggage on the mother's or father's back.
They are often not tethered in a shawl, as is normal in the hills,
but perched, the parent casually holding on to a leg or foot while
the child's head dangles on the other side. Not everyone walks
exactly the same stage every day. Those with flocks and too many
young children or the old and infirm cover a shorter distance. Or,
like the old man and his daughter, the pleasure of whose company we
had the first morning, they may be detained by friends or relations
met along the way. when we were all dozing
after lunch our companion came to say how very much he had enjoyed
our company, as we had his but that the relations with flocks he had
met here would not let him go any further that day. He hoped we
would meet again. We did not think we would but several days later
at 5.30 am when we were packing up camp before climbing to the pass
he appeared on the skyline with his jolly, plump daughter puffing
and panting and holding up her skirts.
The day starts early.
Up before dawn and off soon after, walking with plenty of rests and
chats, until II or 12 o'clock when everyone stops to eat, and maybe
to cook, and then to smoke and snooze. Some walk another two or
three hours before settling for the night's camp. In places there
are what we in Scotland would call 'sheilings', though more often
the travellers shelter in caves -there were plenty on our route.
Everyone carries blankets.
Most of the hill women of
Himachal are free of the restrictions of purdah and excessive
modesty but the Gaddis or Gaddi women seem
to be particularly outgoing, friendly and full of self-confidence
-not just towards me, but to everyone, men too, The only exception
is that in the presence of any of their older male in-laws they
immediately cover their heads. They wear a distinctive and
attractive dress; the long, gathered skirts reminiscent of the
clothes depicted in old wood carving and miniature pictures of the
area. Over their head they wear a cloth, usually decorated with
floral embroidery which they work themselves. They have large
earrings, gold or silver, solid gold nose pieces, necklaces of
amber, silver, gold and pendants with fine enamelling- often
depicting Shiva and Parvati -or plain silver embossed pieces
commemorating their ancestors. Their chins are patterned with a
finely marked, circular tattoo, sometimes their hands and arms too.
Some wear a coat-dress of white homespun tweed down to the ground,
the lapels decorated with an embroidered flower. The more
fashionable version is a velvet blouse with broad cuffs, joined to a
very full skirt, reaching the ground, of colourful chintz. It takes
twelve yards of cloth and is forty four feet
at the hem which is lined with a contrasting colour and stitched
round and round many times. Whatever the style of the chaura, dress,
it is waisted with the dhora or woollen belt. The long chaura is
cumbersome to walk in, they often have to hitch it up. But a
Gaddini does not like to be seen out and about without it, though at
home she often strips down to the Punjabi- style salwar and kameez,
pyjamas and long overshirt, which she wears underneath. On the end
of her plait, on the blouse fastening, and often pinned on the
shoulder too, are the circular mirror medallions, decorated with
buttons and beads' that Gaddinis make and often give each other as
expressions of affection.
Every
woman I met asked me where my children were. Everywhere in India a
barren or unwed woman, is an object of pity, but the Gaddis go as
far as having to erect stones to quieten the spirits of childless
couples who disturb others' sleep. I was relieved to be able to say
my children were safely at home.
It is
hard to describe fully the all pervasive sheep and goatiness of that
journey. Whenever I glanced at a distant hillside, vaguely looking
at the skyline or the precipitous rocks, I would realise it was
'lifting' with the milk-white flocks. Clustered in an irregular
circle round a midday camp, moving imperceptibly across the hillside
grazing or following each other along an invisible path, like
maggots on the move. Nearby the endless baa-ing and bleating, the
calling, grunting and whistling - the whistling not as we would
imagine to their dogs but to the goats and sheep. One man always
leads, calling and whistling, another always at the back, grunting
and urging on the stragglers. As you walk
along the path the stink of wool and dung is overwhelming. Their
sharp little hooves eat away the path and the dung makes the rocks
slippery .If you are caught among a flock on a narrow path it is
maddening for they move at an irregular pace, their walk slower than
yours, but then they suddenly run on and those you had with ,
difficulty pushed your way past, have overtaken you. In camp the
baa-ing and bleating is all around, and the dung everywhere (and
immediately inside your tent). The vegetation is rank, nettles,
docks and thistles that grow where flocks habitually camp.
We
reached the top of the Jalsu Pass at about eight o'clock on a clear
morning. I had climbed the last steep stretch chatting to a new
behinji, sister, with a small baby, her husband and brother-in-law
and their flock. One-young male goat had to be pulled up and then
down the pass by the scruff of his neck. He had eaten kashmiri
patta, Rhododendron campanulata, which they do when hungry for
fodder and which makes them drunk. If several of the flock suffer at
once it causes the shepherd considerable inconvenience. We sat on
the snow at the top gazing at the sheer white beauty of Mount
Kailash. No one performed any prayers or sacrifices but all were
impressed by the view and by the first glimpse of the hills of home.
My new behinji 5 brothers insisted on my photographing them
with their largest male goat set against Mount Kailash. Then, 1,500
ft. down below, we settled on the gentian and primula-enamelled turf
and shared chappatti, of wheat or maize flour , and nettle and
bracken vegetable. We waited for a sad and lame old man, who had
recently sold his flock and who was finding it hard to negotiate the
steep snow. So was a very fat and prosperous woman, wife of a
Brahmin travelling with four or five young girls, cows, goats, and
newly purchased household goods. But everyone had the breath of home
in their nostrils and were soon off trippeting down through the
rhododendrons -they had now taken off their goat-hair snow socks.
That
night was particularly noisy. My new sister walked up and down the
path her baby screaming; after that day's exertions she had no milk
for it, neither did their goats. We gave her some dried milk but it
obviously was not appreciated as the baby cried all night and so did
all the kids and lambs.
 The Gaddis are staunch devotees of Lord
Shiva and Parvati, in her many guises, as the following incident
illustrates. Before reaching the Ravi river, I and many others, men,
women and children, were coming down a 1,000 ft. drop to cross a
tributary .On the opposite side the path was equally steep. Halfway
up it a shepherd began to take his flock off the track. They
scattered across the precipitous hillside to graze. One of our Gaddi
companions bellowed across the gorge ordering the shepherd not to do
so as stones would fall-on the people climbing up. The shepherd paid
no heed; We all settled on a rock on the nearside to wait until the
flock moved on and the danger of falling stones was over. As we
watched, a fully grown sheep came hurtling down through the air,
legs stretched out, and fell with a deathly thud on the path. It was
an aweful sight: everyone gasped. And then, in the river bed, when
we did cross by a rickety bridge, the new PWD one having been washed
away, there was a newly dead cow with a broken neck. On the far side
at the top we found there was a temple to Lakhna devi, a form of
Parvati, the presiding deity of the area whose power had just been
so dramatically illustrated. One of the shepherds of the ill-
mannered and ill-fated flock was sitting by the temple. He was
roundly abused. 'What do you think you were doing, taking flocks
across a hill like that in the middle of the day with mothers and
children walking up the path below? What sort of Gaddi do you think
you are? See, you have no respect for the devi. And it was also
explained hat the owner of the cow, nearing the end of his five day
journey from Kangra, was drunk, had lost his temper and hit his cow
on the steep slope which made her lose her balance and fall to her
death. All agreed that in the face of such wanton lack of respect,
the deity was justified in asserting her power .
As we
reached cultivation, gradually our companions began to peel off. The
fraternity of the pilgrimage spirit began to loosen as the
excitement of nearing home increased, 'Kangra is better than here in
the winter, but there you never feel hungry. It's the water (we
would say "it's the air"). Here you enjoyed your
food.
Here the
mountains go straight down into the river gorges. From the bottom of
the valley you can see nothing, only hear the infernal noise of the
river; in fact it is difficult to imagine that there are villages
above. But up at the level of the major villages, 1,000 ft. or so
above, there are views on a scale that defy ordinary visual
conception and mock the camera's lens. Shiny snow peaks are clearly
chiselled in the morning or evening sun; one-dimensional and
ethereal in the moonlight.
Waterfalls cascade in white sprays down the rock faces. There
are dark forests of deodar, spruce and fir, particularly on the
north-facing slopes. On the south-facing slopes, the alps, sometimes
even very high up, are stripes of deep green or yellow: These are
tiny cultivated terraces, some so narrow that the terracing has to
be open-ended to allow the bullocks and plough to turn. Some must be
dug by hand for the bullocks could not even walk on the precipitous
slope.
The
villages which had been shut up for the winter had a slightly
haunted feeling. Will the owners reappear? The heavy wooden doors
are padlocked, the locks dusty from disuse. The house shrines in the
courtyards obviously unattended. As all the cattle are left in the
charge of the few families who remain, the byre doors which are on
the ground floor are plastered over with mud and dung; sometimes
crumbled at the corners by hungry rats trying to get in. The only
signs of life were the bees flying into their hives - hollowed
sections of timber set into the walls.
The
owners do not arrive all at once, but spread over a month or so.
There was no flurry of excitement, nor outward signs of emotion. The
greeting of a younger to an elder, as in India everywhere, is to
touch the elder's feet. Hence between family members they touch the
feet and then embrace, on each side twice. I saw a young shepherd
returning with his flock climbing the hill. Seeing his sister-in-Iaw
on the stone balustrade of the house he took a red hankerchief out
of his pocket to cover his head before greeting her. Schoolboys,
twelve or thirteen year olds, were climbing the 1,000 ft. from
school, poking, their hands down into the stone seat by the temple
where they had left their, very unripe, apricots when on the way to
school in the morning. At that moment an elder brother or cousin
came along the hill with his returning flock. There was no greeting,
no sign of joy on either side, but 'Hey, Chandu, take my luggage
home', and he dropped his blanket-wrapped pack on the path for the
young fellow to pick up.Heaps of manure, accumulated the previous
year and matured during the winter lay in the yards or on the path,
ready to be carried out to fertilize the maize fields. Bedding
quilts, made of old bits of tweed blankets roughly quilted, were
spread out in the sun to air. Fields must be ploughed, grain that
has been stored all winter cleaned and dried, and flocks must be
clipped before they move on away for the summer. But there was
no bustle or hustle; plenty of time to sit on the verandah or on the
stone balustrade and gently smoke a hookah and chat.
Witnessing this calmly congenial scene it was hard to imagine
that for the shepherds it was but a brief interlude. That within
days they would move on north and up to the summer grazings -handed
on from generation to generation, taxed by the forest department and
sometimes by the villagers too. Some move to high pastures not so
very far from home, but still with dangers of avalanches, crevasses,
falling stones, and bears. It is a life of discomfort, with the
constant necessity of keeping an eye on each sheep and goat. Others
must walk Over the 16 to 17,000 ft. passes, and perhaps hundred
miles to graze their flocks on the 'blue' and nutricious grass of
Lahoul and Spiti, even to the borders of Ladakh and Tibet. There to
spend two or three months in a treeless land, their food, goat's
milk and parched barley flour that requires no cooking, or sometimes
dhal and rice or makke ka Toti, maize chappattis cooked on acrid
smelling yak or cattle dung. They have no shelter but their blankets
and kilted white homespun cloaks, sometimes a dry stone igloo. The
only sounds that relieve the monotonous baa-ing of their flocks, the
cold wind and their own flutes.
As I sat
envisaging their summer, something that had been gradually occurring
to me became quite clear . Gaddis may consider shepherding their
dharma given to them by Lord Shiva. But it is not just that that
makes them follow their ancestors' migratory life. Nor , is it a
love of it (to me a romantic life). It is the prosperity that the
sheep and goats bring -the former largely from wool, the latter from
meat. If the Gaddis lived solely from the cultivation of those tiny
strips of terracing there would not be so many newly built houses on
the opposite hill, shops filled with shoes, cloth, dalda and
suchlike, nor women laden with jewellery, nor substantial
land owned by them in Kangra. And were it not for their comparative
prosperity and their travelling habits, combined with a pride in
their homeland and culture, would they have the outgoing and
friendly manner which had made this journey such a pleasure for me.
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