Much of our species’ 300,000 years of existence has been spent foraging, hunting, and gathering in the forests. And <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-salt-of-the-earth">nomadism</a> is in our blood, as it were. Our ancestors were still nomadic when they left their African homeland 100,000 years ago and ultimately colonised all six continents. But even after leaving Africa, they continued practicing nomadism for tens of thousands of years. Although nomadism has been the primary way of life for most of human evolution, 10,000 years ago some of our ancestors gave it up, settled down, and began farming– a practice that continues today.&nbsp; The success of early agriculturalists inspired most cultures across the globe to transition to farming settlements. Slowly, nomadism became the norm of the past.&nbsp; Yet, some human populations resisted the new ways of life and continued their foraging, hunting, and gathering lifestyles. Only a handful of them have survived to this day. The Raute of Nepal are the last of the <a href="https://nt.exposure.co/last-but-not-least">nomadic hunter-gatherers</a> in the Himalaya. In 2006, while I was researching about the indigenous peoples of Nepal for a study in human genetics, I was surprised to find a chapter in Dor Bahadur Bista’s book, &nbsp;सबै जातको फुलबारी in which he described the Raute as one of the ancient peoples of Nepal.&nbsp; Bista highlighted that there was not enough study on the Raute but postulated that they potentially descended from an Australoid population. The origins and history of the Raute remains unknown to this day. In 2016, I finally got the opportunity to meet with the Raute people. From Kathmandu, my fellow researcher Yoshina Gautam and I flew to Nepalganj, where we met Prof Guru Prasad Gautam, who has established a long working relationship with the Raute.&nbsp; Read also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/imagine-no-possessions"> Imagine no possessions</a>, Kunda Dixit  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111040_dded3a3a20e2701ee88db1bf18b2341ecaab8615ca52cf5304031ea022fe2205.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20231019111040_dded3a3a20e2701ee88db1bf18b2341ecaab8615ca52cf5304031ea022fe2205" data-rendition-name="original" width="1493" height="848" loading="lazy" alt="Raute map"> </figure>  We drove up the winding accident-prone Karnali Highway for several hours and reached Tunibagar of Dailekh district, a small town serving as a rest stop for trucks. We hiked several hours the next day to reach the Raute camp located on the banks of a small river in Achham district. At first the Raute were apprehensive of us, but they gradually opened up.&nbsp; The <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=434">Raute</a> are elusive and mystical, divine yet destitute, enlightened albeit unschooled, appreciated and disliked by mainstream society. Because of their nomadic lifestyle, duodecennial nature, and preference for obscurity the Raute are portrayed as fearsome and savage in folklore.&nbsp; Yet the Raute consider themselves divine: direct descendants of Lord Ram, and therefore entitled to rule the forest as kings. They also hunt monkeys, a sacred Hindu symbol that local farmers would not dare to harm despite the nuisance and toll the monkeys take by destroying crops.&nbsp; They navigate high hills of far western Nepal with precision and are remarkably knowledgeable about the nutritional and medicinal value of hundreds of local plants. The Raute do not seem to disturb the settlers’ lives and livelihoods at all, yet their existence seems to irritate them. While later settlers sometimes regard the Raute with curiosity, most of them flatly reject the Raute way of life. Their claims of divinity despite their destitution are incomprehensible to the settlers. The only desire the Raute have is the right to their isolation, and the settlers promise them everything except that.&nbsp; This dichotomous relationship appears to have existed for a long time because the Raute have incorporated aspects of Hindu culture to establish themselves as equals and not inferior to the higher caste settlers. Whether such elements are superficial and used by the Raute only to deal with the settlers, or it has influenced the Raute identity and self-perception remains unknown.&nbsp; Even though the Raute have endured immense pressure to give up their nomadism and settle down, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=11239">dwindling forests and increasing urbanisation</a> has added to the pressure to assimilate. Read Also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-last-of-the-kusunda">The last of the Kusunda</a>, Sewa Bhattarai  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111048_ce8d6dd4c509ea645ed4d3f5c6628a32148d4a76df3ac7778ebb5329bae17e8d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20231019111048_ce8d6dd4c509ea645ed4d3f5c6628a32148d4a76df3ac7778ebb5329bae17e8d" data-rendition-name="original" width="533" height="800" loading="lazy" alt="exploring genetic roots of the raute"> <figcaption>A temporary Raute settlement in Salyan district of Nepal.(Photo: Kishor Sharma)</figcaption> </figure>  The Himalayan foothills were once home to several other nomadic groups including the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=15950">Kusunda</a>, the Ban Rawat (Dadeldhura Raute), the Raji, and the Chepang. All of them have succumbed to the pressure to settle and this transition has left them fragmented.&nbsp; They have suffered massive loss of culture, many of their deities have been forgotten, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/lost-in-translation">their languages are dying</a>, and these ancient cultures are rapidly becoming extinct. Such loss of cultural heritage makes Nepal’s much-vaunted ethnic diversity poorer.&nbsp; Importantly, the nomads and their ways of life provide us a means to gaze into our past. Understanding their lifestyle, culture, and diet allows us to peek into how our own ancestors lived.&nbsp; The Raute are the last nomadic group of Nepal, and therefore are the only means through which we can peek into the past to understand the ways of life of our ancestors.&nbsp; However, the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=12649">Raute way of life</a> is understudied. From the little ethnographic and linguistic data that exists, the Raute appear to be descendants of an ancient population. Their aboriginal lifestyle is ancient, and their Khamchi language also appears to be among the ancient Himalayan dialects.&nbsp; Since historical, anthropological, and archeological data on the Raute is limited, my laboratory at the New York University Abu Dhabi (The Genetic Heritage Group) is relying on genetic analyses to address some of the outstanding questions regarding Raute population history.&nbsp; We are analysing genetic variation within the Raute to understand how members of the group are related to one another, which may benefit the Raute to avoid consanguineous marriages. This data can also be useful to estimate Raute population sizes over time, which can provide key pieces of information to understand their history.&nbsp; Furthermore, we are comparing genetic data of Raute with many other Asian populations to demonstrate how they could be related to neighbouring Nepali populations and their distant cousins elsewhere in the region.&nbsp; Finally, we seek to compare Raute DNA with publicly available genetic data from ancient populations obtained from thousands of years old bones excavated from archeological sites across Asia. They could tell us more about the origins of the Raute. The research is ongoing, but we believe the results will provide solid scientific evidence to establish the Raute as the living national treasures of Nepal. &nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/chepang-and-their-chiuri">Chepang and their Chiuri</a>, Bhadra Sharma Aashish Jha, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology at the New York University campus in Abu Dhabi. &nbsp;&nbsp;

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Exploring the genetic roots of the Raute

What do we call a people without fixed addresses, without land or proof of citizenship? And what do we call a people who have no desire to possess any of these things?’ In 2011, when photographer Kishor Sharma made his first encounter with &nbsp;<a href="https://nt.exposure.co/last-but-not-least">Nepal’s last truly nomadic community</a> in the highlands of Salyan two days walk from the nearest road, he struggled to be accepted and understand their lifestyle. But as he gradually won their trust, and they his respect, the original plan to document in photographs the reclusive forest-dwellers turned into an exercise in visual poetry. Recording the lives and times of the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=434">Raute </a>cannot just be done in a narrative text or through flat photography. “You are the world, we are the Raute,” they remind the lensman. It is a life of wandering, a culture that predates history and the modern nation state, before healthcare and the need to learn the alphabet, before buses and mobiles.&nbsp; Read Also: <a href="https://nt.exposure.co/last-but-not-least">Last but not least</a>, JAN MØLLER HANSEN Sharma revisits the Raute clan three years later, and shows them a photo on his laptop of tribe member Surendra that he had taken earlier. Surendra had died, but his relatives did not want a printout of his photo.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111040_dded3a3a20e2701ee88db1bf18b2341ecaab8615ca52cf5304031ea022fe2205.png" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20231019111040_dded3a3a20e2701ee88db1bf18b2341ecaab8615ca52cf5304031ea022fe2205" data-rendition-name="original" width="1493" height="848" loading="lazy" alt="Raute map"> </figure>  ‘Photographs contain remembrances of things past, Rautes with their wandering souls, do not like to be stuck with old memories,’ Sharma writes in the evocative bilingual text accompanying the photographs. But globalisation, the modern Nepali nation, its administration and police are never too far away. Rautes have frequent encounters with townspeople who look down upon them, but also fear their wild ways. Raute life is also being rapidly monetised, a process accelerated by a monthly Rs5,000 allowance they receive from the state. But the stipend is always late, and that has now become their greatest complaint.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111044_471bf9b8cc775d13f100fc771a72665591e9cf6e33bba7e0d5319fe3f7b8e8c5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20231019111044_471bf9b8cc775d13f100fc771a72665591e9cf6e33bba7e0d5319fe3f7b8e8c5" data-rendition-name="original" width="533" height="800" loading="lazy" alt="Imagine no possessions2"> <figcaption>Samjhana Shahi near a Raute camp in Achham.(Photo: Kishor Sharma)</figcaption> </figure>  Sharma spent six years, off and on, among the Raute in Salyan, Achham and Dailekh, and won their confidence. But one thing they never cared to share with him is their practice of monkey hunting. They do not like outsiders joining in the hunt which they see as a sacred duty to ensure survival. They do not use guns or knives, but net traps, and never kill more than they can eat.&nbsp; Read Also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/the-last-of-the-kusunda">The last of the Kusunda</a>, Sewa Bhattarai It has been a few weeks, and it is time to change camp. The Raute are bundling up their possessions. Bir Bahadur tells Sharma: “It is time to move again.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111044_dca2f1a446666ac761b6ff1e03754f23f4172d91ab19effd8da6846d1755c344.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20231019111044_dca2f1a446666ac761b6ff1e03754f23f4172d91ab19effd8da6846d1755c344" data-rendition-name="original" width="533" height="800" loading="lazy" alt="Imagine no possessions"> <figcaption>A Raute man. (Photo: Kishor Sharma)</figcaption> </figure>  Many readers may see in Kishor Sharma’s Living in the Mist, a photographic visual confirmation of an endangered nomadic group with a vastly different lifestyle from ours.&nbsp; But others may find survival lessons for ‘modern’ globalised humans of a frugal, gentle and dignified people who only take from nature what they need. They cannot own land because the land owns them. &nbsp; Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kishorksg/">@kishorksg</a>  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111044_f74be3b6c6dd7d663844211b4f21379565680673c5b5e3f40c51ade081ab7a8a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20231019111044_f74be3b6c6dd7d663844211b4f21379565680673c5b5e3f40c51ade081ab7a8a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1080" height="720" loading="lazy" alt="Exhibition"> </figure>  <a href="https://www.photocircle.com.np/publications/living-in-the-mist-by-kishor-sharma/">Living in the Mist Exhibition</a> Patan House, Dhaugal Till 30 November (Closed 21-30 October and 12-15 November)&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231019111032_4c4d3c90f14c5db68dfb737113d96b705d74e7b73639dc9973d2f3c7ac82ab8e.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20231019111032_4c4d3c90f14c5db68dfb737113d96b705d74e7b73639dc9973d2f3c7ac82ab8e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1121" height="681" loading="lazy" alt="living in the mist"> </figure>