{"id":1158,"date":"2011-10-15T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2011-10-15T00:00:11","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T18:30:11","slug":"the-gujjars-of-himalayas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/the-gujjars-of-himalayas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gujjars of Himalayas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"We
\nWhile traveling in Himalayas<\/strong> in Uttarakhand<\/strong>\u00a0you will come across these Gujjars<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0camping near the roads with their families<\/strong> and cattle<\/strong>, they are different from the tribes of\u00a0 Himachal Pradesh<\/strong>, Uttarakhand<\/strong>\u00a0and Nepal<\/strong>. They travel all along the length of Himalayas<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Shivalik\u00a0Range<\/strong>\u00a0from Himachal Pradesh to\u00a0Nepal.
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\n <\/p>\n

The Cattle<\/h2>\n

These Gujjars\u00a0have Cows<\/strong> and Buffaloes<\/strong>\u00a0grazing around the\u00a0roads and up in the Grassy lands<\/strong> (Bugyals<\/strong><\/em>)\u00a0at the height\u00a0near the\u00a0snow line, these hybrid buffaloes\u00a0are different from the farm\u00a0ones, they are short\u00a0in height, they start migrating on their own towards the colder heights of Himalayas when the weather becomes warm in\u00a0Shivalik ranges, these animals are intelligent\u00a0enough to reach their home, protect themselves from carnivorous\u00a0animals, they make a warning alarm and encircle the younger ones in between by making a protecting ring, these buffaloes eat leaves and grass as well.
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\n <\/p>\n

The Lifestyle<\/h2>\n

The Gujjars<\/strong><\/em> are Muslim<\/strong> by faith, Vegetarians<\/strong>\u00a0by nature, Men wear long shirt and tehmad<\/em>, always cover their head with\u00a0turban and most of men have a beard often old ones have it flowing,\u00a0their ladies wear churidar<\/em>\u00a0and shirt along with a jacket and do not veil themselves, the entire family moves together\u00a0and are monogamous<\/strong>, eldest is the head of family whose words are the law, men do the grazing<\/strong>, sell the milk<\/strong> and milk products<\/strong> in the nearby villages and market were\u00a0as ladies milch the buffaloes<\/strong>, prepare\u00a0the curd<\/strong> and butter<\/strong> and\u00a0toddlers\u00a0are always in their care<\/strong>, one of the head of such group Mr. Liyakat<\/strong>\u00a0told that they celebrate all muslim festivals<\/strong>,\u00a0daughters are married\u00a0in the known group of Gujjars<\/strong><\/em>, almost all are in touch with other groups and their movement, they rarely stay for more than two nights at one place, their language is Hindi,<\/strong> Punjabi<\/strong>, Urdu<\/strong>, Dogari<\/strong>\u00a0mixed but different from the Bakharwals<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0of Kashmir who are mainly shepherds\u00a0and often cross the snow line\u00a0in Himalayas their\u00a0houses are called “deras<\/em>” which are made of mud and forest materials, as far as he remembers he,\u00a0his grand father and his\u00a0\u00a0fathers were born in open, lived like this grazing the cattle, never stayed at one place but now their children\u00a0are attend school and rarely youngsters\u00a0are uneducated, few of them have taken up jobs in wildlife reserve areas, they know the forests of Himalayas more than any body.
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\n <\/p>\n

The Nomadic Life<\/h2>\n

Upon asking about their knowledge\u00a0on medicinal\u00a0herbs in Himalayas\u00a0Liyakat’s<\/strong> reply was that the Gujjars<\/em>\u00a0are expert in identifying\u00a0the ailment<\/strong> in their cattle and their treatment,\u00a0rarely any of their family members get ill\u00a0but if there is an emergency they go to the doctors, they live a nomadic life<\/strong> close to the nature peace loving even they treat their buffaloes as their family members and all have names to which the animals respond to, they spend winters in the Shivalik Range in temporary\u00a0shelters from October till March start moving up the Himalayas from April spend the summer and monsoon\u00a0up to the height of 12,000 -13,000 ft. near the Alpine grassy lands, retreat down before the snow fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While traveling in Himalayas in Uttarakhand\u00a0you will come across these Gujjars\u00a0camping near the roads with their families and cattle, they are different from the tribes of\u00a0 Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand\u00a0and Nepal. They travel all along the length of Himalayas\u00a0and\u00a0Shivalik\u00a0Range\u00a0from Himachal Pradesh to\u00a0Nepal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,11,18,22],"tags":[444,912,1038,1044,1046,1928,2003,2566,2990],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-char-dham","category-gangotri","category-himalayas","category-people","category-road-trip","tag-cattle","tag-gujjars","tag-himachal-pradesh","tag-himalayas","tag-himalayas-liyakat","tag-muslim","tag-nepal","tag-shivalik-range","tag-uttarakhand"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/promarktravels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}