A Study of the Sherpa Tribe of Darjeeling Hills: Changes and Adoption

Abstract

Darjeeling is known as "queen of hills”. Darjeeling has been surrounded by the three international borders with Nepal,Bhutan and Bangladesh and state of Sikkim, India. The dominant population of Darjeeling hills is Gorkha or Nepali but other caste like Tibetan, Bihari, Marwari and Bengali are also found. The Darjeeling is the land of many tribal communities like Bhutia, Lepcha, Subba, Tamang. The Sherpa is one of the tribe but it has been clubbed with Bhutia group of tribe. It may be because of the cultural and religious affinity with Tibetan and Bhutia. But the Sherpa is a distinct tribe having the separate culture and language. The Sherpa speak their own language but they do not have their own script. So, at present they use Tibetan and Devanagari scripts in writing purposes.  The Sherpa tribe has many clans and follow their tradition and customs of their own during festival and other occasions. The Sherpa are changing in term of their culture and language. They are adopting many new things in their day to day life.