Changpa Tribe | UPSC

• The People’s Liberation Army has taken over 16 kanals (two acres) of cultivable land in Chumur and advanced around 15 km inside Demchok, taking over traditional grazing pastures and cultivable lowlands.

CHANGPA TRIBE :

• The Changpa are a semi-nomadic Tibetan people found mainly in the Changtang in Ladakh and in Jammu and Kashmir.
• A smaller number resides in the western regions of the Tibet Autonomous Region and were partially relocated for the establishment of the Changtang Nature Reserve.
• As of 1989 there were half a million nomads living in the Changtang area.

OCCUPATION 

The Changpa of  are high altitude pastoralists, raising mainly yaks and goats.

TWO DIVISIONS : 

• Among the Ladakh Changpa, those who are still nomadic are known as Phalpa, and they take their herds from in the Hanley Valley to the village of Lato.
• Hanley is home to six isolated settlements, where the sedentary Changpa, the Fangpa reside.

MARRAIGE : 

Despite their different lifestyles, both these groups intermarry.

LANGUAGE :

The Changpa speak Changskhat, a dialect of Tibetan, and practice Tibetan Buddhism.

PASHMINA WOOL 

• The Changpas rear the highly pedigreed and prized Changra goats (Capra Hircus) that yield the rare Pashmina fibre (Cashmere wool).
• The Cashmere goats (Changra goats) are not raised for their meat but for their fibre (pashm).
• The pashmina fibre (Pashm in Persian) is the finest fibre of all goat hair.