Folks,

I have always insisted that I am indeed orginally from Kathmandu. My friends from Kathmandu claim only "newars" are :-). Ofcourse, I am not a Newar, though Newari language is known to my many many great great great great grand parents who wore all born in KTM valley.

Now, I agree perhaps, my ancestors may have been from somewhere else because indeed people ask me if I am from Iran, Brazil, Spain and while my newar friends are asked if they are "japanese, thai, or chinese".

So as I was trying to find out who we were and how we ended up in KTM, by a little help of speculations of the elderly in the family, I was able to find this article which may be true. So, if you ever wonder how might have ended up in KTM, this article might explain why!Or perhaps, my acestors could ahve come to KTM before all this too. Who knows? Do you?

http://www.garhwalhimalayas.com/feel_garhwal/gorkhainvasion.html

Peace,
RubiesDiamonds

Nice article!

History of Garhwal

Gurkha Invasion to British Rule (1790 to 1815)
In 1710, the Gurkhas of Nepal (ruled by Ran Bahadur) invaded Kumaon and occupied Almora. They attacked Garhwal the next year and penetrated as far as Langurgarhi, a strong fortress near the present township of Lansdowne. However, the three year long siege of Langurgarhi had to be lifted when the news of the Chinese invasion of Nepal reached them. All the Gurkha troops were withdrawn. The Raja of Garhwal agreed to pay an annual tribute of twenty five thousand rupees and keep an agent at the court in Kathmandu.

In 1803, a remarkable and highly successful effort was made to conquer Garhwal by the Thapas from Nepal. Ever since the siege of Langurgarhi in 1792, which had to be lifted, small groups or parties of Gurkhas had time and again plundered the border parganas (old districts) of Garhwal. They took hundreds of prisoners in these raids and sold them into slavery. Most villages were burnt and the countryside devastated.

On the other hand, the people of Garhwal, too, made bloody reprisals and there ensued border warfare. These wars were constant deeds of wanton cruelty and ferocious revenge. Many fresh attempts were made to finally capture Langurgarhi.

In 1803, taking advantage of a devastating earthquake that hit Garhwal and Kumaon, that killed almost one third of the population, the Gurkhas assembled a large force under Amar Singh Thapa, Hastidal Chautariya, Bam Sah Chautariya and invaded Garhwal. At that time, Pradhaman Sah was the ruler of Garhwal.

He was very feeble and weak willed. He made no serious attempt to fight
and the major passes were left unguarded. He fled through the Dehradun valley, which was occupied by the invaders in the winter of 1803. Later, the Raja of Garhwal assembled a force at Landhaura near Hardwar and attempted to recover the Dehradun valley. He was killed in action at Khurbura in Dehradun. His son, Sudarshan Sah escaped to British territory and Pritam Sah, the deceased raja's brother was taken to Nepal as prisoner.

Amar Chand Thapa, and his son Ranjor Thapa, began to rule both Garhwal and Kumaon. Preparations were made to expand their conquests towards the west in the year 1804. From the records of the temples and the old revenue records it is evident that Hastidal Sah and Sardar Bhakti Thapa were two able administrators of Garhwal between 1803 and 1815. During the tenure of the former, there was a high level of prosperity in the Dehradun valley. His foreign policy was also vigorous. He speedily put an end to the raids into the Dehradun valley from Punjab and Saharanpur by making a terrible example of a band of marauding Sikhs.

In Garhwal itself, Kazi Amar Singh Thapa was for sometime the governor. Here the principal aim of the Gurkha rule was to extract the maximum amount of tribute or revenue. As a result, he adopted the administrative system of the rajas on which they grafted a military autocracy. Srinagar was the capital and main town of Garhwal. The state was divided into three commands whose headquarters were at Srinagar, Chandpurgarhi and Langurgarhi. Minor civil magistracies were filled by officers having the military title of faujdar.

The government was ruthless but weak. The civil magistrates and officers were corrupt and there was a tendency to keep the fines and revenue collected by them for their personal gain. 'The central administration gave the local officers a free hand and as long as they met the revenue target allotted to them, no questions were asked.

By and large, there was exploitation of the people. 'Their condition became very miserable. Defaulters, who had no means of paying the heavy fines and other demands made by the Gurkhali officials were sold as slaves.

In 1814, Raper (as cited by Walton, 1910) wrote, 'The people are most vehement in their complaints against the Gurkhalis, of whom they stand in the utmost dread, but from the slavish habits and ideas they have contracted, it is doubtful if a spirit of resistance or independence could be excited amongst them. The villagers in Garhwal afford a striking proof of the destruction caused by the Gurkhalis; uncultivated fields, ruined and deserted huts, present themselves in every direction. The temple lands, alone, are well tilled. The Dun was ruined; under the Gurkhalis, it produced about one-fourth of the revenue realized by the Garhwali Rajas."

It is evident that the Gurkha rule in Garhwal was very harmful, both, for the people and the land. The most negative features of their rule were that the villages were deserted, agriculture was ruined and the population was forced to migrate to the adjoining kingdoms as refugees. Over two lakh people were sold as slaves and taken to Nepal or other kingdoms. Bam Sah and Hastidal, the governors of Garhwal were disposed to indulgence.

The officials were corrupt and treated the people very mercilessly, thus the morale of the people became very low and they were rendered inefficient.

Here is the picture of still existing people of Kumaun( Garwahl). While now they may have migrated from other places! They look very Nepali to me. Perhaps, the term "Kumaii" described for a certain type of a brahmin caste could be derived from priest and scholars who migrated from Kumaun(Garwahl).

Modern day Kumaun is locatd in Nainitaal, western border of Nepal. If the Bristish didn't come inbetween the Gorkha Invasion, Nepal would have taken over the place anyway and I would have still been a Nepali. Perhaps, the "Sahs" and "Thapas" also could have come in power in Nepal from this migration along with Kumaii Brahmins.

Peace,
RubiesDiamonds

Source for the above Kumaun people picture.

http://www.worldwildlife.org/bsp/bcn/projects/garhwal96_2.htm

Summary of my findings:

To summarize through my various web reasearch ,I have come to the conclusion that the people who migrated from Kumaun(nainital) have influenced a lot in the establishment of Nepal. I doubt it is just by conincidence that so many things common in Kumaun culture are now the tradition we call Nepalis. Following are the websites that describes Kumaun culture and people, and you can hsee ow much this culture has influenced Nepali culture not to mention our national flower Lali Guras being the msot fommon flower there, their traditional food being similar to ours like Sel, Bara, that is not similar to North or South indians, even women look just like that of many of us Aryan women, lighter face and brighter smile!:-).

http://nainital.nic.in --> Best website to learn abt the Heritage especially, picture is a Bride in Kumaun culture wearing a "nath" or a "nathii".
http://www.geocities.com/kkarnatak/html/profile.htm
This website has people originally from Kumaun. The last names here are the most common last names of people from KTM(like myself!) who I think migrated from Kumaun to KTM.

Infact, in Nainital, many doctors, teachers, hospitals and roads are named after common sir name that of are influecing people in Nepal right now starting with SHAHS< SINGHS< BISTASKirti Nidhi BISTA~Vice-Chairman Council of Ministers.

I hope some of you can find your last names in the Kumau Culture too. It may only apply to a very few people reading this. But, I have found this very interesting and to a certain degree a matter of great pride as survivors and creators and influencers that my ancestors have been to Nepal and what we call today a "Nepali Culture".

The END
RubiesDiamonds from Kathmandu(200 years ago from Kumaun, Nainital)!:-)

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Well i also belong to kumai and i think Kumai are scattered throughout the kingdom. There are around 75 surnames under the broad umbrella called kumai (Pandey, Prasain, pant, Kheral, Sangrula, setaula, bista, Uprety, Thapallia, pathak, Mainali....and so many). I am not sure if anybody has done research on their origin. But this looks pretty interesting to me that Kumai can be found from Patchther-illam-Jhapa (the east most border, Cino-nepal-indo boder) to mahakali. The Kumai from eastern (I also belong to eastern Kumai) have slightly different traditions and attitude than kumai from western Nepal.

Nut

hmmmm kumai re.... i shud ask mom... mom do i know any kumai ... do we have kumai cousins bhanera... hahahah lol

well, ruby bro ho ke sis,.......................my advise is to check your ancestor root in nepal...............I am sure u can check it coz my cousin did it last year and i also know couple of ppl who did it...............
when we did research for root, we found out that..............actually we were not K.C., we use to be gautam braham and root lead us to gorkha...........we came from rajeshthan ..........we where braham from there but we fleed during the invasion of mughal and settel down in himachal pradesh but later came down with shah king.........we were brought from india for the royal puja paath.......later we moved to chautra and then to dolakha..........

i look like mexican, indonasian, malaysian, spanish etc etc
so what can i say?
lot of ppl what figure out where i am from and lot of them thing i am from tongan from kiwiland with my aussi acent

Ryth!! laukhattam paryoo abba malie k taha timilie this thread pani herchubhane ra!! Bekkar ma lekhe ko ma Kumai hoobhane ra!!
Nut

It has been asserted by Cavalli Svorza to some extent that people with cultural and linguistic ties are also genetically very similar. In terms of linguistic similarities, pahari languages have three subdivisions: Western Pahari, Central Pahari(kumaoni, garhwal languages) and Eastern Pahari(chiefly Nepali). Cavalli Svorza has also created a genetic tree to shed light on similarities between different races in India and its neighbors. What his trees clearly show is that Gurkhas and Tharus are outliers. Curiously though, UP brahmins are also moderately far away in terms of genetic distance. However, what he elucidates is that there are three North-Western Indian groups who are genetically very close: 1)Punjabis, 2) Kashmiris and finally 3) Paharis. Now Pahari is a very diverse group; it includes groups like us Nepali bahuns, kumaonis and garhwals. Southern Kashmir is home to Paharis as well, and the indigenous language in that area has Western Pahari roots. Now here's the kicker: Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttaranchal have in *fact* been settled by the really dark South Indian, and also Maharastrian brahmins(read Koknastha and Chitpavan, among whom blues and green eyes are quite prevalent), according to some scholars. So that part of the region is a hodge podge. They also have a big Rajput population as well.

By the way, for those who are interested,Cavalli Svorza has also found out that SHERPAS and Tibetans are genetically very close to Northern Chinese and Japanese, whereas Gurkhas are closer to South-East Asians and Southern Chinese. So Sherpas and Gurkhas(gurungs, magars, etc) are two very distinct groups. Cavalli Svorza relies on genetic distance(he uses two different methods) to find a pattern. What he is interest in is human migration patterns. I really would have liked to post the images that show where Paharis, Sherpas and Gurkhas are located on the map, but I don't have a scanner or a digital camera.
My supposition is that Newars and Chettris will be somewhere in the middle of the two as these two groups are genetically as well as phenotypically very mixed. Now Newars have their own brahmins, and supposedly these brahmins have North Indian roots, so I am assuming that they're closer to bahuns than to "Gurkhas". Furthermore, Chettris are not a homogoneous group either, which complicates the situation.

Yes, this is fascinating. Perhaps, one side of my family must have been the very dark south indians who ruled the area as they are still quite dark, I mean dark! On the contrary, the rest of my family members do have green/blue/hazel eyes and they are quite light skinned.

Historically, the royal gurus(gurjus) and astrologers have been brahmin like Pandey and Joshi(for jyotish) for generations. I think it is only recently that non Kumai brahmins are being the royal pundits. But, ofcourse astrologers and gurus are differnt from pujaris. So, sure Gautams could also have been brought for royal pujaris.

Cavalli Svorza ideas are quite intersting and does makes sense. I think finding your roots is really satisfying. I am leanrning how much my ancestors have survived from natural disasters to emigrating from places to places for survival and protection of their religious beliefs as well creating and making a new society in a new place. It shows a lot of leadership in their blood, thus makes me feel a lil bit better than before!

My mom's side of the family is quite dark. My dad's side on the other hand mostly are quite long-headed, with light skin and narrow nose that seems to protrude out of the forehead. It's the same type of nose found in Kashmir, Iran and Afghanistan. My dad could easily pass as an Italian or a Greek if he wanted to, as he has mediterranean phenotype. My mom on the other hand would never be classified as mediterranean, not a snowball's chance in hell. But she has one long slender nose, in fact more pointed than my dad's.
I am not a Kumai bahun though, I am upadhyay. Historically speaking, Western Nepal has always been populated by caucasians. BTW, even Kashmir was not a part of mainstream Indian culture either. I would say the culture was basically the same in Western Nepal and Kashmir. People look similar too. Let's keep in mind that Western Nepal and Uttaranchal are right next to each other, so population movements from one place to another must have been quite prevalent. Sorry if this rubs you the wrong way, but I feel that we Upadhyays are indigenous to Western Nepal, while Kumaonis came from even farther west. Nevertheless, Paharis are paharis and as far as I can tell bahuns these days don't separate themselves this way that much. Phenotypically speaking, most upadhyays and kumais cannot really be differentiated. So lots of marriages between these two bahun subgroups.