Sathan in Sosa

The above photo was taken during Kangdali in 1988. It is the picutre of the 'Sathan' in Sosa. The most sacred place in the village. The abode of the God 'Shyangsey'. The highest God in the Rung culture.
I will discuss the rung rituals topic in detail in further posts as i am not well versed about the culture and rituals performed during Sangthang, Pooja, marriages and Sabha.

This blog is really helping in knowing and understanding the rung culture, which was a big enigma for me a few years back. With each post more and more layers are opening and the journey is getting more interesting.

Chaudas:Origin of Rung Culture?

Origin of rung Culture, is still very unclear to me. I believe it's a topic on which many rungs are confused. Why our forefathers made their homes at such beautiful but equally harsh places? From where they moved to these places? Why we are called 'Rungs'? Why our culture has colors of both Rajput and Buddhist cultures? From where we got our language or dialect 'Runglo'?I am not sure if there are any concrete answers for these questions as there is no documented history avaialble. Many folklores are around but nothing concrete or provable. Writers from outside looked at us with fascination but the data is mostly based on their experiences and does not dwell on the real things. Here's a piece which put some light on the origin of rung culture.
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Chaudas or Bungba is considered to be the originating place for the Rung Culture. As per the undocumented history when the forefathers were forced to migrate towards the north from their original place of inhabitance, they had first established their permanent residance here in a place called 'Thilthin'. This permanent settlement was latter shifted to 'Bungba' which is now called 'Rung-Thijya'. Here they constructed their permanent houses and started the cultivation. The small village under went constant expansion to it present 'Chaudas' which consists of total of fourteen villages. The word 'Bungba' which is the combination of two words 'Bung' meaning place and 'ba' meaning father that is place of father. The expansion to fourteen 'Bungba' in due course has been termed as "Chepi Bungba" (chepi means fourteen) or "Chepi Sae" that is fourteen lpaces for forefathers or "Fourteen Forefathers" of whom we worship today. The origin of the word 'Chaudas' is also from 'fourteen' 'ashrams'

Credits : Deen Bandhu Singh Gunjyal

Sosa: Circa 1936 and Now

I got this photo from the net. It was taken by some Englishman in 1936 who went to explore Tibet and border areas. The photo was titled "Women weavers from Sosa".The first thing that strike me when i saw the photo was it's background,it looked extremely familiar as if it has not changed for years.I felt that i've also taken some photos with the same background.


After seaching thru some albums i found one photo which i took during Somilda's marriage in 2003.And the similarity between two photos left me amazed, The backgrounds matched perfectly.
Lot of the things have been changed in the span of two photos. The women in first photo are shown in our traditional dress which these days women wear only during during some marriage or festival like Kangdali. During those times business flourished in the area, which abruptly stpped during 1962 war. I think Rung people suffered most after the war, as the business finished and agricluture was not a major occupation. I admire the people who suffered but paved the way for a healthy future for their generations to come. Today the results are everywhere to be seen. The community has been improved by leap and bounds. Today rungs are successful and now from past 8-10 years they are trying to make whole community succesful through laudable efforts.
Also the adaptability rung people showed in past 50-60 years is awesome. From a community which was out of mainstream, they have today mingled with the world.

Sosa. my village, also changed alot in these years. My mother was the first graduate woman of sosa when she came to sosa after marriage and incidently my FuFu was the second. Now, in every home there's atleast one engineer or doctor, and the future of new generation looks wonderful with the choices available to them.