Not long from now, the mountains of highlands will be snow-capped. And the call would be clear and loud for the cattle and yak herders on mountains to migrate to the lowlands – for greener pasture. In Bumthang, some 16 families have already begun their great migration to Gelephu. However, the slowly disappearing culture of migration among highlanders has become worrying.
With some 80 cattle and over 20 horses, 80-year-old Dorji Wangdi and his family from Chhumey have begun their journey. It will take them at least a month to reach Suray in Gelephu – their winter grazing land.
And amid the joy, unsettling trend of the recent past grips them.
Dorji Wangdi said that because they don’t have pasture anymore, it poses a great challenge to herders like him in continuing such a practice.
Likewise, another herder, Ugyen Dorji, said that the number of cattle is increasing every year but due to the decreasing grazing lands, herders also decrease.
“While on the journey, predators like tigers kill our animal. And amid such fear and challenge, not many embark on migration like this,” said Sonam Lhamo, another herder.
Similarly, with youth more inclined towards living a modern life, the great migration has become a mere practice of ancient times.
One of the herders, Kuenzang Tenzin, who was also taking his cattle to their winter grazing ground, said that children and youth these days prefer going to school and settling in urban places. And this he said ‘affects the age-old practice.’
Just about five years ago, there were about 20 families practising the great migration, but today, it has become just 16 of them. And given the trend, it might as well disappear one day.
Meanwhile, after a night’s halt, Dorji Wangdi and the family set for another day’s journey. Like Dorji, another group was also headed for the same destination.
The journey has begun but Lhajam, a cow, already staggered, even along the old route. Each careful step she takes appears that she is revisiting her footsteps from the journey she took for the last 20 years – because this migration might perhaps be her last.
Meanwhile, the herders will spend some five months in Gelephu before they return to their summer pastureland back home.
Passang
Edited by Chayku
