Source : World Culture Encyclopedia

Identification. People calling themselves Magar are concentrated in the middle Himalayas of west-central Nepal The middle Himalayas are defined by the Mahabharat and Siwalik ranges to the south and the southern slopes of the highest Himalaya to the north. Small Magar settlements and Individual farmsteads are also found elsewhere in Nepal, as well as in Sikkim and even in north India. This pattern of distribution in part reflects the excellence of Magar men as infantrymen. In the late eighteenth century Magars formed an important component in the armies raised by Prithivi Narayan Shah and his successors who created the modern nation of Nepal and for a time extended it well beyond its present borders both to the east and to the west.

A number of families now living outside the area of Magar concentration occupy land given a forebear as a reward for his military service during these campaigns. Under the British Raj, when Magars served as mercenaries in the Gurkha Brigade, a few families settled Permanently in north India around the cantonment areas. Magars in need of land have also been moving south to the low malarial Terai of Nepal, since it has been made more habitable by a mosquito eradication program.

Magars usually identify themselves as belonging through patrilineal inheritance to a named section or "tribe," which in the traditional Nepali system is also a caste. Some of these are Pun, Gharti, Rana, Thapa, Ale, Rokha(ya), Budha, Burathoki, and Jhankri. If a Magar man is asked to identify himself, he might say he is a Pun Magar.

Sections are subdivided into named subsections or clans. For example, one of the subsections of the Thapa section is the Sinjali clan. However, because some clans, such as the Ramjali, are widespread and found in more than one section, a person's identity might then be given as Ramjali Pun or Ramjali Gharti. Alternatively a Magar may choose to stress locality, saying "I am a Masali Gharti," with Masali referring to the specific small settlement in which he or she lives.

Location. Magar concentration in the middle Himalayas is roughly bounded on east and west by the drainage of the Kali Gandaki River at approximately the latitude of Pokhara up to and including the Bnuri Gandaki. It also includes much of the area drained by the Bheri River and its tributaries, notably the Uttar Ganga, Sano Bheri, and Thulo Bheri.

Demography. In the census of 1952-1954, the first after the restoration of the present ruling Shah family, the number of those identifying themselves as Magar was 273,800, or 3 percent of the total population of Nepal. Later censuses were based on mother tongue, and the census of 1981 gave the Magar population as 212,681, an underestimate that ignored Magars whose mother tongue was Nepali. The total projected population for all of Nepal in 1991 is 19,370,300. If we take Magars as 3 percent of the population, we can estimate their population at 500,000.

Linguistic Affiliation. As their mother tongue Magars may speak one of three languages: Nepali, Magarkura, or Khamkura. The latter two both belong to the Bodish section of Sino-Tibetan, and though closely related, they are mutually unintelligible, (according to studies done by James F. Fisher). Nepali is the Sanskrit-based lingua franca and is the second language of almost all Magars.

History and Cultural Relations

Magars' Mongoloid physical type and their Sino-Tibetan Languages suggest they entered Nepal from the north, through Tibet or southern China. The Magarkura speakers occupy the lower, warmer, and more desirable agricultural area and are known to have been there since at least the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, so it is likely that they preceded the Khamkura speakers, who generally live in the higher, colder locations to the north.

Settlements

Banyan Hill lies in the heart of long-settled Magar territory. Other Magar hamlets elsewhere—particularly those in the harsher northern areas, where food resources are both more limited and widely scattered and where Brahman influence is less—differ from Banyan Hill in various ways. The rapid changes of the last thirty years throughout Nepal have affected all Magar hamlets. Banyan Hill is one of seventeen hamlets comprising a traditional administrative district called Kihun Thum. Prior to the Gurkha conquest the Thum apparently was part of a petty kingdom ruled by the raja of Bhirkot. Like other Thums, Kihun had a fortification called a kot. Kihun's kot, now important solely as a ceremonial center, lies at the crest of the 1,500-meter ridge behind Banyan Hill.

In Kihun Thum there were about 600 households in the 1960s, and if one estimates 5 persons per household, the Population as a whole numbered about 3,000. Brahmans were the most numerous caste and their 243 households comprised approximately 40 percent of the total number of houses. Magars' households numbered about 190, or approximately 32 percent. Caste groups such as the metalworkers (60 households), leatherworkers (36 households), ex-Slaves (36 households), and tailors (17 households) were less Numerous. Other castes accounted for the remaining 18 Households including seven Newars who were shopkeepers in the local bazaar.

The caste groups at that time tended to concentrate in separate hamlets. Practically all households in Banyan Hill were Magars, and Magars predominated in five other hamlets in Kihun Thum.

Banyan Hill consists of two house clusters, one dominated by a founding patrilineage and the second dominated by their wife receivers. Houses vary in size. Some are oval, and some rectangular. Most have two stories; a few have three. Despite variation in size and shape, the method of construction and basic layout are much the same. Walls are built up using stones and mud mortar. Next they are plastered with mud. The final coat that is applied dries to a warm reddish orange. Roofs are thatched. All houses have verandas. Interior ground floor plans, which may symbolically reflect the tripartite social system, consist of two side rooms flanking a Comparatively large central room containing the fire pit. The single door of the house opens into the left-hand flanking room, making it an entrance hall. A notched pole ladder leads from the right-hand flanking room to the upper floor where clothing and valuables are stored in boxes and grain is stored in circular bins made of woven bamboo.

Other buildings and structures that are almost invariable parts of the farmstead include a thatched cattle shed, usually open on three sides, and a tall rack for storing ears of maize. The amount of maize on display is an indication of family wealth.