Over the High Passes: A Year in the Himalayas with the Migratory Gaddi Shepherds

A Highland Scot, Christina Noble is married to an Indian and has two children. Nevertheless for the better part of a year she is wandering about the Indian highlands in Himachal Pradesh by herself, or rather accompanied by two male Buddhist ?guides? - who are sometimes servants, sometimes friends - with no mention or thought for her family somewhere down south! Alas, she gives us no map and most of the places she talks about are villages not on any of the maps I could find - with the exception of Pathankot, ?the western extremity of Gaddi grazing?. The people of the Gadderan - are ?a very simple and virtuous race, remarkable for their eminent regard for the truth.? Crime is almost unknown, the women are chaste and honest. They are frank and merry in their manners and constantly meet together singing and dancing in a style peculiar to themselves. ?They are great tipplers and their natural hilarity is enhanced by deep potations.? They wear the ?thread of caste? and are much stricter in Hindu customs and observances than most of the folk of the higher regions of the Himalayas. They are a transhumant people, moving their livestock to follow the weather and the available grazing. A shepherd tells her: You see, we are a shepherding people. We go with the flocks: it is because of the dharma that Lord Shiva gave us. It is like this: The gods were making their way through the mountains. They came to a particularly high difficult pass. They struggled to get over it, but failed. In despair & distress they sat down. Lord Shive was the angriest of all and in a fury he took a piece of dirt from his body and hurled it to the ground - thus were born the sheep and the goats. They walked across the snow and made a path that the gods followed to cross the path. They are fond of their animals, although fonder of their flock than their dogs. ?A man accepted the offering of a chapatti and put it in his mouth. A sheep gave him a nudge on the knee. Oh ho, said the man, dear me, you didn?t get any. And he stuck out his tongue for the sheep to lick.? ?The shepherd?s eye is so familiar with each beast that an intruder, or an animal that has gone missing, is quickly noticed.? ?He misses a sheep which has strayed, just as a captain might miss a soldier of his company.? The sheep are all named, as are the dogs: ?How would a dog know who he is if he doesn?t have a name?? The story tells well the trials, tribulations and triumphs of this hard life. For instance, a shepherd has brought his flock safely across the moraine, up and down the high passes, and finds a safe grazing area for them. A bear, just waking, stumbles into their midst. While goats bleat and shout, sheep in danger go silent, so the shepherd wasn?t warned of the danger. The flock panics and all three hundred hurl themselves over the rock face. For the shepherd, it is a tragedy of the greatest order. He had known every animal since its birth, had protected them from all natural and