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Concept
Chepang people
Summary
The Chepang (चेपाङ जाति), also known as Chewang, are an Tibeto-Burman ethnic group from the rugged ridges of the Mahabharat mountain range of central Nepal.
With increasing populations, lack of arable land and few irrigation options, malnutrition has been a historic problem for the Chepang despite forest supplements. The Chepang have often been characterized as the poorest of Nepal's poor. Forced teenage pregnancies are common. Chepang men and women are basically egalitarian and no social ranking exists as it does in caste Nepalese society. Many Chepang cannot read and write due to a lack of education beyond elementary school, and this illiteracy stands in contrast to the great gains Nepal has been making in reducing illiteracy. They are mostly located in Dhading District, Chitwan District, Gorkha District, Makwanpur District, and Tanahun District.
The 2011 Nepal census classifies the Chepang within the broader social group of Mountain/Hill Janajati. At the time of the 2011 Nepal census, 68,399 people (0.3% of the population of Nepal) were Chepang. The frequency of Chepang people by province was as follows:
Bagmati Province (1.2%)
Gandaki Province (0.2%)
Koshi Province (0.0%)
Lumbini Province (0.0%)
Madhesh Province (0.0%)
Karnali Province (0.0%)
Sudurpashchim Province (0.0%)
The frequency of Chepang people was higher than national average (0.3%) in the following districts:
Chitwan (5.0%)
Makwanpur (4.6%)
Dhading (4.3%)
Gorkha (1.3%)
Over the past two or three generations, the Chepang have begun to slowly shift from a semi-nomadic (slash-and-burn) lifestyle to a more settled way of life, relying increasingly upon the production of permanent fields of maize, millet and bananas. The severe topography, however, has made permanent farming difficult (and usually insufficient), and the forest has remained an important (although decreasingly so) source of food for the Chepang. Historically, the collection of wild yams and tubers, fish caught from nearby rivers, bats and wild birds, and periodically wild deer hunted from nearby forests, have supplemented their need for carbohydrates and protein.
Official source
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