Gurung culture and the Gurkha story

Walk up from Pokhara toward Ghandruk, Landruk, Dhampus or Sikles and most of the families you meet are Gurung. They call themselves Tamu and their language Tamu kyi, a Tibeto-Burman language related to Thakali and Tamang, quite different from Nepali. The Gurung homeland is the middle hills of central Nepal: Kaski and Lamjung above all, with large communities in Gorkha, Syangja, Tanahun and Parbat. The Nyeshangba of upper Manang are sometimes grouped with them but have their own language and history.

Traditionally the Gurung were farmers and herders who moved flocks of sheep between high summer pastures and lower winter grazing, and grew millet, maize, barley and buckwheat on terraces cut into steep slopes. Many still do, but today village incomes come as much from tourism, overseas work and military pensions as from fields. Villages such as Ghandruk are known for being tidy and well organised, with stone-paved paths, community water taps and mothers' groups that run festivals and keep the trails clean.

Gurung religion is layered. Most families follow Tibetan Buddhism, and lamas lead many rituals, but older than both Buddhism and Hinduism in the hills are the Gurung's own priests: the pachyu and the klehpree, sometimes written ghyabri. They chant long oral texts, in an old form of the language, that tell of the origins of the Tamu, guide the souls of the dead and protect households from harm. Some families also call Brahmin priests for Hindu ceremonies, and many celebrate Dashain and Tihar with their neighbours.

The most important Gurung rite is the pae or arghun, the final funeral ceremony held some time after a death to send the soul to the land of the ancestors. It can last several days and draws relatives from across the hills and abroad. A dummy figure of the dead person, dressed in their clothes, is the centre of the rite, and dancers, drummers and priests accompany it. If you are invited to one, it is a great honour; ask your guide how to behave.

The Gurung New Year, Tamu Lhosar, falls on the fifteenth day of the Nepali month of Poush, around 30 December. In Pokhara and the villages it brings processions in traditional dress, dances and family feasts. It is a national holiday in Nepal.

Evenings in a Gurung village used to belong to the rodhi, a gathering of young men and women who met in a house to sing, work and court, sometimes through the night, swapping teasing verses in a sung conversation called dohori. Rodhi houses are rarer now, but the songs survive in cultural programmes, and some villages host an evening for visitors. The ghatu dance, performed by young girls in a trance-like state to tell an old story of a queen, is a Gurung tradition of Lamjung and Kaski in spring.

Gurung women are fine weavers. The bhangra, a sleeveless cloth tied over the shoulder and used to carry loads or worn as a wrap, is woven from allo, the fibre of the giant Himalayan nettle, on a back-strap loom. Men wear the bhoto, a short cross-tied jacket, and the kachhad, a wrap, with a khukuri at the waist on festival days. Women wear a velvet blouse, gold or coral jewellery, and a large gold ear ornament.

Food is simple and good: dhido made from millet or buckwheat, gundruk, a soup of fermented dried greens, kodo ko roti, millet flatbread, and the home-made millet liquor that hosts may offer to welcome guests. Refusing politely is fine.

In 1814 the British East India Company went to war with the Kingdom of Nepal. The fighting in the hills, at forts such as Nalapani, impressed British officers so much that even before the war ended in 1816 they had begun recruiting Nepali hill soldiers into their own army. The name Gurkha comes from Gorkha, the hill kingdom of the Shah kings, and the first recruits were drawn largely from Gurung, Magar, Rai and Limbu communities.

For the next two centuries Gurkha regiments served in almost every British campaign, from the Indian rebellion of 1857 to both world wars, the Falklands and Afghanistan. Gurkha soldiers have been awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry, many times. When India became independent in 1947 an agreement between Britain, India and Nepal divided the Gurkha regiments: some went to the British Army and the larger share to the new Indian Army, where Gurkhas still serve in large numbers. Singapore's police also recruits Gurkhas.

In 2009, after a long public campaign, the British government agreed that Gurkhas who retired before 1997 could settle in the United Kingdom. Many families now live between a village in Kaski and a town in England, and that link shows in the houses, schools and lodges of Ghandruk and Pokhara.

The British Army still selects Gurkha recruits in Nepal, and the final selection takes place at the British Gurkhas camp in Pokhara. Thousands of young men apply each year for a few hundred places. One of the best-known tests is the doko race, an uphill run carrying a traditional basket loaded with about 25 kg. In the months before selection you may see young men training on the hills around Pokhara at dawn, running steps with weighted baskets.

For a hill family, a son in the British or Indian Army meant a regular wage, a pension and status in the village. Pension money built water systems, schools and the first lodges on the trekking routes. When you sleep in a lodge in Ghandruk or Chhomrong, there is a fair chance that it was started with a soldier's savings.

The word for such a man in Nepali is lahure, from Lahore, where hill men once served in the army of the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh. Songs about the lahure who goes far away and the family waiting at home are still sung at village gatherings, and a soldier coming home on leave is still a big event in a hill village.

A few Gurung and Nepali words make conversations easier and more fun. Your hosts will be delighted if you try them.

The easiest places to see Gurung life on a trip from Pokhara are on the trekking routes and in the city itself.

The best way, though, is simply to slow down. Spend two nights in one village rather than one night in each, sit in the kitchen while dinner is cooked, and ask your hosts about their grandparents. Many older Gurung men and women have remarkable stories of the war years, of herding sheep in the high pastures and of carrying loads to Pokhara before there were roads.

• Ghandruk: the largest Gurung village in Kaski, with a museum of household objects and homestays in the old village.
• Landruk and Dhampus: smaller ridge villages on the way to Australian Camp and the Modi Khola.
• Sikles: a large Gurung village north-east of Pokhara below Lamjung Himal, less visited.
• Gurkha Memorial Museum, Pokhara: medals, uniforms and stories of Gurkha service.
• Tamu Lhosar in Pokhara at the end of December, with processions and dances.
• Ask before photographing people, especially at rituals; remove shoes in kitchens and never step over the hearth.