General
According to a 2019 assessment, Nepal has a population of 30 million, bringing its population density to just over 200 inhabitants/km2. The average life expectancy is 70.7 years. The fertility rate is 2.18 children per woman, but infant mortality remains high at almost 29 per cent. Ninety per cent of the population is literate. The official language is Nepali, spoken by 90% of the population, but more than 50 languages and dialects have been identified in the country, which are grouped together with the population into two major language families: Indo-European and Tibeto-Myan.
The mosaic of mountain peoples: the Tibeto-Burmans
Tibetan-Burmese groups share, in addition to the languages of the same family, a set of very old beliefs and values that have not disappeared, even though some of these groups have been converted to Buddhism or Hinduism. There is still great diversity among them, in the languages themselves, in religion, in social organization and in ways of life. From the west to the east of Nepal, a multitude of ethnic groups settled here long before the emergence of the Hindu or Tibetan kingdoms. They are the last representatives of one of the oldest civilizations in Asia, whose societies were very non-hierarchical and ignored the state. The Tibetan-Burmese tribes are today concentrated on the highest slopes of the Middle Himalayas, at altitudes between 1,500 and 3,000 m. Several large ethnic groups can be distinguished from west to east: Magar, Gurung, Tamang, Newar, Rai, Limbu.
The Magar, Gurung and Tamang
The Magar are originally from western Nepal, they have served as soldiers many times, and are therefore numerous throughout the country as well as in Sikkim and Bhutan. Many of them have come closer to Hinduism and now speak only Nepali. However, the Magar of the West have kept their shamans, who intervene in case of crisis.
The Gurung, for their part, populate the southern slopes of the Annapurna Massif. The trekking routes from Pokhara to the north pass through gurung villages. Progressing over the centuries from Tibet to more clement altitudes, they have gradually abandoned their pastoral life to become sedentary peasants and rice growers. The gurung social organisation is reminiscent of that of the Tibetans, in a simplified version dominated by the Four Clans, including those of the chiefs and the lamas, the Tibetan Buddhist priests.
Finally, the country of the Tamang extends over the high ridges surrounding the Kathmandu valley. Settled on the roads between Kathmandu and Tibet, the Tamang have been widely exposed to the influence of Tibetan Buddhism in which the lama plays a leading role and officiates in all the rites of the life cycle.
The Rai, Limbu and Newar
The Rai of the Sapta Kosi basin and the Limbu of the far east of Nepal are called Kirant by other Nepalese, they are the last to be subjugated by the Gorkha dynasty. The Rai and Limbu resisted Indo-European colonization relatively well, although they are now in a numerical minority in the districts they inhabit. The written religions of India and Tibet have not yet affected the representations and practices of these two ethnic groups
The Newar, for their part, are the first inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley. They have a special place in the Tibeto-Burmese world. A people of urban peasants and traders, in contact with North India, they developed one of the richest urban civilizations in Asia. Coming from a long artistic tradition, the Newar are recognized for their talents as architects, potters, sculptors, painters... If their language, in spite of numerous borrowings from Sanskrit, is unquestionably Tibeto-Burmese, their society, on the other hand, is based on typically Hindu models. The community is at the heart of Newar social organization. A secret society, compartmentalized into castes, it operates in isolation. The Newar have built villages that have become cities, in which dwellings are grouped together in neighbourhoods near religious centres.
The populations of Tibetan civilization
In the high valleys of Nepal (Nyishang, Dolpo, Mustang, Manang, Langtang, Sherpa country and Walung) live people who founded miniature Tibetan enclaves outside the historical borders of Tibet. Tibetans use a large number of dialects and each region has its own language, different from classical Tibetan and often incomprehensible in neighbouring regions. Today, with the steady influx of refugees continuing to flee Tibet under Chinese occupation, the number of people of Tibetan culture living in Nepal continues to grow.
Indo-Nepalese peoples
Mountain dwellers. Also called Parbatiya (mountain people) by the inhabitants of the Kathmandu valley, the Indo-Nepalese represent about 30% of the Nepalese population and are influential. True to the Brahmin worldview, they apply the caste system, each with its own characteristics, way of life, and degree of purity. This vision of society, which encompasses everyone in a predefined model, has provided the Indo-Nepalese with a decisive power in the history of Nepal, enabling them to assimilate all kinds of populations, regardless of their culture of origin. Apart from a small Muslim minority, they are Hindus and their mother tongue is Nepali. They form the Nepalese elite and belong to the highest castes
Inhabitants of the plains. They are the "people of the plains"(Madishe) sometimes assimilated to the Indians with a touch of contempt. Admittedly, there are many similarities with the Indians on the other side of the border: language, way of life and religion are relatively close. As in the case of the Indo-Nepalese, the Hindus of the plain form a set of castes that are economically and ritually dependent on each other. Although they communicate from one district to another in Hindi, their mother tongues are composed of three dialects: from west to east, Awadhi, Bhojpuri and Maithili. It is moreover through language that the people of the plain claim their identity within the cultural mosaic of the Nepalese kingdom: they deny Nepali the status of sole national language, to which they would like to see Hindi associated.
The Tharu. They are an aggregate of rural, traditional and disparate communities. Some researchers claim that they are the original inhabitants of Nepal. The Tharu speak a language of Indo-European origin and are also organized into castes. The majority of the Tharu are engaged in agriculture and sedentary animal husbandry. Exploited by the landowners, they have gone into debt and are forced into serfdom which keeps them in poverty. The Tharu habitat is recognizable: the bamboo houses are covered with clay and thatched roofs. They have no openings, only thin holes that allow air to circulate. The absence of windows has two origins: by limiting the openings, the Tharu limited the transmission of malaria and the presence of spirits. Indeed, despite the integration of many Hindu rituals, the Tharu remained animist and believed that spirits enter houses through windows.
