Shaukas

The Shauka people, also known as Rangkas and Johari, are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group living in the Johar Valley of Gori Ganga river in Munsyari, tehsil of the Pithoragarh District in Uttarakhand, India.^[1] Shaukas are a part of Bhotiya community and were historically involved in trade between India and Tibet. Contemporarily, they are engaged in occupations like agriculture, trade, and animal husbandry. They currently speak the Johari, a dialect of Kumaoni,^[2] and spoke Rangas, a now-extinct, Tibeto-Berman language in the past.^[3]

Shauka women singing in a public event in Malla Dumar, Munsyari

Pangtey Museum in Pithoragarh, a privately owned museum displaying artefacts related to the Shauka people

Surendra Singh Pangtey, a Shauka, narrating a joke in a form of Johari with many words from the now-extinct Rangas language

Notable people

• Surendra Singh Pangtey

See also

• Kumaon
• Kumauni people

Further reading

• "Zu einer Zeit, als Bäume und Gräser noch sprechen konnten...". Sozioökonomie, Kosmologie und Mythologie der Rang-Shauka im zentralindischen Himalaya (Taschenbuch) von Sabine Leder
• History of the Origin of Shauka Tribe of Middle Himalayas, by Negi Girdhar Singh, Dept. of History, Kumaon University, Nainital. 2006. Lucknow Journal of Social Sciences. 2006, Volume 3, Issue 2. ISSN 0974-8148.