Gurung

The Gurung, who call themselves Tamu, are a Tibeto-Burman people of the central Nepalese hills, living mainly around Gorkha and Pokhara in Gandaki. Oral tradition derives their name from a Tibetan word meaning to bring down, recalling a southward migration from the Tibetan plateau.

They traditionally herded sheep and yaks across the Himalayan foothills, organized into sub-clans, and their history was transmitted orally in their Tamu Kyi tongue, written in Tibetan script. Their faith, Gurung Dharma, layers Tibetan Buddhism over older Bon and shamanic rites, and they keep the Tamu Lhosar new year festival.

Gurung fighters served in the Gorkhali armies that built Nepal in the eighteenth century, and after the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816 they became one of the four main Gurkha tribes recruited into British and Indian service.