Place · high pastoral plateau · India
Changthang and the Changpa
Also known as Changthang, Changpa, Changthangi, Tso Moriri, Rupshu
The high plateau east of Leh, above four thousand metres and continuous with Tibet's own Changthang, grazed by Changpa pastoralists who move their herds of Changthangi goats, yak and sheep between seasonal camps. The pashm those goats grow in winter is the raw material of the Kashmir shawl.
- Function
- Landscape & environmental change
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 33.300, 78.700
Worth knowing
The goats are combed, not shorn, and the fibre is carried three hundred kilometres to Srinagar to be spun and woven, so a Kashmiri luxury industry rests on a Ladakhi pastoral one — and a Scottish town's name for it. The plateau also holds Tso Moriri and Tso Kar, and the Changpa's winter grazing has been squeezed by the closed border since 1962.
Connections (6)
- Craft tradition ofKani shawl weaving and pashmina
The pashm the kani shawl is woven from is combed, not shorn, from Changthangi goats on the Ladakh plateau above four thousand metres, and carried three hundred kilometres over the passes to Srinagar to be spun. A Kashmiri luxury industry rests entirely on a Ladakhi pastoral one, and when the Changpa's winter grazing is squeezed the looms in Srinagar feel it.
- In the same set asTurtuk
Turtuk in the Nubra and the Changthang plateau are the two edges of Ladakh that are not Tibetan Buddhist: a Balti Muslim village that spoke a Tibetan language and belonged to Pakistan until 1971, and a high pastoral plateau grazed by Changpa herders whose winter pastures were cut by the 1962 border. Both are places where a line on a map went through a community.
- Alternative toNathu La & the Chumbi corridor
Changthang and the Chumbi corridor are the western and eastern ends of the Indo-Tibetan pastoral trade: pashm, salt and borax south, Indian grain and cloth north, moved by herders and by mule caravans rather than by ships. Both routes closed after 1962, and the Changpa's grazing and Kalimpong's wool trade ended in the same decade for the same reason.
- Trade routeLeh
Leh's bazaar and the Changthang pastures are the two halves of the pashm trade: Changpa herders combed the wool at four thousand metres, Leh's brokers bought and graded it, and it went over the Zoji La to Srinagar to be spun and woven. The Karakoram traffic ended in 1949 and the Chinese border closed the winter pastures in 1962, and both ends of the trade contracted together.
- Site withinPangong Tso
Pangong Tso sits on the northern edge of the Changthang plateau, within the same high-altitude cold desert landscape the Changpa pastoralists have grazed Changthangi goats across for centuries. The lake's southern shore holds a few seasonal Changpa camps, and the Changthangi grazing cycle still includes the Pangong basin despite the 1962 border closure that split the Changthang between Indian Ladakh and Chinese-administered Tibet.
- Site withinTso Moriri
Tso Moriri sits on the Changthang plateau, within the Changthang Cold Desert Sanctuary that covers much of the Rupshu region. Korzok Monastery on the lake's western shore is the only permanent settlement on the lake, and the surrounding grasslands are Changpa winter pasture. The lake, the Changthang plateau and the Changpa economy are one ecological-cultural unit — the lake is one of several high-altitude water bodies the Changpa summer migration brings herds past.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Changthang”. Janet Rizvi, Trans-Himalayan Caravans (1999); Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council pashmina and grazing records.
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