Nepal is home to many ethnic groups of people. Some are known while well, some are not. Some are numerous and some are few. Some of them are so few that they may be out of sight after a few years, if not conserved.
The Kusundas are among one of such groups. They are perhaps the most endangered communities among the aboriginal people of Nepal. According to the census of 2001, there are only 164 Kusundas in Nepal, out of which only 87 can speak their language. Others have forgotten because of their mixing with people of other linguistic groups. They do not prefer to mix with people of other communities. They mostly live separately, away from the crowd of other communities.
Forest is their most natural habitat, where they select the places that are least accessible to the people of other communities. Their legend takes them to the time of Ramayana. Sita had two sons: Lava and Kusha. The Kusundas believe that they are the descendants of Kusha. They call themselves ‘Vanaraaja’ or the king of the forest, while their wives are called Vana Ranis, or the queen of the forest. They have their own language too, but it runs the risk of extinction because its speakers are very few, and it has not been documented. No book has been published in this language, and it doesn’t have a dictionary or grammar to keep it alive. They travel from place to place in the forest for roots and tubers that make their staple food. They do not drink the milk of cattle, as they consider it forbidden by their culture. They believe that even the mention of the cow dung brings evil days to them. Its mention is therefore a taboo for the Kusundas.
The Kusundas don’t marry within the clan. This is prohibited. They look for a bride that is not related by clan or blood. When a new child is born, a wild fowl is slaughtered and sacrificed to their God. On the eleventh day of the birth of the child, the relatives of the new-born conduct purification rituals. Traditionally, when one of their people was dead, they would leave the dead body near the place of their settlement and move to a new location to leave. But lately, they have started burying the corpses. The men seldom come out of the forest. Sometimes, the women go out to barter food grains with meat their husbands kill in the forest. They have Dhami-Jhankris, the sorcerers who predict their future, and determine the length of time they can stay at one place. According to their direction, they choose the date to leave one place, and move to another. They also worship nature, and their rituals involve animal sacrifices. There is no question of going to school. Therefore they are illiterate, and do not go for public services and other jobs. Therefore there is little mixing of the Kusundas with people of other tribes. They are not much aware of the changes in the outside world, and are not touched by modernization. Scholars believe that the reduction in the number of Kusundas is because of increasing inter-caste and inter-tribe marriage. The children of cross parents prefer to identify themselves with new surnames, and the original Kusundas fall in number with time. Experts are afraid that if the trend continues, they will go out of sight after a few decades.