Kusunda people

The Kusunda ( Ban Raja forest people ) are an ethnic Chepang with the related strain in Nepal, its about 100 tribal members (the last Census of 2001 gives the exact number with 164 ) not as the latter in mud houses, but live in the forest. Their language is relatively poorly documented and was formerly known as the Tibeto- Burmese classified as belonging, but is now mostly as isolated and remnants of an old family of languages ​​considered, which was home there before the advance of the Tibeto- Burmese.

As the Nahali in their environment the Kusunda of many Nepali are stereotypically viewed as barbaric cannibals, perhaps encouraged by the view of the neighboring Chepang that Kusunda want this kill on contact, so that the mutual dislike and avoidance of contact is established. On the other hand, is likely just the refusal of other nations around the Kusunda unlike other " Erstvölker " in Eurasia (such as the Sri Lankan Weddas or the Philippine Negritos ) before the physical extinction and / or loss of their language and culture ( see also the case of the Andaman Islands ) have preserved.

However, this exclusion leads then regularly Abdrängung such as unequal in prestigious rest of nations in less fertile and coveted areas (such as jungle, desert, islands or mountains) where they are today, though now increasingly threatened in their cultural identity. Especially the linguistic and genetic relationships of such residual among peoples are but for the study of early history, for example, in the Indian peninsula or in the Indo-Pacific area on purely linguistic investigations also highly important to clarify today strongly of controversial historical debates (eg the origin of the Indo-Iranian in India, and the makers of previous culture).

With regard to religion are the Kusunda followers of animism, with influences of the surrounding Hinduism practiced in the religious rituals.