Tamang people

The Tamangརྟ་དམག་ (Devnagari: तामाङ; tāmāng), or Tamag, are the indigenous inhabitants of the Himalayan regions of Nepal and India, their ancestral land is called Tamsaling. They are the aborigines of Yambu, or Kathmandu Valley, who had self-rule and autonomous roughly 2 centuries before present, systematically displaced during the expansion period of Gorkha Kingdom and this continues to the present day, the Central Development Region, Nepal remains where 70% of the population reside. The traditionally Buddhist Tamang are the largest Tibeto-Burman ethnic group within Nepal, constituting 5% of the national population of over 1.3 million in 2001, increasing to 1,539,830 as of 2011 census, yet contested. Tamang are also a significant minority in Sikkim and Darjeeling District of West Bengal of India as permanent settlers doing labor work; their languages are fifth most spoken in Nepal (note all Tamang languages are not mutually intelligible). They were one of the aborigines who were least affected by the process of Nepalization or Khas-ization. They were considered low caste automatically in the dominant Hindu state and system, and thus, there is exploitation, marginalization, and oppression of Tamang people. Peculiar to Tamang people are complex marriage restrictions within the community.