By: SOVAN CHAKRABORTY
The Mangar community is often overlooked. This paper examines ritual symbolism among the Mangar community in the Darjeeling hills of India. The Mangars are a small Himalayan group with a long history of ritual practice. Their traditions now face pressure from migration and wider religious influences. These pressures shape how rituals are performed and understood in daily life. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in different villages with different levels of outside contact in Darjeeling hills of West Bengal, India. These differences create distinct local patterns of belief and practice. Some households follow older ritual forms. Others reinterpret rituals in ways that fit present-day needs. Such variation suggests that Mangar ritual life is not uniform and has never been fixed. The analysis focuses on rituals linked to ancestors, household deities, and seasonal events. These rituals use symbols that hold social and moral meanings for the community. They guide ideas of health, misfortune, kinship, and relations with the natural world. Elders and younger people often explain these symbols in different ways. This gap shows how knowledge shifts across generations. Oral transmission remains central. The paper argues that Mangar ritual practice shows both continuity and change. It reflects a community that adapts to new conditions while holding on to core cultural values.
