Paper short abstract:

This paper relates the photographs taken by some British Political Officers of Sikkim and travellers in the 19th and 20th century with the contemporary visual representations of the Lepcha tribe residing in Himalayan Sikkim. An analysis of these visual representations traces the continuities and discontinuities in the imaging and imagining of the Lepchas.

Paper long abstract:

The self-reflexive representation of Lepchas as the indigenous and primordial environmentalists of the Eastern Himalayas in the contemporary period can be traced to some images circulated in the 19th century and early 20th Century. In 1975, the former Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim was merged into India, and in 1978 the Lepchas were granted Scheduled Tribe status by the Indian Constitution. The historic image of Lepcha as a forest-dweller, nature worshipper and as an indigenous architect (as seen in their skills of house and bridge construction) were perpetuated in photographic collections of British Political Officers to Sikkim, some monographs on Lepchas (Gorer 1938) and traveller's accounts (Hooker 1891). Influenced by global discourses of alternative development these images are currently being used to refashion Lepcha self-images as primordial environmentalists.

This paper relates the photographs taken by some British Political Officers of Sikkim and travellers in the 19th and 20th century with the contemporary visual representations including an ethnographic film "Lepcha and their Soamm (bridges)" made by the Lepchas in 2002 and some other recent visual documentation undertaken as part of ongoing resistance to hydroelectric projects in the Lepcha reserve of North Sikkim. An analysis of these visual representations traces the continuities and discontinuities in the imaging and imagining of the Lepchas.