Banrawats
native endangered ethnic minority group
The Banrawats (alt., Banrajis, Vanrawats, Vanrajis) are a native endangered ethnic minority group, originating and living in Uttarakhand, India. They are distributed in the districts of Pithoragarh, Champawat and Udham Singh Nagar and in a small area confined to Western Nepal. They are the smallest Himalayan tribal group related to a larger ethno-linguistic group of Raji people.
They are basically nomadic hunter-gatherers, but also work as agriculture and forest labourers. They are mainly dependent on forests, and also practice shifting cultivation. Their existence is threatened by developmental and wildlife-related projects. They were placed in forced settlements by the Government of India beginning in the 1980s. Many continue to move in semi-nomadic camps, but most are now settled into villages along the Mahakali River area straddling India.
Deities
Van Rawats worship supernatural beings that live in the forests and sky. The Sun, known as Diho, represents their major deity.
“Banrawats” enters the record as native endangered ethnic minority group. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Banrawats, native and endangered can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Banrawats” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.