Note 40 — Chapter I · JOURNEY FROM DARJILING TO TASHILHUNPO.

It is told of the upper Kangpa-chan valley that it was first peopled by Tibetans, called Sharpa (Easterners), whose original home was in the mountains of Shar Khambu, or Eastern Kirata.40 Lower down the valley lived the Magar tribe from Nepal, whose chief extended his sway over the Sharpa, and exacted such oppressive taxes from them that they decided to avenge themselves. The Magar chief, going to the village of Kangpa-chan, he and his followers were murdered, and their bodies buried. No clue could be had of the missing men, so the chief’s wife went herself to Kangpa-chan, but she also failed to discover what had become of them. While going along the river bank, a boulder, undermined by the current, tumbled down, when a swarm of flies flew buzzing out. Attracted by this, the queen had the earth removed, and discovered the bodies of her husband and his followers. Returning home with the chief’s body, she ordered great funeral ceremonies to be held at a place some six miles up the river, near the Rapa-chan torrent, midway between the two great villages of the Kangpa-chan valley—Gyunsar and Yarsa,41 as being more accessible for the people, for whose entertainment great bowls of wine were to be provided. In the wine poison was mixed; and as soon as the Magars had finished drinking, they passed it to the Kangpa-chan people, who drank deeply, and fell asleep to awake no more. Nearly a thousand people were in this way done to death, and the babies were carried away by the queen’s followers. The place where this foul deed was done became known as Tong-shong phug, “the place which witnessed a thousand murders.”