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This Chang-pa tribe, numbering five hundred souls, makes four moves
in the year, dividing in summer, and uniting in a valley very free
from snow in the winter. They are an exclusively pastoral people,
and possess large herds of yaks and ponies and immense flocks of
sheep and goats, the latter almost entirely the beautiful 'shawl
goat,' from the undergrowth at the base of the long hair of which the
fine Kashmir shawls are made. This pashm is a provision which Nature
makes against the intense cold of these altitudes, and grows on yaks,
sheep, and dogs, as well as on most of the wild animals. The sheep
is the big, hornless, flop-eared huniya. The yaks and sheep are the
load carriers of Rupchu. Small or easily divided merchandise is
carried by sheep, and bulkier goods by yaks, and the Chang-pas make a
great deal of money by carrying for the Lahul, Central Ladak, and
Rudok merchants, their sheep travelling as far as Gar in Chinese
Tibet. They are paid in grain as well as coin, their own country
producing no farinaceous food. They have only two uses for silver
money. With part of their gains they pay the tribute to Kashmir, and
they melt the rest, and work it into rude personal ornaments.
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