Warriors of Tibet

Tibet. Tibet is a land that invokes Hollywood-inspired images of James Sheridan’s Shangri-la—a mountainous, mystical kingdom populated by monks, nuns, and pious, prostrating laypeople—elaborate monasteries nestled amidst snowcapped peaks and yak-dotted grasslands.The last image anyone expects to see in the landscape of Shangri-la is that of a band of nomadic warriors on horseback—more suited to the 19th-century American Southwest during the turbulent era of Manifest Destiny or the among the armies of Chinggis Khaan, than the fantastical image of Tibet as a mountainous, pacifist hermit kingdom. And yet, this is exactly what we find in Eastern Tibet.Today, we’re going to talk about the Khampa. A fiercely independent ethnic subgroup of the Tibetan people native to the eastern region of the Tibetan plateau, historically known as the province of Kham. Their rich and complex history deeply intertwined with the broader historical saga of the entire Tibetan Plateau.