At Digar with Ama Phunstog Dolma le, age 84.

Phunstog Dolma was born into the affluent Amchi family of Labab, a small hamlet situated along the traditional route to Khyungru and Digar. Labab is a small settlement, home to just two families.

Dolma  recalls that during her youth, the broader region experienced widespread poverty, and many households frequently ran short of food supplies. Unlike the nearby villages of Tangyar and Khema, where wheat cultivation was not possible due to a harsher, colder climate, Labab’s relatively temperate conditions made it suitable for growing wheat, barley, and peas.

Her family, among the wealthiest in the area was especially known for loaning grain to households from nearby settlements. Every spring, families would arrive to borrow grain, which they would repay following the autumn harvest. The prevailing interest rate at the time was five battis (approximately 10 kilograms) for every four battis borrowed, a customary practice rooted in trust and reciprocity.

Dolma vividly recalls that around the age of 15, Changpa traders would descend from the Nibukla Pass, stopping at Tangyar with their Changluks ( sheep) pack animals laden with salt and wool. After trading these goods in Nubra, the Changpas would return with wheat, which they could not cultivate in their high-altitude pastures.

At Labab, Dolma remembers her mother storing salt in large, earthen containers. This clean, reddish salt was prized for its flavour and primarily used in the preparation of butter tea. The two resident families of Labab wove their own woolen garments: local wool was used to spin the spun (warp), while the finer wool purchased from the Changpas was reserved for weaving the gyu (weft), producing warmer and more refined clothing.

At Digar with Aba Rinchen Gyalpo-le, aged 95

 

Rinchen Gyalpo of the Kulpa family in Digar has lived a long and eventful life as both zamindar and trader. For much of his life, he cultivated barley, peas, and mustard. But he also engaged in the seasonal trade of salt and wool with Nubra, sourcing his goods from the Changpa nomads who visited Tangyar.

The Changpas arrived in Tangyar carrying salt, wool, butter, cheese, and dried meat. In return, they bartered for barley. The standard exchange rate, as Rinchen recalls, was one batti (roughly 2 kilograms) of salt for one and a half battis of barley. The Tangyar market was a lively scene, drawing not only villagers but also traders from Nubra and Baltistan, many of whom travelled with doltoks, heavy stone pots,strapped to their backs.

During the summer months, Rinchen Gyalpo would buy salt and wool from the Changpas and carry it to Nubra to trade for wheat. While the Nubrapas who came to Tangyar offered three battis of wheat for a single batti of wool, Rinchen could often double his return by selling directly in Nubra,fetching up to 6 battis, and occasionally even 24 kilograms, depending on market demand.

His journeys took him to distant villages such as Panamik, Chamshen, and Yarma. Travel was made mostly on horseback or with the help of dzos and yaks. Donkeys, were a rare sight in those days.

Gyalpo was around 30 when he first began trading as a supplementary source of income. He continued to do so periodically until his final trading trip, which took place shortly before the 1971 war with Pakistan. It has now been more than fifty years, he says, since the Changpa caravans last visited these routes.

For additional household shopping,especially during the summer and around Losar Rinchen would undertake overnight journeys to Leh via the Digar La pass. There, he would sell his barley in the bustling chang market at Naushehar, where women from various households sat selling chang (local barley wine). He fondly recounts : the women sellers would compete for barley, offering cups of chang to the sellers.

“By the time a person reached the end of the market,” he’d be drunk from sipping chang from every seller"