Honey expedition and honey hunting sites lie in the mid-hills of Nepal spanning tropical to trans-Himalayan geo-ecological belts, including the geographical midpoint of the country. It has a mixed habitation of casts and ethnicities.
It is host to probably the highest density of the Gurung ethnic population in the country. The villages located nearest to the Apis laboriosa nesting sites are mostly Gurung villages known in Lamjung, Kaski, Dolpa, Mugu, and Mygdhi.
These villages tend to have a strong community spirit and cohesiveness. The people share agricultural work, community development, natural resource management, and other social and religious activities.
The bee cliffs situated in the parts of the map are found to be majorly poor and underdeveloped.
The floral diversity ranges from subtropical to alpine species dominated by Rhododendron species like Rhododendron arboreum, Rhododendron barbatum, Lyonia ovalifolia, Michelia kisopa, Quercus lamellosa, Acer sp., Maesa chisia, Eriobotrya elliptica, Berberis spp, Myrsine semiserrata, Schima wallichii, Castanopsis indica, and Myrica which derives the honey to be strong filed with a medicinal and psychedelic ingredient known as “Grayanotoxin” Which are harvested by the locals, usually Gurung’s foothills of the mountain twice a year.
Hunters hang with locally made ropes with stairs without other protection risking their life to harvest the reputed honey brand “Mad honey” in ethnic practice, spiritual belief, hardship, and strong teamwork.
During the honey harvesting or the honey hunt, the team of honey hunters has their own set and schedule of responsibilities assigned and aligned to collect the honey fulfilling all procedures of prevention, teamwork, spiritual beliefs, and ethnic practices.
The six main tasks include smoking out, ladder pulling and guiding, signaling, collecting the honey from the cliff, gathering up the honey at the base of the cliff, and worship must all be properly carried out for a honey hunting event to be successful.
There are also specific taboos associated with some of these steps. The honey hunters, about a dozen men in total, divided into specific groups to cover each of the tasks named as kuichhe (lead honey hunter), rope controllers (pechho chaiba piba mhi), signaller (ishar piba mhi).
The honey hunters first gather the honey hunting equipment together – the ropes, ladders, poles, baskets, and bowls – and proceed to the bottom of the cliff, locally termed as prag, uab, pechho, khokro or tokari, chyakhal or khaal, tango or ghochma, saton, koili chho, koho chho, chhora, donga, tuju, whibe, dhabilo.
They then perform a ceremony of worship to placate the cliff gods and ensure that the Gods agree with the activity.
They sacrifice a goat, sheep, or chicken and offer flowers, fruits, and grains of rice to worship their local gods before honey hunting.
Thane mane – the local god – oversees all local events, the cliff god Abakarbhu’ is specifically responsible for the honey hunting event. In general, the honey hunters make a blood sacrifice to both the Gods at the start of the event by killing a goat, sheep, or chicken.
At the same time, they worship all dead members of the community. This worship is known as Ayar bhayar’. With so much hardship, strong cohesiveness of the hunters’ society, deity grace, spirituality, nature’s love and aptitude by the honey bees and honey hunters here we witness the honey expedition and taste the psychedelic and medicinal filled “The Mad Honey”.
The stories and tales are more enrapturing in visions and experiencing than the words themselves. Hope we join the next expedition, together and share these experiences again but together.
