Slinging.org Forum - Tibet and nepal and gurkhas

Curious Aardvark

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Tibet and nepal and gurkhas
Mar 23^rd, 2007 at 7:45am

We know that slings are traditional in tibet, but what about nepal it's next door neighbour ?
The nepalese Gurkhas are arguably the best soldiers in the world, have a warrior tradition and come from an area where slings were traditionally used extensively.

So has anyone ever heard of the gurkha empire - pre british conflict - using slings in battle ?

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winkleried

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Re: Tibet and nepal and gurkhas
Reply #1 - Mar 24^th, 2007 at 1:47pm

Nope but then again ya mean they used something besides thier Kukris Roll Eyes

not to detract from your question It's a good one.
I would have personaly expected them to use a composite recurve bow instead of a sling.
In that area you have the Indians,the Afgahnis , the Chinese, and thier is a teasing little reference to a Tibetian bow that I am going to try and track down a bit further Monday.

Marc Adkins

Curious Aardvark wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2007 at 7:45am:

We know that slings are traditional in tibet, but what about nepal it's next door neighbour ?
The nepalese Gurkhas are arguably the best soldiers in the world, have a warrior tradition and come from an area where slings were traditionally used extensively.

So has anyone ever heard of the gurkha empire - pre british conflict - using slings in battle ?

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bigkahuna

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Re: Tibet and nepal and gurkhas
Reply #2 - Mar 24^th, 2007 at 9:00pm

At this point I don't think we know anything other than the slings in Tibet were used by herdsmen. I don't know if they ever reached the status of weapon there. Today most of the sling we get are made by schoolchildren and while they could certainly throw a projectile large enough and hard enough to do damage, nobody knows anything about their use in warfare. Has anybody heard anything about their use in the recent unrest in Tibet and Nepal??

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Curious Aardvark

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Re: Tibet and nepal and gurkhas
Reply #3 - Mar 25^th, 2007 at 7:25am

I suspect there is a reason you don't see bows in the andes - very fer suitable trees, widely varying weather conditions and damp would make all but a very modern bow fairly impractical. Slings on the other hand are ideal.

The problem seems to be that modern gurkha history seems to start after the gurkha brigade was created at which time the gurkhas took to rifles like they were born with them. The earliest picture I can find dates from the early 1800's and just shows a gurkha in traditional dress wielding a kurkri:
[img]http://www.army.mod.uk/img/brigade_of_gurkhas/history/his1.jpg[/img]
. Legend has it that the gurkhas came from a single village and conquored nepal.
The question is - were sling presents in nepal at the time, in which case they would probably have been used in war - if they were not then it's unlikely the gurkhas used them, relying instead on sheer ferocity.

I've perused the regimental site and can find little mention of pre-british history.

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bigkahuna past-moderator Offline Posts: 3894 Delaware, USA Gender:	Re: Tibet and nepal and gurkhas Reply #4 - Mar 25^th, 2007 at 9:23pm One really doesn't hear much about the Gurkhas until they come into conflict with the Brits. Then it seems they really gave Tommy a tough time for awhile. They really like their knives and I have not seen anything about slings and Gurkhas anywhere.
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Curious Aardvark

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Re: Tibet and nepal and gurkhas
Reply #5 - Mar 27^th, 2007 at 6:09am

nope interesting isn't it.
I've dug up and read as much nepalese history as I can find and it doesn't look like they have ever used missile weapons. At least not until rifles were introduced.
This might be down to the fact that metal work and blade work in particularly seems to have been carried out by a vastly larger proportion of the population than is usual.

But there is no mention of spears, bows, slings or even throwing knives.

Very weird. They seem to have leapt from zero projectile weapons to firearms with no intermediate steps at all.

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