Traditional Settlement of Marpha Village #ARCHITECTURE #NEPALITECTURE # CONSERVATION #MARPHA

 

                    Report on Traditional Settlement of Marpha Village

                                                                        By Nepalitecture 

 

Introduction:

Marpha is a village of Gharpajhong Gaupalika in Mustang District in Gandaki Province of Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 1630 people living in 434 individual households.

The name itself reflects the "mar" meaning hard working and "pha" meaning people. Tourism, agriculture and animal rearing are the means of survival of the people of this place. The village is the apple capital in the nation, with Marpha brandy and jams produced from local fruits. The village is a common overnight halt on the Annapurna Circuit, less crowded and touristy than Jomsom to the north. The village is nestled into the side of the mountain, relocated a bunch of generation ago from the other side of the hill because of the land’s fecundity.

The village is characterized by the traditional flat mud roofed houses with piles of firewood neatly stacked upon it. Wooden carved windows, long main spotless flagstones, and paved alleys are some special features of the village. There are personal monasteries, which has been there for more than decades.

Geography and Climate

It is a beautiful traditional village located near the Beni-Jomsom Sadak on the way to Jomsom. Marpha is located deep in Canyon of Kaligandaki River just below the Nilgiri peaks to the east and Dhamphus and Tukuche peak to the west. Most of the human settlement are found at 2100m to 4000m elevation along the Kaligandaki River.

The village is cold throughout the year with annual lowest temperature of -10 degree Celsius. Snow fall occurs on winter season and it have very rare rainfall in summer.

People and society

Village is mostly inhabited by Thakali ethnic group represented different clans: Lalchan (Ruby), Hirachan (Diamond), Jwarchan (Jwel) and Pannachan (Emerald). Very few residing in Marpha are Dalits.

The major Clans belong to wealthy group while Dalits work for the Clans as farming as their major occupation. The tribes of Marpha or precise Mustang are descendent from Tibet, so they follow Tibetan Buddhist culture. Contemporary life of people of Marpha is hard to tell. On one side there is impressive living legacy of Thakali stewardship and in the other side we can find the story of laboring Dalits, who have grown old working on fields. Apple is one of the major cash crop and Sheep, Goat, Cows, Yaks and Mules are found in this area, which are also used as cash income. Many of the souvenir shops in village are run by residents of refugee camp.

The main economic activity of Marpha is Agriculture. Majority of the people are subsistence farmers who grow maize, millet, barley, wheat, and vegetables. Many households maintain yaks and goats because the mountainous topography does not provide grazing land for large animals. Tourism and mule rearing are the means of survival of the people of this place. Tourism is the second economic source in this place Tourism has created in locals engage in hotel and restaurant business due to overnight halt of tourist passing by the trekking routes to upper mustang- However, at present due to roads and vehicles the flow of tourist is minimum in Marpha.

 

History

Tibetan people started their settlement in Marpha by studying the building ages of oldest building in northern part of Marpha, previously the settlement was limited over there in small area. Gradually with increased numbers of trekkers and pilgrims to Muktinath, settlement gradually grew up along the major street. They started shop and other businesses. Since the pilgrims from Brahmin and Chettri cast do not eat cooked by Thakali, so separate kitchen was built for them. The dark hall with chulo at center, nearby community tap is still existing. Later settlement started to grow around monastery: The older houses were abandoned and they turned into 'uwa mill. But with modern machine and factory for grounding 'uwa', the mill houses turned into animal shade. This made large group of animal shade at one zone and settlement on other zone Large number of occupational groups are found at backside of Thakali settlement and the age of their building are more than 100 years. This suggest that occupational group either migrated and built their own house or buy the old house of Thakali who shifted towards road. Most of the occupational group are economical depend on agriculture.

Lately with establishment of highway, the Thakali settlement has expanded along the road in linear way for business purpose

 

SETTLEMENT PATTERN

The houses in Marpha village line narrow slate- paved passageways. The passageways are just wide enough for an ox or donkey carrying firewood to walk through. They are small pleasant homes with animals in central courtyards. The houses are mostly attached to each other so even though the walkway slate is light colored the narrowness of the passage makes for some dim transits.

On the southern outskirts of Marpha, on the opposite bank of Kaligandaki River there is a Tibetan refugee camp, a school and Chhairo Gompa, the first Nyingma monastery to be established in Mustang District.

The Thakali make use of stones and clay for the construction of houses and fences, limestone for white-washing houses and mud for coloring walls. Split fire woods are stacked and lined on the edges of the flat roofs of every house in town- Fire woods are lined for different reasons: decorations for flat roofs, having lots of wood on roofs presumes you are wealthy: In some cases, the walls go up to three stories with absolutely no grout between the stones standing for centuries. One can walk through a small animal enclosure in the courtyard of a home, climb the stairs, walk down an upstairs, walk way, duck into a doorway, and step into a dark small room that measures about 12 by 18 feet approximately. Also we can find the many personal Buddhist monasteries with the nondescript on the doors literally built into the side of the cliff but the town's landscape is dominated by a more recent 20^th century monasteries.

Marpha is marked by vernacular architecture. The northern part is old and abandoned buildings and are pure vernacular without any modification. The existing settlement along Major Street though are vernacular but have gone multiple modification with some hybrid design typology. They are in good condition as economy of the people is better and they can afford to import and improve design value in their buildings. While the building residing by occupational group is old, vernacular, low/ medium architectural value in moderate/poor condition because of the low economy and back sided settlement.

The new buildings nearby highway are in even better condition as they are newly built. These buildings are mostly opened for shop, hotel, lodge and restaurant. These are functionally modern but hybrid in façade treatment trying to continue the uniformity of existing buildings.

Road Networks

Curve Marpha Road is paved with flag stone. The marpha road leaves the Beni-Jomsom Highway and passes through the village and re-joins with the highway at the end of village Houses are arranged at either sides of the road. The width of the road varies from 6' to 8' depending of the topography of the place: The road inside the village can be divided as primary, secondary and tertiery road Primary roads are the main roads with hotels and shops in either sides Secondary roads are smaller than primary road and these roads contains houses on either sides Tertiary road connects secondary road and are very narrow.

Primary and secondary roads are paved with dressed flag stone. Tertiary road are not paved. Primary road have big flag stone in its right side beneath which the drainage of the overall village is set-up. The big size stone is not permanently fix, it is placed as a covering of drainage channel. Big size stone is placed so that it can't be misplaced easily.

One of the identity of Marpha village is curved streets Because of organic street pattern, the wind speed is blocked and thus it feels warm when inside the village. The stone paved historical street patterns which once created vibrancy for trekkers and tourists is equally adopted to bikes at present. But the road is quite narrow for vehicular acess.

                                                            

Age of Building

Marpha being oldest settlement have most of the vernacular buildings with age more than 100 years. The house has been legacy from more than 2-3 generations. 24% building are of average age built or re-built at recent times but most of them are still on old foundation. Almost all of the buildings are courtyard type. Among them 43% houses are still open courtyard while 24% of the building has covered the court with corrugated GI sheets. Few has used transparent sheet for light. Open courtyard is a good building form for building types in cold climate where there is no big opening towards outside Courtyard provides good ventilation as well as light. Since there was no rain in the past, only snowfall in the name of precipitation. They use to shovel out snow: But now there's often rainfall. Since most of the building of low architectural value are abandoned and their condition is poor Most of the building with high architectural value are in poor condition due to the owner migrated permanently. Among other useable buildings 8% are in good condition and 12 % are in moderate.

 

Architectural Characteristics

Almost all of the building in Marpha are vernacular architecture i.e. 97%. Few 2% building are hybrid due to re-construction. During re construction, building façade has been continued as in the vernacular: Floor heights, structure and functional aspects are as per modern need 1% of modern building is totally contemporary architecture also being true to its material. Snow leopard hotel is the example, this building has rebuilt, modified and re-modified the existing vernacular building for commercial purpose.

The wall thickness of a typical building is 14" which thermally insulate building and maintains room temperature. Due to thick wall, though the building stand in Himalayan region, people living in this building responded to the query that they do not need any active heating method. Ground floor plan have 4" wooden pillar with three layers of wooden rafters. Over wooden beam the wooden plank is placed with stone end mud floor finishing: The depth of slab is deeper in balcony space than in other parts.