A few weeks ago, I posted about mtDNA U3b and the predominance of this haplogroup among the European Roma populations. It is true that 55% of U3b is found in European Roma but U3bers are cautioned by Donald Locke, the administrator of the Romnichel Study Group at Family Tree DNA, not to jump to conclusions about Roma heritage based on U3b DNA alone. He recommends that male members of families be tested for South Asian Y-DNA traces or that autosomal testing be considered for South Asian influences.

I was curious about this and remembered that I had actually done testing with DNA Tribes, a group that assesses heritage through autosomal factors. Autosomal DNA testing is defined as a way to determine the ‘genetic percentages’ of a person’s ancestry from particular continents/regions or to identify the countries and “tribes” of origin on an overall basis. I went back to look at my results to see if there were any Indo or South Asian traces in my autosomal DNA.

I DO have percentages of DNA from North India, South India, Eastern India — but my largest percentages are from Arabia, North Africa, Levantine and Mesopotamia. DNA TRIBES remarks that Caucasian or West Eurasian populations are related to South Asian populations by virtue of their geographical proximity. European populations are descended almost entirely from Near Eastern populations. India contributes to the Near Eastern population at a rate of 21.8%. Thinking about these results made me realize that these are autosomal traces going back to the beginnings of time and the cradles of civilization for all of the world. Understanding this, I started wondering how unusual is it for anyone with European ancestry to have traces of dna from India or South Asia? Is it unusual at all? Perhaps most Europeans have traces of dna from these ancient civilizations.

Eating in Bhutan was a challenge. I think that most of the time, we were being served food that Bhutanese THOUGHT Westerners would want to eat. I don’t think that in reality we ate much that could be called ‘typical’ Bhutanese food. The only dish that I can think of that we saw at every meal which I will always think of as ‘typical’ Bhutanese fare would be a mixture of hot chili peppers with cheese called ‘ema datsu’ that is eaten as a condiment to other foods. My guess is that most Bhutanese food is so plain and bland, consisting mostly of rice, barley, corn or potatoes, that this condiment, the addition of the hot peppers mixed with farmer’s cheese to the bland grains, is necessary to provide any flavor at all.

Red chile peppers drying on the front porch of a teahouse.

All over Bhutan, we saw people drying peppers on their roofs! It provided us with ample colorful photo opportunities. Everywhere — we could snap photos of the drying peppers on the roofs or porches. We also saw merchants selling apples and vegetables on the roads, although I can’t say with any authority whether either of these are staples in Bhutanese diet although I read that these foods are part of the Bhutanese diet in warmer climates in the country. The nomads who live in the high mountains of the north depend on yak butter and cheese to provide them with important calories for staying warm. Having tasted ‘butter tea’, I am sure that I would perish in the highlands! Nepali dahl (lentils) is another food that is popular throughout Bhutan.

Roadside Apple Vendor

Remember that the Bhutanese people are Buddhist. That means that they do not kill animals. It does not necessarily mean that they do not eat meat, but what meat is found in Bhutan is most likely coming from India. Almost all of the meat that we were served, even chicken, was inedible. Beef or pork was so tough that it could not be chewed. The chicken was always chopped up in some way so that there were a lot of bones in it. I finally gave up on meat and ate primarily vegetables, rice, or noodles at every meal. Our meals were ALWAYS served with vegetables….especially cauliflower, broccoli and green beans. My over-riding impression is that this is a country where people eat to live; they don’t live to eat. Food was very bland and ordinary; meals were always the same. The bright spot in our day as tourists was the morning when eggs were sometimes served to order. I started eating two eggs every time I could, just to get some protein into my system. There were no sweets to remark on. If dessert was served, it was a fruit. I have to admit that I returned to the U.S. a couple of pounds lighter, probably from the combination of travel, bland food, and some heat deprivation. This trip was billed as a ’suitcase seminar’. The focus of the trip was learning about the country and culture, not spending time in luxury hotels and eating gourmet meals. On occasion we found hotels that offered wine. I have to say that the wine was terrible! Beer was a much more reliable choice if you wanted to have an alcoholic drink.

Hand-painted boxes discovered in a craft tent in Bhutan.

Probably the most interesting part of any tour to new country for me is experiencing the opportunity to see the local arts and crafts. I realize from my many years of collecting that I love folk art!

During one of our first days of touring, we visited a craft school where children were learning traditional Bhutanese arts and crafts. This was a good introduction to the array of items made in Bhutan. Traditional skills or crafts are defined as zorig chusum. ‘Zo’ means the ability to make, ‘rig’ stands for the science or craft, ‘chusum’ is thirteen — as there are thirteen traditional crafts recognized. Many of these practices have been gradually developed through the centuries and are often passed down through families with long-standing relations to a particular craft. We saw children learning to do traditional embroidery, called ‘tshenzo’, which means working with needle and thread on clothes, boots or appliqued ‘thangkas’ (religious wall hangings).  Other children were learning to carve masks, most often in the image of demons. Some were painting and drawing; others were working in sculpture.

We also visited a paper factory. ‘Dezo’ is the craft of making handmade paper, mainly from the Daphne plant and gum from a creeper root. While it was very interesting seeing how the pulp was boiled down and then transformed into sheets, I can’t say that I was very impressed with any of the end products. We were told that the workers were paid by the number of pieces that each one completed even though it was somewhat of an assembly line process. The woman who was smoothing out the initial sheets of paper from a tub of water looked like she had the most difficult job, with her hands in and out of water all day long. The sheets of wet paper were dried on large heated boards standing like over-sized ladders.

Young women doing traditional weaving in a local craft shop in Paro.

I regularly made the rounds of tourist stores featuring arts and crafts. One store we visited had a whole wall of young women working on looms, making traditional Bhutanese weavings. These weavings are mostly turned into ‘kiras’ — the traditional Bhutanese skirt for women. A kira is a length of fabric which is rolled around the body like a full-length skirt. It was in that store that I bought myself a traditional silk jacket worn by the Bhutanese women, along with the ‘under jacket’ which was a plain silk color to coordinate with the fancier top jacket — the collar and cuffs of the sleeves are pulled up and over the top jacket. I also bought a couple of smaller weavings similar to scarves in size.

My best find was two little painted wooden boxes. These wooden boxes are traditionally used for storing or transporting food such as butter or cheese. They are usually just plain colored balsam wood — but these boxes are painted in Bhutanese designs. I have them displayed on my bookcases.

Prayer beads are found in quantity in Bhutan. Many are new, but many are also old beads which I opted to buy. I have two sets that I will wear as they are — one is a string of turquoise beads and the other is a string of yellow/gold beads. I bought another two strings to take apart and use to make some authentic tribal jewelry. One set of beads is  made of carved yak bone and infused with turquoise and silver. The other is a string of dark beads with turquoise specks showing through.

Necklace made with Bhutanese prayer beads carved out of yak bone with added antique silver beads from India and natural stone.

Inscription reading "Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product" -- written on the wall of a school teaching traditional Bhutanese arts and crafts.

As much as the concept of Gross National Happiness is promoted in Bhutan, there exists a clash between traditional values and modern development. We had the opportunity during our trip to meet an Bhutanese author, Kinley Dorji, who has written a book titled Within the Realm of Happiness. It is a collection of thirteen short stories, memoirs, and essays that represent a mix of childhood memories, travel tales and contemporary reflections on a rapidly changing populace. As Bhutan joins the modern world, Kinley Dorji provides sensitive insights into the dilemmas that the people, and society, confront every day.

If you remember from last week’s post about Gross National Happiness, Bhutan only started to change from a feudal system to a modern democracy in the 1950s. At present time, only sixty years later, Bhutan society is under more pressure than ever before from the forces of globalization, the invasion of commercial media, and the complex implications of development. These forces are tugging at the roots of the traditional values system that kept the Bhutanese society intact for centuries. Decades of spiritual practice and honest hard work is threatened by the forces of materialism.The real challenge is that Bhutan must control change and not be controlled by change.

There are rebels to the traditional values system. While there is a national dress code requiring the populace to wear traditional costumes in public, I noticed that many young people changed to jeans and modern western clothing in the evenings. There is a story in Kinley Dorji’s book about a young couple who convinced their parents to use the family’s savings to buy a television set rather than a diesel-powered rice mill. The television is set up in the living room, opposite the family altar, and its ‘glistening presence’ commands the room. From there, an upsetting tale is told about teenage girls dancing to gyrating music in front of an audience of twenty people who have never seen anything like this before. The evening ends with younger people drinking and watching films they don’t understand because the dialogue is foreign, but they are fascinated by the action. The older people go home because their sight is not so good and they prefer the outdoor dancing of their times. The clash of traditional values vs. modernization is obvious.

Old bridge that was moved from Eastern Bhutan to a new location that is more accessible to tourists.

The preservation of traditional values is also tied to economics. Tourism is the second most important contribution to the economy of Bhutan, the first being the sale of hydropower to India. Because of tourism’s contribution to the economy, it is important for Bhutan to preserve its monuments, temples, and unique ties to tantric Bhuddism. Seeing everyone dressed in national costumes and adherence to the ‘old ways’ helps keep Bhutan a unique tourist destination. In fact, we visited an ancient bridge that we later learned was moved from a location further east than its present location. Why was it moved? Because it was not accessible to tourists in its original location. Bhutan needs to greatly improve its infrastructure to accommodate more tourists. This includes both improvements in road systems and hotel standards.

Our tour bus -- typical of the small buses that travel through the country.

I recently had the opportunity to visit the country of Bhutan, the Land of the Thunder Dragon (as the Bhutanese refer to themselves….), as part of a Stanford University Study Group. Our trip was described as a ’suitcase seminar’ meaning that a professor traveled along with us who lectured about the history, economics and culture of the country. It also meant that our accommodations would be booked in the ‘best available’ — that was ‘code’ for expect-some-less-than-western-standard hotels. That was okay with me as I subscribe to the theory that it is the ‘journey’ that is important plus I have some funny stories to now share about some of the places we stayed.

I had always wanted to visit Bhutan, a mountain culture which I expected to find somewhat similar to my own mountain community of Telluride, Colorado. Indeed there are some similarities: life at high altitude (although the central region of Bhutan is not as high as Telluride), reverence of nature, a pace of life that is quieter and simpler than life in larger, busier communities. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that I would never catch even a glimpse of the high Himalayas during my visit. The highway infrastructure is so undeveloped that there are simply no roads that lead to the northern third of the country. The only way to access the high Himalayas is by trekking. There is a famous trek in Bhutan called ‘the Snowman Trek’ which takes visitors north into the mountains, into regions inhabited only by a small percentage of Bhutanese nomads. These people move around with their herds of yaks and sheep, much like the Mongolian nomads. It sounds like more of a ‘young man’s adventure’ to me — strictly camping, living outside in extreme temperatures, hiking up and down valleys, limited food.

I learned that most of the Bhutanese people live in the central region of Bhutan where the largest cities of Thimphu and Paro are located. There is a major two-lane highway that travels east and west through the central region, and this is the main artery for traffic back and forth. The roads are narrow, twisty, and not in very good repair. They are used by trucks and cars alike. Most vehicles are small buses, like the two that we were traveling in, that could wind their way up and down through the mountain valleys on the narrow roads even if dancing precariously close to the edges. I found myself leaning to the inside on more than one occasion!

The 'Main Artery' road through the mountains. We are are meeting on-coming delivery trucks.

The southern part of Bhutan is mostly a farming region and is populated by Nepalese people who have settled across their borders from Nepal.  Historically, the Bhutanese and the Nepalese are very different people originating from different Asian roots. The Bhutanese are most closely related to Tibetans and Burmese people; the Nepalese are more closely related to the people in India and they are Hindu. Bhutan is the only country in the world that claims Buddhism as its official religion. The people practice Tantric Buddhism which dominates every aspect of life in Bhutan.

Many of us who are U3b may or may not know that mtdna haplogroup U3b is often found in the Romany populations of Europe. 55% of Romany are U3b. The fact is, many of us with the U3b dna have origins in Eastern Europe. Don Locke, the administrator of the Romany DNA Project wants to remind us, however, that U3b is NOT South Asian in origin — it was introduced into the Romany population during their migration to Europe.

U3b, found in many Roma clans of Europe, is a good hint to a possible Romany connection in our family trees. There is a reason however, for much more admixture on the female side of the Romany family trees than on the Romany male side: the Romany are more willing to accept European females into the clan than they would be likely to accept European men. Typically, when a European male marries a Roma female, they are banished from the clan whereas when Romany males marry European females, the European females are typically more accepted. Most European men were not willing to conform to Romany customs and traditions so Romany women who married outside of the clan were usually banished whereas European women who married Romany men usually adapted to Romany customs and traditions. So….the U3b admixture found among the Romany typically comes from European females marrying into the Romany clans.

Autosomal testing could be an important factor in determining Romany roots. While U3b can be a good clue to a possible Roma connection in one’s family tree because it is found among multiple Roma populations, autosomal testing should point up some South Asian origins from the male lineage. Y-Haplogroup H is dominant in males among the populations of India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan. Because of their South Asian roots, haplogroup H1a-M82 is a major lineage cluster in the Balkan Romani group, accounting for some 60% of the total males. Also, a variation of H1 is also reported in one-third of the males from traditional Romany populations living in Bulgaria, Spain, and Lithuania. This high prevalence of Asian-specific Y chromosome haplogroup H1 supports the theory of Indian origin in Romany clans and a hypothesis of a small number of founders diverging from a single ethnic group in India.

Don Locke presents this metaphor as an explanation of the relation of U3b to Romany populations:  “If we look at the Romany as a wheel, the hub of the wheel or the cog as it is known, is the Founder Romany population i.e. the direct Indian descendants. From that cog are spokes branching out for those who are related to that founder population which in turn forms the wheel or family tree of the Romany. There are direct Asian Indian Romany, and then there is everyone else who forms the spokes of the wheel. Everything revolves around the cog of the wheel, and everyone directly related to the cog form the many spokes which are Romany or part-Romany in origin.”

Although many U haplogroups are found in India, U3b is NOT. It is not South Asian in origin. The conclusion is that mtU3b is NOT part of the cog but instead a spoke of that wheel that appears to have been introduced during the migration of the Romany into Europe.