ABSTRACT
The military conquest of the Magarant, the Magar land, took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Thakuri petty kings and their dependents fled India to settle there. The Magar resistance appears to have been weak, due to their lack of unity and the alliances the conquerors formed with some of them. The Magar people quickly opted for assimilation into the royal caste of the Thakuri, adopting most of their cultural traits, notably their language and religion. In a polytheism as richly developed as that of central Nepal, where Hindu and Magar cultures are inextricably bound, the gods often lack distinct traits, and their functions are not clearly defined. The earth is ambivalent. It contains an intrinsic power that regenerates both men and demons. In the myth of the struggle between the first shaman and the nine witch sisters in the Gulmi region, the shaman is vanquished by the sorceresses, who rip out his heart and roast it.
