Lepcha

The Lepcha are an indigenous people of Sikkim and the Darjeeling hills, regarded as the earliest inhabitants of Sikkim. They speak a Tibeto-Burman language with its own script and traditionally followed a nature religion before many adopted Buddhism. Tradition tells of a blood-brotherhood between the Lepcha chief Thekong Tek and the Bhutia ancestor Khye Bumsa that prepared the founding of the Namgyal kingdom in 1642.