These backward ethnic communities belong to a well defined traditional area in the south of Dhading, the west of Makawanpur and east of Chitwan along the steeper slopes of Mahabharat range of the mid- Nepal. Very few of these hunting tribal people started deriving subsistence from agriculture. Otherwise, hunting, wood collection etc. have been their foremost living subsistence. Though , they are economically backward, they have a rich and unique cultural tradition. With the increasing encroachment of the forest ( their main living recourse) by themselves and other communities alike, these people lately started working in the development projects in the areas as hard labors.

Physionomically Mongoloid featured Chepangs (& Kusundas) resemble the Kirantis ( the Rais and Limbus) but their lineage to them is yet to be confirmed. Their totems are dog ( ' Che' is dog in their dialect) and arrow ( 'Pang' is arrow). Their dialect belong to the Tibeto - Burman group of languages. It, however, differs significantly to the Tamang dialect. The Tamangs live higher in the mountains than the Chepangs and the Brahmins and Chhetris live in the lower dales.

They call themselves Sunpraja and Praja. They consider themselves as progeny of Lava ( ' Lohari' in Chepang dialect) the son of lord Rama in the great Hindu epic Ramayana. According to the Legends, the goddess Sita, the consort of Lord Rama gave birth to a son Lava while she was in exile in a hermitage of sage Balmiki near Narayani river in Nepal. One day , she went with her son to take a bath in the Narayani river. The sage saw the cradle empty and created another living likeness of the baby out of Kusha grass, fearing that Sita would be shocked at not finding her son and blame the sage for not watching the baby properly. On her return from bath, Sita was startled to find another baby in the cradle. The sage, later on , explained her the details and advised her to raise both of them as her own sons. The other was brought up as Kusha.

Chepangs believe themselves as the progeny of Lava and Kusundas as the descendants of Kusha. ( or Kushari in Chepang dialect). Chepangs and Kusundas are natural enemies. Chepangs fear that Kusundas kill them on sight. Kusundas are still in the primitive stage and live in the forests and caves in the forests of southern part of Gorkha. It is believed that only few dozens of Kusundas exist in the forest. Chyuri ( an indigenous fruit) is their favorite fruit. A Chepang family not owning a Chyuri tree is considered poor and generally looked down upon.Chepang form an strict exogamous clan. Offspring from a Chepang woman and a non- Chepang man becomes a Chepang as they are not accepted by other orthodox castes.

They observe all the Hindu festivals of Dashain, Tihar and Sakrantis besides their own tribal festival Nwagi, which is performed on a Tuesday during third week of Bhadra ( some day in August and September). Chepangs do not possess other artistic skills of any kind except weaving of baskets and leaf umbrellas which they use for protection against rain. Very few Chepangs are literate. There still persists a tendency among the Chepangs to avoid schooling even if the government and other organization are trying to uplift their living standard.