Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0255/02555.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 43KB | 698 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02555}
$Pretitle{235D}
$Title{Nepal
Chapter 4B.   Ethnic Groups}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{George L. Harris}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{castes
caste
groups
group
status
newar
pahari
hindu
nepal
buddhist}
$Date{1973}
$Log{Table 4.*0255501.tab
}
Country:     Nepal
Book:        Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, An Area Study: Nepal
Author:      George L. Harris
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 4B.   Ethnic Groups

     A number of small Pahari kingdoms, or principalities, appear to have been
established in the valleys of western Nepal before the third century. Much
earlier, however, a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people, the Kirata, had settled in
the Katmandu Valley. Their origin and history are unclear. According to one
hypothesis, they were displaced in the Katmandu Valley in the sixth century
by another Tibeto-Burman-speaking group, the Newar. Some authorities place
the arrival of the Newar-whose origins are no less problematical than those of
the Kirata-centuries later. In any event the early inhabitants of the Valley
came to be called Newar. By the beginning of the Christian era the Newar, who
had adopted Buddhism, had developed an advanced civilization. Thereafter,
political power passed to a succession of Indian rulers who progressively
Hinduized the Valley. The Newar adopted the caste system of their conquerors,
but they retained their language and preserved their cultural identity in a
synthesis of Hinduism and their earlier Buddhist belief. In the course of this
development the Katmandu Valley was more or less continuously in contact with
the centers of Indian civilization to the south, but a period of vassalage to
Tibet exposed it to cultural influences from that quarter as well (see ch. 2,
Historical Setting).

     Outside the Katmandu Valley the complex Nepalese terrain was
contributing to the ethnic complexity of a slowly growing population of
varied origins. The Tarai, as a part of the Gangetic Plain, presented no
obstacles to the entry of Indians seeking new land, and it became virtually a
cultural extension of India. To the west, the advancing Pahari gradually
established themselves in the lower and more fertile valleys, leaving the
high, northern fringe to scattered groups of Tibeto-Burman-speaking Bhote
peoples. Finally penetrating central Nepal, some of the Pahari were drawn into
the comparatively urban complex of Katmandu. In the central region they also
met and mingled or fought with groups whose Tibeto-Burman speech and Mongoloid
physical type suggest ancient connections with the peoples of the Asian
mountain lands to the north and east. These peoples predominated in the east
and north and, in contrast to the Hindu-Indian affiliations of the Pahari,
their closest connections were with the cultures of Tibet and the
sub-Himalayan areas to the east. The basic pattern of ethnic distribution
which emerged from this history of migration, conquest and settlement-an
Indo-Nepalese west and south and a Tibeto-Nepalese north and east-still
persists, although it is increasingly being complicated by continued movement
and mingling of the population (see table 4).

Indo-Nepalese

     The larger Indo-Nepalese groups-the Pahari, the Newar and the Indians of
the Tarai-are organized into hereditary castes. Associated with particular
occupations and ordered in a hierarchy of ritual purity and social prestige,
they range from the priestly Brahmans and the warrior Kshatriyas at the top
to the untouchables at the bottom. Caste obligations and privileges and the
regulations designed to protect high caste individuals from ritual defilement
by contact with members of the lower castes are based on the Vedic
dharmashastras and other Hindu religious texts. Until 1963 this body of
customary rules was sanctioned by the legal code (Mulki Ain) of the kingdom.
In that year, however, a new code came into effect which prohibited all legal
discrimination on the basis of caste, abolished the laws sanctioning
untouchability, and permitted intercaste marriages. These provisions, which
were drafted at the behest of the King, were aimed, not at the abolition of
the caste system by fiat, but at the promotion of social harmony by making all
Nepalese subjects equal before the law.

[See Table 4.: Regional Distribution of Principal Ethnic and Linguistic Groups
of Nepal, 1952-54]

     Caste in Nepal has been neither as universal in its extension nor as
comprehensive in its sanction as in India, where it originated. Undoubtedly,
many of the attitudes, values and patterned relationships implicit in the
caste system will persist in large segments of the population. Caste, however,
can be expected in the course of time to lose its traditional mandatory force
in the regulation of group and personal behavior.

     Caste membership is acquired by birth and in theory cannot be changed.
People ideally marry only within their caste, but men may marry women of lower
caste, provided the difference is not great. These marriages usually are not
conducted with full religious ceremonies, and the offspring of such unions
generally have lower status than the father.

     In the Hindu system in India, castes (jati in Hindi; jatiya in Nepali)
are grouped into five broad categories. Four of these categories in descending
order of rank are the ritually clean varna (in Sanskrit, literally color or
sort) of Brahmans, or priests; Kshatriya, or nobles, Vaishya, or merchants and
farmers; and Shudra, or artisans and laborers. The fifth category comprises
the ritually unclean achut, or untouchables. The four varna and the
untouchable group are divided into thousands of castes and subcastes. In
contrast to these five categories, however, which are represented throughout
the subcontinent, the castes are essentially regional groups of persons whose
shared indentity is based not only on ritual status, occupational
specialization and caste name, but often on a claim of descent from a remote
common ancestor. Castes tend to fragment into local subcastes in which
marriage within the group adds the uniting force of actual kin ties.

     The castes within each of the four varna tend to be ranked among
themselves on a scale of ritual purity. Such ranking appears to vary locally,
and a given caste may have higher or lower status in different places relative
to others in its varna. Such refinements of grading develop in the interaction
of the castes in a particular area, and they reflect social, economic and
political differences in the circumstances of the castes of the same varna in
different localities.

     The untouchables have traditionally engaged in occupations associated
with filth, blood and death. Ranked below all the other castes, they are
considered to be outside the varna system and are sometimes called
"outcastes." They are organized into ranked castes, but from the viewpoint of
the members of the four clean varna, they are all unclean.

     In Nepal the traditional Hindu scheme of four varna and an untouchable
category is fully realized only among the Newar and the Indians of the Tarai.
By contrast, only the two highest varna-Brahman and Kshatriya-and the
untouchables are present among the Pahari. Moreover, the social practices
surrounding untouchability are generally milder than has been traditional in
India-especially in South India, where in some localities untouchables have
been forbidden to come within a certain distance of high-caste persons.

     Since castes do not function independently but only in relation to other
castes in a scheme of ritual and occupational interdependence, the castes in
each local area constitute a more or less autonomous system. A rural Pahari
community, for example, may include various castes of Brahmans, Kshatriya and
untouchables. Depending upon their caste, the Brahmans appear both as priests
and landlords and as peasant farmers. The Kshatriya castes include landlords,
landowning farmers and tenant cultivators. Blacksmithing, carpentry,
barbering, farm l