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$Unique_ID{bob00407}
$Pretitle{}
$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
see
tables
}
$Date{1973}
$Log{See Table 4.*0040701.tab
}
Title:       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 labor, scavenging and other tasks traditionally regarded as
menial or defiling are performed by the various untouchable castes.

Pahari

     The Pahari, or Parbate (literally, "people of the mountains"), are
predominantly North Indian in physical type with some increment or Mongoloid
traits derived from mixture with such groups as the Magar and Gurung. They are
divided into the high "clean" or "twice-born" castes (Khasiya) and the low
"unclean" or "polluting" castes (Dom). The Khasiya castes comprise the Brahman
or Kshatriya varna. The term "Khasiya" or "Kha," however, often refers
restrictively to the high castes of the hills, most of whom are of the
Kshatriya varna. The Brahmans have three castes: Upadhyaya, Kumai and Jaisi;
the Kshatriya have four: Thakur, Chetri, Khatri and Hamal. The Jaisi are
peasant farmers and, unlike the Upadhyaya and Kumai Brahmans, perform only
limited priestly functions; some engage in astrology and fortunetelling. The
untouchable Dom group includes such occupational castes as Sarkhi
(leatherworkers), Kami (metalworkers), Damai (tailors and musicians), Hurkiya
(drummers), Kusule (sweepers and musicians) and Sunar (goldsmiths). The
Nepalese Pahari received influxes of high-caste refugees from India during the
Moslem invasions of North India (eleventh through sixteenth centuries), and
following the conquest of the Newar kingdoms of the Katmandu Valley were in
close contact with the important urban centers of North India. It is highly
probable, therefore, that the traditions of the Pahari living in and around
Katmandu Valley are more comparable to the customs of Indians living on the
Gangetic Plain than are those of their rural counterparts in western Nepal.

     The majority of the Pahari belong to the Khasiya category. High-caste
status in itself does not bring wealth, and most of the Khasiya are small
landowning farmers, growing rice, barley, wheat and corn, and raising a few
animals. The members of the smaller but still sizable, Dom group support
themselves by handicraft skills, menial services and farm labor on the
holdings of high-caste farmers. All the castes needed to carry out the work of
the rural community are not usually present in a single village but are apt to
be distributed in a number of adjacent villages, which become linked by ties
of economic, ritual and social interdependence. Such ties tend to be
reinforced by the fact that men must normally seek brides from outside their
village, since their own local caste group is apt to consist of no more than a
few closely related families. Brahmans may take Kshatriya wives and there is
some intermarriage across ethnic lines, but the normal pattern is to marry
within one's caste and ethnic group.

     The Pahari household ideally consists of a man, his wife, their unmarried
children and married sons with their wives and children. The adult males of
this group own property in common, although the father exercises authority and
control over it and over the earnings of all members of the family. This
extended family household usually breaks up upon the death of the father,
since the eldest brother cannot compel younger brothers to remain if they wish
to claim their share of the estate and set up on their own. Brothers sometimes
continue to reside together under the leadership and authority of the eldest.
In the next generation, however, the family household is dissolved and the
joint estate is usually divided among the grandsons of the original head of
the family, who then establish their own households.

     Women of all castes make an important economic contribution to their
families through their activities in agriculture and animal husbandry as well
as through their duties in the home, and, in general, their status is somewhat
higher than that traditionally accorded women in Hindu India. At marriage the
family of the bridegroom bears the expenses of the wedding and formerly gave,
and in some areas still gives, an agreed-upon sum in cash to the family of the
bride. The bride's family, however, is expected to use the money it receives
to pay for entertaining the wedding guests.

     In contrast, the Hindu Indian custom is for the bride's family to provide
a dowry for the daughter and pay the wedding expenses, and many wealthy Indian
Pahari families have adopted this practice. In and around Katmandu the
practice of giving a bride-price appears to have been abandoned. A dowry, on
the other hand, is usually not demanded from the bride's family, although it
generally pays for the expenses of the wedding. In western Nepal the
traditional Pahari custom of paying a bride-price probably persists, as it
does among the Pahari in the neighboring mountain areas of India. Divorce,
authorized by the new Mulki Ain, formerly had no legal sanction. Separated
women, as well as widows, however, did form new unions. Among the rural
Pahari, the widow who remarried ideally married her dead husband's younger
brother.

     The "untouchable" Dom castes engage in a range of handicraft and service
activities which in most of India would be occupations of the Shudra as well
as of the untouchable castes. Among the Pahari the term "achut" (untouchable),
which the high castes use to refer to the Dom, means that the high-caste
person may not accept food or water from the untouchable and that members of
the Dom group must not touch utensils and dishes of the high castes or cross
the threshold of their houses.

     There are a number of other restrictions on the Dom which serve to
continually remind them of their ritual impurity and low status, but some
status distinctions existing among the Dom are recognized by the high castes.
A Kamai or a Damai, for example, is considered to be less defiling than a
Sarki or a Pore. On the whole, there is a great deal of friendly, informal
social intercourse in the villages between high-caste persons and the artisans
of the Dom group. The demand for the services of the artisan generally extends
beyond his own village, and he is likely to practice skills which
theoretically belong to different castes. Each artisan or service caste member
usually has a series of high-caste farming families for whom he works,
receiving in payment a fixed proportion of the harvest, the exact amount
varying with the size of the household or landholding of the farmer and the
type of service performed, such as mending plows, butchering animals, playing
drums at festivals, tailoring or cleaning. The arrangement is supposed to be a
permanent one, but in practice there is a good deal of shifting from one
high-caste patron to another. Dom families seldom own farmland, although they
usually have the use of some land as tenants to supplement their small
earnings from their traditional occupations.

Newar

     The Newar, who make up about half the population of the Katmandu Valley,
have lived there for perhaps more than 15 centuries. Whatever their ultimate
antecedents, which remain problematical, many of them are markedly Mongoloid
in physical type, and they retain a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman
family. Although many Newar are farmers, their villages, with masonry
dwellings of several stories, have a distinctively urban flavor. Their
concentration in the Valley, their relatively high educational level and,
since the fall of the Ranas, their economic prosperity are enabling them to
play an important role in the civil and political life of the country. For
example, the members of the Palace Secretariat since 1951 have been Newar.

     Long and intimate contact with Indian civilization, both directly in the
Indo-Gangetic Plain and as mediated through the now dominant Pahari, has
assimilated them to the Indo-Nepalese category without, however, destroying
their cultural distinctiveness. At an early date they accepted Indian Buddhism
and, somewhat later, Hinduism, the caste system and Hindu political ideas and
organization. Fusing these Indian-derived features with elements of their own,
they developed a high civilization with a distinctive literature, style of
architecture, religion and decorative art.

     The Newar castes, Buddhist as well as Hindu, are no less
pollution-conscious than the Pahari and the Indians. Caste endogamy, however,
which has been one of the main methods of maintaining status in India, is not
strictly observed in Nepal by either the Newar or the Pahari. The strictest
rules governing the relations between members of different castes are those
pertaining to commensality. Boiled rice and dal (a sauce made of lentils), in
particular, must not be accepted from a person of lower caste. Other rules
further restrict social intercourse between the castes, but they tend to be
treated more casually.

     Newar caste structure resembles more closely that of north India than
that of the Pahari, in that all four varna (Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya and
Shudra) and untouchables are represented. There are about 70 Newar, Hindu
and Buddhist castes. About 30 of these are reported to be untouchables. Most
castes have specific religious duties and functions in the festivals as well
as traditional occupational specializations. The division into Hindu and
Buddhist castes has not been regarded by the Newar as a serious cleavage,
since both groups share the same basic values and social practices and are
in close accord in their underlying religious philosophy. Many Newar, in
fact, participate in many of the observances of both religions.

     The two highest Buddhist castes, the Gubhaju and Bare, which correspond
to the Brahman castes of the Hindu section, are composed of the lineages and
families descended from Buddhist monks who some centuries ago, under Hindu
influence and pressure, dropped the rule of celibacy. The married monastics
continued living in religious communities and their descendants are now
divided into a number of partly fictive descent groups, each living in a
cluster of buildings grouped around a central courtyard, from which they
continue to carry out their traditional religious functions for the Buddhist
section of the community. A subgroup of the Bare, the Sakya, traditionally
engaged in the production of sacred objects and the building and repair of
temples, are enjoying prosperity by producing art objects for the tourist
trade.

     Apparently there are no Kshatriya castes in the Buddhist section,
although the Shresta, or Sheshyo, may have held this status at the time
when Newar kings ruled the Katmandu Valley. Since the Gurkha conquest,
however, the Shresta have been generally considered to belong to the Vaishya
varna. Although most Shresta think of themselves as Hindus and employ
Brahman family priests, there is a sizable group of Buddhist Shresta living
in Katmandu as well as smaller groups in other parts of the Valley. Buddhist
Shresta who have become wealthy have tended to turn from Buddhist to Brahman
priests, although this tendency is perhaps being affected by the recent
resurgence of Newar interest in Buddhism reported by some observers. Also in
the Vaishya varna is the Uda, or Urha, caste-which has traditionally engaged
in trade with Tibet, maintaining a small colony in Lhasa and adopting Tibetan
religion and customs-and a number of artisan castes-carpenters, bakers,
coppersmiths, stonemasons and tilemakers.

     At the bottom of the ritually clean category is the Shudra varna. It
comprises the rural caste of agriculturalists (Jyapu) and a number of artisan
groups, such as lime quarriers, cloth dyers, oil pressers, blacksmiths,
painters and barbers. Of these artisan castes the barbers have the highest
rank and enjoy certain ritual privileges which the others do not have. Below
all these are the untouchable occupational castes of butchers, leatherworkers,
fishermen, sweepers, charcoalers, drum makers, musicians, and washermen.

     The highest caste of the Hindu section, the Deo Brahmans, were the
family priests of the Malla kings, who reigned in the Valley before the Gurkha
conquest. Below them are the Jha Brahmans, who have less important religious
functions and do not act as family priests. Traditionally, at least, neither
caste married Nepali-speaking Pahari Brahmans.

     Below the Brahman varna is a large caste of heterogeneous origins, the
Shresta, which is divided not only into Hindu and Buddhist sections but also
into subgroups of different status. These subgroups do not appear to
constitute actual subcastes since they intermarry and accept food from each
other. Although most Shresta, both Hindu and Buddhist, are commonly held to
be Vaishya, some Hindu Shresta clan groups-Malla, Pradhan and Rajbandari-are
universally recognized as Kshatriya. These three clans are often considered
to constitute a distinct caste, although they continue to eat with and marry
other Shresta of somewhat lower status. Conversely, the lowest Shresta
subgroups will sometimes accept husbands, as well as wives, from the Jyapu
and other castes of the Shudra varna. The only untouchable caste that might
be considered Hindu rather than Buddhist is that of the tailor-musicians
(Jogi).

     A considerable number of Newar have settled outside the Katmandu Valley.
Some of these enclaves have abandoned Newari for Nepali, given up the caste
system, ceased to observe many Newar customs and, retaining their Newar
identity, have intermarried with other ethnic groups. On the other hand, where
the Newar outside the Valley form compact communities in administrative and
trading centers, they retain their traditional culture and social
organizations, and they marry only within their own group.

Tharu

     The largest of a number of little-known ethnic groups in the Nepalese
Tarai is the Tharu, who are also found in the Tarai region of Uttar Pradesh,
west of Nepal. Those in Nepal were enumerated at more than 300,000 in the
census of 1952-54. Two groups, the Bhoksa in the west and the Mechi in the
east, appear to belong to this ethnic group. Their cultural patterns in the
last century were said to resemble those of tribal groups in the Bihar State
of India. The little information available on the Tharu in Nepal today
suggests that, like those in Uttar-Pradesh, they have been increasingly
subject to Hindu influences.

     The Tharu apparently have largely abandoned their earlier pattern of
shifting cultivation for wet-rice agriculture with the result that most of
their scattered villages have become permanent settlements. Each house in a
village is usually set apart from the others by its surrounding fields.
Villagers are united by close ties of kinship and each settlement is a tightly
knit social unit of cooperation and mutual obligation.

     The village has a council which arbitrates disputes and a headman who
collects taxes and rents, paying them either directly to a government tax
office or to a tax concessionaire who may have a government contract to
collect taxes in more than one village. The headman usually has a messenger
to assist him, who also acts as a sort of town crier. Most villages also have
a shaman who propitiates and exorcises evil spirits, sacrifices to the gods
(who include Hindu deities and Moslem saints as well as indigenous gods) and
prescribes herbal and magical remedies for the sick (see ch. 9, Religion).

     Originally, the Tharu were organized into endogamous units (kuri), which
were divided into two groups of unequal status. In recent years, however, in
India and presumably in Nepal the higher status group has begun claiming
royal descent from Rajput, or Thakur, ancestors, who allegedly intermarried
with the Tharu after their flight from the Moslem conquerors of northern
India. The group of lower status has not attempted to claim royal descent
and its members call themselves simply "Thakur" rather than "Rana (royal)
Thakur." Neither group should be confused with the Pahari Thakuri caste.
While the superior group, the Rana Thakur, has become a single endogamous
unit, the lower group has retained its separate endogamous kuri.

Indians of the Tarai

     Little detailed information on the Indian-derived majority of the
inhabitants of the Nepalese Tarai is available. Although most of this group
are Nepalese nationals, they are culturally and linguistically part of the
larger population of the adjacent north Indian plain of which the region is
a geographic extension. Indeed, many villages straddle the international
boundary, and, with the difficulty of communications with the interior of
Nepal, the Tarai continues to be socially and economically oriented to the
neighboring areas of the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh.

     Most of the country's small Moslem population is concentrated in the
Eastern and Midwestern Tarai. The few Buddhists in the area are found mainly
in the east. The castes of the Nepalese Tarai are those familiar in adjacent
parts of India, and significantly few of them are present elsewhere in
Nepal.

Others

     Along the northern edges of the Tarai, the Gangetic Plain gives way to
the foothills of the Himalayas, the Siwalik Range and the Mahabharat Lekh.
Various small ethnic groups inhabit the dense, malaria-infested monsoon
jungles of the area. They include such groups as the Darai, Rajbansi, Chepang,
Ksunda, Kumba, Majhi, Raji, Satar, Jirel and Byansi. These peoples who
formerly lived as small bands of hunters and gatherers have not been studied
in this century, and it is not known how many remain. Some, such as the
Rajbansi, who are also found in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal and
in Sikkim, are said to be related to peoples in Assam. Probably many of these
groups in the Tarai practice slash-and-burn agriculture, shifting their
settlements periodically when the fertility of the land is exhausted.
Presumably, many of them speak Austro-Asiatic languages, particularly those
belonging to the Munda branch of that family. Some, however, such as the
Byansi, speak Tibeto-Burman languages. They have long been subject to the
influence of the predominantly Hindu culture of the Tarai, and this process
can be expected to continue.

Tibeto-Nepalese

     The Tibeto-Nepalese category includes both indigenous and recently
arrived peoples. The Tamang, Magar, Rai, Gurung, Sunwar and Limbu have
occupied the valleys of eastern and central Nepal for centuries; some of the
Bhote, or Bhotiya (from the Tibetan name for Tibet), in the high Himalayas
on the country's northern border have come from Tibet in modern times.

     In the traditional social order the Buddhist clergy no doubt offered the
best path to higher status and prestige and, in time of internecine warfare,
the armies of the penlops may have provided similar opportunities. Individual
slaves were probably freed occasionally by their owners, and certain cmay have numbered about 2 million-roughly 20 percent of
the total population. The Tibeto-Nepalese groups range in size from the
Tamang, with an estimated 500,000 persons, to the Sunwar, with perhaps no
more than 20,000. Although the various groups are concentrated in particular
areas, individuals and small communities of most of them are found in many
parts of the country. They are predominantly subsistence farmers and
stock-raisers, and those in the high altitudes of the north live a
semi-nomadic existence, seasonally pasturing their herds at higher and lower
elevations.

     There has been some ethnically based political sentiment among them, as
in the case of the long semiautonomous Kiranti (Rai and Limbu) in the east.
The linguistic and cultural similarities among the various Tibeto-Nepalese
groups are too general, however, to give the whole category any real sense of
common ethnic identity. They speak a number of related but mutually
unintelligible languages, many of which are complicated by dialect divisions.
The majority adhere to a Tibetan-derived Buddhism but many have been Hinduized
by contact with the Indo-Nepalese, and a locally varied shamanism, which
persists alongside their more formal religious beliefs, further reduces the
force of religion as a unifying bond. All of these groups, even in their
areas of greatest concentration, are scattered in numerous self-sufficient
rural communities in which the strongest ties are those of kinship and
locality.

     Many of the Tibeto-Nepalese groups, such as the Gurung, Tamang, Sunwar,
Rai and Limbu, retain vestiges of a social division of the Tibetan type into
aristocrats and commoners. Formerly, the aristocracy did not intermarry
with commoners and constituted a landowning elite of officials and priests.
The aristocrats generally retained their local preeminence for some time after
the Gurkha conquest in the eighteenth century, frequently becoming unofficial
agents of the new dynasty as tax collectors and custodians of public order.
The Tibeto-Nepalese aristocracies still enjoy a favored economic position, but
their hereditary privileges have increasingly been challenged by commoners
returning from service in Gurkha regiments with pensions and savings which
have enabled them to acquire land and influence in their communities.

Tamang

     The Tamang are divided into named patrilineal exogamous clans, some of
which consider themselves to be related by descent from a remote common
ancestor. Intermarriage between these brother-clans is not permitted on
the ground that it would be incestuous. There is also a status division
between clans which have married only into other Tamang and Sherpa clans
and those which have intermarried with Newar, Gurung and Magar. The two
divisions of the Tamang normally do not intermarry.

     The Tamang live in villages composed of several hamlets, the inhabitants
of each of which apparently belong to a separate lineage. In areas where the
Tamang are the predominant ethnic group, each clan has rights over certain
areas of untaxed land which is owned in common (kipat) by clan members.
Depending upon the size of the village, there may be more than one mulmi
(headman, or tax collector) whose office rotates among the householders of
the clan owning the kipat in the village. The mulmi is responsible not only
for collecting land taxes but for controlling the village forest and for
arbitrating disputes.

     In addition to the mulmi, each village has a dhami, or priest, who
normally belongs to the clan of the village founder and who conducts the
seasonal agricultural rites and offers sacrifices to the deities and
spirits. In a village containing several clans, each clan may have a
dhami to conduct rites in honor of its ancestors and often to act as shaman
to contact the gods and spirits. The larger villages in predominantly Tamang
areas also have Buddhist temples (ghyang), which are similar to the Sherpa
and Tibetan gompa. Occasionally, there are small monasteries of celibate
monks and perhaps a few nuns.

     In areas where they are in the minority and particularly in the hills
surrounding the Katmandu Valley, the Tamang have become tenant farmers, day
laborers and porters, carrying trade goods. In these areas of mixed
population, where the Tamang live among Pahari and Newar castes, they are
gradually assuming the character of a caste of low economic and ritual
status, although they appear to retain their Buddhist religion.

Magar

     The Magar are most numerous in the mountains of central Nepal but they
are also found in other parts of the country, particularly the east. Some
of the more northern Magar, though retaining their Magar identity and
regarding themselves as superior to their Tibetan neighbors, have adopted
Tibetan speech and dress. In this, and in their adherence to Lamaist
Buddhism, they contrast with the Magar farther south who have been subject
to strong Hindu influences. These Magar communities, long in contact with
the Indo-Nepalese, have accepted Hindu religious beliefs and practices in
varying degree and been drawn into the caste system. Nepali has become the
first language of many.

     Ties of kinship and marriage connect neighboring Magar villages, and
clan membership acts to extend the sense of group identity beyond the
village community. As in earlier times, the patrilineal Magar clans are
apparently divided into high and low status groups. Some Magar, however,
claim that the clans are all of equivalent status. Marriage between members
of the same clan does not seem to be prohibited so long as the couple is not
of the same lineage. The landowning unit appears to be the nuclear or the
extended family. There are some landless families, however, who support
themselves by sharecropping and day labor. Others engage in craft skills,
mining and, in the north, the salt trade and pastoralism.

Rai

     The largest Tibeto-Nepalese group in eastern Nepal is the Rai, and Rai
are also found farther east in India, Sikkim and Bhutan. In Nepal the group
contains two major divisions, the Khambu and Yakha, both of which are
organized into patrilineal clans and lineages. Linguistically, the Rai are
commonly grouped with the Limbu, Thami and Dhimal as speakers of Kiranti
dialects.

     Much of the little known about the Rai relates to those who have
emigrated from Nepal to work in the tea gardens around Darjeeling in India.
These people have adopted various Hindu social and religious elements as
superior to their own. These borrowings, however, seem to have augmented
rather than to have replaced their native customs. Among the Rai generally,
whether Buddhist or Hindu, shamanism and the cult of lineage ancestors
persist as an important form of religious activity.

Gurung

     The Gurung are organized into patrilineal, exogamous clans, divided
into two groups of differing status-Charjat and Solahjat. Each of these
two divisions, in theory, although no longer in fact, is endogamous and
the group of lower status, the Solahjat, frequently intermarries with other
ethnic groups as well as with the Charjat. The Charjat clans apparently
are descended from a privileged class in early Gurung society, which comprised
the royal lineage, high officials and hereditary priests. Until recently the
largest landowners and the most important village officials were members of
Charjat clans. Service in the Gurkha regiments as commissioned and
noncommissioned officers has given many men of lower status Solahjat clans
the means to acquire large landholdings and membership in the village
councils. However, most village headmen still come from the Charjat clans,
and Charjat continue to own most of the valuable irrigated riceland. Many
of the Gurung depend more on animal husbandry than on agriculture for their
subsistence, grazing their cattle on the communally owned mountain meadows
in the summer and feeding them in winter fields at lower elevations.

     Although a considerable portion of the Gurung are Lamaist Buddhists,
many have adopted Hinduism. Probably shamanism persists among all of them.
Gurung villages, especially in the north, are reported to have women's clubs
or dance houses, in which on suitable occasions the young people hold
all-night parties, singing, dancing, smoking, eating, drinking and courting.
It is probable that these clubs have been abandoned in the more Hinduized
Gurung villages. The dance house institution is present among the Bhote,
from whom it may have been borrowed, since the northernmost Gurung speak
Bhote dialects as well as Gurung and closely resemble the Bhote in their
pastoral way of life and religious observances.

Sunwar

     The Sunwar patrilineal exogamous clans reportedly are divided into two
groups of unequal status. The group of lower status, as among the Tamang,
is said to be descended from marriages of Sunwar men with women of other
ethnic groups. The higher status group presumably has married only into the
other Sunwar clans. Further information is lacking, but the Sunwar apparently
maintain close relations with the Gurung and Magar and share many of their
social patterns.

Limbu

     Relatively little has been reported about the Limbu. They speak a Kiranti
language, as do the Rai, whom they also resemble in their organization into
exogamous patrilineal clans. Their villages lie to the east of the Rai toward
the boundary with Sikkim and India, and reportedly there is some intermarriage
between them and the Lepcha who have come into the area from Sikkim.
Intermarriage with the more Hinduized Rai is also common. The Limbu village
is said generally to comprise several lineages. Land seems to be held in
common by extended kin groups under the kipat system, with individual
families having use rights. In theory such holdings cannot be alienated, but
they can be mortgaged, and it appears that among the Limbu this has led to
the effective concentration of much of the land in the hands of a few
headmen. The Limbu are said to maintain Buddhist lamaseries. Shamanism is
also practiced, and the role of shaman is hereditary in certain lineages.

Bhote

     Information about the Bhote groups, except for the Sherpa and the
Thakali, is scanty. All apparently show the common Tibeto-Nepalese hereditary
social dichotomy into high and low status divisions. Among the Sherpa, at
least, the higher division is more numerous. The inferior division in all
groups seems to be associated with tasks regarded as ritually dangerous
or morally reprehensible, such as slaughtering animals or disposing of the
dead. In marriages between Bhote of different groups, the partners are
expected to be of equivalent status.

     The patrilineal and exogamous clans of the Sherpa are not localized
but are widely distributed over the Sherpa area. Neither a residential nor
an economic unit, the clan is important as a device for regulating marriage,
and it has some ceremonial functions, as when fellow clansmen in the same
village pool their resources for a feast when they have brought their animals
down to the main villages from the high pastures at the end of summer.

     The socially and ritually integrated community among the Sherpa is
the main village with its Buddhist temple (gompa). Each family has its
principal house here, but most also own smaller dwellings at higher
and lower altitudes. During much of the year various members of any
particular household are likely to be away from the main village, cultivating
valley fields during the short growing period and tending their herds at
higher or lower pastures depending on the season. Households vary in
composition from those consisting simply of the nuclear family to polygamous
units based on marriages between a man and several women or a woman and
several men (usually brothers). As sons marry, they usually receive a share
of the family's property in land and animals and set up new households. The
youngest son or, in the absence of a son, the youngest daughter inherits
the residual estate and supports the aged parents.

     Differences in wealth among Sherpa villagers are considerable but, more
than among the agricultural populations at lower altitudes, prestige depends
not merely on wealth but on its conspicuous and socially meritorious
expenditure. A rich man is expected to make donations to the gompa, give alms
to lamas or nuns, hire lamas to recite religious texts at funeral services,
purification ceremonies and memorial rites for ancestors, build temples,
stupas, prayer walls and provide feasts for fellow villagers and lamas. All
this tends to redistribute the wealth acquired through trade and animal
husbandry and prevent any permanent monopolization of resources and
concentration of wealth.

     The small Thakali population, situated on the upper reaches of the Kali
Gandaki River-south of Mustang, on one of the major trade routes between
India and Tibet-has long been deeply involved in wholesale trade between the
two countries and has thus been exposed to considerable Indian influence. The
shrine Muktinath in their area is a sacred place for both major religions,
Hinduism and Buddhism, although it seems originally to have been a Buddhist
shrine. The Thakali are reported to have four named patrilineal exogamous
clans. Four lineages of one of these clans living in the main town of Tukucha
are said to monopolize the long-distance wholesale trade; the remainder of the
group engages mainly in farming and to a lesser degree in animal husbandry.

     A tendency among the Thakali in the younger generation to turn away from
the traditional Bhote culture and lamaist religion has been accentuated by the
Indian education of a few and by influences from the Katmandu Valley. For many
who have adopted it, Hinduism seems to mean little more than acceptance of the
caste system, and, although Buddhist temples are allowed to fall into decay,
Hindu temples are seldom built to replace them. The older people, who largely
remain lamaist Buddhists, are said to lack the knowledge and training to
defend their faith against either the indifference or the criticism of the
young.

Foreigners

     The foreign community in 1963 consisted of perhaps a few thousand persons
in the diplomatic and aid missions of various countries and specialized
agencies of the United Nations and the small staffs of a few mission-supported
schools and hospitals. The group included an unknown but sizable number of
Indian advisers and technicians. Likewise unknown, but reportedly between 60
and 70 Chinese Communist engineers are directing the construction of the road
running southwest from Kodari on the Tibetan border toward the Katmandu
Valley. There has also been a growing number of tourists, mountaineers and
scientific investigators from other countries.

     Until 1951, Nepal was closed to foreigners, except for the few who came
by official invitation. There was, however, little possibility of controlling
the entry of Indians and Tibetans into areas outside the Katmandu Valley. No
data are available on the total number of alien Indians and Tibetans
permanently residing in Nepal. Of the Indians, several thousand are said to be
members of the Marwari caste engaged in trade and moneylending in the larger
towns. About 7,000 refugees from Communist-controlled Tibet were living in
small, scattered settlements, mainly along the northern border east of the
Jumla area (see ch. 21, Public Order and Internal Security).