Thar And Macrostatus Demography
In an attempt to get some rough idea of the numbers of families and individuals in the various thar s and status units, we asked various informants for estimations of numbers of households in various thar s. Subsequently Gutschow and Kölver (1975), using an early version of our macrostatus and thar lists, gathered survey data on the numbers of households in many of the units.[38] The total number of households located by Gutschow and Kölver was 5,216. Assuming that the 1971 census report of 6,484 households is accurate, this sample is incomplete, but not biased in any evident way. Certain thar s are clumped in their report—for instance, some groups of Chathariya and the large groups of Jyapus. Their materials (with four additions from our informants' estimations), however, give a basis for estimating rather closely the number of households incorporated in various segments of the system. The previous section listed the number of thar s that had various kinds of differential significance. As some thar s contain only two or three households while others may contain hundreds, however, a composite listing of thar s and the number of thar s at each level gives us limited demographic information. The number of discrete specialized thar s is of a different kind of significance for the structure and organization of the city than the quantitative extent of their various memberships.[39]
Table 1, modified from Gutschow and Kölver (1975), gives what is probably a close approximation of thar and status level demography.
Table 1 shows that out of a total of 6,450[40] households all but some
Table 1. | ||
Level | Household | Number |
I | Brahman | 32 |
II | Chathar | 677 |
III | Pa(n)cthar | 247 |
IV | Tini | 2 |
V | Jyapu | 1,867 |
VI | Tama: | 19 |
VII | Kumha: | 419 |
Awa: | 99 | |
VIII, IX | Combined, Jyapu thar s | 1,420 (total) |
X | Chipi | 466 |
XI | Cya | 5 |
XII | Dwi(n) | 1 |
XIII | "Borderline clean thar s" | 437 (total) |
Gatha | 56 | |
Bha | 19 | |
Kata: | 2 | |
Cala(n) | 16 | |
Khusa | 1 | |
Nau | 46 | |
Kau | 27 | |
Pu(n) | 25 | |
Sa:mi | 160 | |
Chipa | 82 | |
Pasi | 3 | |
XIV | Nae | 177 |
XV | Jugi | 57 |
XVI | Do(n) | 4 |
XVII | Kulu | 1 |
XVIII | Po(n) | 90 |
XIX | Halahulu | 1 |
Non-Newar Hindu households | ||
1 | Sakya Buddhists | 260 |
2 | Misra and Bhatta[*] Brahmans | 26 |
3 | Matha[*] priests | 6 |
4 | Gaine | 7 |
5 | Sarki | 6 |
7 | Mushm | 3 |
8 | Dhobi | 2 |
9 | Other ethnic groups (Tamang and Indo-Nepalese) | 129 |
eighty are "Newar." Of the Newars, approximately 6,110 households are in the Hindu core system, while 260 households are Buddhist Bare households, which are not directly involved in the core system. For the broader hierarchical and functional divisions of the core system, 32 households are Brahman; 924 households are at the "sahu" levels; 4,389 households are in the several Jyapu farming groups; and 765 households are engaged in services, crafts, and professions that are considered in some way to be polluting. Of these polluting households 435 have a borderline status, and 330 are unequivocally polluting.
By adding other available information on the number of households in particular thar s within the status levels amalgamated in Table 1, we can suggest the number of households within those thar s that have differentiated functions. Arranged in the grouping we used in the previous section, the number of households are as follows:
1. Priests, auxiliary priests, and para-priests. Total of 333 households: Rajopadhyaya Brahmans (32), Josi level II (44), Acaju level Ill (85), Josi level III (120), Tini (2), Acaju level IV (50).
2. Thar s engaging in stigmatized ritual-symbolic activities. Total of 649 households: Gatha (56), Katha (2), Nau (46), Pu(n) (25), Bha (19), Cala(n) (16), Khusa (1), Sa:mi (160), Nae (177), Jugi (57), Po(n) (90).
3. Stigmatizing, nonritual occupational specialties. Total of 113 households: Kau (27), Chipa (82), Do(n) (4).
4. Nonstigmatizing occupational specialities. Total of 844 households: Baidya level II (3), Baidya level III (8), Tama: (18), Kumha: (508), Awa: (99), Kami (194), Loha(n)kami (14).
5. Thar s, some of whose members have ritual or ceremonial functions in Bhaktapur's focal festivals and/or in association with the Taleju temple. The total number of households in the seventeen thar s with such functions is about 650.
The number of households in the forty-five specialized thar s, is on the average far more than those in the nonspecialized thar s. When we listed all the thar s in the city with a specialized function, they represented about 13 percent of all the city's thar s, among which twenty-eight, or 8 percent of all the city's thar s, had major differentiating importance. In terms of the number of households, however, there are some 2,589, or 40 percent of the city's households that are in thar s having some differentiated importance to the city, and about 29.5 percent of the households in thar s having major specializations.[41]
The numbers of households in a thar that follow its traditional speciality,[42] and the number of individuals in a household who do, vary greatly from thar to thar . Sometimes women are involved in the thar specialization (e.g., farmers, barbers, as purifiers); sometimes they are concerned with subsidiary aspects of the speciality (Brahman's wives for some rituals), or perhaps exclusively with the general running of the household and with other nonspecialized or subsidiary economic activities. Moreover, we do not know from such enumerations how those who do not participate in a thar's traditional activities, activities that define the thar , are affected by their membership.
These internal questions are not our present concern, however. It is the Kumha: as potter, not as farmer or bank clerk, who concerns us here, that is his defining and constituting role in the hierarchical urban system that becomes interwoven with deities, symbolic space, and symbolic performances in the mesocosmic segment of the city's order. For such purposes these demographic notes give a rough idea of the available numbers of role players in that mesocosmic system, numbers distorted by social change and by the loss of some of the controls that may once have more closely regulated the supply of labor in such immobile societies.