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Chapter Five The Distribution of Roles: The Macrostatus System

1. There is frequently a difference between the name that members of a thar use to refer to and to identify themselves, and the name by which outsiders refer to it. When it differs, the name used by outsiders may refer to a professional or occupational category, or it may be a name that has some pejorative connotation in the judgment of the thar members themselves. In the presence of membets of a thar outsiders may often use a third, an honorific, name. For the most part in this work we use the ordinary names used by outsiders m references to a thar . [BACK]

2. In Bhaktapur, in contrast to its common use in Kathmandu and other cities, Srestha[ *] is used by only one traditionally low group, the Cipi, whose traditional status is below the farming groups, but who are now engaged mostly in upper-level socioeconomic activities. [BACK]

3. Fürer-Haimendorf also notes that Chetri thars are not unilineal descent groups "in the narrow sense of the term. All members of the Bista clan [for example] no doubt consider each other as linked in an undefined way, but the fact that those who are of different lineage are not debarred from intermarriage excludes a fiction of patrilineal descent from a common ancestor" (1966, 30). [BACK]

4. Different thars may have internal differences in details of their religious practices, styles of life, and internal political organization, which in part derive from the thar's origins and history and m part, for many of them, from the effects of the position and functions forced on them by their position in the macrostatus system. [BACK]

5. Dumont (1964) had suggested that by his own criteria for caste structure, the Newars do not have a true caste system. This was probably based on limited information on the Newars. Greenwold, using Dumont's criteria, has argued that "the Newars in fact possess a caste structure that conforms most stringently to Dumont's definition" (1978, 487). Toffin also argues m the face of Dumont's statement that the Newars at least in the larger towns and the cities do have a "caste system" in Dumont's terms. "en ce sens qu'elles sont fondles sur un module religieux qui donne à la société une grande cohérence et qui lui sert de fondement intellectuel" (1984, 222). We will return to Dumont's conception of the caste system in chapter 11 in conjunction with a discussion of Newar uses of purity and impurity in social hierarchy. [BACK]

6. "A jati is an endogamous, hereditary social group that has a name and a combination of attributes. All members of a jati are expected to act according to their jati attributes, and each member shares his jati's status m the social hierarchy of a village locality in India" (Mandlebaum 1970, 14). For the jati members themselves, Mandlebaum notes, the jati has a position in a ranked hierarchy of groups. A " jati cluster" is a set of separate jatis , classed together under one name, whose members are treated by others as having the same general status (ibid., 19). [BACK]

7. The designation " sahu " or " jyapu " may indicate either the groups of thars and status levels whose members usually engage in these professions, or in other contexts it may designate all those who actually engage m the profession, irrespective of thar or status level. [BACK]

8. At a more abstract level there is, as we will touch on again below and discuss in later chapters, a vertical division of groups into two hierarchies, those whose members are "technicians of marked symbolism" and those who deal with other kinds of power and production. [BACK]

9. These distinctions have, however (as we shall note), one significant structural usage in Bhaktapur, in the separating of the thars grouped as a unity elsewhere among the Newars as ''srestha[ *] '' or "sesya:," into two strata, Chathar and Pa(n)chthar, distinguished as being "ksatriya[ *] " and "vaisya[ *] ," respectively. [BACK]

10. Starting in the midnineteenth century the Ghorkali, state, following the Malla practice of written legal codes, began efforts to codify the entire heterogeneous population of the new multiethnic state into a traditional hierarchical system in a document called the Muluki Ain , "the law of the country." This intriguing imperial expansion of the Hindu ordering of small states underwent a number of stages and versions and was considered as "official" until the 1960s (Höfer 1979). [BACK]

11. The many status lists for Bhaktapur in the chronicles and other Malla documents (some of which are in the Hodgson collection at the India Office Library in London) and reports by later foreign visitors also provide an invaluable basis for an understanding of the historical changes that the system has undergone under various historical, economic, and demographic pressures. A very valuable attempt at collation of reports for Newar Nepal is Chattopadhyay (1923). [BACK]

12. Endogamy must be outside of the extended patrilineal kin group, the phuki (chap. 6). For the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans the lack of non- phuki kin in Bhaktapur requires that they marry Rajopadhyayas[ *] from one of the other major Valley Newar cities. [BACK]

13. The Lakhe do not, apparently, exist m other Newar cities. Early accounts have noted similar lower-status Newar Brahman priests such as the "Lawerju" mentioned by Oldfield ([1880] (1974), vol. 1, p. 177). [BACK]

14. The term " srestha[ *] " is from the Sanskrit srestha[ *] . In classical Sanskrit its meanings included "best," "chief," "first," "best among," "oldest, senior," and in the form Srestin[ *] , "a distinguished man, a person of rank or authority" (Monier-Williams [1899] n.d., 1102). " Syesya :" derives, according to Manandhar (1976), from an old Newari term " sista ," "a king's man" which may, in turn, be derived from " srestha[ *] ." [BACK]

15. Although the Brahmans are not "renouncers," this terminology may suggest an idea of a contrast between the worldly professions and situation of the Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya and an "other-worldly" profession of Brahmans and other priests. Most of the city's thar -specified activities can be sorted into one or the other of these "worlds," the realm of the "ordinary" on the one hand and of marked symbolism on the other. [BACK]

16. " Thariya " means member or members of a thar . Thus Chathariya are members of the Chathar level. We will use this form frequently. [BACK]

17. The Nepali coding of statuses, the Muluki Ain of 1854, divides the Srestha[ *] into two levels, "cord wearers" and "non-enslavable alcohol drinkers" (Höfer 1979, 137f.). Höfer speculates that these two divisions may be equivalent to Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya. [BACK]

18. Early accounts of Newar thars note groups written " jaisi " or " jausi ." In some accounts (e.g., Hamilton [1819] 1971) and those derived from some of the chronicles (e.g., Basnet 1981; Lévi 1905) the jaisi are described as a high mixed group "derived from a Brahman by a Newar woman," who have subsections variously doing divination, astrology, medicine, and some priestly work. Hamilton ranks them above "Shresta[ *] " (i.e., Chathariya) as some middle- and low-ranked people still do. [BACK]

19. Some early accounts (e.g., Oldfield [1880] 1974; Hodgson n.d.) similarly report "classes" of Jyapu (three [Oldfield] or six [Hodgson] in number), which, however, in contrast to the present status-level "classes," were said to intermarry. [BACK]

20. " Jya " means "work," or "task'' in a very general sense. " Jyapu " (female '' Jyapuni ") means one who farms. It is used in two different ways. One is for anyone who belongs to a traditional farming thar , even if that person has some other profession. The other usage specifies "farmworker" and can also be used for someone from a nonfarming thar who does farmwork, although it would not usually be said that they are Jyapu, but rather that they "do Jyapu work." Even though farming is permissible to a large range of middle-level and upper-level thars it is not, in fact, done by upper-level ones and was traditionally forbidden to the lower "unclean" ones. Thus " Jyapu " also has implications of both "class" and a certain level of purity. [BACK]

21. The Chipi consider themselves to be of a higher status. It is said that there was a court case during the Rana period on the question of their ranking when their present low status was confirmed or determined. Our informants did not know why they have low status. [BACK]

22. Chattopadhyay (1923, 525) collates some of the early accounts of the Dwi(n). He notes that they were described as having originally been hunters and fowlers who worshiped both Siva and Buddha. They were said to have been elevated to the pure castes because they saved Prthvinarayana Saha's life. Chattopadhyay speculates that the Dwi(n) were originally a "more or less wild" jungle tribe. Niels Gutschow has interviewed the only Dwi(n) in Bhaktapur who follows the traditional thar activities, and notes that he has some special tasks during two annual festivals, Biska: and Pasa Ca:re (personal communication). [BACK]

23. Our reasons for qualifying such uses of "ritual" are discussed in chapter 11. [BACK]

24. It is said that under the Rana regime the Sa:mi, whose thar name is Manandhar, petitioned the Rana regime for a reclassification and were subsequently classified as being "water-acceptable" for the higher levels. This reclassification was "not accepted" in Bhaktapur (cf. Nepali 1965, 171). Oil pressing is generally associated in South Asia with low status. "The pressing of seeds . . . is stigmatized as a degrading occupation in the Code of Manu because it destroys life by crushing the seed" (Hutton 1961, 89). [BACK]

25. Several of the earliest accounts of Nepal, summarized in Chattopadhyay (1923), include a "caste" of Newar "washermen" variously given as "sanghar," "songat," "sangat," "sughang," and "pasi." Aside from Pasi (which we have placed at level XIII), these or similar names are not known now. These washer-men were listed in some accounts as being at the bottom of the status hierarchy, below "sweepers." [BACK]

26. According to Hodgson (n.d.), all these thars (with the exception of Cala[n], which he does not list) were "a class of Newars called Ekthureea [Ekthariya] or outcaste, or 'single body,' distinguished by their profession or trade." As Chattopadhyay (1923, 534) points out in a comment on this passage, they were certainly not "outcastes" but were placed just above the clearly polluting levels. Earle, in the 1901 Census of India (cited in Chattopadhyay [1923]), includes Cala(n) in the list and lists the group as a whole as "intermediate castes." Earle's and Hodgson's lists both have some additional thar s at this level not known m contemporary Bhaktapur. Lévi (1905, vol. 1, p. 242) writes of this group that they "only form a group by opposition to the previous groups, and are subdivided into true castes." The polluting status of this group in earlier accounts is somewhat ambiguous. Hamilton writes, "All the castes yet enumerated are considered as pure, and Hindus of any rank may drink the water which they have drawn from a well; but the following castes [our level XIII] are impure, and a person of any considerable dignity will be defiled by their touch (Hamilton [1819] 1971, 36 [emphasis added]). This comment corresponds w Hodgson's ''outcastes." Oldfield, however, includes them among the ''heterodox Buddhists" and says that "from their hands any Hindu will, or may, drink water" ([1880], 1974, vol. 1, p. 187). Nepali (1965, 168ff.) includes them among the clean thar s. These differences, and the consequent differences in reports about them by differently placed informants, suggest their marginal status. [BACK]

27. The Nae slaughter only the water buffalo. Other animals whose flesh is eaten in Bhaktapur are slaughtered by the households and other groups who will subsequently eat them as sacrifices to one of the "dangerous" deities (see chap. 9). [BACK]

28. The Do(n)s may be related to the Doms of Kumaon (Srivastava 1966, 194). According to Niels Gutschow, the remaining traditionally active Do(n) in Bhaktapur play a drum during certain festivals and other occasions (personal communication). [BACK]

29. They are often referred to as "Po(n)," and refer to themselves as "Pore" (which is probably an older Newari form). [BACK]

30. In 1974 Niels Gutschow interviewed a Halahulu who lived in Bhaktapur at that time, and who later moved to the nearby town of Timi. [BACK]

31. On Newar Buddhism, see Lewis (1984), Snellgrove (1957, 1961 a ), Locke (1976), Lévi (1905), and Greenwold (1973, 1978). [BACK]

32. David Snellgrove expresses the same opinion with an evaluative turn, "Whereas in India Buddhism was ruthlessly destroyed, in Nepal it has to be forced into conformity with other traditions, which represent the negation of all its higher striving, so that it has died of atrophy, leaving outward forms that have long ceased to be Buddhist in anything but the name" (1957, 106). [BACK]

33. The "Urae caste," according to Colin Rosser, was "a composite caste of merchants and craftsmen of generally high economic status through their predominance in the trade with Tibet, and of all Newar castes the one which is by far the strongest in devotion to Buddhist beliefs and practices according to the Tibetan model, largely, of course, through their close and continuing association with Tibetans in the course of trade" (1966, 106). For a study of a Urae group in Kathmandu, the Tuladhars, see Lewis (1984). [BACK]

34. The Urae were, as Hodgson (n.d.) put it, "traders and foreign merchants," and could draw their members from different thar s. Associated with the Urae by various authors are both trading and craft thars , including Tuladhar, Loha(n)ka-mi Sika:mi, Tamrakar, Awa:, Kumha:, Madhika:mi, and "Kassar" or "Kasa" (workers in bell metal alloy). Hodgson (n.d.) also lists carpenters associated with the Matsyendranath festival in Patan, "red lead makers," and doorkeepers. [BACK]

35. For a study on the Muslims in Nepal, see Gaborieau (1977). The Malla courts, influenced by Indian Mughal court styles, invited Muslims to settle in the valley as manufacturers of perfume and bangles and as court musicians from at least the early eighteenth century. See also Slusser (1982, vol. 1, p. 68f.). [BACK]

36. There is a section on the Gaine and their music in Hoerburger (1975). According to Niels Gutschow, the Gaine play music throughout Bhaktapur in the weeks before Mohani (chap. 15) according to a fixed schedule, each family having the right to play m certain quarters (personal communication). [BACK]

37. Priestly and para-priestly roles are often covertly stigmatizing (chap. 10). [BACK]

38. It is worth noting that the estimates made by our informants were usually very close, sometimes identical to Gutschow and Kölver's survey findings. [BACK]

39. In general, there seems to be some correspondence between the numbers of households needed for many of the city functions and the actual numbers of households, although this does go wrong and provide problems in some cases. It would be of importance to attempt a study of the adjustive mechanisms involved. [BACK]

40. This varies from the census figure of 6,484 because of distortions in rounding numbers in the adjusted table. [BACK]

41. One can get a rough idea of the number of individuals who are members of different classes of thar s by multiplying the number of households by the mean number of individuals per household for the city, which is six. The number of individuals per household, however, varies significantly by status level (chap. 6). [BACK]

42. Thus the total number of households in the group of occupational thar s is misleading because of the large numbers of Kumha: households that are engaged only in farming and not in the traditional thar craft of pottery-making. Similarly, the number of households in the group of thar s associated with Taleju is artificially enlarged by the inclusion of the large number of Suwal households, only a few of which have traditional Taleju functions. [BACK]

43. We will use the term "boiled rice," as the Newars do themselves, to denote both boiled rice and boiled pulses. [BACK]

44. "Each jati closes its boundaries to lower jatis, refusing them the privilege of intermarriage and other contacts defined as polluting to the higher jati. Each jati, in turn, is excluded by the jatis ranking above it in a local caste hierarchy. Thus, differences in degree of pollution create closed segments, as each segment tries to preserve its own degree of purity from contamination by lower castes" (Kolenda 1978, 66; derived from Dumont 1980 [1966]). [BACK]

45. Not only were "pure" levels forbidden to take water from "impure" levels, but traditionally and to a considerable degree now, members of the water-unacceptable levels did not take water from what they considered to be still lower levels, and this was sometimes true of thar s within a water-unacceptable level. As Höfer has noted, the Muluki Ain of 1854 formally forbade "pure castes" as a group from taking water from "impure castes" as a group, and no "impure caste" was allowed to take water from a still lower ranking ''impure caste" (1979, 56). That is, the first sorting of ''pure" and "impure" on the city level was replicated within successive divisions of "impure castes." However, these further divisions were of no importance, or of a different sort of importance, for the larger city organization. [BACK]

46. D. R. Regmi (1965, vol. II, p. 696), remarking that the conception of two types of polluting groups is found in the classical Dharmasastras[ *] attributed to Manu and other writers, stated that the two classes, those who were water-unacceptable but not polluting by touch and those who could not be touched, were probably present in Malla Nepal. These two levels, "Impure but touchable" and "untouchable," are present m the official codification of the caste Hierarchy of Nepal, of 1854, the Muluki Ain , which codified existing social regulations (Höfer 1979, 45). Rosser (1966, 88f.) divided status levels among the Newars into a simple opposition, water-acceptable and water-unacceptable, equivalent to "pure" and "impure," "dominant" and "subordinate," respectively. His separation begins with the Jugi and does suggest the strong symbolic emphasis on the special polluting status of thar s at this level and below. It does not, however, correspond directly to the actual categories of purity and impurity. The water-unacceptable group begins for upper-level people above the Jugi, and the separation between simple water-unacceptability and untouchability cuts through his "subordinate" group. Stephen Greenwold (1978, 458f.), in a study of Newar castes in Kathmandu, tries to incorporate both the Hindu and Buddhist thar s there into one system. He divides the resulting combined status levels into two ranked groups with a "great divide" between them--those who have either Brahmans or Vajracarya Buddhist priests as household priests, and those who do not. By so doing, he incorporates our level XIII thar s into this upper division. He then further separates the households in his "clean" category served by priests into two ranked subgroups, whose purificatory services are done in the upper section by the barber thar (Nau) and whose lower section is purified by the low-level butcher thar , the Nae. The designation of a lower section of the status hierarchy which has purificatory services, specifically nail cutting, done by women of the butcher thar is reported in some of the chronicles of early Nepal (see D. R. Regmi, part I, p. 642). In Bhaktapur the barber thar does purification only for those levels above XIII (and for themselves), and some of the other thar s do have certain ritual purification performed by women of the butcher thar . Greenwold's "lower-clean" division represents those who are water-unacceptable (but not untouchable) in the Hindu system, and who are not served by Brahmans, even though they are served by Vajracaryas and other auxiliary priests. In the Hindu system of Bhaktapur the first separation in terms of cleanliness comes between level XIII and those above it. Greenwold's system works from the Vajracarya priest's point of view in which all the levels that he serves are necessarily "clean," but not from the point of view of upper-level Hindus. [BACK]

47. Newar Brahmans do eat mutton and goat meat. [BACK]

48. As Dumont has argued, in order to clarify the significance of "caste" endogamy in Hindu marriage, "the first marriage must be distinguished from subsequent freer marriages and, a fortion , from illegitimate unions" (1980, 113). Newar marriage, as we shall see later, has special features because the woman's first marriage is not precisely (in Dumont's terminology) a primary marriage, as she was previously married to the god Narayana[ *] in a ritual mock-marriage. [BACK]

49. In contrast to Indo-Nepalese marriages Newar primary marriages are not optionally hypergamous, nor do they have hypergamous implications (see chap. 6). [BACK]

50. Höfer notes that in the Muluki Ain "a hypergamous union is prohibited only if it implies a transgression of the demarcation lines (a) either between pure and impure castes or (b) between touchable and untouchable castes within the category of the impure castes" (1979, 81). [BACK]

51. In the Muluki Ain of 1854 the Bare are listed below the Chathariya with a middle group of castes (Höfer 1979, 137f.). [BACK]

52. Now, as in Nepali, the term "Bhote" is used for Tibetans and distinguishes them from the Sae(n) hill peoples of northern origin. [BACK]

53. The equivalent Nepali term is " Parbate " or " Parbatiya:. " Some informants tend to use the Nepal, term to include both Sae(n) and Partya. [BACK]

54. The Sae(n)/Khae(n) contrast has a dubious relation to the historical origins of the Khas group, which may well have had Mongoloid, as well as North Indian, components (K. B. Bista 1972, 13). [BACK]

55. According to Slusser's summary of scholarly opinion, the Muslim conquests of North India at the end of the twelfth century which caused orthodox Brahmans from Mitila and Buddhists from Bihar to flee into the Kathmandu Valley also forced other refugees into the western hills of Nepal: "The latter belonged to well-defined Hindu castes, particularly the Brahman priesthood, the Ksatriya[ *] military aristocracy (known as "Chetris" in Nepal), and, at the bottom of the social scale, occupational castes such as tailors, shoemakers, and blacksmiths. . . . This influx fortified other Indian immigrants who had long filtered northward, and had mixed in various measure with the established local population. The latter essentially issued from two streams: the Khasa, Indo-Aryans who spoke a Sanskritic language ancestral to Nepali, and who for centuries had drifted eastward through the Himalayan foothills; and the Mongoloid tribes, particularly the Magar and Gurung. . . . By the sixteenth century, an ethnically mixed military aristocracy, who often claimed Rajput descent and emulated the latter's preoccupation with military chivalry and the purity of Hindu religion, had carved out numerous petty hill states. Gorkha, immediately west of the Valley was one of these" (1982, 8). [BACK]


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