The Yakha: Culture, Environment and Development in East Nepal

THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN EAST NEPAL Thesis submitted to the Board of the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, University of Oxford for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Andrew Russell Wolfson College Trinity Term 1992 The Yakha: Culture, Environment and Development in East Nepal Andrew Russell D.Phil. 1992 Wolfson College, Oxford Trinity Term This is a social anthropological study of a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group, the Yakha, based in East Nepal. The field research involved was carried out from from January 1989 until October 1990. To the best of my knowledge, the Yakha have never before been the subject of anthropological study, and hence this work aims at filling a void in the ethnographic and linguistic record of Nepal. A central question addressed in this regard is the extent to which the Yakha can be treated as a cultural whole, The twin problems of over-generality and over- specificity in anthropological accounts, highlighted respectively by the diversity encompassed by the term 'Yakha' and the many similarities between Yakha and neighbouring ethnic groups, are addressed, At the same time this study is a contribution to ecological anthropology. Much anthropological work in this genre takes a materialistic, ethnocentric and overly empiricist approach to 'environment', regarding it as something with which people interact at a purely subsistence level. While not ignoring the importance of the 'natural' environment, this study argues that a wider definition should be used which allows for other analytic perspectives, and people's own perceptions, to be taken into account. Expanding our conception of 'environment' thus allows the inclusion of elements such as the household environment, spirit pantheon and the outside world. The fieldwork conducted took place during a tumultuous period in Nepal's political history, and the ethnography records the outcome of the changes in a village community in the East. The effects of migration, educ~tion and development projects in the community observed are also discussed with a view to understanding both how the Yakha are influenced by and involved in the changing world around them. Dedicated to the memory of MART IN HOFTUN (1964 - 1992) Acknowledgements My wife, Tamara Kohn, has been an integral part of the research process and has given me inestimable amounts of help, advice and care at every stage in the past five years, which I thank her for sharing with me. I have benefited enormously from the sensitive and helpfu! supervision of Drs Nick Allen and Vernon Reynolds at Oxford. Drs Sean Con1 in and Rosalind Eyben in the (now) Social Development Department of the ODA in London were a!so both extremely generous with their time as my research got under way. Drs Fichael Hutt and David Watthews of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London were excellent Nepali language teachers as I prepared to go to the field. I would 1 ike to thank our many friends and colleagues in Kathmandu for their support and hospitality. In particular I think of S.P, Koirala and his fami!y, Chhote and Gayatri Rauniyar, Ben Campbe!!, Charles Ramble, Anne de Sales, Christine Daniels, Kate Molesworth- Storer, Frances St~venson,Jon Lane, Carrie Osborne, Martin Gaenszle, Betty Woodsend and Emil Wende!, Peter Woss and his staff at the British Council were always exceptionally generous with their time and facilities. Dr Ratna Wan Pradhan and Mrs Mangala Shrestha at Tribhuvan University were very helpful in processing our non-tourist visas, as were staff in the relevant government departments. I would like to thank Di l! i Ram Dahal and Nirmal Tuladhar at the Centre for Nepa! and Asian Studies for their useful advice. Kamal Adhikary was extremely generous in inviting us to his family's home, and to his fieldwork village in West Nepal, and we have valued his friendship ever since. ! am forever indebted to the many inhabitants of Tarnaphok who welcomed us into their community. I would especially like to thank our 'family' there, Budhilal Linkha (Apa) and his wife (Ama). 01ur 'sister', Kamala, was our research assistant and remains our dearest friend. I am also most grateful to Bhim Bahadur Linkha for his excellent research assistance, and Dharkulal {'Chamba') Linkha, who shared with us his knowledge of the Yakha mun turn. Other friends remembered with happiness and grat i t ude include Bhaskar and Sharada Ghirnire, Dsmbaru Dungana, Dllndiraj Satyal and the rest of the staff at Sri Chamunde Secondary School, We were also helped by Agam Bahadur Linkha and his family, Shiva La1 Dhami, Harkar Bahadl~r Jimi, Bimala Gajamer and her family, Majhiys Man Bahadur Jimi and his family in Madi Mcrlkharka, and Hamjee Kongren and his family in Dandagaon. A!so in the Eastern region we valued the friendship and warm company of Colin Sox, B-J Souffard, Chris Vickery, Jackie Howe!!, Lorna and John Howel 1, Jennifer and Andy Cox, Jean-Marion Ai t ken, Sue Det t 1 ing, Hi lary Klonin and Juan Ortiz-Iruri. ! also owe thanks to the staff of the 'K3' project In Dhankuta and Pakhribas Agricul tural Centre for the help they gave us on our scheduled visits to their institutions, and to the staff of the (now) Eastern Regional Hospital in Dharsn for the impeccable care they gave us on our unscheduled visits to theirs, Many friends and colleagues in the lJ.K, and other parts of the world have been involved in variol~s stages of the research process. Simon Baron-Cohen and Bridget Lindley were involved from the very beginning, while later I would like to thank Steven Holl~nd,Rachel Williams, David Mosse, .Tul i~ Cleeves-MOSSFL, David Gel 1ner , Claudia Pendred, Mark Pittaway, Alison Williams, and Chris Burgess. Judith Justice and Mary Des Chene have been particularly helpfu! in keeping me in touch with Nepalese research in the U.S.A. Without the funding of the ESRC it is doubtful whether this research would ever have taken place, or have been finished so quickly. Wolfson College has also given me support for research expenses. I would sincerely like to thank my new colleagl_res at the University of Durham for their patience and support as I finished writing up. fly mother, Val Russel 1, has a 1 ways been support i ve of my endeavours, as have Tamara's parents, Misch and Lore Kohn. I extend my warmest thanks to our families on both sides of the Atlantic. Last but not least, ! would like to thank my son Fen who appe~redon the scene for the f ina! year of 'writing up' and ensured I always kept the demands of my thesis in perspective. A Note on Transliteration and Transcription There is no perfect way of converting Nepali, which is conventionally written in devang~ari, into Roman script. Turner (1931) provides one authoritative system, and I have used his dictionary, as we11 as that of Pokhrel et a1 (2040 V, S. ), as the source of the devand~ari for my transcriptions. However, the system developed by Adhikary (19881 is diacritically simpler and thus has the merit of being direct ly usable by a wider range of contemporary word-processors. For this reason it is the system I have chosen to use for Nepali transcriptions throughout. The only exception is where I use this form of transcription for proper names or to begin a sentence, when (following English convention) 1 use a capital letter. Where there is variation in the pronunciation of Nepa! i consonants (such as exists with y, for example) and where there is a choice of spellings in Turner or elsewhere, I choose that closest to the pronunciation normally found in East Nepal. Nepali words are presented underlined. The Romanized Nepali one often sees in NepaI (on some government buildings, for example, in English language newspapers or when people write their names and addresses on letters abroad) tends to fo:low neither Adhikary nor Turner, It is perhaps closer to Meerendonk (1955) but without his diacritics, and with the Nepali 'c' merged with 'ch', This is by far the simplest system for the lay person to read smoothly, and so words which are commonly rendered in this form (such as caste names and place names), I present similarly, The transcription of Yakha is more complex since it is a language which was previously unwritten and unrecorded, and which has some !nteresting phonological features, Van Driem (1987) has an excellent system for the transcription of the related Limbu language, but unfortunately his complex diacritics are also beyond the scope of the major i ty of word-pi-ocessors. I have therefore developed my own, simpler, orthography for the transcription of Yakha words, which are italicized, For instance, I use ' rather than van Driem's to represent a glottal stop. Words which were the same in Nepali and Yakha are sometimes both i ta! ic ized and under1 ined. However, there were usually pronunciation differences between such words used by Yakha and their equivalents used by speakers of Nepali as a first language. A selected list of Yakha words appears in Appendix I. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: Searching for the Yakha: Research History and Methodology 1, 1 Introduction 1.2 Preparations The Research Propose 1 and the Pevelopmen t Projec t The First Year 1.3 In the Field KA thmandu Reconna i sance Down to Business A Home of our Own Political Eruptions The Fine 1 Onsl augh t Appl led Anthropology Revisi ted 1.4 Writing Culture: the Structure of this Thesis Notes CHAPTER TWO: Ecological Anthropology and Nepal: Some Theoretical 54 Problems 2.1 Introduction 5 4 2.2 Ecological Anthropology in Nepal: Beyond Environmentalism 57 The Effects of Poprrl~tionGrowth 5 7

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