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Review of <I>Caste and Kinship in a Modern Hindu Society: The More than anything else, the book represents a tribute to the complexity of Newar social life, which will undoubtedly continue to intrigue anthropologists for generations to come. Andrew Nelson on Caste and Kinship in a Modern Hindu Society: The Newar City of Lalitpur, Nepal and modernism of anthropology’s as a resident and researcher in pre-Writing Culture generations. Lalitpur. While the level of detail Mark Pickett’s Caste and Kinship is, at times, a challenge to work in a Modern Hindu Society offers no through, his precise description exception. In fact, Pickett wastes and analysis contribute numerous no time admitting his distaste insights. For instance, Pickett offers for postmodernist anthropology strong evidence for the teachable through his disagreement with point that caste is always contested, fellow ethnographer of the Newars, showing how Pengu Dah castes and Steven Parish, who has posited that Maharjan farmers debate which is culture is incoherent and fragmented. ritually higher. Or, how the rise of Noting an allegiance to the work youth clubs and caste organizations of Robert Levy and David Gellner, have transformed the guthi system, Pickett responds that a “unified based on territory and caste, into Caste and Kinship in a Modern account of the culture of Lalitpur is individual caste groups or pan-Newar Hindu Society: The Newar City of a worthwhile and noble goal” (p. 7). identities that function more like Lalitpur, Nepal. Not surprisingly, Pickett forgoes the ethnic groups. I was particularly more urgent topics of transnational captivated by his historical analysis Mark Pickett. Bangkok: migration, land conflicts, and ethnic of Holi as a Malla-era “accretion” Orchid Press, 2014. 363 pages. politics in Nepal for a return to the that has never caught on among the ISBN 9789745241367. anthropology’s classical concerns Newar (p. 204), and his argument that with caste and kinship. Lalitpur’s four stupas are positioned Reviewed by Andrew Nelson to counteract the inauspicious Although Pickett’s book neglects crossroads trade routes. No Nepali ethnic group has received more contemporary questions in more anthropological attention than Nepal studies and anthropology, Beyond Pickett’s particular insights, the Newar. Perhaps due to their if understood within the confines the book’s main contribution is in accessible location in the Kathmandu of Newar ethnography, it can be how it engages with a classic debate Valley or for the intellectual appeal read as a reminder of the value in in South Asian anthropology between of their social complexity, the more traditional approaches to Hocart’s king-centric model of caste Newar have inspired several dozen social analysis. Pickett offers an based on exchange and Dumont’s (just counting English publications) intricate analysis of a section of hierarchical model based on purity. ethnographies over the past half- Newar society largely missing from Pickett strongly sides with Hocart century. While ethnographies of the ethnographic record, the Pengu via the work of Declan Quigley to other Nepali groups have largely Dah (Tamvah coppersmiths, Sikahmi argue that it is the royal-centered shifted with Nepali political carpenters, Marikahmi sweetmakers, spatial order of the city rather than transformations to emphasize Lwahakahmi stonemasons) castes of hierarchy that regulates Newar the political and constructed Lalitpur. His fine attention to detail caste practices. Moreover, contra nature of ethnicity, the majority and encyclopedic understanding the “tribal substratum” argument of of Newar ethnographies—most of of Newar cultural practices reveal Gérard Toffin or the “trichotomy” of which were published prior to or the rich benefits of long-term Gellner’s Tribal-Newar-north Indian soon after the 1991 reforms—have research, which I gather stems from position, for Pickett Newar social remained committed to the holism his experience of spending decades structure is “basically one with that 216 | HIMALAYA Spring 2018 of north India with the element of of anthropology, this book will centralization at its heart” (p. 10). disappoint. Nonetheless, Pickett’s penchant for ethnographic detail will Pickett bases his thesis on what he surely benefit future scholars of the calls the fundamental conflict of Newar regardless of their theoretical Newar society between kingship bent or topical focus. More than and kinship, which is played out anything else, the book represents a spatially and temporally in ritual tribute to the complexity of Newar processions and festivals. He social life, which will undoubtedly emphasizes this point in the final continue to intrigue anthropologists four chapters, which move beyond for generations to come. the exacting descriptions of caste, economy, and kinship earlier in the Andrew Nelson is a sociocultural book, to show, á la Levy, how the anthropologist at the University of North Lalitpur ritual cycle demonstrates Texas. He has conducted research and a civic drama of epic proportions. written about the urbanization of the Basically, he juxtaposes the festivals Kathmandu Valley, the resettlement that function to expel the disorder, of Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in malevolent spirits, and threatening the U.S., and South Asian diasporas entities of the vulnerable monsoon in Latin America. season, with the festivals that This monograph presents not only an ethnographic description but also a detailed analysis of the processes and ritual activities serve to restore urban societythrough which to the itsNewar population in the state of Sikkim (India) (re-)constructs its socio- cultural identity in a diaspora context. Dealing with the history pre-monsoon order. The ritualand the present socio-economiccycle position of the Newars in Sikkim, the author discusses the various transformations taking place when observing religious culminates in the Matsyendranathrituals, feasts and festivals, (or performing life cycle and death rituals. Karanumaya) chariot festival.In this book BalSimilar Gopal Shrestha providesk a fascinating glimpse into a small diaspora within a diaspora. He establishes convincingly, using Robin Cohen’s criteria, that ethnic Nepalese living in Sikkim as Indian citizens do indeed constitute a diaspora population. … Newars have a deep tradition of long-distance trade throughout Nepal and up to the Tibetan plateau and they have long had a kind of diasporic to what the Baisakh Jatra meansconsciousness, with folk songsfor evoking nostalgia for their heartland, the Kathmandu Valley. This book, long in the making, provides important documentation of a little- known aspect of Nepalese history and society. As such, it is a signifi to the ethnography of the Himalayas. At the same time it may teach Nepalese in Bhaktapur and Indra Jatra means for cant contribution Nepal and around the world much that they didn’t know about how Nepalese in the ‘near’ diaspora have survived and thrived. –Professor David N. Gellner, University of Oxford, UK Kathmandu, Matsyendranath definesk Dr. Bal Gopal Shrestha PhD in anthropology at the, a UniversityResearch Fellow of Leiden at the(the University Netherlands). of Oxford An Affiliated (UK), earned Fellow a at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, Shrestha has been Researcher and Assistant Professor at the University of Leiden (2006-08). Having conducted fi Lalitpur, providing what Pickettin Nepal, India, the UK and Belgium,calls Dr. Shrestha has published widely on Nepalese religious rituals, Hinduism, Buddhism, ethnic nationalism, the Maoist movement, politicaleldwork developments in Nepal and on the Nepalese diaspora. He is the author of the monograph Sacred Town of Sankhu: Th (Cambridge Scholars Publishinge Anthropology 2012, paperback of Newar 2013). Ritual, Religion and Society in Nepal the “genesis of the city” (p. 250). The Th e www.vajrabooks.com.np festival reaffirms the centralityVajra Books of the Kathmandu, Nepal Malla king, represented in the sacred V sword of the Yala Juju, symbolically positioned above the puja-giving Shah King (or since 2008, the Prime Minister), and marks the renewal of the city by mediating the year’s conflicts through the central symbol of the kingship. For those looking for insight into the pressing political matters of contemporary Newar society or the contemporary debates HIMALAYA Volume 38, Number 1 | 217.
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