Revisiting Ethnography, Recognizing a Forgotten People: the Thangmi Of
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96 Celayne Heaton Shrestha Onta, Pratyoush. 1996'1. Ambivalence Denied: The Making of Ra~triya Itihas in REVISITING ETHNOGRAPHY, RECOGNIZING Panchayat Era Textbooks. Contrihutions to Nepalese Studies 23(1): 213 254. AFORGOTTEN PEOPLE: THE THANGMI OF Onta, Pratyoush. 1996b. Creating a Brave Nepali Nation in British India: the NEPAL AND INDIA Rhetoric of Jati Improvement, Rediscovery of Bhanubhakta, and the Writing of Blr History. Studies in Nepali Historv and Society I(I): 37-76. Sara Shneiderman and Mark Turin Onta, Pratyoush. 1997. Activities in a 'Fossil State': Balkrishna Sarna and the Improvisation of Nepali Identity. Studies in Nepali History and Society 2(\): 69-102. There is no idea about the origin of the Thami communitv or the term Perera, Jehan. 1995. In Unequal Dialogue with Donors: the Experience of the "Thami Their history is indeed obscure. Neither the sc~nty literature Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. .Ioul'/1al of' intel'/1ational Development ". that is available on them nor their own traditions speak enough about 7(6): 869-878. their history and culture. Ridell. Roger. 1994. Strengthening the Partnership: Evaluation of'the Finnish -Subba(1993.184) NGO Support Programme - Countrv Case Studv Nepal. London: ODI. Shrestha, Nanda. 1993. Enchanted by the Mantra of Bikas: a Self-reflective Perspective on Nepalese Elites and Development. South Asia Bulletin XIII Introduction 1 (\ -2): 5-22. One of the few contemporary introductions to the Thangmi (Thami), an Shryock, Andrew. 2004. The New Jordanian Hospitality: House, Host, and Guest ethnic group of over 30,000 dispersed across the Himalayan border areas in the Culture of Public Display. Comparative Studies in Society and of Nepal and India, begins with the above paragraph.2 The Thangmi, Historv 46( I): 35-62. Smith, Andrea. 2004. Murder in Jerba: Honour, Shame and Hospitality among whose homeland is in the Dolakha and Sindhupaichok districts of Nepal, Maltese in Ottoman Tunisia. Historv and Anthropology 15(2): 107-132. speak an endangered Tibeto-Burman language and maintain an Watts, Michael. 2001. Development Ethnographies. Ethnography 2(2): 283-300. World Bank. 1989. Jnl'Olving NGOs in Bank Supported Activities. Operational Directive 14.70 (28 August). Sara Shneiderman thanks the US-Nepal Fulbright Commission, the US Yogi, Bhagirath. 1996. NGOs: Identity Crisis. Spotlight 16(\3): 9. National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, under Zinovieff, Sofka. 1991. Inside Out and Outside In: Gossip, Hospitality, and the whose auspices she conducted research for this article in 1999-2000, 2001 Greek Character. ./oul'/1al of'Mediterranean Studies 1(1): 120-133. 2005, and 2005-2006 respectively. Mark Turin thanks Professor Yasuhiko Nagano of the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan, for generous financial support, Dr. George Appell and the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research for supporting scholars engaged in empirical fieldwork and descriptive ethnography, and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (lCIMOD) for providing him with a scholarly home and ongoing support in Nepal. We also thank SINHAS' anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Finally, we are deeply indebted to the many Thangmi individuals in both Nepal and India who have opened their homes to us and shared their knowledge, experiences and hopes. In particular, we thank Bir Bahadur ("Lile") Thami, without whose assistance this article would have been impossible. 2 The indigenous ethnonym (the term members of the group use to refer to themselves) is Thangmi. The Nepalified term that appears on official documents is Thami. We use the term Thangmi in all cases except when citing other authors, or referring to entities which use the term Thami in their name, in which cases we have preserved the original spelling. Studies in Nepali History and Society 11 (1): 97-181 June 2006 I © Mandala Book Point 98 Sara Shneiderman and Mark Turin Revisiting Ethnography, Recognizing a Forgotten People 99 indigenous set of shamanic ritual practices. Their parallel descent World War II, the emphasis in anthropology lay in documenting system-in which men and women each inherit their clan membership "culture," then defined as a discrete entity attached in a primordial from their same-sex parent-is uncommon anywhere in the world. manner to distinctive ethnic groups. At the same time, the early attempts Despite these distinctive features, the Thangmi have remained almost of the Nepali nation-state to codify ethnicity through the Muluki Ain entirely absent from social science scholarship on the Himalayan region, suited many anthropologists eagerly awaiting the day that Nepal would as well as from political discussions ofethnicity. In the present article, we open for research. The 1854 legal code provided the skeletal framework ask how and why this has happened, and aim to fill the lacuna by upon which modem Nepali notions ofethnic identity have been built over providing an introductory sketch of the Thangmi based on the primary the last 150 years (HOfer 1979). 3 ethnographic research that we have carried out in their communities in Brian Houghton Hodgson's (1874) work on Nepal's peoples in his Nepal and India since 1998. Although there is a small body of existing capacity as British Resident further solidified the nascent caste and ethnic material on the Thangmi, most of it is either inaccessible, in the form of categories propagated in the Muluki Ain.4 Since the Ranas did not permit unpublished theses and fieldnotes, or based on secondary sources of Hodgson to travel out of Kathmandu, he never conducted ethnographic questionable veracity. With this article, we provide a reference point for research per se, working rather with several high-caste assistants who accurate information about the Thangmi, in the hope that such data can be collected data throughout the country and shared their notes with him integrated into future academic, political and development-oriented back in Kathmandu. Hodgson's ethnic and linguistic classifications works, thereby breaking the cycle of misrepresentation which has long provided the descriptive backdrop from which many of the first coloured perceptions ofthe group. ethnographers working in Nepal after 1950 chose their subjects of study, In the process of presenting our empirical material, we also argue for as well as the classificatory schemas through which they interpreted their the value of engaged ethnography as a key tool in assisting minority data (Holmberg 1988). groups such as the Thangmi to gain and maintain political recognition Seeking untainted cultures that could be studied in their totality within from the states in which they live. While conducting research on Thangmi single villages, the first generation of Himalayanists were attracted to a language, culture, religion and history, we have inevitably become range of field sites provided by Nepal's ethnic diversity. The Austrian involved with the ethno-political projects of the Thangmi populations in anthropologist Christoph von Flirer-Haimendorf conducted one of the both Nepal and India. We do not accept their activist agendas uncritically, earliest and most well-known ofsuch studies, detailing the Sherpa (1964). and have on occasion publically voiced our disagreement with specific He was soon followed by others, such as French ethnographer Bernard platforms of both the Nepal Thami Samaj and the Bharatiya Thami Pignede, who studied the Gurung (1966), and American John Hitchcock, Welfare Association. However, we support the general Thangmi objective who focused on the Magar (1966). of gaining recognition as a distinct group, in both the political and Those groups not listed as discrete units early on, either in the Muluki existential senses (Taylor 1992; Graham 2005). We therefore Ain or in surveys like Hodgson's or Sylvain Levi's (1905), were in acknowledge the contradictions, compromises and complicities inherent general not selected for ethnographic study during this era. The paradigm in doing "activist research" (Hale 2006), but suggest that the potential of culture as promoted by the discipline of anthropology at the time benefits-both for scholars and the indigenous communities with whom intersected with existing local dynamics to privilege certain ethnographic they work-far outweigh the drawbacks. subjects over others within the "regional ethnography traditions" ofNepal (Fardon 1990). Some groups, such as the Thakali, have received extensive PART I: REVISITING ETHNOGRAPHY 3 Other works that have contributed substantially to our understandings ofthese Himalayan Anthropology, Activist Research and processes in Nepal include Burghart (1984), Levine (1987) and Gellner, Pfaff the Problem of Recognition ' Czamecka and Whelpton (1997). The anthropology of Nepal began in earnest in the 1950s, when the 4 For a recent analysis of Hodgson's contributions to Himalayan Studies, see country's Rana rulers opened their borders to the outside world. After Waterhouse (2004). 100 Sara Shneiderman and Mark Turin Revisiting Ethnography, Recognizing a Forgotten People 101 scholarly attention disproportionate to their small population size, while anthropologists attempt to be loyal both to the space of critical scholarly others, such as the Thangmi, have received almost none despite their production and to the principles and practices of people who struggle relatively large population.s outside the academic setting. These dual political commitments transform This imbalance is not