REVIEW ARTICLE Recent Anthropological Research on Garhwal and Kumaon Monika Krengcl and Antje Linkenbach Shalt. a.s. 1991. Women and Polyandry in Rawain Jaunpur. Jaipur and New Delhi: Rawat Publications. Fanger, Alien C. 1980. Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives on Kumaoni Society and Cullure. Ph.D. Dissertation, Syracuse University. 1990. The Jilgar: "Spirit Possession Seance among the Rajputs and Silpakars of Kumaon. " In : M.P. Joshi, A.C. Fanger and C.W. Brown (eds.), HimaJaya: Pasi (:md rreSeni. Almora : Shiee Almorll Book Depot. pp. 173-191. 1991. "Marriage Preslations among the Rajpuls of the Kumaon Himalayas." In: The Mankind Quarterly XXXII, No. 1-2. pp. 43-56. Galey, Jean-Claude. 1980. "Le creancier, le roi, la mort: Essai sur les relations de dependance dans le Tehri Garhwal (Himalaya indien)." In: Puru ~jjrtha 4, pp. 93-163. 1984." Souverainete et justice dans le Haut-Gange: La fonction royale au-dela des ecoles juridiques et du droit coutumier". In: Jean-Claude Galey (ed.). Differences, vafeurs, hierarchie: Textes ollerts a Louis Dumont. Paris: Mitions de J'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, pp. 371-419. 1990. "Reconsidering Kingship in India: An Ethnological Perspective". In: Jean-Claude Galey (ed.). Kingship and the Kings. Chur, etc.: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 123-187. Krengel, Monika. 1989. Sozialstrukturen im Kumaon : Bergbauern im Himalaya. Wiesbaden and Stuugart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Leavitt, John. 1992. "Cultural Holism in the Anthropology of South Asia: The Challenge of Regional Traditions". Contributions to Indian Sociology. N.S. 26.1, pp. 3-49. Moller, Joanne. 1993. Inside and Outside: Conceptual Continuities from Household to Region in Kumaon, North India. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of London. Sax, William S. 1990. "Village Daughter, Village Goddess: Residence, Gender, and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage". American Ethnologist 17 .3, pp. 49 1-512. 1991a. Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. J991b. "Ritual and Performance in the paI).<iavalila of Garhwal." In: Arvind Sharma (ed.). Essays on the Mahiibhiirata. l.eiden, pp. 274-295. It wou ld be no surprise if anthropologists working in the Indian part of the Himalayas would be caught glancing across the eastern border comparing jealously the flourishing anthropological research on Nepal with the somehow 2 3 meagre efforts in their own region. Leaving aside any comments upon the governmental programs and olher outSide contacts on a relatively isolated quality of lhe scholarly approaches in both regions, it is quite obvious that there and conservati ve Indian community" (1993:2). exist considerable Connal differences between the research on Nepal and that on the Indian Himalayas. Simply by nicking through the issues of the European Referring 10 the prevalcnt anthropological discourses of the time, Berreman's Bulletin of Himalayan Research one eas ily can get the impression that Nepal is an research is located in the tradi tion of village studies, studies of social area well-covered by diversified 81llhropological research (including c.g. stratification (primarily caste and kinship), and stud ies of social dynanlics and linguistics. oral traditions. development studjes) undertaken by NepaJi and change. He wanted to nurture these (up to then) rcgionally limited discourses by international scholars and which can claim to be at the summit of currcm adding a new regional focus, which probably could provide new ins ights.l theoretical debates as well. Nepal research has a strong institutional base In the same years in which Berreman worked on his village study, R.D. nationally and internationally. interd isciplinary collaboration is encouraged, as is Sanwal was preparing his Ph.D. thesis on caste and social stratification in cooperation and inte llectual exchange between researchers. To sum up, Kumaon (l976}4. III this, Sanwa l combines hiStorical and anthropOlogical anthropological research on Nepal has established an international and pcnipecl ives: interdisciplinary discourse, which has developed a dynamic of its own. Without any doubt, research on the Nepal Himalayas owes much of its "Th e study presemed here is of somewhat wider scope than the conventional strength to lhe fact that Nepal is a (sovereign) state, the greatest part of which is anthropological fie ld study; it does not present a detailed description of a located in the Himalayan mountains. AUracted by splendid landscapes and the village or any particular local community. Nor is it a historical stud y in the wo rld's highest mountain ranges - habitat of diverse ethnic groups -, Nepal conventional sense of the term. What the study seeks to do is to idelltify a set assembles anthropologists from different parts of the world. All this does not of bas ic soc ial categori es, and examine their mutual relations and the ways apply to the Indian Himalayas, and especially not to Kumaon and Garhwal: in in which these re la tions (and the categori es th emselves) have been changing comparison to the plains of India, the mountain regions of the country are over time·· (1976:10). viewed as marginal - geographically and cuhurally. Amazingly, on the one hand, the Holy Hima laya is romantically and excessively praised as the abode of Sanwal, who for the first time gave a systematic, historically based account of gods, as a place of pilgrimage and retreat; it is regarded as an arena for some of caste structure and caste illleraction in the hills, did not receive great publicity the most important cuhural and religious dramas of Indian history (preserved in (as did Berreman). but for scholars working on the Kumaoni society and cuhure the Mahabharata), as a storehouse of India's cultural heritage. On the other hand, his book became basic reading mauer.s the social sciences (anthropology, sociology), busy with deciphering the In his book Sanwal tries to show that, in Kumaon, caste cannot be viewed constitutive principles of "t."e" culture :md society of L,dia, have scarcely merely in terms ef rimal crileria. but has to be seen ::'$ ::. syslem which is referred to the Himalayan hills. Characterized not only as geographically characterized "by the convergence of wea lth, political power and high rank" remote, the culture of this region was also perceived as backward and lacking the (l976:vi). In the first Chapter Sanwal traces the roolS of the social structu re of classical traits of the so-called Hindu tradition. Ku maoni society - a structure which was sl ill extanl when the British conquered The present anicJe foc usses on works that have been published re cently, Kumaon - back 10 the earl y times of Chand Dynasty (from the 11 th century up to some being relevant in the context of current theoretical debates a ~ well. But· the time of the Gorkha invasion in 1790); in the next cha pter he analyses the additionall y, in order to touch somehow on the history of research of the region, economic positions (landownershi p, occupation, economic exchange) of the basic it seems appropriate to mention also a few earlier publications.1 status groups. Sanwal postulates that by the sixteenth CC nlu ry when Chand power was firm ly established in Kumaon, the status structure also received its final Systematic research focussing on the hill cu lture of the Indian Himalayas shape. It was characterized by a threefold hier,ltchy of politico-economicall y proceeded in conventional channels for a long time and did (does) not succeed in defi ned status groups: the Asa l- or ThuJ-JaIS (immigrants from the plains, developing its own discourse. It began in the early sixties - the milestone being holders of superior tenures, monopoly of bureaucracy), the KhosJ ('"indigenous" Gerald D. Berreman's monograph Hindus of (he Himalayas2 , which people. under-tenants, actual tillers or the land) and Lhe Dom (e~ hni cally concentrates on Garhwal and which became a "classic" in Central Himalayan different "indigenous" people6, mcnial tasks, devoid or land right s). But by research. Berreman lays down the aims of his study in three points: considering ritual rank (varpa), one uncovers that it cuts across Ihis secular hierarchy: "( I) To provide an ethnographic community study in an important and previously unreported culture area of India; (2) to analyze the fUll ctioning ·'(i) the Asa l - or Thul -jat, including the Asa l- or Bhal-Baman caste and interrelationship of kin, caste, and community ties in a Hindu society (consisti ng of the Ch authani and the Pachbiri sub-castes) and the known to be differently organized in some significant respects than those of Thak~r- Rajpu t or Ksheu ri caste: (H) thc Khasi including Lhe Pital i-, I-I ali- or the adjacent and well-known plains; and (3) to study the effects of recenl Khasl-Baman and Ihe Khasi-J imdur (div ided into Ililee and !1llrOllll) castes: and (iii) the Dom" (I 976:27-28}. 4 5 As Sanwal points out, due to Ibis hierarch ical structure in which secular rank footnote (1980:67). In lhe second pan , he follows the lines of Berreman's study. does not coincide with ritual rank it happens (a) that "Thul-jat as a whole rank We will restrict our comments to the latter pan. higher than Khasi as a whole; consequently Thul-jat Rajput rank higher lhan Fanger claims to present the first vi llage study on an "importam Khasi Brahmin" (1976:2), and (b) that the Brahmins (the Chauthani) who are ethnographic zone", "a region of Ihe Himalayan foothills known as Kumaon" monopolizing political and administrative functions7 are enjoying highe r Sla lU S (1980:4). He aims 10 investigale the village as "a meaningful slructu re in itself' than lhose (the Pachbiri) who hold priestly functions as purohil and pujlrf. and as "a structural unit of a broader social system" (1980:15).