GENDER

1
GENDER

• Religion, sociality exchange

Kathryn S. March Cornell University Prepared for
the Lewis/van der Kuijp 2009 NEH seminar
Buddhist traditions
Playing Om sangla mane also known as Namsala
bomo (Mhanegang villagers, 1976)
Tamang woman places offerings for the
distribution of wang
2
Parallels between Sherpa Tamang

• Both originated from the Tibetan plateau
• Name Sherpa means Easterner
• Tamang like to say they descend from Tibetan
  horsemen
• Both Tibetan Buddhist
• Textual specialists lama
• Also consult oral specialists shamans
• Both subsistence agro-pastoralists
• Sherpa slightly higher elevations barley,
  potato, wheat, yak- cattle crosses
• Tamang slightly lower elevations potato,
  wheat, millet, maize (corn), rice, cattle
  crosses, goats, sheep water buffalo
• Both increasingly dependent upon cash income
  sources
• Formerly traders in Sino-Indic trade
• Today guides (Sherpas) and porters (more
  Tamang) and global wage migration (both)

3
Sherpa

• Wealthier ( Buddhism more rationalized)

• Income opportunities potato trekking
• Fields and herds larger
• Houses more substantial
• Monasteries more elaborate orthodox

4
Tamang

• Poorer ( Buddhism historically more involuted)

• Income opportunities coolies by heritage
• Fields herds smaller
• Houses less substantial
• Monasteries part-time hermitages

5
Sherpa woman churning butter tea
Tamang women distilling liquor

• Social beverages beer, liquor and tea

• Beer Fermented grain mixed with water (chhang
  or ji)
• Liquor Distilled beer mash (arak or raksi)
• Tea sweetened milk tea (ngaja chiya or chai)
  and butter tea (solja)

6
And cloth
Kata ceremonial scarves But also wide variety
of cloth gifts at coming-of-age events a
marriages at after-death rituals
7
Accompany all exchanges

• Daily work
• Field labor
• House building
• Social work
• Hospitality
• Visiting
• Religious work
• Rites of passage
• Offerings and blessings

8
Exchanges among people

• Sherpa exchanges

• Everyday
• Tea (buttered salted churned tea), beer liquor
• Meals (the invitation you cant refuse)
• Sherpa marriage exchanges
• Betrothal-marriage (sex children legitimate)
• Wedding-marriage
• Living together-marriage (combine property to
  establish new house)

9

• Tamang exchanges

• Everyday
• Beer or liquor (not much tea) the morning
  picker- upper
• Special
• Rites of passage
• Boys first hair-cutting
• Weddings
• (but above all) Death rituals

Effigy of the deceased at Tamang gral offerings
of cloth, food drink
10
Marcel Mauss (on exchange)

• 1872-1950

• Born in Épinal, France
• Nephew of (13 yrs younger) and protegé of Émile
  Durkheim
• In important rabbinical family
• Studied philosophy (at Bordeaux) history of
  religion (at École des Hautes Études, Paris)
  where he became Professor of Primitive Religion
  (1902)
• With Durkheim
• 1925 Founded Institute dÉthnologie (Paris)
• 1931-39 Editor LAnnée sociologique
• Never did fieldwork
• Work
• 1899 Sacrifice its nature and function
• 1925 Essay on the gift
• The Gift hau (Maori word)
• Gifts are freely given
• But require a return gift
• Because of their spirit (hau)

11
Everyday concerns

• Hospitality exchanges
• Dependent upon social beverages (womens
  production)
• Emotionally powerful (esp if come from the hand
  of a woman)

12
Religious concerns
?Exchange not just with humans ?But between
humans and divinity ?Humans offer beer cloth (
other senses) ?Divinity returns blessings
13
And gender

• Symbols of female mediation
• In everyday serving
• In religious offerings

14
Ya hwai (The Hand Song)

• Tamang religious song about the origin of the
  world
• Called the hand song (Ya hwai)
• Because everything is said to begin (not with the
  divine oaths of the Buddhas but) with
• Whether it is everyday social offerings or
  religious ones, they are seen to be more
  effective if placed by the hand of a woman

March (1987) Women, hospitality and the efficacy
of beer. Food foodways 1 360.
15
Marmen ki hwai (The butter lamp song)

• It is the hands of the sisters who must light
  108 butter lamps on the altar of the deceased to
  light their way to the next rebirth

16
SISTERS WEEPING OVER THE EFFIGY OF THE DECEASED

• Swa sena swa
• Syllables without meaning except to establish
  tune and rhythm
• a dead life-form may take rebirth
• a life-form that's born remember you will find
  death!
• Swa sena swa, a life-form that's born will die
• a life-form that's dead remember you will be
  re- born!
• Swa sena swa, sun of the east(ern direction)
• hure latang syimpang pho translation uncertain
• Swa sena swa, the memories of the living desire
  to offer up
• the offerings of 108 butter lamps!

17
Chhepi lhamooffering goddesses

• 6 female divinities
• Each holding an offering for each of the 6 human
  senses
• Musical instrument for hearing
• Cloth for touch
• Incendier for smell
• Bowl of food for taste
• Mirror for sight
• Book for mind
• Placed on altar above human offerings (e.g. of
  butter lamps food) but below representations of
  the divinities themselves (e.g. paintings or
  statuary)

18
Village Tamang thanka statuary
Bhot Sya (Tibetan wife)
Bai Sya (Nepal or Newar wife)
Guru Pema or Guru Hrimboroche (Padmasambhava)
19
The efficacy of beer

• Tamang and Sherpa society depend upon the
  reciprocal exchanges of their members
• Beer (liquor tea) is offered to open these
  exchanges
• Partly because people understand the role of
  alcohol in lowering inhibitions
• And partly because it is associated with the
  hand and affection of women
• Because women are seen as particularly effective
  links between people

20
Relation to the social worlds of men women

• Two major considerations
• Kinship marriage
• Patriliny
• Patrilocality
• (and, in the Tamang case, cross-cousin marriage)
• Sexual divisions of labor
• Most work requires collaboration of the sexes
• Exclusively mens work plowing
• Exclusively womens work weaving, brewing
• Together these arrangements create
• strong bonds of relatively egalitarian
  interdependence (and)
• different (gender-specific) vantages upon that
  interdependence

21
Patrilineal descent
Core men in the Himdung patrilineage wearing
garlands made by their sisters
Sisters return home with gifts for their
patrilineal brothers

• Everyone belongs to the family line of their
  fathers
• But in the Tamang and Sherpa forms of patriliny
• Sisters daughters remain important to their
  natal patriline all their lives
• Especially because of Tamang Sherpa patterns of
  marriage residence

22
Patriliny

• Everyone is born into the natal family of their
  father (and fathers fathers fathers)
• Unilineal descent traced in the fathers line

Fathers
line
Patri
lineage
23
Patrilineal family
24
Tamang marriage
CROSS COUSIN MARRIAGE

• Everyone in Tamang society marries the child of
  either their fathers sister or their mothers
  brother
• Sometimes (about 36 of the time) this is
  marriage to a genetic cross-cousin the rest
  (64) of the time it is to a classificatory or
  fictive cross cousin
• Patrilineal classificatory cousins include
  grandfathers brothers children, or great-
  grandfathers brothers children (or their
  children)

25
Cross cousin marriage
Children of opposite sex siblings marry
sister
brother
Children marry
26
Balancing biology and society
Dangers of inbreeding?

• Remember that inbreeding is only bad when there
  are deleterious genes
• Remember that human biological reproduction is
  very complex and has many ways of recombining,
  rectifying and eliminating genetic material
• Numerous studies have clearly shown that first
  cousin marriage does not so drastically limit the
  genetic endowment of offspring as to be dangerous

27
Contrasting parallel cross cousins
cross
parallel
cross
parallel
mother
father
EGO MUST BE MALE FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL
TERMINOLOGY TO WORK
28
Cross cousins

• The children of opposite-sex siblings (that is,
  who are crossed over in sex)
• Patrilateral cross cousins (on the fathers side)
• NOTE terminology established from the
  perspective of a male ego
• therefore a mans fathers sisters daughter is
  his patrilateral cross- cousin
• 23 of Tamang men married their patrilateral
  cross-cousins (March 1979209)
• Matrilateral cross cousins (on the mothers side)
• NOTE terminology established from the
  perspective of a male ego
• therefore a mans mothers brothers daughter is
  his matrilateral cross-cousin
• 13 of Tamang men married their patrilateral
  cross-cousins (March 1979209)
• Bilateral cross cousins (on either/both parents
  sides)
• 36 of Tamang marriages were with actual
  bilateral cross-cousins
• 64 of Tamang marriages were with classificatory
  bilateral cross- cousins

29
Cross cousin marriage
Cross cousin marriage
3 kinds
Total 36 actual 64 fictive
23
13
Patrilateral
Matrilateral
Bilateral
Marriages occur only between a man his fathers
sisters daughter
Marriages occur only between a man his mothers
brothers daughter
Marriages occur between both sisters son
brothers daughter and brothers son sisters
daughter
30
Bilateral cross cousin marriage moves
spouse/cousins back and forth very tightly

• (Left to right) Bilateral cross cousin marriages
  in 1st, 2nd 3rd generations (note that an
  sign is not used to indicate marriage in these
  diagrams)

31
Patrilocality

Moves to husbands fathers house

• Brides move to live in the extended household of
  the husbands father
• Also includes husbands mother
• And husbands brothers, their wives children

32
Patriliny patri- or virilocality
Daughters and sisters continued importance
varies

• Gender variations
• In some ethnographic cases, daughters sisters
  MOVE OUT ( are no longer important to their
  patrilines) when they marry (patrilocally).
• In other cases, daughters sisters remain
  important, even if they marry and move out.

33
Sherpa Tamang both patrilocal

• Wives move to live in their husbands fathers
  houses
• In both Tamang Sherpa Delayed transfer
• Husband wife delay full move for many years
• Three formal stages to Sherpa marriage
• Both may commute between both parents houses
  for many years
• Marriage
• Sherpa marriage men often finds wives from the
  villages where their mothers or older sisters
  married
• Tamang marriage bilateral cross cousin
• In both cases women and men both have secure
  positions in both natal and marital homes

34
Tamang postmarital residence

• A Tamang woman moves to live within the extended
  household of her husbands father PATRILOCAL
  RESIDENCE
• Later in marriage, the couple may establish their
  own separate household, but still in the vicinity
  of the husbands father VIRILOCAL RESIDENCE
• Occasionally Tamang couples establish their own
  separate households in new locations, especially
  with migration into wage labor in Kathmandu or
  elsewhere NEOLOCAL RESIDENCE

35
Tamang men women kinship

• Men are born, marry, live, have children die in
  same social geographical group
• Women are born in one locality social group but
  marry, have children die in another
• As sisters women always belong to represent
  their own lineage, clan village
• When they marry into another lineage, clan
  village, women provide important society-wide
  links

36
The mans-eye view of patrilineal descent
patrilocal marriage

• Men are born, grow up, marry, have children die
  in the same place
• Their experience is symbolized in locally fixed
  enduring patrilineages
• These human lineages are imagined to be

37
like lineages of Lama-s

• Lamas knowledge passed on from male teacher to
  male student
• Like father to son
• Often literally lama father to lama son (since
  Tamang lama-s are not celibate)
• Enduring through all time without a break or
  change
• Metaphoric similarities lama-s lines
  patrilines

Traditional thangka painting of the lineage of
the Drikung Kagyu Lamas
38
Womens-eye view of Tamang kinship marriage

• Women are born grow up in one place
• Then they marry, have children die in another
• With lifelong obligations in both places that
  require them to move back forth all the time,
  like the movement of

Husbands house
Father brothers house
39

• the bombo flying between the human world and the
  worlds of the spirits
• like the tutlelary shamanic female tsen spirits
  who live in in-between spaces
• or the great shamanic hornbill (who represents
  the tsen in this world?)
• or the shuttles on a womans loom

40
Tamang lama-s

• Keepers of text
• Tibetan Buddhist text
• Performers of the largest scale rituals involving
  whole communities
• Dance drama festivals
• After death rituals (gral)

Tamang Lama reading the Great Book at a gral
41
Antinomy interdependent opposites

• Bombo
• Rituals
• At night
• For the living (if often sick dying)
• Center around dramatic emotional trance
  chanting
• Oral word
• Recreated with each performance
• Tailored to particular clients
• Particularizing
• Serves individual or familial suffering
  (sickness, despair, fear, crop failure...)
• This suffering is highly particular (Why me?)
• Bombo-s wrestle with particular causes (ghosts,
  demons, angry or offended gods or enemies) by
  traveling between the worlds of humans spirits
• The resolution that results is sometimes
  effective sometimes not, but is always
  provisional

• Lama
• Rituals
• In daytime
• For the dead ( their survivors)
• Center around the predictable measured reading
  of texts
• Written word
• Fixed, unchanging
• The same for all
• Universalizing
• Serves whole society, individuals all alike
  (subject to death, decay rebirth)
• Buddhist precept on the nature of suffering as
  universal requires erasure of personal,
  acceptance of universal cycles
• Lama-s reinscribe this order by reciting their
  texts
• Offer resolution of suffering through an eternal
  final meaningful order

42
Tamang bombo-s

• Keepers of oral tradition
• Still Buddhist
• Performers of smaller scale rituals for families
  households
• Soul calling
• Expulsion of personal or domestic malevolencies

Tamang bombo giving a blessing after an all-night
soul-calling
43
And sex/gender

• Lama-s
• Associated symbolically with the maleness of
• Writing plowing
• The continuity of patrilineages
  patrilocalities
• Include women as co-producers of ritual nuns

• Bombo-s
• Associated symbolically with the femaleness of
• Weaving brewing
• The intermediacy of women who are born into one
  patrilineal/local family move to marry into
  another
• Include men as practitioners if they inherit a
  female tsen

44
Womens mens work obligations

• Different
• Interdependent
• Both necessary for a successful household

45
Tamang women men economics

• Women receive jewelry, cloth, grain, animals
• Women plant, weed harvest (but options for work
  in wage labor are more limited)
• Women are supposed to save, loan or invest their
  property to (try to) make it increase

• Men inherit land, houses, animals
• Men plow, weed harvest (or work in wage labor)
• Men are supposed to provide the basic subsistence
  support for their families

46
Tamang mens Inheritance/goods
Tamang womens Inheritance/goods
47
Tamang mens work

• Tasks everyone says can only be done by men
• Plowing maintenance of plows
• Sacrifice/slaughter of animals

48
Sexually shared work

• Tasks everyone says either men or women can do
• Other fieldwork (besides plowing)
• Planting
• Weeding
• Harvesting

49

• Post-harvest both men and women
• Threshing, Sifting, Winnowing, Husking, Storing

50

• Carrying loads both women and men
• Seton, G.T. Yes, Lady Saheb My Tamang woman
  porter...where the women stand no nonsense from
  their men (1925 opp p 157)

51

• Cooking said to be mostly womens work but in
  fact done by both women and men

Tamang man cooking. Photo from Bennett Acharya
(1971) Status of women in Nepal
52

• Although serving
• From the hand of a woman symbolically powerful

Tamang women placing offerings in community ritual
Tamang woman serving food in her house
53

• Caring for children said to be mostly womens
  work
• But care actually provided by siblings, mothers
  fathers, grandmothers -fathers
• Mothers love symbolically very powerful, esp
  in idea of milk, which makes children grow

54
Exclusively womens work

• Tasks everyone said only women can do
• Weaving
• Upright loom
• Backstrap loom

55

• Brewing
• Distilling
• Especially the preparation of yeast

56
And the femaleness of fertility increaseThe
beer song

• In the beginning, make the beer well
• Take the water from Lhasa and the grain from
  Nepal
• Make the beer well
• Its the tshe (long life) wang (power) of
  the divinities!

57
Senior beer jug
Inside the Tamang hearth room

• Maintaining the jugs of mash
• Only the seniormost woman in each household may
  touch the seniormost beer mash jug

58
The coparcener model

• Gendered domestic economy
• Gendered wealth its responsibilities
• Men
• Inherit land and houses
• And the obligation to provide the basic family
  subsistence
• Women
• Are gifted (inherit?) movable goodsgrain,
  jewelry, money, livestock
• And the obligation to be frugal, entrepreneurial
  energetic in making their wealth multiply

59
The coparcener model

• Gendered subjectivity
• Maleness and male pride associated with the
  enduring productivity of the line and land
• Both are relatively fixed assets
• Productivity of land is relatively fixed and use
  of it as a transactable asset is limited by
  corporate ownership heirs rights
• Numbers of descendants cannot be expanded and
  contracted to meet temporary variations in
  productivity
• Femaleness and female pride associated with the
  increased productivity and fertility of the
  household
• Womens assets are fungible
• A egg, chicken, goat or buffalo can be sold,
  eaten, or mated variably
• Money and grain can be loaned

60
The work of the sexes and gendered metaphors for
society Tamang maleness

• Plowing the working of lands
• Mens work
• A metaphor for a particular moral social order

61
Plowing the land writing as gendered metaphors
of/for society social solidarity

• Plowing
• Traced in continuous lines
• In the land surrounding the houses enduringly
  passed on from father to son
• To provision secure the continuity of the
  family line

62

• Like writing, particularly lamaic (Buddhist
  scriptural) writing
• In books
• Sacred phrases on woodblocks
• Prayerflags (wheels, etc.)
• Imposes its permanence

63

• According to these male metaphors, society was
  created by divinely inscribed word
• As determinant, fixed, eternal
• Created by Buddha-word long ago
• And preserved unchanged by lineages of Buddhist
  teachers
• And by the patrilines of lay people
• Society can go awry but the metaphor here is one
  of straying from the social script is
  rectified by the words of the text themselves (in
  re-citing or stamping themliterallyupon the
  world)
• Moral society the continuity of society is
  (from thismaleperspective)
• produced (literally, cultivated rooted) in a
  single place and
• it is created preserved by the repeated
  penetrations of plows, pens and men

Mani stonesstones on which sacred words are
carved symbolize the permanence of this
moral/religious order
64
The work of the sexes and gendered metaphors for
society Tamang femaleness

• Weaving and exchanging of textile
• Womens work
• And another metaphor for social solidarity

Womens textile work is symbolic of their
femaleness
Women bearing gifts of beer textile to link
lineages, clans communities into the wider
society
65
Womens weaving brewing

• A womans skill
• Not only in the weaving of cloth or the brewing
  of beer/liquor
• But also in offering and exchanging it
• Beer and/or cloth offerings are essential to all
  Tamang social interactions

I learn to weave
Carrying the pong-jug of beer
66
Serving/offering, weaving brewing as gendered
metaphors of/for moral social order

• In the metaphors associated with these womens
  activities
• Society is created by the desires (and
  affection) of participants
• And this is enacted and embodied by women whose
  weaving and exchanging of cloth is (literally as
  well as figuratively) the social fabric

Tamang village leader wearing the turban of
officewoven given to him in an annual
ceremony by the women of his village
67

• Society can become frayed or unraveled
• Especially in death when cloth gifts are
  essential
• On the mortuary altar
• And on the effigy of the deceased
• Where cloth gifts from women are essential

Sisters mourn a dead brother make gifts of
cloth for his effigy
68
And beer/offerings

• In a secular sense beer is associated with all
  social exchange
• Symbolically the making of beer offerings of
  drink food symbolically associates femaleness
  with
• The enjoyment people take in each others company
• The sense of generosity that leads people to help
  one another
• The prosperity fulsomeness of (a good) life (as
  one Tamang mythic origin song says) bubbles
  overflows when the affection of women is great
  and when it is place by the hand of a woman
• Note links to ideas about a womans inheritance
  mothers milk

Tamang woman places beer food offerings at a
large dance drama festival to bring prosperity to
her household
69
Women make beerwomen place offerings
As I was told by a senior ritual specialist in
the village
March (1987) Women, hospitality and the efficacy
of beer. Food foodways 1 364.
70
The Origin of beer song
March (1987) Women, hospitality and the efficacy
of beer. Food foodways 1 377.
71
In these textile and libational offerings

• Women are the active links with the divine
• Making the propitiatory offerings that will make
  divinity reciprocate with blessings
• And acting as the avenue through which those
  blessings come back into human houses
  familiesfor their prosperity, fertility, crops,
  health

Women receive blessings from lama (above) bombo
(below) on behalf of their families
72
Tamang gender antinomy

• The social fabric
• Created by human agency
• Requires human agency (back-and-forth) to keep
  going and/or fix when frayed
• Symbolized by femaleness
• Not exactly the same thing as women
• The social script
• Created by divine agency
• Requires re-imposition of divine word to keep
  going and/or fix when lost
• Symbolized by maleness
• Not exactly the same thing as men

73
Woman shaman with trail beer offering
Man lama with book of scripture

• Mutually exclusive but mutually necessitated
  counterpoised visions/metaphors the antinomy of
  gender
• And the sexes
• Both metaphors meaningful to both
• Both sexes engaged in perpetuation of both

74
Tharai namtar The origin of the loom

• Called the Tharai namtar (loom-of
  origin-legend)
• A song competition between a man (a brother) and
  a woman (a sister)
• The brother-man was a lama the sister-woman was
  a weaver
• Each exults the virtues of the tools of their
  respective trades shuttle thighbone trumpet,
  beater sword, fabric wetter pen, fabric
  stretcher woodblocks for printing, lease/hettle
  rods walking stick.
• What originates in this song is ultimately the
  antimony of the gendered worlds of weaving and
  writing

75
When the cycle of rebirths was beginning, the
woman straightened out the hollow behind her
knee, pushing against the footboard of her
loom. This is the work that anchors women. This
is the one work that anchors them alike. When
the cycle of rebirths was beginning, the woman
straightened out the hollow behind her
knee, pushing at the backstrap of her loom. This
is the work that anchors women. This is the one
work that anchors them alike.
76
When the cycle of rebirths was beginning, the
woman straightened out the hollow behind her
knee and used the shuttle (kyurusying) of her
loom. The lama has his thighbone trumpet
(kangling). This is the one work that anchors
them alike. When the cycle of rebirths was
beginning, the woman had her weaving beater
(graama). The lama has his sword (patang). This
is the one work that anchors them alike.
77
When the cycle of rebirths was beginning, the
woman had her device for wetting her weaving
(chhupi chhusying). The lama has his bamboo pen
(yugu). This is the one work that anchors them
alike. When the cycle of rebirths was
beginning, the woman had her device for keeping
her weaving a consistent width (phapi
phasying). The lama has his printing of books
with woodblocks (chhappré). This is the one work
that anchors them alike. When the cycle of
rebirths was beginning, the woman had all the
lease and hettle rods (phépi phésying) of her
loom. The lama has his walking stick (béra). This
is the one work that anchors them alike.
78
Relationship of these metaphors to social actors

• The sacred social fabric
• Created by human agency
• Requires human agency to keep going and/or fix
  when frayed
• Symbolized by femaleness
• Not exactly the same thing as women meaningful
  to both men women
• The sacred social script
• Created by divine agency
• Requires re-imposition of divine word to keep
  going and/or fix when lost
• Symbolized by maleness
• Not exactly the same thing as men meaningful
  to both women men

79
RECENT CHALLENGES TO THE COPARCENER MODEL
80
Whats old in Tamang gender?

• Tamang gender
• Daughters
• Given property (dzo) to build own wealth
• Remain in own family clan after marriage
• Retain control over own wealth
• Marriage
• As adults, to men ca. own age
• Marry cross-cousin
• Dont move to husbands house immediately after
  marriage
• Can divorce remarry
• Parbatiya gender
• Daughters
• With limited property rights
• Must reaffiliate within husbands family
• Property given at marriage (daijo) goes to
  husbands family
• Marriage
• Young (pre-pubertal) to older men
• Arranged marriage to strangers
• Move to live with in-laws immediately

Tamang
Parbatiya
(Parbatiya photos L. Bennett)
81
Parbatiya-Tamang contrast
Parbatiya Tamang
Patrilineal descent Daughters remain only slightly important Daughters remain very important
Patrilocal marriage Women marry at both a social distance (outside gotra although inside caste) a geographical distance (typically outside village) Women marry close both socially (cross-cousins) geographically (inside village)
Other expectations at marriage Brides younger than groom, virgin, cant remarry if widowed or divorced (although husbands can) Brides same age, loss of virginity not a bar to marriage, both wives husbands can/do remarry
82
Parbatiya Tamang
Womens rights to real property by inheritance Very limited national law gives daughters who remain unmarried at 35 a share equal to half that of a son Historical rights unclear, may have been greater, but today subject to same national laws
Womens rights to property by other means No absolute rights. Pewa gifts given to daughters mostly include money small livestock women have control of Daijo dowry a relatively new, but increasing, practice do not control Some minimal rights. Dzo (mandatory) sickle, hoe bowl (common) jewelry, grain, cloth, animals women have control of. No dowry practiced.
Womens labor obligations Ideally only inside home, but poorer younger women often have also to work in fields do not control produce. All kinds of work incl agriculture, herding trade work done by out-married women is compensated with shares of the produce which they control.
83
Gendered economies subjectivities in the recent
past

• Parbatiya
• Household under authority of senior man
• Wives as dependents
• Perform many forms of unrecognized labor
• Do not control productive resources

• Tamang
• Household under joint authority of senior couple
• Wives husbands as co-parceners
• Both bring substantial economic resources
• Labor of both recognized as important

North Indian family wife
Tamang family wife
84
Forces supporting Tamanggender balance

• Material relations
• Significant economic resources with both sexes
  related to significant economic contributions
  from both sexes
• Symbolic representations
• Antinomies of gender
• Female intermediacy, efficacy, rupture
• Male lineality, fixity, determinancy
• Insistent pairs
• Male female divinity (tantrism)
• Male female ritual specialists
• Bombo
• Lama

85
Tamang gender balance ? sameness

• Sisters brothers
• Same lineage/clan
• Different contributions/roles/symbolism
• Husbands wives
• Same household enterprise
• Different contributions/roles/symbolism
• Women Femaleness intermediacyboth as
  structural link as active agent maintaining ties

86
Forces undermining Tamang gender balance

• First Shah King of Nepal based campaign of
  conquest in Tamang regions of Rasuwa- Nuwakot
  (1744-1846 AD)
• Rana Prime Ministers consolidated rule based on
  heavy land rents and corvee labor (1846-1951 AD)

87
National Law (Muluki Ain)

• National law based on Khas-Parbatiya practice
  (drawn from North Indian high caste Hindu codes)
• Implications for both men women placed all
  Tamang at bottom of caste hierarchy
• E.g. made them legally enslavable if they could
  not pay debts
• Further implications for Tamang women through the
  imposition of Parbatiya expectations regarding
• Extensive corvee labor obligations also applied
  to women
• Marriage divorce
• Property rights
• Household community political participation
  truncated

88
dressed in Khas/national hat required to enter
state facilities (govt offices, courts, etc.)
Mhanegang headman in turban of office woven
gifted by village sisters
89
The violence of nationalism internal
colonialism (ca 1850-1990)

• Overall increasing gap between national elites
  local Tamang peoples
• Cultural e.g. Nepali only legal language only
  language allowed in courts, schools, media
• Political/military e.g. Movement of local people
  restricted within country (largely) not
  permitted outside of country
• Economic e.g. Wealth extracted from local
  peoples concentrated in central elites produced
  most extreme poverty in local communities in
  closest proximity to state centers of power
• Gendered e.g. Ideas about local (so-called
  tribal) womens sexuality (loose, free , thus,
  open for rape, prostitution, domestic slavery)

90
Biggest 30-year change in village life
migration outside of the village

• 1977 3 of village population migrated out,
  none overseas
• 2006 35 of village population migrated out, 13
  overseas

91

• 1977 68 households
• Total population 344
• In village 340
• Out of village but in Nepal 4
• In India 3
• Out of Nepal 0
• 2006 114 households
• Total population 658
• In village 415
• Out of village but in Nepal 128
• In India 11
• Out of Nepal 86

92
The maleness of migration

• Almost 2/3rd of the adult men from Mhanegang no
  longer live to work in the village (2006)
• Radical transformation of previous domestic
  gender economies of complementarity
• Male subjectivity is still invested in supporting
  the family reinforced by national foreign labor
  legislation

93
The femaleness of left-behind households

• By contrast over 2/3rd of all the adult women are
  still living in the village (2006)
• Unlike many other reported patterns of womens
  movement into factory/pink collar work (Carla
  Freeman, Aihwa Ong, Diane Wolf)
• Their load has both increased absolutely and
  shifted to absorb previously male work

94
Increasing numbers of female-headed households

• 37.7 of all occupied houses in the village
  headed by women (2006)
• Almost twice the national average (plt0.0001)

95
How does this new migration occur?

• Many are recruited
• Military (Gurkha) British, Indian
• Tamang legally banned from foreign military
• Had to falsify identity to go
• Guard services
• Gurkha Manpower Services
• www.gurkhamanpower.com
• Gurkha Manpower Services provide legendary
  former British and Indian Army Gurkhas, as well
  as civilians from Nepal, for skilled or
  non-skilled manpower recruitment and human
  resource commitments worldwide.
• Group 4 Falck
• www.group4.ca
• Group 4 Falck was originally founded in October
  1966 by retired members of the Royal Canadian
  Mounted Police. The company was initially engaged
  in the provision of private investigation
  services.

Former Gurkha soldier with medal
Identity card for guard service in UAE
96
Military model

• Underlies Nepal Foreign Employment Act of 2042
  (1985) its Amendment in 2054 (1998)
• Gave Nepal Government rights to
• License investigate manpower agencies
• Stipulate foreign placement conditions require
  certain conditions in contracts
• Salaries working conditions considered legal in
  hiring country
• Provisions for maintenance (housing, food, health
  care)
• Provisions for (paid) home leave on a regular
  basis (typically every 18 months)
• Allow manpower agencies to charge fees to
  advertise
• Prohibit manpower agencies from arranging foreign
  employment for minors (under 18) and women
  (without stringent releases from male kin)

97
Recruiters in an old tradition?

• In many ways, patterned on military recruitment
• Parallels with e.g. Caribbean deployment of field
  labor immigrants to plantations?
• Unregulated brokers of labor
• 500 Manpower agencies in KTM
• Expensive 50,000-700,000 N Rs per placement
• Unenforced/unenforceable contracts
• Mostly for manual labor
• Al-Futtaim Group (UAE)
• www.al-futtaim.com esp Al-Futtaim Tarmac
  (www.aftarmac.com)
• Al Futtaim Tarmac's Quarry Products Division is
  one of UAE's leading suppliers of Heavy Building
  Materials to the construction industry. We have
  been established for over twenty-five years. We
  specialize in the supply of high quality crushed
  and natural aggregates and asphaltic materials
  throughout the UAE. In addition, we have a
  national contracting arm which provides a service
  for laying asphalt pavement surfaces such as
  airport runways, roads, carparks and sport
  surfaces. We have a workforce of approximately
  350 personnel. Our operations are controlled from
  our head office situated in Ras al Khor, Dubai.

To go abroad is not a good thing They tell
you youre going to one kind of work, then you
have to do another. They tell you youre going
to be paid one amount, then they pay you
something else (worked for Al-Futtaim Tarmac in
UAE).
98

• Some flee in fear
• Soldiers, policemen and their families
• Either to escape posting by the government in
  dangerous areas
• Or to escape retaliation from insurgents for
  government military service
• Or complex combinations of persecution by both
• refugees?
• Raises questions of whether a diaspora is forming
• Probably too much social cultural fragmentation
  in migratory processes at present
• But there are certainly changes in (and the
  emergence of) Tamang identity as a global form
  of belonging

Seriously wounded while in Army in an attack by
insurgents, then subsequently accused by
government of collaboration with the insurgents.
99

• Chain migration pulls many creates new social
  capital
• To foreign destinations
• Groups of brothers/kin going ad seriatum into
  similar employment

Three brothers now all in guard service in the
UAE
100

• And including those who go to secondary
  destinations
• Large numbers of women children migrating to
  Kathmandu after their husbands go into foreign
  employment

He came back from Saudi Arabia after 3 yrs.
What were the children to do? Saying, I wont
go back to Saudi Arabia, he stayed for 8
months. There wasnt any money. These children
had to go to school, as soon as they went to
school, there were fees that had to be paid. So
then, paying 1 lakh rupees to the manpower
agency he went. It will be a year in the month
of Magh. He has to work day and night Its
all only hardship. Theres hardly any money.
And its hothorribly hot.
Mother daughter with photos from husband/
father in Saudi Arabia
101
Women doubly endangered by the changes in these
patterns

• Mens inability to earn enough to support their
  families, and
• Nepal laws limiting womens access to legal
  foreign employment
• Pushes many women into illegal and dangerous work

Carries unknown goods 1-2 times a month for sau
employer for 10,000 Rs (about 150), earning
almost three times what her husband does working
12-hr days as a watchman in Kathmandu together
their incomes are barely sufficient.
102

• The daughter of one Mhanegang woman is serving 5
  yrs in the Central Jail
• She doesnt know what was in the bags she was
  carrying
• Others going into cabin restaurant hostess work
  (massage parlors prostitution?)

Has now stopped carrying goods to from Hong
Kong but tells of the times she wore 5 pairs of
pants 40 sarongsso many that she couldnt fit
into the seat or go to the bathroom. But, she
said, it was OK the pee couldnt make it out
through all those clothes!
103
Impact dramatic on symbolic ( all) capital
(shameless appropriation of Bourdieus framework)

• Economic
• Remittances
• National Living Standards Survey (1996) 23 of
  the 3,500 households surveyed reported receiving
  remittances from abroad
• Nepal Rastra Bank official figures very erratic,
  but, e.g. 1996/97 2,938,000 N Rs ( 7.7 of
  foreign exchange)
• Seddon, Adhikari Gurung (2001) variety of
  inferences ? 35-69 billion N Rs (13-25 of GDP)
• Old new forms of wealth
• Familialism different? among old wealthy new
  entrepreneurs (Aihwa Ong)
• Houses, TVs other modern forms of
  consumerism (Mark Liechty)

104
New family/domestic systems of production/reproduc
tion/consumption

• Economic (summary) New wealth
• Production taken out of the village put
  (apparently exclusively) in mens hands
• Wives taking over agricultural work as it becomes
  increasingly unprofitable
• Wives pursuing short-term high-risk employment to
  supplement husbands wage or family farm income

105
Wealth (and other forms of economic capital) Wealth (and other forms of economic capital) Wealth (and other forms of economic capital)
Old village coparceners (dabo-damo) Now village Global village Producers reproducer/consumers
men Land, houses real wealth (Insufficient) land (empty) houses Wage labor Overseas manual and guard wage labor, international reinforced concrete houses in Kathmandu
men Plowing, khukri-s Valued for providing basic livelihood for family symbolic provider Still as provider (but precariously effective) Money, consumer goods Lahore-style provider
women Herds, grain liquid wealth Chickens, unprofitable agricultural labor, limited investment possibilities in villages (b/c of civil war) Urban housewife doing housework childcare while waiting for remittances
women Looms, jewelry Valued for entrepreneurial ritual ability to increase family wealth (nhorkiyang) Any signs of prosperity are risky, need to be hidden not celebrated Dependent consumer reproducer (but not commoditized)
106

• Social
• Social remittances (Peggy Levitt)
• Networks, changed social relations, new
  imaginations
• New household formations
• New marriages

107
New multi-women households

• Not all women are living increasingly restricted
  lives
• A fortunate few have husbands who are
  successfully employed overseas
• In one case, the young wives of three brothers
  all live together in a comfortable house, going
  to school, to shops, to movies, and doting over
  the first of their babies

108

• Adventure
• Orphaned, ran away to Kathmandu as a girl
• Befriended ( employed as a nanny) by a woman who
  took her to France
• Learned to read upon return to Nepal
• Ran a childrens shelter supported an extended
  household of 3 kinswomen their children
• Joined husband in US in Oct 06

At that time I was like blind used Eng word.
I couldnt see anything. ... When I began to
see the A-B-C everywhere, on signs, everywhere,
it was like my eyes were suddenly opened. I
told my old man, You should go abroad....At
that time you could get a 6-mo visa for
America... I said, You should go. You learn
many many things in foreign countries. ... Its
not a question of earning money theres the
experience in English.
109
Adventure, romance modern love

• The affect of migration
• Change hope a way out of poverty into a
  wider world of possibilities
• Luck risk not a sure thing by any means
• Adventure (with original double meaning)
• Capitalist venture
• Travel, new opportunities
• Romance
• Changed gender, family, household marriage
• (Romance found in both arranged love
  marriages)
• In love marriages more individual, more
  glamorous, more modern
• In popular culture
• Modernity of many forms of fashion consumer
  goods (clothing, TV/VCR, motorcycles/cars,
  restaurants, whiskey)
• Music
• Old themes in Tamang song competitions
  marriageability (in terms of cross-cousin
  relationships)
• New themes marriage without parental
  involvement, marriage across socialand
  geographicdistance

110
Om mane padme hum
My vow at the temple I wont forget. You cannot
go, but I wont forget. My vow to my father I
wont forget. You cannot go (with me), but I
wont forget (you). My vow to the Buddha I wont
forget. You cannot go, but I wont forget. My vow
and oath I wont forget. You cannot go, but I
wont forget.
Of your mothers daughters, youre the oldest
one I too am my fathers oldest son. Of your
mothers daughters, youre the oldest one I too
am my fathers oldest son. For a day or two
theyll be angry, Then theyll call me
son-in-law. Ill never make you feel bad,
badly Ill cherish you ever glad, gladly. My
vow to my father I wont forget. You cannot go,
but I wont forget. My vow to my father I wont
forget. You cannot go, but I wont forget.
Om mane Contemporary Nepali song By pop/rock
group The Mongolian Hearts (1998)
I lit a lamp at the Buddha temple at
Swayambhu Bowing to the Buddha, I asked for your
hand (?) My vow to the Buddha I wont forget You
cannot go but I wont forget My vow to the Buddha
I wont forget You cannot go but I wont forget
Om mane padme hum
111
New family/domestic systems of production/reproduc
tion/consumption

• Social (summary) New households marriages
• Classic left-behind wife-and-children
• Smaller, more isolated, consumption-
  reproduction- focused domestic units
• But new forms too
• Sisters-in-law together
• Left-behind wife-and-children plus others
• Love marriages

112
Families, friends (and other forms of social capital) Families, friends (and other forms of social capital) Families, friends (and other forms of social capital)
Old village coparceners (dabo-damo) Now village Global village Producers reproducer/consumers
men Brothers ( sisters), cross-cousin marriage, boyhood friends, ritual kin, work exchange groups Both sibling cousin relationships still strong but getting stretched by distance Brothers new fraternities (Ong) in co-workers schoolmates) love marriage
men Ritual sibling exchanges kin identities (mha/shyangpo), nicknames festivals esp Dasain No nickname exchanges, no shamans or rituals for local divinities (rise of lama), cessation of Dasain Emergent national Nepali and Tamang (Gurkha Sherpa) identities in expatriate settings
women Brothers sisters, cross-cousin marriage, womens intermediacy in kin marriage exchanges, girlhood friends, ritual kin, work exchange groups More marriages outside village/sibling network, girlfriends still important, work groups less prominent New smaller households, love marriages, neighbors, school friends, merchants
women Ritual enactments of sisterhood both to sisters to brothers Rites of sisterhood still valued (but getting harder to mount) Smart consumer, modern mother
113
And other changes in the city

• Most of the 25 of adult women now living in
  cities like Kathmandu in Nepal no longer do any
  productive work
• Little work available
• Those who do work say they do so as much to get
  out of the house as to make as little as they do
• Households ( womens place in them) are
  increasing modeled on middle class Parbatiya
  ideals of domesticity, reproduction consumption
• Televisions in the most modest apartments
• Other explorations of fashion (Carla Freeman,
  Mark Liechty)

114

• Childrens education
• Spoken of by almost all the secondary migrating
  women as THE reason for them to be living in
  Kathmandu
• Major expense for nearly all outmigrant families
• Not only important cultural capital
• But also one of few remaining avenues for urban
  migrant women to recuperate a sense of the
  importance of their contribution to future family
  prosperity

Except for schools, everything is better in the
village. Water, air...trucks can even go there
now...
115
Houses

• Become a major avenue for investment by the more
  successful
• Partly because of a lack of other opportunities
  to invest
• But also because of this new intersection
  between
• Mens enduring obligations to house provision
  families
• Womens emergent engagement in a privatized home
  sphere

116

• Cultural (in all 3 of Bourdieus states)
• Embodied
• (new habitus including e.g. travel, language,
  choice/love marriage)
• Objectified
• (money, fashion, music)
• Institutional
• (especially education)

117
New family/domestic systems of production/reproduc
tion/consumption

• Cultural (summary) New desires investments
• Childrens education in Kathmandu
• Other consumer/fashions
• Houses in Kathmandu
• Creating new forms of symbolic capital

118
Education, travel (and other forms of cultural capital) Education, travel (and other forms of cultural capital) Education, travel (and other forms of cultural capital)
Old village coparceners (dabo-damo) Now village Global village Producers reproducer/c