Himalogical

Some last images

2008-07-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

TR's house. His wife, SL, looks in as daughter prepares to remove churned butter

SL weighs out some butter

An evening meal with DB's family

IB and his grandson in their workshop

People

2008-07-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

AP and BR's wife drinking tongba

AP with her two grandchildren

BM and her son "maila" - these were my two of my hosts

Down the hill, ward 4

2008-07-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

Goodbye program

2008-07-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

Decorations in front of the central seat

Kailash - the "MC"; school children, in the background, begin to arrive

The ceremonial "tongba" - millet beer, with endless-refill-thermos

Children gather around the MC for the first song of the program

A partly-paralysed Limbu woman, wife of a former British and Indian army soldier

Villagers, including my good friend SB on the far left, and CM on the far right

"ke-lang" (L) or Chebrung (N); the traditional Limbu dance

The husband (on the right) of the woman I mentioned above

Members of the "mother's group" dance the rice-paddy-dance - "ya'rakma" (L); dhān nāch (N)

Girls from ward 5 perform a dance

Girls from ward 3 performing a dance

An improvised dance: limbu-anglo fusion

Receiving flower garlands and giving thanks

View from the garlanded-seat

Spectacular performance from a boy who lives in Jhapa (but was born in the village) and is training in dance

Later that evening, laden with gifts and covered in petals and red paint

La Zucchina - the Italo-Nepal "orto"/homegarden

2008-07-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

Tekadin - a day in ward 3

2008-07-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

JB shows me how many children, grand-children and great-grand-children he has: 27+3=30

Two of JB's grandchildren

View from JB's house with cut and stacked wheat, and bright-green rice paddy seedlings.

View across lower ward 4 and 5 (southwards) from ward 3

Basket (Doko - डोको) weaving

2008-07-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

View up-river

2008-07-18T05:04:00.000-07:00

View from upper ward 2 looking up-river towards Yampudhim village (north-east wards)

Up the hill to eat khir (rice-pudding) (30/5/2008)

2008-07-18T04:32:00.000-07:00

View down to main trail through village, with buffalo grazing

View (south) of village from upper ward 1

The houses higher up thatch their roofs with split-bamboo (malingo)

View of the village from above the main (community-owned) forested area

Portrait of my friend "Mohan-Sir"

The first shed (goT) above the village. Wheat grain, to be brewed, is boiling

View of the fire in the first shed up the hill

View towards the shed as we continue upwards

khir - rice-pudding - on the boil using some 5 litres of fresh buffalo milk

The master khir-maker, and buffalo herder who lives in a village down river but works up here (by renting the land)

Helping to stir

Cooked khir served up and offered to various local deities on leaves, both inside and outside the shed

Ready to eat

Ritual of "Dungdunge" (26/5/08)

2008-07-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

Shorter version of the dungdunge ritual using a chicken instead of goat. Dungdunge is a mad spirit that is usually appeased by pulling the heart of a live goat out and placing it at the ritual altar. Impressive stuff.

Up the hill to collect berries (24/05/2008)

2008-07-18T04:08:00.000-07:00

View (eastwards) of the cluster of houses in ward 4 where I lived

Collecting yellow raspberries (ainselu-ऐंसेलु)

Sowing millet in 2007 and 2008

2008-07-18T03:58:00.001-07:00

Sowing millet 25th May 2007

Sowing millet 24th May 2008 (exactly on time!)

View up the trail

2008-07-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

Various photos in village - 2

2008-04-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

View over the southern side of the village

View from upper ward 5 down over the school and lower ward 5

Three village shamans during the funeral rites of a villager's younger brother

Older villagers drink millet beer during the funeral

Poster in the Limbu language (using Nepali script) for the November election that was cancelled. The government did not provide posters in Limbu for the election in April (though there were many Sherpa, Rai and Tamang posters pasted up around the village though there are only 1 Sherpa and 2 Rai households (no Tamang) in the whole VDC)

Various photos in the village

2008-04-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

The second son (maila) of the house I live in hanging out in my kitchen

Weaving cane-sheets (chhittra [N]) with a high-altitude bamboo (mālingo [N])

View of the workshop of one of the tailor (damai) families that live in the village

Me in someone else's scruffy clothes

Election preparations (9th and 10th April) - Part 3

2008-04-28T06:07:00.000-07:00

Election officials, police and local election assistants on the morning of the election

An old woman is carried to the voting booth while her daughter-in-law votes for her

View of the school ground with election underway

Election preparations (9th and 10th April) - Part 2

2008-04-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

The stamp used on the voting forms

A view of the voting booth for the "red" vote [proportional representation]

Box for collecting the vote forms for the "red" vote [PR]

Sorting out the "red" vote forms

Close up of the 55 parties on the proportional representation vote [which accounts for 335 seats of the 601 total in the constituent assembly - which will write the new constitution]

Election preparations (9th and 10th April) - Part 1

2008-04-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

Helping set up the barriers and sections which will divide male/female/old & incapacitated

Early morning on elections day (6am). The barriers and red/blue boxes for the votes are in place

The main election assistant writes in the details of the voting sheets to be handed out during the day

Limbuwan Party political program (30th March 2008)

2008-04-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

Maoist pre-election village program (26th March 2008)

2008-04-27T01:48:00.000-07:00

Pre-speech dance by village youths

View over a Maoist banner towards male villagers during the political program

Ram (Surendra) Karki, the Maoist candidate for the Eastern part of Taplejung (there are two seats in Taplejung district, roughly East (1) and West (2). Karki lost to Surya Man Gurung (Nepali Congress) by 312 seats. CPN-UML won in the Western area.

View of the school and the Maoist political program underway

Taplejung bazaar market-day (22nd March)

2008-04-27T01:42:00.000-07:00

Yeast cakes for making millet beer; marchaa (Nepali); khesung (Limbu)

Selling tobacco; surti (Nepali); pharsung (Limbu)

Handles for hoeing; kodaalo (Nepali); kang (Limbu)

Visit to Taplejung bazaar (20th-26th March 2008)

2008-04-27T01:37:00.000-07:00

Morning view over part of Taplejung bazaar

Stone, tin and wood rickety constructions in the bazaar

Images in the office of the Maoist district headquarters

Village views

2008-04-27T01:34:00.001-07:00

Weaving a mat (14th March 2008)

2008-04-27T01:32:00.001-07:00

Subba meeting (19th March)

2008-04-27T01:24:00.000-07:00

A meeting of all the Subbas (29 Limbu "chiefs", in charge of tax collection and resolution of land-based disputes in the past) along the Kabeli river valley from Yamphudim to Tharpu. Meeting to discuss the collection of money paid by yak and sheep herders in Yamphudim for using Subba-controlled land high up above the villages along the river valley. The meeting took place in the main office of the new Limbu Museum.

Pre-election political meetings

2008-04-27T01:12:00.000-07:00

Local pre-election political meeting to determine who will walk in what parts of the village to promote this particular party...

A local school-teacher explains why posters have been put up across the village at different sights in 4 different languages. This was a pre-election meeting for a particular political party, but specific questions were raised about the posters. The difference between First-Past-The-Post and proportional representation systems was also explained.

Edible tree moss (5th April 2008) - Mamangkhe

2008-04-27T00:49:00.000-07:00

Spent a morning collecting "yangben" (Limbu), "Jhyau" (Nepali), a mossy epiphyte that grows high up on rotting branches.

(added info below due to comment)
[Extract from fieldnotes]
The hanging epiphyte has to be sorted out. Moss and other plants have to be removed. And bits of bark and such. Enough for one family to eat a meal of takes about 1.5 hrs to sort out. And there is still a large amount left. We must have picked a total of over 1 kg, which uncompressed filled up a large rice sack to 3/4.

The weed is then boiled with ash. About a few tablespoons of ash from the fire. The liquid is brought to a boil for about 20 minutes, until the plant has gone black (from red/grey/brown), and the water has turned dark red.
It then is washed, though apparently either we didn't boil it long enough or S didn't wash it properly, because after washing it well, through and through, the stuff is fried with butter (that surge got from T-Sir in exchange for work), chillies and chives (which they just call garlic here). Salt is added a little later and the stuff is stir fried for 10 minutes or so total, and covered for a moment. We eat it adding a little more salt, with fairly sour jaaD (chaaneko)[millet beer].
It is not too pleasant to eat, though buddharaj claims that in bazaar areas people pay 35 rupees for a plate of the stuff, and 30 for meat. It is extremely, well...fairly bitter. They all agree that it was not prepared properly.

Travelling up to Taplejung

2008-04-26T04:58:00.001-07:00

Birtamod (26th to 28th Feb 2008) - Cardamom merchants

2008-04-26T04:45:00.001-07:00

Visited several cardamom merchants in Birtamod. One of the richest cardamom buyers in the village up in Taplejung regularly comes all the way down to Birtamod to negotiate prices and conditions for sale. Birtamod is one of the largest centres for collection, and distribution of cardamom in Nepal.

Scooping up cardamom pods for packaging.

Removing the "tails" on each cardamom pod and winnowing off the dust. These women earn 3 rupees per kilo of hand cut cardamom pods...

Storage of cardamom sacks

Bringing cardamom sacks (each weighing some 40 kg) to the merchants

The transport bike goes vertical

Birtamod (27th Feb 2008)

2008-04-26T04:42:00.000-07:00

Police escorts for buses travelling over-night from Birtamod to Kathmandu.

Limbuwan / Limboowan(!)

2008-04-26T04:35:00.000-07:00

(26th Feb 2008)
Stuck in Birtamod due to the strike called by Federal Limbuwan State Council (FLSC) activists. This strike has been going on for some 2 weeks, and before that 1 continuous month. A two day pause was called for as rice and other basic goods were not getting to many of the villagers in Panchthar and Taplejung districts.

Photos below are of the headquarters of the FLSC offices.

Back to the field

2008-02-22T05:23:00.000-08:00

Back to the field tomorrow. A plane over to Birtamod in Jhapa, as there are no buses running from Kathmandu to the Terai at the moment. I'll stay with one of the families that migrated from Taplejung to the plains. There's a concentration of 35 households around a "chowk" on the main road heading north to Ilam, Phidim and Taplejung, some 10 km north of Birtamod. There's Happenchowk (or "half-pant"chowk because, so the legend goes, it was here that Western half-pants (shorts) were first seen in the area. Someone on their way back to their village having been abroad is said to have bared his knees in style way way back in time), Buddabare, and Aitabare. The road to Aitabare heads east about 5 km at Happenchowk to reach the Timai Bhutanese Refugee Camp, which means there is a continuous rumble of the overly-sized UN jeep with pale peeping faces in the back seats, as well as uncommonly cheap rice and other basic goods (provided by WFP and sold off by refugees). A tiny plot of land here, enough to build a single-roomed box, costs over 1.5 lakh (150,000 rupees=(approx.)=1200 UKP). That is basically equivalent to the cost of organising a work visa to go abroad (more for better paid jobs and non-Gulf countries (or Malaysia).

Many of the Limbu families that have moved here bought a tiny plot of land by saving money over many years of cardamom crop and/or working abroad. Many of the households are run by women whose husbands are abroad at the moment. Generally people say that life is easier here (no carrying 50kg loads for two days uphill), health facilities are more accessible (and better), and children can study in English-medium private school and take computer classes. It does get too hot for most during the summer (there are no mosquitos in Mamangkhe), and many comment that the vegetables and water don't taste as good.

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I will head up to the village when the buses start running up to Tharpu/Medibung by the Kabeli river valley - the end of the road - then up up up, across, up some more - with a bag full of books for children, photographs and mini-tins of "London" tea (all gifts).

Some recent news

2008-02-22T05:18:00.000-08:00

Bits of recent news:

Hospitals compelled to use firewood

POST REPORT

KATHMANDU, Feb 21 - Hospitals in the capital have been forced to use firewood to cook food for patients due to the shortage of cooking gas in the market.

Director of Patan Hospital Dr Rajesh Gongol said that the hospital has no option than to use firewood to cook food for patients.

Similarly, students' hostel at the Institute of Medicine, Maharajgunj has also started cooking food with firewood.

Likewise, TU Teaching Hospital (TUTH) has instructed its staffers to bring food and snacks from home as the staff canteen has stopped serving the staffers due to lack of cooking gas, said Dr Mahesh Khakurel, executive director of TUTH.

Buddhi Pant, a staffer of Bhaktapur Hospital said that an ambulance of the hospital that runs on gas has halted its service due to the lack of gas. Similarly, the staff bus also stopped operating from Wednesday. However, the hospital is getting its cooking gas.

Posted on: 2008-02-21 22:10:55 (Server Time)

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FLSC activists torch Kantipur vehicle

Kantipur Report

JHAPA, Feb 20 - Federal Limbuwan State Council (FLSC) activists torched a vehicle belonging to Kantipur Publications at Laxminagar road section in Jhapa district Wednesday morning.

About 15 FLSC activists burnt down the vehicle at 5 this morning in protest of the news published in the Kantipur daily that had led to the arrest of FLSC activists.

The vehicle (Ba 3 Cha 3933) carrying Wednesday’s edition of the Kantipur daily and The Kathmandu Post was bound for Birtamod from Biratnagar.

The driver of the vehicle informed that the activists looted mobile phones belonging to him and distributor.

The activists had been planning the attack since yesterday night and blocked the road, witnesses said.

Posted on: 2008-02-20 08:23:28 (Server Time)

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Terai strike enters day 9, curfew continues in several places

Kantipur Report

KATHMANDU, Feb 21 - Normal life across Terai continues to remain crippled the ninth day running on Thursday as the indefinite strike called by the United Democratic Madhesi Front sees no respite. Clashes have ensued in different parts of Terai between the protestors and the police this afternoon.

People in the region are facing acute shortage of daily commodities as the market places have been shut down. Educational institutions have been shut and vehicles remained off the road.

Supply of daily necessities has been largely affected as the vehicular movement on the East-West Highway and road links to India has come to a grinding halt, according to local businessmen..............

The general public took out rallies in Janakpur and Biratnagar urging the agitating Madhesi groups to call off the strike.

The public in Biratnagar chanted slogans of “Call off strikes and protests, Stop ethnic politics, Maintain peace and good-will” and marched around the city area. The rally started by a group of 20-25 youths at 9 am today soon gained numbers as people from every nook joined the two-hour long march around the city.

Meanwhile, there were minor scuffles at Mahabir Chowk in Biratnagar between activists of the UDMF and the police on the ninth day of the strike. Morang district chairman of the Front Jayaram Yadav was injured when an unidentified group attacked a rally of about two dozen activists of the UDMF at Devkota Chowk in Biratnagar.

Posted on: 2008-02-21 03:43:16 (Server Time)

Project changes...

2007-11-22T03:34:00.000-08:00

"It is not unusual for research plans to change after one begins fieldwork. A range of factors may alter one's carefully made plans, including the absence of expected economic institutions, local resistance to research objectives, state or other political intervention, and so on....So many ethnographies begin with a statement along the lines of 'I went to study A, I ended up studying B'. " (Gregory and Altman 1989:44 - "Observing the Economy")

My first post on this blog described research I was planning to carry out in Sikkim, with the Lepcha, on "Medical Culture". Having recently returned from Nepal after 8 months of fieldwork in a village there, my research is now: in East Nepal, with the Limbu, on the "Political economy of cardamom"! A major shift, though it still has something to do with plants (one plant!), and something to do, loosely, with health (one of the major uses of cardamom is in Ayurvedic remedies, though interestingly the villagers in Nepal who sell the seeds never use it themselves).

Pasted below is a short brain-storm of the new things that I became interested in whilst living in Mamangkhe, Taplejung:

What I’m interested in:

1. Cardamom:

1.1. History of cardamom in Mamangkhe; in Taplejung; and in Nepal/Sikkim more generally [I have photocopied 8 MSc theses (economics and geography) from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu which focus on cardamom cultivation in Nepal].

1.2. Technologies and techniques; knowledge of cardamom and ecology of forest; knowledge of what affects cardamom production (soil types, rainfall, etc.); are there people with more expertise or skill and where did they get this from – transmission of knowledge and experimentation and development of new techniques.

1.3. Economy of cardamom: economic and labour cost of production; market chains (selling cardamom); distribution and use of profits; enterprise, management

1.4. Ecology of cardamom: different forest/land types and their relative productivity; distribution of land types among families (this ties into section 3 below);

2. Class formation:

2.1. The histories of families that have moved away from Mamangkhe or partially-moved to Jhapa.

2.2. Competitiveness within the village as the tourist industry develops. People who can provide services to tourists (lodges, food, portering), often people who have bought houses by the main trail through the village, benefit rapidly and tremendously from this.

2.3. Land location and class: there is a probable relationship between physical location of land within the village and economic “position” or class. Tied to points 2.2 and 3, people who live by the main trail have often been able to buy property there from high-caste Nepalis who left in the last few decades. These houses are often large and modern (i.e. tin-roofed) with enough space to provide accommodation to tourists, porters and villagers passing-through. All village’s facilities are on the main trail: the school, health post, telephone, museum (which incorporates meeting rooms and, more recently, a computer), and all the shops from which villagers can buy basic essential goods (cooking oil, salt, soap). Houses located further above or below the main trail, sometimes up to 1 hours walk from the main trail, are visited less frequently by other villagers and tend to belong to somewhat poorer families (though this is of course not always the case).

3. Land use:

3.1. History of land use: some parts of the village which were previously agricultural -used for maize, rice and millet production - have been replanted with cash-crop cardamom and shade-producing trees. In other areas these basic crops have continued to be grown as it is important to produce a certain amount of ones own food.

3.1.1. What influences land use decisions;

3.1.2. What determines the kinds of land people have access to, inherit, or are able to buy or farm on;

3.2. Work on land:

3.2.1. Different work arrangements including adyiā, Tekā, bāndhoki;

3.2.2. How large land-owners distribute labour tasks to others in the village;

3.2.3. How land-owners who live outside Mamangkhe (Taplejung, Panchthar, Ilam, Jhapa) relate to their village, the land, and supervise production (similar to 3.2.2);

4. Migration:

4.1. Migration from the village: historical movement out of village by high-caste Nepalis; more recent movement out of village by Limbus.

4.2. Temporary migration out of village: Families often move away from the village when the bread-winner goes abroad for long-term or seasonal work. This may involve moving to the mother or wife’s family home, or, in the case of around 15 households, moving to Jhapa. Several families live in temporary accommodation with no agricultural land and are uncertain about their future: if the husband returns with money saved, they can buy a property in the area and stay more permanently (4.1); if they have made no money they must return to the village (Mamangkhe) and pay back their debts.

4.3. Incentive to migrate: Many people cite the isolation and need to personally carry goods into the village from Tharpu (2 days walk away) as the major reasons why they would want to leave the village. Other reasons include bad health services and lack of a good education for their children. There is currently a road being built which will reach Mamangkhe within the next 5 years (supposedly). It is interesting to speculate on how this will affect migration, perhaps by looking at villages that the road has recently reached, like the village of Tellok, about 8 hours walk downstream.

What I have collected so far:

1. Survey of 201 households in Wards 1 to 7, Mamangkhe. Data on demography, education, language, economics (production/consumption/conspicuous consumption), cardamom, travel, health and religious activities.

2. Survey of 30 households in Aitabare and Happenchowk, in Jhapa district. Semi-structured interviews on similar subjects as the survey in Mamangkhe but included questions on past employment (where/how they made enough money to move down), house and land prices at the time of purchase/building, education of children (private boarding schools), motivations and perceptions of difference between up (Mamangkhe) and down (Jhapa).

3. Structured interviews with older men in the village (a total of 6) on the topic of personal, village and Limbu history.

4. Informal unstructured interviews with 8 local phedangma (shamans)

5. Participant-observation throughout my work in the village. This included work experience during every agricultural task from planting and weeding rice, ploughing terraces, clearing forest, picking cardamom, cutting trees, planting maize, setting up fish traps and fishing, etc. As well as involvement in any important local ritual or ceremony such as marriages, funerals, the museum opening, etc.

6. Over 2000 photographs and 200 video clips of all of the above (5) which have been categorised and labelled.

7. Over 150,000 words of field-notes.

Rice paddy (23/06/07)

2007-11-22T03:09:00.000-08:00

The whole process of rice cultivation: preparing the terrace walls; ploughing; flattening out the terrace; transplanting seedlings from "seedling bank"; and planting the rice.

Picking out cardamom (17/09/07)

2007-11-22T02:51:00.000-08:00

Picking out cardamom seeds from the fruit pods

Cardamom fields (17/09/07)

2007-11-22T02:31:00.000-08:00

Funeral dance in Mamangkhe (22/06/07)

2007-11-22T02:19:00.000-08:00

Photos from the survey: 5/8/07 to 30/8/07

2007-11-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

A household cluster with shed for storing wood and seperate kitchen to the left

View of a single house with three floors. First floor is used as the kitchen, second as the sleeping and part-storage area and third as storage space.

Married couple with wife of son (who has gone abroad)

With of inside of house (ground floor)

Photo during an interview for the survey

Tin roofed house with wooden balcony and a small shop on the ground floor!

View of Wards 6 and 7 on the western-side of the mountain

Another view of the Kabeli river valley facing south-west

Two-storied house with cane roof

Preparing strips of bamboo for basket-weaving.

A rare view of both cardamom (upper half) and rice paddy (lower half) bordering each other. Usually rice paddy is grown closer to the river and cardamom in forested areas further above.

Trip to the sacred lake of Timbung (30/7/07 to 2/8/07)

2007-11-09T01:32:00.000-08:00

Slate chorten on the way to the lake

Yak in the mist (or midst...)

Last rest point before ascent to lake

Small altar by lake with bells, Siva-forks, flowers and pieces of cloth

View (not much of a) of the lake with slate slabs sticking out by shore

Inside the main temple. Cloth, ash, rusty metal forks, and a very very cold floor (shoes and socks must be off!)

Scraps of notebook from school children hoping for good study in the years ahead

Odd flower by the lake

The spectacular Kendzophung (Limbu)/Padam Chal (Nepali) flower

News from The Rising Nepal: (http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=24062)

Landslide blocks Mechi Highway [ 2007-7-31 ]

By Our Correspondent
Taplejung, July 30: The Phidim-Taplejung stretch of the Mechi highway has been blocked due to perpetual rainfall.

Three day long Timbung Pokhari festival, which started from Sunday, has been affected because of the blockade.

The road has been blocked due to the landslide at Khokse and Khahare of Nangkholyang VDC-2 on Saturday.

To open the blockade hundreds of people including 25 Nepal armies, passengers and locals have been working since Saturday, said Chief District Officer Fanindra Pokhrel.

The cleaning of the road has not been completed because about hundred-meter road has been blocked in two places, said Pokhrel. Due to the hindrances, passengers going towards Jhapa have been stranded on the way, said Jung Mukhiya, counter in-charge of Mechi Transport Association.

Likewise, guests coming from different districts to take part in Timbung Pokhari festival have been stranded on the way. The guests have started returning back as they have to walk for two days to reach that place, informed Laxmi Limbu from Panchthar on the phone.

Meanwhile, the incessant rains in the last few days and the accompanying flood has washed away the suspension bridge over the Neu river thereby cutting off all contacts with half a dozen VDCs situated to the east of Taplejung district.

Itung Tapheng: Ritual for good harvest of cardamom, millet and maize (12/7/07)

2007-11-09T01:17:00.000-08:00

Preparing to offer the first chicken

Holding the three chickens together

The altar with offerings of the two (of three) chickens

Examining a corn cob whilst chanting

Extract from fieldnotes (12/7/07)

Itung Tapheng (ituŋ taphεŋ)
When I arrive he is in the corn/millet terrace closest to his house facing the mountains (east wards) on the same level as the house. He has sprinkled soil on a large stone that lies on the edge of the terrace. On the soil he places four strips of banana leaf. He calls out to Indra B to make sure it is 4 and not 6. He did the puja last year but can't remember perfectly well. He has brought a plate with rice on it, and a bowl with ground corn. There is a bowl of water and he makes a wand with the remaining banana leaf and leans it on the bowl.
The rice is sprinkled on the leaves, an egg is placed on the first leaf (from the left), and corn flour has already been sprinkled on the earth below the leaves in small amounts.
A seat is prepared for IndraB the Pma, on a stool and a woven mat. He sits down, examines the wand and seems satisfied with it. He coughs to clear his throat and begins.

What he does is call in the three spirits that this puja is for. Two males and a female. A big chicken for the mountain spirit of toksombo (male) , and small chickens for tambhungma (female) and siring (male). I'm not sure I have it clear as to who the male and females are.
In any case, during the puja at a certain point he asks Tikka-sir where his alaichi are, he names about 6 places, and IndraB adds another two that Tikka-sir has missed out. He mentions "AlAichi bAri" a few times, as well as mandok and maki (millet and corn). The puja is done around the time of the breaking of corn, where the stems are broken and the corn fruit is picked. This will take place in around a week from now.
During the puja IndraB shakes severely and is almost unable to speak thrice. He puja lasts around 10 minutes outside including the actual killing of the chickens. This is done quickly by holding the neck down against the blade (which faces outwards) of Tika-sirs bampok and quickly cutting the neck whilst holding the body and head apart.
The head is placed on the banana leaf, three heads on the three leaf-strips excluding the one with the egg on it. The body is held up side down to let some blood trickle on the leaf, and then it is let go to run around the field for a few minutes. It is then recovered and aninner feather is pulled out and put on the altar with the chicken heads. The puja then is short, a few more words chanted, and IndraB heads up to the house to drink a tongba (it's absence about which he had jokingly complained about earlier: "they don't give tongba or raksi here....kasto mAnche!".

In the house the chicken feathers are plucked off using hot water and it's innard examined. This tells something about the year to come. There is gland behind the liver, is this the gall-bladder? kwiying (L); पित्ता (N) (which I think is the gallbladder, bile-making gland!). If this is green then all is well. If it is white then the season will be bad. If it is big, good; and small, bad again.
Equally, the small intestine, tomrum (L), is also examined, and if along it's length there is a split, or the intenstine is marked with black lines or a black spot, "there will be a death".

Planting millet (8/7/07)

2007-11-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

Planting millet in early July beneath the soon-to-be-picked maize plants.

Extract from journal:

"The planting is intensely tedious. It involves unraveling a bundle of seedlings, of perhaps 100 seedlings and selecting a suitable sub-bundle, of perhaps 20-40 seedlings, to work on at a time. They are held by all in the left hand with the roots just below the hand, and the thumb and first two fingers prepare a single seedlings for the right hand to pick out by rubbing against the lower part of the stems near the roots. This rubbing action pushes forward a single seedlings from the bundle, if done skillfully, and the right hand picks it up with the thumb and first two fingers and pushes it into the mud-soil. Some people use the thumb above the fingers and horizontally (the thumb that is) push the roots in (men tend to do this for some reason), and others (women mostly) use the thumb upside-down-vertically held between the first two fingers to push the seedling in more neatly. A fast seedling planted can plant up to 15 seedlings in 10 seconds. A slower, (men tend to be slower) seedling-planter would poke 5 in every 10 seconds, or so. People tend to squat on their feet mostly, though women will also stoop, with their backs bent over, to plant rapidly, thum, thum, thum, it seems to make a noise as they bullet their seedlings in accurately spaced about three fingers wide-apart."

Fixing a bridge (1/7/07)

2007-11-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

Certain projects, such as building community facilities and infrastructure, involve a large number of villagers. In this case, all the villagers who own land on the other side of the river (mostly cardamom plantations), came to help. A total of 14 adults cooperated on fixing this flimsy looking bridge.

Transplanting cardamom for replanting (06/27/07)

2007-11-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

A young cardamom plant with rhizome and flower. These are pulled out from a larger, older cardamom plant "stack" and replanted. This transplanting occurs constantly as many of these young plants do not get used to their environment, and die. These "cuttings" are sometimes paid for though more often than not picked without permission from neighbouring cardmaom plantations!

The cardamom fruit will grow where the white flowers are visible creating a cone of seeds.

A small stack of seedlings I collected...

Tying together a bundle of cardamom seedlings to transport them to another field.

View of an un-cleared (un-weeded) cardamom field.

Carrying the seedling bundles to another field

Closeup of the cardamom flower-cone

A recently cleared and transplanted young-cardamom seedling.

Preparing an area for replanting

Making a mud oven

2007-11-08T09:28:00.001-08:00

Spent one day with some friends in the village building this mud oven (25/06/07). The idea is to build up a mound of earth which you cover up with clay using paper to seperate the two. You then pull the earth out from the inside and from a pre-cut door. For cooking, you have to build up a fire and get the whole oven very hot (about 2 hours), then push the firewood to one side of the oven (or remove it completely) and put what you want to cook on the other. With the door closed, the pizza-bread-potatoes-meringues-etc cook very fast!

Rice cultivation (end-June 2007)

2007-11-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

Funeral in Mamangkhe

2007-11-07T23:28:00.000-08:00

1,2 - The procession through the village

Looking over the body

Preparing the pyre (which will also be the tomb)

Resting after the first act.

Lighting the pyre

Preparing a mini-tongba (millet beer drinking-vessel) to offer to the spirit of the deceased on the tomb.

Drinking millet-beer after the funeral (behind is the new Limbu museum)

Funeral in early June 2007. I had just arrived back in the village after a short stint in Kathmandu. 4 shamans in charge of capturing, controlling and properly releasing the spirit of the dead man walked across the village banging small cymbals and followed by most villagers, who each carried one piece of firewood. As the man died accidentally whilst hunting high up above the village, shamans are needed to make sure his spirit is properly dealt with and does not become an angry ghost, lingering around the village and attacking his relatives. At every river crossing or fork in the path, a small ritual is performed was performed by the head shaman, to encourage the spirit to follow the procession.

Cardamom

2007-06-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

1.Baby cardamom planted last year, surrounded by weeds in the forest.

This was a day I spent in the forest near the village, helping a family clear their cardamom crops. There are two "clearing periods" before the harvest around September. This is the only cash-crop in the village. It was introduced from Sikkim some 40 years ago, and has helped boost the local economy considerably. Additionally, the failed cardamom crop in Sikkim, which over the last 5 years has been affected by pest problems, has increased the market value for cardamom in Nepal. A 60kg sack of cardamom can be sold at the roadside bazaar of Tharpu (a tough two day walk) for between 10,000 and 13,000 rupees (seasonal variation). Considering that the average family in the village is, in a good year, able to harvest 2 to 4 sacks of cardamom, this plays a considerable role in village food security, as a years supply of rice will cost a 6 member household approximately 15,000 rupees per year (though there is much variation in the quantity of rice bought per household as some mix a larger proportion of their rice with barley or corn).

2/3. Lokendra, clearing a cardamom plant of rotten leaves, stones and snakes.

I am interested in the significance of cardamom to the village economy, and the way that some families, by carefully selecting potential cardamom sights and saving money, are able to improve their economic status within one generation: sending their children to private schools -> who learn English -> who work abroad for 4 years -> who return and build a large house in Dharan, or Birtamod, or Ilam. This is the sort of linear dream that many young Limbus describe to me. The dream revolves around the yearly success of the cardamom crop. There is much talk in the village about it: how much will there be this year? Who has a large crop this year? Will it rain too much and ruin the flowers? Will there be a landslide in a particular area that will wipe away the 150 plant planted only two years ago (they need three years to fruit)? etc..etc..

4. Cardamom flowers up close.

5. Cardamom plant in bloom. The fruit is alread emerging in some plants.

It is the cardamom that allows villagers to buy rice (only a handful of households grow their own). It is rice that is eaten at every meal. It is rice that it taken to the phedangma (shaman) together with a 5 rupee note (or something close) and item of the sick-person's clothing. The rice is used by the phedangma in a divination, by rearranging the grains on a plate he can figure out which spirit has possessed the sick person. It is rice that is fundamental to almost every puja I have participated in (together with the star animal to be sacrificed!). And it is carrying rice for older villagers that allows young Limbus to make small amount of cash to carry out their projects: print newspapers; publish stories; print photographs; buy stereos and tapes; pay for their secondary education.

6. Bir Bahadur's saila

Portraits

2007-06-06T00:23:00.000-07:00

1. "Ramboghe" with his 1-day-old son

2. Neighbours visiting my room
3. Another neighbour

4. Gathering for the hair-cutting ceremony of a friend's grandson

5. Me, on the Tamur khola bridge on the way back from Mewa khola, up to Taplejung bazaar.

Sansari puja

2007-06-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

The Sansari puja, performed on three Saturdays around the Nepali new year. Here are photos of the first puja, held on the 7th of April.

Extract from fieldnotes:

"....Overall, this is a puja for the protection and well-being of all the inhabitants of Mamangkhe (excluding the villages on the other side of the river who apparently conduct their own pujas...therefore this is for all the wards in the VDC from 1-7 - excluding 8,9.) The river puja was conducted in Nepali. Mention was made of all the different groups in the village, and other groups perhaps spontaneously thought of by Deoman - Rai, Gurung, Limbu, Kami, Sarki, and others. I don't think I heard Brahmin mentioned., but then there are none here (I think).
The other pujas were conducted in Limbu, with use of Nepali for dates and years, and occassional mixing...."

The Limbu Museum in Mamangkhe

2007-06-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

1. Building the steps up to the newly completed Limbu Museum

2. View of the museum

3. Inside the museum.

4. Cupboards with cracked glass to be filled with Limbu "cultural items"(!)

5/6. Inaugurating the museum.

7/8. Limbu dances on the opening day: women perform a variant of the traditional paddy dance, standing in a line and singing a palam (Limbu song); women and men perform a Limbu ke-lang, drum dance.

Funeral in Paua (neighbouring village)

2007-06-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

A funeral, 45 days after the death of the mother of a family in Paua, ward 7 in the Mamangkhe VCD.
1. Empty tongba (millet beer) drinking containers;
2. The phedangma (shaman), beginning proceedings which will end tomorrow with the final safe-journey away from earth of the dead-mother's spirit;
3. A view of the temporary structures and space prepared for the "celebration". Some 300-400 people attended.

Dungdunge Puja

2007-06-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

This was a week after my arrival in the village, on my longer stint.
From my fieldnotes:

"ketipathi, a scented plant, in large amounts. The bamboo leg-tops were the actual plant top, long leaves spouting upwards.
The altar was a sort of extension of the terrace, a sort of balcony basically, facing south when one looked towards it. There were four men initially working on it, tying it all together. One of them was the sparkly eyed man I had met a few days before at the shop. Two others were the drunk Limbus I had met and chatted with the day before. The other was a younger Limbu I think I may have seen before but couldn't remember.
Later another, (what turned out to be the fourth and youngest Phedangma) turned up with a container of millet (whose was this? his? why was he bringing millet to a puja he was "working" at?).
There were a largish number of women, 4-5 coming and going, getting firewood, boiling water, boiling rice, getting tongbas served up, bringing mats to sit on.
The rice was cooked and laid out on a tightly woven mat (the food kind as opposed to sitting-on-kind): (names/terms missing here!).
It was immediately busily and skillfully shaped into two largish statues (15cm high and 20 wide), representations of mountain spirits of some kind, and much of the rest of the rice was patted into little cones, much like the little statues one sees in Tibetan monasteries. 32 little ones in total and 2 big ones. The same was done with millet-flour which had been cooked into a sort of polenta, so that in total 64 little statues and 4 big ones had been made. These were placed on the altar on top of a woven mat on either side of a pair of brass plates with kethipathi and uncooked rice, in 5 lines of 6, with the remaining two placed diagonally just below. (plenty of photos of this).
Flags of some kind were places in the big and small statues, and little lizard like models were placed on the outside of the altar, on banana leaves.
The puja got going with two lines of chanting, in front the younger looking phedangmas, and behind the older looking ones, one of whom beat the drum and the other started the chanting. It was sort of fugal in style, there must be a technical term for this, where the older phedangma would start and the younger one would repeat his words a split second later, as if he didn't really know them himself.
There were a number of interesting things about the puja. There was an informality about the proceedings, about the sitting arrangement, about the breaks taken by the phedangmas very frequently between long verses. I was asked over by the drummer to sit next to him and he made jokes in between drumming about who I should marry of the Limbu girls among the group (there must have been a total of some 20 people)."

The Dungdunge puja, performed for the entire village including non-Limbus) by 4 Phedangmas (Limbu shaman), on the 31st March. This is a puja to appease a particularly "mad" spirit. The only way to do this, so explains one of the Phedangmas, is to perform a live sacrifice of a goat (that is, the goat's heart is removed while the goat is still otherwise alive; it is then placed on a stick in the centre of the altar - still beating!)

The top two photos show the altar being prepared. Three more photos show the tiny statues being prepared to place in the altar. The white ones are made of rice, black of ground-and-boiled millet.Other photos show the altar from a distance.

Taplejung trip.

2007-03-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

Returned two days ago from Taplejung to continue processing my visa and pick up necessary equipment for my first long-stint in the field. Getting back was fairly tough. Long bus journey from T down to Birtamod, across to Biratnagar, and by some miracle managed to get through all the road blocks to the airport with half an hour spare.

The field site search went very well. Trekking from Tumlingtar was tough but a great experience, and good to see the middle western parts of Limbuan, east from the famous Arun river. I spend two weeks trampling around Taplejung, visiting villages in both the Phawa Khola and Kabeli Khola valleys, and have ended up setting up arrangements to return to the village of Mamangkhe, Kabeli khola. A large Limbu village in Mamangkhe VDC with some 50 households, and three neighbouring smaller villages in the same area,. Limbu is still widely spoken in the village and even among younger limbus. In Phawa khola villages (one day walk from Taplejung bazaar) I heard much more Nepali.
Mamangkhe is a two day walk from T.Bazaar, or 8 hours from a motorable road to the south (straight up the Kabeli khola valley).

There is a school, a small number of non-Limbu households (5-6), a small understocked health post with 3 health workers, and they are actually completing the construction of a Limbu Museum (the first of it's kind I think), funded by ex-gorkha Limbus from Kathmandu mostly.

The Limbus of Mamangkhe are all (there may be some exceptions) part of the Mabo clan. All the married women come from other valleys.,.which makes it interesting to study a single village and examine social relations within one clan.

Medicinal plants are used, but it seems that there are particular specialists, whilst 'lay' people know only the common plants. It is possible that my research will have to shift away from ethnobotany per se, more towards medical anth (health conception/knowledge) and relationship with economics (productivity, land use, cardamom) and market integration.

I have organised food and board with a Limbu family: the room is a later-built attachment to the ground floor of the house; I will cook my own mid-day meals (khaja). Spectacularly cheap rent (400 rupees a month!).

I will be teaching English in the school and a separate class for adult villagers (many expressed great interest in this), in exchange for Limbu language learning (villagers were very enthusiastic about this!).

The first phase of research will be for around 3 months and will involve:

1. Limbu language learning (as well as continuously improving Nepali)

2. Demographic survey at household level for Mamangkhe and perhaps the neighbouring villages

3. Baseline survey at individual level (married and above) which will include: education, economics, health (illness, self-perceived well-being), and ecological questions (use of wild-resources, hunting activity, medicinal plants, perceived changes, etc…)

4. Identifying informants: plant-knowledge experts, local healers/shamans/ pujaris, old men with knowledge of mythology, local history and clan history.
Identifying potential research assistants for helping carry out the baseline survey, and translating Limbu interviews.

Back from Taplejung: some photos

2007-03-11T22:57:00.000-07:00

Finally a post! I found a reasonably fast internet connection to upload photographs from.

Firstly, a view across the Phawa Khola valley (Taplejung) looking south-east. We arrived here (Ian, Dhan Kumar and Santos) after 5 hrs walk from Taplejung bazaar. Stayed in the village of Warokpa (Bakhim) for 5 days with the brother of a Limbu General (ex-Brit.Gorkha) I had met in Kathmandu at a Yakthum Chumlung meeting (Limbu Association).

The Limbu clan Kangbha lives on the eastern side of the valley across a number of villages, from Warokpa (furthest north) down to Kunjari (an hour walk south-east).

View of the back of a Limbu house in Kunjari

View of Mamangkhe village and the Kabeli Khola facing south. This village is two days walk from Taplejung Bazaar (some 12-14 hours walk), and the last majority Limbu village to the north-east. Other Limbu villages further north can be found in the Mewa Khola valley (where several anthropologists have worked) and in the Tamur Khola valley (leading up to Taplethok and Hellok). One of two trekking routes to Kachenjunga passes through here, up to Yampudim (mostly Sherpa, Bhote, Rai and Gurung), which is officially the furthest-east permanently inhabited village in Nepal.

View of hill-side on walk back from Yampudim.

The primary school in Mamangkhe. Classes run from 1-8. For 9-12 children have to walk to schools further south along the valley towards Sinam (where the first 2+, that is class 11 and 12 was built in Taplejung). A faded Maoist flag is visible on the volley-ball court. That and the grand memorial gateway are the only visible signs of the long term Maoist presence in the area.

Photo of a Resource map of the Mamankhe (spelt incorrectly here) VDC funded by UNDP.

Morning rises over Limbu households in lower Mamangkhe. Something that particularly attracted me to this village was the relative clustering of households due to the large population size and limited space for house-building (agricultural land is precious and the slopes higher up are too steep).

Memorial gate and rest-hut built by the villagers for a local (Limbu) Maoist army commander killed in battle.

Another view of the Kabeli Khola valley facing south.

View of the Kabeli Khola valley and mountain range (south of Kachenjunga) facing north. On the western valley-side lies the village of Mamangkhe (as well as Pawa)

Aborted trip to Jiri

2007-03-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

I had initially planned to Bus-it to Jiri, then trek to Lukla, Everest Base Camp, south-east across Hongu valley, down to Tumlingtar, then across to Taplejung. I headed out with two Canadian friends (Emily and Aaron) and we got stuck in snow later the same day.
Nice view of the mountains the next morning though:

Off-the-road and fallen-trees.

Some more photos from Hee-Bermiok, West Sikkim

2006-11-29T00:05:00.000-08:00

Not even in the Amazon had I seen so much papaya on one plant

View over the valley

Millet: no fermenting allowed at the Brahman's house though one nearby Limbu house is preparing hundreds of litres for a wedding. Here at JD's they grind it and make flat-cakes.

Maize, millet and rice-straw in JD's garden, Berthang

View over millet, with Rinchenpong hills beyond

An old (30 years) and new (6 months) bridge in Berthang

Rice paddy and irrigation channel

Bit of protry:

2006-11-28T08:10:00.001-08:00

Gangtok

Internal memos. Ongoing memories. Sharing a couch with a sacklet of tea. BBC on my ears, or at least one of them as the other is half-busy with dog barks and the whirr of voltage stabilizers. How would I redecorate this house? Hang weavings from the corners and get some of those classic wood-backed photographs. Gutters and concrete-floor-stackings; strained-necks under the weight of gravel or bananas; heapings of bright Chinese-made blankets and jumpers – tufts of polyester sprinkled on the floor; the smell of samosas and “veg-paradise”-thali’s from below; the train-track-clicking of tailors busy over woolen jackets and saffron-silk-shirts; the honk-beep-aluminium-clatter of cars, sausaging through town at 10 rupees-a-hill. Languid busyness this town ere.

shovel-noise at night,
glitter as stones crack,
everyone is building a house.

when is winter?
balcony to the bedroom:
“I sleep diagonal in my bed”.

indoor blossom-droop,
rug-stretches,
tempted by television.

after “a fine balance”
cloth to the tailors –
shirts for ministerial dealings.

hill-top whiskey and tea,
worryingly enthusiastic
how to say no to ch'ang?

Extracts from my fieldnotes:

2006-11-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

22-11-2006

“Basically this morning as the fog contemplated lifting, we had some light rice/veg and marched off towards a village below Rinchenpong where JD (as he seems to be known as by the "fieldworkers" of this NGO) was expected to attend a village meeting to verify the progress of the toilet-building project, supported by the State and his Health and Environment Conservation Society. The down hill was tremendous. Extremely steep and continuous, without a moment of flatness, and occasionally extremely slippery on wet rocks,. something my hard-soled boots are not great at dealing with. Down down down as the knees crickled, down towards the village of Chingthang, largely Rai. There were a couple of people assembled but basically the men were off as it had rained in the morning and the assumption was that the whole thing would be postponed . A large number of toilets had been built with money given by the State (1500 rupees towards costs), but people were still not really using them, and there was no running water to the toilet. JD had to go down to Legship to sort out some financial business (as he is the Gram Panchayat secretary for this area and has to sign off paperworks and permissions). I walked to Hee Bermiok, through Barfok (mostly Gurung, as are the villages on the other side of the valley to the village of Berthang), with JD's fieldworker (just finished school in March and will start up college doing CPI (chemistry, physics and maths: he earns 1000 rupees a month as fieldworker. The accountant in the Health/Environment NGO earns 3000). Walking mostly flattened out until we headed down to the river then up to the village as a short cut across the valley. Intensely and basically unbelievably exhausting. I had so many thoughts about fieldwork, about Bolivia and Yaranda, about why I wanted to study Lepchas in particular and why not study Nepali's in Sikkim (pretty unusual though they are the majority, and this would also coincide with the increase these days in studies on diasporas... I kept thinking about the unit of analysis; what would it be: a village-level study, or an ethnic group? the problem is that most villages, well at least many of the ones around here, are extremely heterogenous. What is the point of going after villages that are homogenous when they are not the norm - in the sense that they are representative of Sikkim in some way. The Lepchas are such a minority now and mostly live only in Dzongu homogenously (though even then there are Nepali labourers, either semi-permanent or seasonal), and in a few villages in North Sikkim near Mangan, supposedly. These are the villages that I should go and visit next...”

25-11-2006

There must be a considerable amount of health-maintenance/promotion knowledge that is not formalised, and most probably not transmitted consciously. Most of this knowledge probably deals with minor health-imbalances such as headaches and stomach problems: the common complaints. More chronic illness or severe (how to decide what and when this is?) is probably dealt with more formally, either with a dhami/jhankri or at the (sub or main) Primary Health Centre. It is interesting to think about the aspects of people's life and culture that are more visible (ritual is in part more visible, though the meanings, effects, interpretations etc..are not), and those that are less visible, such as ideas about health and healing. The science partly comes into play when you develop methods, ideally systematic and replicable, to uncover these hidden or partially covered meanings and activities and explain them in terms that other people can understand. Seems obvious enough except that I do find the distinction between visible and partially/complete hidden interesting in that it is usually the visible that one first notices, and can most easily document, and it is certainly the visible that most interests economists and politicians: how many rice-paddy's do you have? - That sort of question. The partially/completely hidden is more the work of the culture-surgeon anthropologist(!)

25-11-2006
I had thought up an interesting and simple way of measuring what people desired materially, or at least, that which they knew could be purchased. I was thinking that this could be added to the general Economic module in the TAPS research project. The question would be simple. To ask the person what they would do with X amount of money. To have perhaps three figures, low, middle, high and ask the question for each one. Here in India the unit could be 100 rupees (perhaps something temporary and more immediate, but probably more than just a bar of chocolate or good quality rice), 1000 rupees, and 1 lakh (100,000 rupees, or as they write it here 1,000,00). I guess the problem would be a classic anthropological one of realising that there is always a difference between what people say they do (or would do) and what people actually do. This could be tested on a small scale I guess by randomly alloting people with small sums of money that they had previously (say 1 month before) said they would spend on X-thing. The trouble then is that peoples minds change. Perhaps they said they wanted a pair of shoes, but at the time decided a 10 pairs of thick socks would be better. Of course the additional problem is that small sums are necessarily for smaller and more temporary desires. I couldn’t randomly assign 100,000 rupees to 25 % of the sample to test the theory. Though it would probably be the larger dreams that would change less.

Back from Berthang, Hee-Bermiok, West Sikkim

2006-11-28T07:53:00.000-08:00

Managed to organise a visit to an agricultural valley area with no road access in West Sikkim. The Hee-Bermiok Constituency down the valley from Rinchengpong, with the twinkle of Gezing visible at night on the upper flank of the hills facing out from Berthang village, where I stayed with the extremely enthusiastic and passionate “JD”: director of another NGO called “Health and Environment Society”, who mostly busied himself with the largely voluntary (i.e. very low paid) job of Gram Panchayat secretary. The family I stayed with is a Brahman family that has been in the area for two generations. The village itself is predominantly Brahman/Chetri, with large numbers of Rai and Limbu, as well as some Lepcha and Bhutia. Above the village, and above the road that links Kaluk with Dentam, a small community of Sherpas live close to a reserved-forest area; opposite Berthang are other villages, some majority Gurung, other mostly Rai or Limbu. An extremely ethnically diverse, agriculturally productive, and fairly well-populated - but precipitously and dizzyingly steep valley area.

The house I stayed in, and in fact much of the village, is almost totally self-sufficient in terms of food consumption. They produce most of their own rice on the wet-paddy terraces that intermittently run up the side of the valley from the Kaleg and Rangit rivers, that meet to head down towards the town of Legship. Maize, millet, and varieties of manioc are the supplementary carbohydrates. They grow around 4 varieties of lentils (distinguished by colour), have access mandarin fruit, which dots household and land everywhere, grow tomatoes, spinach and herbs in home or kitchen gardens, and almost every house I visited has at least one cow. They buy essential food items such as oil, salt, sugar, tea and spices from the roadside shop a winding 2 km uphill (takes an hour to walk it). It is hard to make generalisations about the village as a whole, in part because the actual concept of the village is extremely loose, but mostly because I stayed with probably one of the richest families in it – they owned what seemed like a considerable amount of land, whereas some families, a couple of Limbu households for example, owned nothing: no land and no house. They simply worked on other people’s land in exchange for part of the food production determined either beforehand or ona fixed 50% basis (the famous kutia and adhia systems common throughout Nepal for example).

An interesting Hindu funeral (some photos below) by the river on the last day:

Good to be in a such a productively "busy" village:

Lepcha medical culture in transition: ethnobotany, health and healing in Sikkim, India

2006-11-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

On the 7th of November I will be arriving in Delhi, India, to begin fieldwork as part of my DPhil (PhD) in Social Anthropology. The current plan is to initially travel up to Sikkim and stay in Gangtok for two months. The initial focus of my project will be to take intensive Nepali lessons, in Sikkim, Kalimpong and possibly in Nepal itself for three or four months. This will be combined with "contact-building" and basic familiarisation with the general area and tentative plan-making for specific fieldsite locations. The longer-term plan is to carry out around 18 months of comparative research in at least two sites in Sikkim and possibly one further one in East Nepal.

My research interests focus on ecological and medical anthropology and the relationship between economic and cultural changes - in particular how changes in livelihood affect the knowledge (linguistic/recognition & application skills) and use (practical-situationa l) of "traditional knowledge", with particular focus on traditional medical knowledge. My Probationary Research Paper (PRS) is available here. This is a summary the research project as described in the paper:

This research project will focus on how and why traditional medical knowledge is changing among the Lepcha of the Himalayan state of Sikkim in North India. It will focus in particular on both their ethnobotanical knowledge and use of medicinal plants, and their conceptions and perceptions of health and health-systems. There are three aims: firstly, by studying two particular domains of Lepcha medical culture - plant knowledge and conceptions of health - to show how practical knowledge and perceptions are intertwined; secondly, by carrying out a comparative study in two villages, an urban-based one and another more rural community, this study will attempt to determine to what extent medical knowledge is in transition, transformation and change. Finally, the reasons for these changes, if any, will be considered by linking broader social, political and economic changes with local experiences. By integrating ethnobotany with medical anthropology, this research hopes to contribute to a scarcity of studies among the Lepchas. The comparative framework will provide insight into how knowledge changes, why it changes and how people experience these changes through something crucial to their everyday experience: their health and their knowledge of healing.

Methodologically I am interested in combining "classical" anthropology methods (long-term participant observation, in-depth semi/un-structured interviews, linguistic analysis, etc.., with methods developed and recently used considerably in ethnoecology-focussed anthropology. Fundamentally my interest is in integrating ethnobiological methods that have examined what counts as "knowledge" and tested methods for best measuring it, with an historically-influenced, contextual, descriptive-literary-ethnographic study of how one particular group (the Lepcha), is - very broadly (and simplistically) speaking - experiencing change.

In a giant-brushstroke-summary-generalisation, my research project is stimulated by an interest in:

1) Health and what it means to be "well" (e.g. the importance of livelihood - investigating the impact of subsistence vs. cash-cropping on self-perceived well-being);
2) Healing and methods developed to maintain/improve/change health (e.g. medicinal plant knowledge, ritual-healing practices);
3) The transmission/transformation/creation/practice-and-performance of "Traditional Knowledge", particularly related to medicinal plants (as this links with 1 and 2, and particularly as explored in the ethnobotanical/biological literature so far).
4) The dynamics (form and effect) of cultural and economic "change" and how they affect/relate-to each other (e.g. is there such a thing as a "transition" from locally-derived traditional medicinal plant use to internationally-developed biomedical-use and how does this influence people's knowledge and use of "traditional knowledge").
5) Methodology as a systematic (or somewhat unsystematic as fieldwork inevitably starts off as) procedure for creating, organising and analysing anthropological observations. Generally my interest is in combining qualitative and quantitative methods and enlarging, as much as an anthropologist can, the domain that is traditionally thought of as "anthropology" by referring to, in discussions and analyses, to the broader disciplinary domain of the social sciences.