John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series NEPAL |
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369-413 |
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John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series NEPAL |
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369-413 |
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| 369. Though the natural environment is clearly a dominant influence upon land use in Nepal, how people live from day to day anywhere in the world is also strongly influenced by their cultural heritage -- most especially by their values and beliefs. And this is especially true of Brahmans, given both the importance of their priestly traditions and their passion for purity and the need to avoid contamination. Who can or must do what, where and when is predetermined. (Woman waiting for meal to be cooked by a relative because, having recently given birth, she is “impure”) |
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| 370. My friend’s name was evidence of his Brahman identity: it was Indra Ram Prasad Gopal. Indra is his “priest’s name”, given to him by the celebrant at his naming ceremony. The others were all chosen by his parents since his grandparents were deceased then: Ram Prasad is his “calling name” (the one by which he would normally be addressed as a child, and chosen by grandparents) and Gopal is his “written name”. I know him as “Gopal Sharma”. “Sharma” is a surname which any Brahman can use, and Gopal sometimes uses “Regmi” instead, which indicates the Brahman subgroup to which he belongs. |
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| 371. The basic social unit here is the extended family headed by the eldest male, who has final authority and is responsible for all decisions. Households typically include married sons, their wives and children, and any unmarried daughters. Shown here are Gopal’s parents, their daughter (who was there on a visit), her son, and Gopal’s wife Bidhya. |
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| 372. Brahman parents preside over every aspect of family life, and are accorded an appropriate level of respect. For example, when Gopal took me to visit his original home, both he and his brother on arrival knelt before their parents, touched their parents’ feet with their foreheads, and asked for their blessing. Conversely, when Gopal visits the home of his in-laws they kneel before him. |
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| 373. In the Hindu religion women (in theory) occupy a higher position than men, and this is reflected in these family rituals. My friend’s wife (Bidhya) would touch his mother’s feet but not his father’s. When Gopal’s sisters or sisters-in-law visit their old homes their father bows before them and lowers his head to their feet. |
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| 374. Bidhya bows before Gopal’s sisters and when Gopal encounters them he must do the same -- whether they are older or younger than himself -- though he will not bow before sisters-in-law |
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| 375. Gopal would greet an older brother (but not a younger brother) or the brother of his father in the same way. On the day I took this photo we were walking to another village, but when we bumped into their uncle, Gopal and his brother both got down on their knees. |
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| 376. What the different members of a Brahman family do each day also depends on their position in the hierarchy, and on the number of daughters-in-law present. The most tedious chores are traditionally assigned to the most junior daughter-in-law (the wife of the youngest married son, regardless of her age), while un-married daughters can sometimes avoid doing a lot of work (since they enjoy a goddess-like status as mothers-to-be). Gopal had married because his father said that they needed another woman to help with the work. (Bidhya collects manure while her husband provides light for the photo) |
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| 377. Though most work around the house is the responsibility of women, men participate in domestic activities which are an extension of their agricultural work -- in addition to cooking on days when when their wives cannot work with fire (which is sacred) because they are “unclean”. (Winnowing mustard seed) |
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| 378. Before daybreak (that is between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. depending on the season) the youngest daughter-in-law present will go for water to the nearest spring, which may be an hour’s walk away. (Bidhya is given water by the wife of Gopal’s younger brother) |
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| 379. While she's at the spring she will cleanse her body, splashing water over her face, her hands and her feet, brushing her teeth, and gargling several times. In addition, on the fourth day of her menstruation she must (before sunrise) wash herself thoroughly from head to foot, and wash her clothes too, which can be a challenge in winter! |
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| 380. While at the spring she will also offer up her first prayers of the day, as will every other adult member of the family when they wash here later. They will scoop up water in the palm of their hand, raise it towards the sky, and then sprinkle it upon the ground while repeating a sacred mantra. |
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| 381. Gopal followed his wife's example, murmuring the mantra taught to him when he was initiated and clasping the sacred thread given to him on that occasion. |
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| 382. When the women return to their homes they will sweep out the kitchen and entrance way; working by the light of a candle while the rest of the family is still sleeping. |
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| 383. They will then get out some of the red clay stored beneath the water pots just inside the door, mix this with water (and may be cow dung for its fibre content) and give the entrance a fresh coat of plaster. |
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| 384. The threshold is of symbolic importance because crossing it means penetrating the intimacy of family life, so purifying the threshold is the symbolic equivalent of purifying the whole house. |
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| 385. Should the daughter-in-law have slept in and her mother-in-law been forced to clean the hearth herself, the younger woman would have to bow before the older woman and apologise, before crossing the freshly scrubbed hearth. |
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| 386. Pigeons serve as alarm clocks -- or are meant to. These ones were young and could not yet be relied upon to wake their hosts on time. Traditionally, the parents of a bride always gave their daughter a pair of pigeons on her wedding day, to ensure that she would get up as required and not disgrace them. |
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| 387. When she has scrubbed the hearth the woman will light the fire, using scraps of dried wood and corn cobs, and a bamboo tube to blow life into material that merely smoulders at first. |
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| 388. This fire will be used to heat water for tea. Since there is no real chimney, just a small hole in a nearby wall, the room will soon be filled with smoke. But there is also work to do outside. |
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| 389. Her husband may by now have removed his animals from the cow shed, but even if he has not done so it must be cleaned; and that, too, is woman's work. She will pick up last night's manure, mix it with some straw, and add it to the manure pile. It has an important role to play in maintaining soil fertility. |
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| 390. She will then wash again, using some of the water she or the younger woman carried from the spring, allowing it to drain away afterwards from the path into the vegetable garden -- so it is used twice. |
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| 391. Meanwhile the head of the family will have got up also. His wife will bow before him when she sees he is awake, and will pour water for him from a jug, so he can wash. (In the not too distant past she would actually have collected some of the water draining from his feet and drunk it to show her respect) |
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| 392. Gopal’s father now get’s some chaff for the buffaloes, and may be fresh hay also from a nearby stack. The chaff is used to prepare a mash. |
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| 393. This will be fed to animals which are to be milked, and he will stroke them to win their affection. He will then milk them, though this is a task which any member of the family can do. At that time Gopal’s family had one cow buffalo, a buffalo calf, and a pair of oxen. |
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| 394. Cow-buffaloes are milked twice a day and each animal typically yields 3 to 4 litres. After they have been milked the buffalos will likely be given slops from the kitchen (from waste water and food scraps) and then hay. |
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| 395. On days when the family has more milk than they need, some of it may be processed (for 15 minutes or so) in a churn with four blades, to produce a type of clarified butter called ghee -- which is usually sold. The buttermilk that remains is eaten with porridge. |
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| 396. In the Midlands a well-to-do family will typically own 3 or 4 cow-buffaloes (the males are sold), plus a pair of bullocks/oxen for ploughing. Many will also have a cow or two, for ritual rather than economic use, since their milk is essential in daily devotions -- in the performance of puja. |
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| 397. Men may also be busy then preparing for the day's work in the fields -- repairing old baskets or weaving new ones, and sorting out any other equipment the family will need on the land that day -- since they will not return till sunset. |
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| 398. The family will eat together at around 9.30 a.m. and then head off ... the children to school, their father to the fields, and their mother to the next chore on her list. |
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| 399. First she must cleanse the dishes used during the meal, using ash from the fire to scrape the plates and cooking pots clean. The ashes and the washing up water will then be added to the compost heap. Dirty dishes and leftovers are thought to be impure, but women are not polluted by food left on their husbands’ plates (and an affectionate husband may leave something good for his wife to eat). |
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| 400. When they are let out in the morning the buffaloes remain in the farm courtyard, but the bullocks and the cows are taken out to graze ... in fallow fields, along footpaths and at the edges of forest fragments. |
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| 401. The buffaloes are hand-fed in the yard. In the course of a day they will each receive 3 or 4 armfuls of leaves or grass, which the women must gather each day from pathways and uncultivated slopes. |
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| 402. If the family also has a few goats they too will be hand-fed, as will any chicks. Chickens scrounge food from household wastes and any grains left out to dry: but their chicks (sheltered under inverted basket) are fed with crushed corn, bran and cooked rice. |
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| 403. After the animals have been fed, women here have a range of other chores to attend to -- not all on the same day, but at times during the week when they are not required to work in the fields. For one thing, they will need to collect firewood. |
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| 404. And they will return to the spring to wash their family’s clothes -- though everyone is expected to wash their own underpants! On this day Bidhya washed my clothes. She used soap then, but ashes from the fire were used traditionally to scour garments. |
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| 405. Once they’ve been washed, clothes are rinsed in running water, and either hung out to dry on nearby rocks and bushes or taken home wet. Those with slate roofs will make use of them. [Video Extract 10] |
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| 406. The water used in washing clothes then flows into a pond beloved of ducks, where livestock are also watered, and from there it is channelled to fields for irrigation. The post in the middle indicates that the banyan and pipal trees which shelter the adjoining rest station have been ceremonially “united in marriage.” |
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| 407. If it is time to plough fields and plant crops, manure will have to be backpacked from the compost heap to the fields and spread around, so it can be dug into the soil. |
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| 408. And if it is harvest time, after they have finished work in the fields, the women will have to store the crop in the attic if it needs drying -- as is usually true of wheat. |
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| 409. It will then need to be threshed and winnowed. Men may help with both these tasks, but not always. |
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| 410. Grinding wheat is something a woman can do by herself, but it takes two people to remove the husks from rice using a dhiki, or pounder. One woman will raise the pounder with her foot, while another (or her husband or father) feeds the rice into a hole where the pounder strikes against it as it falls. She will then have to winnow it. [Video Extract 04] |
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| 411. A second person is also helpful when, in a quieter moment, a woman’s hair needs to be braided. And this time slot can also be used for meditation and prayer. |
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| 412. When they work in the fields all day women get back just in time to cook the evening meal, but they usually have to return to the spring first, for more water. |
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| 413. Finally, after everyone has been fed, there may be time to socialise around a candle -- and listen to the radio (till its batteries are exhausted). Unmarried men, and some younger husbands, may get together in each other’s homes, but most will be asleep by eight or nine o'clock. |
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