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Trans-Himalayan Traders: Economy, Society and Culture in Northwest Nepal
•This groundbreaking work was conducted in the late 1960s, together with a recent follow-up volume (Trans-Himalayan Traders Transformed, ISBN 9789745242029 which traces the evolution that has occurred in northwestern Nepal in the subsequent five decades)
•It will be of interest to social scientists, developmental workers, and others focused on the changing South and Central Asian worlds
On an isolated Himalayan hillside in northwest Nepal, the village that was the subject of this groundbreaking study in the late '60s was two weeks' walk from the nearest commercial transportation. Yet it was as culturally complex as it was remote. While the villagers were largely self-sufficient, it was the ways in which they still depended on outside forces that anthropologist Fisher analyzes in this compelling work.
Republished almost 50 years after the original fieldwork, to coincide with the publication of a recent follow-up investigation by Fisher (Trans-Himalayan Traders Transformed, ISBN 9789745242029), the two volumes provide a fascinating and significant view of the evolution of this once-remote culture. (Reprint; originally published by University of California Press, 1987.)
"...Well researched, well analysed and equally well-written ethnography. The author's style is insightful and easy-going, with a certain wit and frankness - exceptionally good." Donald A. Messerschmidt, Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 6, No. 4.
Acknowledgments, Note on Orthography, 1 Introduction, 2 The Land and Its People, 3 Himalayan Farmers, 4 The Salt Circuit, 5 The Commodities Circuit, 6 Control and Uses of The Traditional Context, 7 The Village Context, 8 Summary and Ethnicity and Interaction, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Index
•It will be of interest to social scientists, developmental workers, and others focused on the changing South and Central Asian worlds
On an isolated Himalayan hillside in northwest Nepal, the village that was the subject of this groundbreaking study in the late '60s was two weeks' walk from the nearest commercial transportation. Yet it was as culturally complex as it was remote. While the villagers were largely self-sufficient, it was the ways in which they still depended on outside forces that anthropologist Fisher analyzes in this compelling work.
Republished almost 50 years after the original fieldwork, to coincide with the publication of a recent follow-up investigation by Fisher (Trans-Himalayan Traders Transformed, ISBN 9789745242029), the two volumes provide a fascinating and significant view of the evolution of this once-remote culture. (Reprint; originally published by University of California Press, 1987.)
"...Well researched, well analysed and equally well-written ethnography. The author's style is insightful and easy-going, with a certain wit and frankness - exceptionally good." Donald A. Messerschmidt, Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 6, No. 4.
Acknowledgments, Note on Orthography, 1 Introduction, 2 The Land and Its People, 3 Himalayan Farmers, 4 The Salt Circuit, 5 The Commodities Circuit, 6 Control and Uses of The Traditional Context, 7 The Village Context, 8 Summary and Ethnicity and Interaction, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Index
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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April 21, 2026
This slender book absolutely captivated me. Over the course of the year of the moon landings, James F. Fisher takes his wife and goes to live in one of the most remote villages on earth; a place he calls Tarangpur high up in the Nepalese Himalayas, somewhere it takes a week of walking to reach.
Tarangpur (a pseudonym), has under 400 people and the closely clustered houses alone range across almost 1000ft of elevation. The terraced farmland that feeds Tarangapur has such wild ranges of height that different sub-strains of the same crop are grown at the various layers. The people farm terraces so narrow they refuse to plough with multiple bullocks;
“The plough used in Tichurong is found nowhere else in Nepal, not even a few miles away, nor anywhere else in South Asia. It is drawn by a single bullock, never by two, and never by a horse. The ploughman stands beside the plough (not behind, as elsewhere), and bends nearly double over it, using his body weight to force the ploughshare into the hard and rocky soil while the bullock provides traction. Virtually everyone has seen other ploughing techniques in Bhot, Khasan and the middle hills and Terai - horse-drawn ploughs, ploughs drawn by two bullocks, iron tipped ploughshares and stand-up ploughs; but villagers never experiment with any of these features themselves.”
The seasons shape not just the economy, but the demographics of the entire village. From Spring until Autumn, there is only enough light and water for one harvest and as soon as that harvest is done nearly every man in Tarangpur sets off down the river, or across the passes, to trade.
While the men are away, they are replaced, to some extent, by the inhabitants of villages higher up, closer to the border with China. These people come from places which get so cold and snowed-out in winter that they can barely support life, so they move down-stream, to Tarangpur, and do work and odd-jobs while the men are away.
When Spring comes and the snows melt, (though traders are sometimes caught between passes due to snowfall), the men come back to the village while those from further up return to their own. Over spring and summer, the women do the majority of the agricultural work while the men hang around and probably think about trading.
Tarangpur exists between two cultures, two languages and religions, and exploits this superpositioning to make itself a trading hub.
To the north is Buddhism, Chinese-ruled Tibet, high villages and salt, (vital for survival), down to the south is Nepal, Hinduism, railways and commercial goods. Tarangpurians are trilingual, and somewhat tri-cultural. They speak their own rare tribal language; Kaike, they also speak Tibetan, and Nepali. In their religious practice, when at home they are somewhat Hindu, somewhat Buddhist and have their own range of tribal mountain gods.
A Tarangpurian man spends about half of his time travelling, either north to Tibet for salt and perhaps animals, or south into Nepal. When he goes north he is Buddhist, and has those behaviours and language, when he goes south he has Hindu language and behaviours.
“All this time attempting to pass as someone else is not without its effects on the individual actors involved, nor, ultimately, on the society and culture of Tarangpur.
The most obvious effect is the psychological uncertainty characteristic of any “passing” behaviour. One can never be sure that the façade will hold; the mask might slip, and then all will be found out. This psychological uncertainty manifests itself as a cultural uncertainty in the clearly unflattering perceptions Tarangpurians have of their own culture.
..
“…villagers were convinced Kaike has no proverbs, although I ultimately recorded about fifteen that were spontaneously uttered in the course of conversations.”
...
“In the same vein, toward the end of my stay in the village I asked how many days of mourning were observed at the death of a close relative. The answer was “thirteen days,” but then my informant added, “Well, we should mourn for thirteen days, but we don’t really; that’s just what we normally tell people because that’s what proper Hindus do. But you’ve been here so long no I guess there’s no point in trying to keep on fooling you.” “
This settlement of under 400 people, which is the nexus for a cluster of villages making probably in total no more than 2000 people, has an almost egregious level of social complexity, both hidden and direct.
Firstly, the Magar (broad group name) culture is deeply visibly egalitarian.
“Tarangpurians do not use wealth to transform life-styles in ways which economists or development planners would describe as “raising the standard of living.”
...
For Example, a rich man will spend more for the celebration of his first son’s haircut than will a poor man. He will serve rice instead of chinu millet, and his supply of distilled liquor will outlast the capacity of his guests to absorb it.
Thus wealth is desired not to provide a better standard of living for oneself but for others. Wealth is sought not so that a man can eat better, but so that he may feed others better. This desire to provide high-grade hospitality, which is not so particular to the Magars of Tarangpur but which also characterises many other communities in the Himalayas, is the reason for converting so much time and so many resources into forms that can be stored more or less indefinitely and then dispensed. It is not the only reason however.”
Likewise, village life has some aspects which are fundamentally socialist;
“Other examples of this feeling of village solidarity include “pure gifts” to those who have suffered misfortune. one young man who had been away from the village for several years attending school returned to take up daily life. He had no bullock or fertilizer and his barren fields, which had lain fallow for so long, were difficult to bring under cultivation again. The rest of the village contributed fertilizer, bullocks, and ever labour to help the man make a new start. A feeling of gratitude and indebtedness results, but no-one who helped expected to be repaid. The same thing happens if someone’s house should burn. Even without a calamity of such proportions, help is extended without thought of repayment to those who need it.”
Work and life paths are rigorously gendered. Men trade, women farm. There are complex rules regarding Sin and Pollution which affect exactly what parts of farming men and women can and cannot do. Men cannot pollute themselves, and so never deal with manure, and likewise have very little to do with the day to day management of agricultural land. Women cannot Sin, and since using animals in almost any way, especially using them for ploughing, or to carry loads, both of which can hurt the animal, are Sins, these are left exclusively to men. Likewise, in the Winter, when the Magars major religious festival is held, the grown men of the Village generally are not actually there, and those celebrating are women and the seasonal Buddhist population.
The Magars of Tinrangpur come in four clans, three of which derive from the three sons born to the son of the escaped princess who founded the village. This Son captured an angel-woman bathing in a lake of milk and had three sons with her, each son giving their name to one of the clans.
“The origin of the fourth major clan is different. One of the three sons was a shepherd who kept losing the same female goat every day, so one day he followed her when she wandered away from the rest of the herd. He discovered she was giving her milk to a baby boy living in the hollow part of a bamboo tree near the present village of Tupa. He came home and discussed what he had seen with his family and they decided to bring the baby home. The boy became the ancestor of the Jhankri clan. ... To this day, the Jhankri’s, unlike the other clans, do not eat she-goats, because it was a she-goat who fed their ancestor in the bamboo tree. They do eat he-goats.”
As well as the four major clans, (and the Buddhists from the north), there are handfuls of low-caste Tailor and Toolmaker/Blacksmith jati living in the village.
The situation is this; rather than buying clothes, or tools, a family has a patronage relationship with one of the Tailor and Toolmaker families, and supports them throughout the year, and when they need clothes or tools, they go to this family and ask for them. The Tailors and Toolmakers are of the lowest level in the village hierarchy, you can’t even really eat with them.
Tarangpur also seems like a pretty ‘lively’ place to spend your time. The houses have low ceilings (if a ghost has to bend over to get into a place it won’t enter), and people thresh grain on the flat roofs, which often connect to each other.
“in Tarangpur, leadership is demonstrated, in day-to-day terms, by one’s ability to resolve disputes. The number of petty quarrels, misunderstandings, and insults - imagined and real - is very high in Tarangpur, and most individuals have a running feud with someone at any given time. Some people are more cantankerous than others and quarrel with more people than they are on friendly terms with. Others are quiet and mild-mannered and rarely engage in the public verbal battles - waged between rooftops at maximum decibel level - that are such a common feature of daily life in Tarangpur.”
Recent (for 1969) political changes in Nepal have meant more representative government; a boon in some ways as no-one liked the older government officials and now people can vote for representatives from their own community. Unfortunately, this has lead to outbreaks of Peak Democracy;
“With universal franchise at the local level, it is difficult to rig elections; if a seat is contested, the most competent and highly regarded candidate will usually win. But this is not invariably the case; in a village panchyat in Khasan, two candidates for pradhan campaigned by feasting the village. One candidate slaughtered one goat and the other slaughtered two goats and the candidate who served the most meat won.”
Goats mean Votes. In a manner familiar to anyone who knows politics on any level, the potential resources drawn from a political position, even the respect alone, mean people can go a bit far in a few places in their efforts to attain one;
“The combination of the vast sums required and vaulting political ambition has produced an intolerable strain on the finances of some individuals, who have had to resort to illegal activities - poaching musk deer and stealing religious idols - to continue the pursuit of political activities.”
‘Trans-Himalayan Traders is written, as much as an ethnography can be, a little like a thriller (Fisher and his wife spent their long cold winters reading, out loud, 60’s airport potboilers to each other in their rented room). In this case, the thrilling third-act reveal is that Tarangpur has another, secret, unstated yet fully known layer of hierarchy; the Marriage Class.
“Unlike clan membership, marriage-class membership is not publicly admitted; in fact, Tarangpurians do whatever they can do to conceal the very existence of marriage classes from those outside the system. Marriage-class membership is not a subject of open conversation among the villagers (at least among villagers of different marriage classes.) This is because the classes, unlike the clans, are ranked. The distinctions are therefore invidious in this society, whose people are so relentlessly egalitarian among themselves that any hint of inequality is immediately taken as an affront.
Giving everyone a clan name is, in effect, a way of masking membership in unequal marriage classes. ... Since the marriage classes are such unnamed and unspoken-of entities, their very existence is difficult to detect. It was several months before I was able to discover their presence. The first hint occurred when someone told me the reason he could not marry someone else was because their “mouth’s don’t match.”
The consequences of leaving your marriage class are immediate, total and virtually irreversible;
“To fall from a marriage class involves violating one of the two restrictions placed on membership in it: (1) eating symbolically contaminated food (i.e., food that someone outside the marriage class has shared); or (2) marrying someone outside the marriage class, since cohabitation would eventually compromise the purity of one’s food. Once these restrictions have been violated, there is no immediate way the damage can be undone. The rules or restriction are firm and the consequences of violation - disbarment from the marriage class - are irrevocable, at least over the short run of two or three generations.”
Fischer only stayed in Tarangpur for one year, and only found out about this secret level of society, that everyone knew about, but nobody mentioned, towards the end of his stay. It does make me think, first; what else didn’t he know, that would only become evident after three, or four or five years? and second; how necessarily shallow pretty much all travel stories and light ethnographies must by necessity be.
While genuinely egalitarian, in many ways, the Magar of Tarangpur are also stricken with Thorin Oakenshields gold sickness.
“Tarangpur women are famous far beyond the domains of Tichurong for the size of the gold earrings they wear on special occasions. Many hill women throughout Nepal store wealth in the form of thin but solid gold earring disks two or three inches in diameter, but the women of Tarangpur and neighbouring villages wear earrings about five inches in diameter - large enough to touch their shoulders. Forty years ago Taragpur women wore three-inch earrings, but as the commodities trading cycle became established, the increased earnings were invested in part in larger earrings.
...
Limitations imposed by human anatomy make still larger earrings an impossibility, but until recently this was an item of jewellery with “planned obsolescence” built into it. As the size increased, it became socially impossible to wear any size smaller than the largest size made.”
As well as, and on top of, their genuine egalitarianism and a general refusal to spend money on visible life-improvements, the families of Tarangpur are mad for profit, and profits are, (for some), very good. Some of these men are leading pretty huge convoys of mules and horses across the mountains, making a fair amount from either the salt trade or trade in commodities. Since they can’t show it, (except via ear-rings), what are they doing with it?
“Although a family will first of all hoard savings in the form of jewellery that can be displayed publicly on certain occasions, a family which has acquired as much jewellery as it can reasonably display at one time must find other ways of storing wealth. One method is to buy copper jugs, brass plates and other such kitchen vessels. These are then hidden away in back rooms of houses where they cannot be seen. ... Another way of storing wealth is to keep silver rupee coins, minted man years ago, in the metal vessels.”
As well as the free socialist village solidarity gifts for those down on their luck, and the arguably-optional gold-lust trading wealth, Tarangpur has a non-optional religious/culture tax in which certain households are randomly selected to host/pay for the Winter festival, something which is egregiously expensive. Manageable if you are a household with hidden silver rupees, but less so for the working poor.
“Tarangpur Magars have little sense of choice about expending wealth for these social and ceremonial purpose. To be a citizen of Tarangpur is to support and participate in these communal and life-cycle rituals, and it is in one’s pragmatic self-interest to secure the protection afforded by the sacrifices. There is no way in which a villager could opt out of the ceremonial cycles and still be a member of the moral community. Participation in ritual life is a way of affirming membership in the social order. In this elemental sense, these expenses are unavoidable. They are culturally constituted ways of disposing of wealth. For all the choices Tarangpurians have in their economic life, being a member in good standing of the village is not one of them. In the most fundamental sense, just as one can never chose to be born, one cannot realistically choose to reside in the village and not pay ones social dues. All these obligations just come with the territory.”
In conversation I think I called the Tarangpurians a bunch of absolute humans, and that still seems apt. I find their ethnic anguish about performing identity and being trapped between cultures, strangely hypermodern, their massively layered (and secret) society fascinating and their combination of outward egalitarianism, almost pointless gold-hunger and socialism, well, deeply human.
Fisher did return to ‘Tarang’ forty years later, and wrote a sequel, which I hope one day to read.
“Their main question was whether the astronauts had found a goddess on the moon. They were not particularly curious about the moon itself, and earlier cosmological queries produced little response. Tarangpurians had not thought much about the heavenly bodies. One informant said, when pressed, that because of the distances involved, the stars and moon must be bigger than they appear, a star being the size of a sheep and the moon the size of a yak.”
Tarangpur (a pseudonym), has under 400 people and the closely clustered houses alone range across almost 1000ft of elevation. The terraced farmland that feeds Tarangapur has such wild ranges of height that different sub-strains of the same crop are grown at the various layers. The people farm terraces so narrow they refuse to plough with multiple bullocks;
“The plough used in Tichurong is found nowhere else in Nepal, not even a few miles away, nor anywhere else in South Asia. It is drawn by a single bullock, never by two, and never by a horse. The ploughman stands beside the plough (not behind, as elsewhere), and bends nearly double over it, using his body weight to force the ploughshare into the hard and rocky soil while the bullock provides traction. Virtually everyone has seen other ploughing techniques in Bhot, Khasan and the middle hills and Terai - horse-drawn ploughs, ploughs drawn by two bullocks, iron tipped ploughshares and stand-up ploughs; but villagers never experiment with any of these features themselves.”
The seasons shape not just the economy, but the demographics of the entire village. From Spring until Autumn, there is only enough light and water for one harvest and as soon as that harvest is done nearly every man in Tarangpur sets off down the river, or across the passes, to trade.
While the men are away, they are replaced, to some extent, by the inhabitants of villages higher up, closer to the border with China. These people come from places which get so cold and snowed-out in winter that they can barely support life, so they move down-stream, to Tarangpur, and do work and odd-jobs while the men are away.
When Spring comes and the snows melt, (though traders are sometimes caught between passes due to snowfall), the men come back to the village while those from further up return to their own. Over spring and summer, the women do the majority of the agricultural work while the men hang around and probably think about trading.
Tarangpur exists between two cultures, two languages and religions, and exploits this superpositioning to make itself a trading hub.
To the north is Buddhism, Chinese-ruled Tibet, high villages and salt, (vital for survival), down to the south is Nepal, Hinduism, railways and commercial goods. Tarangpurians are trilingual, and somewhat tri-cultural. They speak their own rare tribal language; Kaike, they also speak Tibetan, and Nepali. In their religious practice, when at home they are somewhat Hindu, somewhat Buddhist and have their own range of tribal mountain gods.
A Tarangpurian man spends about half of his time travelling, either north to Tibet for salt and perhaps animals, or south into Nepal. When he goes north he is Buddhist, and has those behaviours and language, when he goes south he has Hindu language and behaviours.
“All this time attempting to pass as someone else is not without its effects on the individual actors involved, nor, ultimately, on the society and culture of Tarangpur.
The most obvious effect is the psychological uncertainty characteristic of any “passing” behaviour. One can never be sure that the façade will hold; the mask might slip, and then all will be found out. This psychological uncertainty manifests itself as a cultural uncertainty in the clearly unflattering perceptions Tarangpurians have of their own culture.
..
“…villagers were convinced Kaike has no proverbs, although I ultimately recorded about fifteen that were spontaneously uttered in the course of conversations.”
...
“In the same vein, toward the end of my stay in the village I asked how many days of mourning were observed at the death of a close relative. The answer was “thirteen days,” but then my informant added, “Well, we should mourn for thirteen days, but we don’t really; that’s just what we normally tell people because that’s what proper Hindus do. But you’ve been here so long no I guess there’s no point in trying to keep on fooling you.” “
This settlement of under 400 people, which is the nexus for a cluster of villages making probably in total no more than 2000 people, has an almost egregious level of social complexity, both hidden and direct.
Firstly, the Magar (broad group name) culture is deeply visibly egalitarian.
“Tarangpurians do not use wealth to transform life-styles in ways which economists or development planners would describe as “raising the standard of living.”
...
For Example, a rich man will spend more for the celebration of his first son’s haircut than will a poor man. He will serve rice instead of chinu millet, and his supply of distilled liquor will outlast the capacity of his guests to absorb it.
Thus wealth is desired not to provide a better standard of living for oneself but for others. Wealth is sought not so that a man can eat better, but so that he may feed others better. This desire to provide high-grade hospitality, which is not so particular to the Magars of Tarangpur but which also characterises many other communities in the Himalayas, is the reason for converting so much time and so many resources into forms that can be stored more or less indefinitely and then dispensed. It is not the only reason however.”
Likewise, village life has some aspects which are fundamentally socialist;
“Other examples of this feeling of village solidarity include “pure gifts” to those who have suffered misfortune. one young man who had been away from the village for several years attending school returned to take up daily life. He had no bullock or fertilizer and his barren fields, which had lain fallow for so long, were difficult to bring under cultivation again. The rest of the village contributed fertilizer, bullocks, and ever labour to help the man make a new start. A feeling of gratitude and indebtedness results, but no-one who helped expected to be repaid. The same thing happens if someone’s house should burn. Even without a calamity of such proportions, help is extended without thought of repayment to those who need it.”
Work and life paths are rigorously gendered. Men trade, women farm. There are complex rules regarding Sin and Pollution which affect exactly what parts of farming men and women can and cannot do. Men cannot pollute themselves, and so never deal with manure, and likewise have very little to do with the day to day management of agricultural land. Women cannot Sin, and since using animals in almost any way, especially using them for ploughing, or to carry loads, both of which can hurt the animal, are Sins, these are left exclusively to men. Likewise, in the Winter, when the Magars major religious festival is held, the grown men of the Village generally are not actually there, and those celebrating are women and the seasonal Buddhist population.
The Magars of Tinrangpur come in four clans, three of which derive from the three sons born to the son of the escaped princess who founded the village. This Son captured an angel-woman bathing in a lake of milk and had three sons with her, each son giving their name to one of the clans.
“The origin of the fourth major clan is different. One of the three sons was a shepherd who kept losing the same female goat every day, so one day he followed her when she wandered away from the rest of the herd. He discovered she was giving her milk to a baby boy living in the hollow part of a bamboo tree near the present village of Tupa. He came home and discussed what he had seen with his family and they decided to bring the baby home. The boy became the ancestor of the Jhankri clan. ... To this day, the Jhankri’s, unlike the other clans, do not eat she-goats, because it was a she-goat who fed their ancestor in the bamboo tree. They do eat he-goats.”
As well as the four major clans, (and the Buddhists from the north), there are handfuls of low-caste Tailor and Toolmaker/Blacksmith jati living in the village.
The situation is this; rather than buying clothes, or tools, a family has a patronage relationship with one of the Tailor and Toolmaker families, and supports them throughout the year, and when they need clothes or tools, they go to this family and ask for them. The Tailors and Toolmakers are of the lowest level in the village hierarchy, you can’t even really eat with them.
Tarangpur also seems like a pretty ‘lively’ place to spend your time. The houses have low ceilings (if a ghost has to bend over to get into a place it won’t enter), and people thresh grain on the flat roofs, which often connect to each other.
“in Tarangpur, leadership is demonstrated, in day-to-day terms, by one’s ability to resolve disputes. The number of petty quarrels, misunderstandings, and insults - imagined and real - is very high in Tarangpur, and most individuals have a running feud with someone at any given time. Some people are more cantankerous than others and quarrel with more people than they are on friendly terms with. Others are quiet and mild-mannered and rarely engage in the public verbal battles - waged between rooftops at maximum decibel level - that are such a common feature of daily life in Tarangpur.”
Recent (for 1969) political changes in Nepal have meant more representative government; a boon in some ways as no-one liked the older government officials and now people can vote for representatives from their own community. Unfortunately, this has lead to outbreaks of Peak Democracy;
“With universal franchise at the local level, it is difficult to rig elections; if a seat is contested, the most competent and highly regarded candidate will usually win. But this is not invariably the case; in a village panchyat in Khasan, two candidates for pradhan campaigned by feasting the village. One candidate slaughtered one goat and the other slaughtered two goats and the candidate who served the most meat won.”
Goats mean Votes. In a manner familiar to anyone who knows politics on any level, the potential resources drawn from a political position, even the respect alone, mean people can go a bit far in a few places in their efforts to attain one;
“The combination of the vast sums required and vaulting political ambition has produced an intolerable strain on the finances of some individuals, who have had to resort to illegal activities - poaching musk deer and stealing religious idols - to continue the pursuit of political activities.”
‘Trans-Himalayan Traders is written, as much as an ethnography can be, a little like a thriller (Fisher and his wife spent their long cold winters reading, out loud, 60’s airport potboilers to each other in their rented room). In this case, the thrilling third-act reveal is that Tarangpur has another, secret, unstated yet fully known layer of hierarchy; the Marriage Class.
“Unlike clan membership, marriage-class membership is not publicly admitted; in fact, Tarangpurians do whatever they can do to conceal the very existence of marriage classes from those outside the system. Marriage-class membership is not a subject of open conversation among the villagers (at least among villagers of different marriage classes.) This is because the classes, unlike the clans, are ranked. The distinctions are therefore invidious in this society, whose people are so relentlessly egalitarian among themselves that any hint of inequality is immediately taken as an affront.
Giving everyone a clan name is, in effect, a way of masking membership in unequal marriage classes. ... Since the marriage classes are such unnamed and unspoken-of entities, their very existence is difficult to detect. It was several months before I was able to discover their presence. The first hint occurred when someone told me the reason he could not marry someone else was because their “mouth’s don’t match.”
The consequences of leaving your marriage class are immediate, total and virtually irreversible;
“To fall from a marriage class involves violating one of the two restrictions placed on membership in it: (1) eating symbolically contaminated food (i.e., food that someone outside the marriage class has shared); or (2) marrying someone outside the marriage class, since cohabitation would eventually compromise the purity of one’s food. Once these restrictions have been violated, there is no immediate way the damage can be undone. The rules or restriction are firm and the consequences of violation - disbarment from the marriage class - are irrevocable, at least over the short run of two or three generations.”
Fischer only stayed in Tarangpur for one year, and only found out about this secret level of society, that everyone knew about, but nobody mentioned, towards the end of his stay. It does make me think, first; what else didn’t he know, that would only become evident after three, or four or five years? and second; how necessarily shallow pretty much all travel stories and light ethnographies must by necessity be.
While genuinely egalitarian, in many ways, the Magar of Tarangpur are also stricken with Thorin Oakenshields gold sickness.
“Tarangpur women are famous far beyond the domains of Tichurong for the size of the gold earrings they wear on special occasions. Many hill women throughout Nepal store wealth in the form of thin but solid gold earring disks two or three inches in diameter, but the women of Tarangpur and neighbouring villages wear earrings about five inches in diameter - large enough to touch their shoulders. Forty years ago Taragpur women wore three-inch earrings, but as the commodities trading cycle became established, the increased earnings were invested in part in larger earrings.
...
Limitations imposed by human anatomy make still larger earrings an impossibility, but until recently this was an item of jewellery with “planned obsolescence” built into it. As the size increased, it became socially impossible to wear any size smaller than the largest size made.”
As well as, and on top of, their genuine egalitarianism and a general refusal to spend money on visible life-improvements, the families of Tarangpur are mad for profit, and profits are, (for some), very good. Some of these men are leading pretty huge convoys of mules and horses across the mountains, making a fair amount from either the salt trade or trade in commodities. Since they can’t show it, (except via ear-rings), what are they doing with it?
“Although a family will first of all hoard savings in the form of jewellery that can be displayed publicly on certain occasions, a family which has acquired as much jewellery as it can reasonably display at one time must find other ways of storing wealth. One method is to buy copper jugs, brass plates and other such kitchen vessels. These are then hidden away in back rooms of houses where they cannot be seen. ... Another way of storing wealth is to keep silver rupee coins, minted man years ago, in the metal vessels.”
As well as the free socialist village solidarity gifts for those down on their luck, and the arguably-optional gold-lust trading wealth, Tarangpur has a non-optional religious/culture tax in which certain households are randomly selected to host/pay for the Winter festival, something which is egregiously expensive. Manageable if you are a household with hidden silver rupees, but less so for the working poor.
“Tarangpur Magars have little sense of choice about expending wealth for these social and ceremonial purpose. To be a citizen of Tarangpur is to support and participate in these communal and life-cycle rituals, and it is in one’s pragmatic self-interest to secure the protection afforded by the sacrifices. There is no way in which a villager could opt out of the ceremonial cycles and still be a member of the moral community. Participation in ritual life is a way of affirming membership in the social order. In this elemental sense, these expenses are unavoidable. They are culturally constituted ways of disposing of wealth. For all the choices Tarangpurians have in their economic life, being a member in good standing of the village is not one of them. In the most fundamental sense, just as one can never chose to be born, one cannot realistically choose to reside in the village and not pay ones social dues. All these obligations just come with the territory.”
In conversation I think I called the Tarangpurians a bunch of absolute humans, and that still seems apt. I find their ethnic anguish about performing identity and being trapped between cultures, strangely hypermodern, their massively layered (and secret) society fascinating and their combination of outward egalitarianism, almost pointless gold-hunger and socialism, well, deeply human.
Fisher did return to ‘Tarang’ forty years later, and wrote a sequel, which I hope one day to read.
“Their main question was whether the astronauts had found a goddess on the moon. They were not particularly curious about the moon itself, and earlier cosmological queries produced little response. Tarangpurians had not thought much about the heavenly bodies. One informant said, when pressed, that because of the distances involved, the stars and moon must be bigger than they appear, a star being the size of a sheep and the moon the size of a yak.”
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