Cultural Variability and Drift in the Himalayan Hills

Abstract

Cultural Variability and Drift in the Himalayan Hills GERALD D. BERREMAN University of California, Berkeley T HE lower Himalaya mountains between western Kashmir and eastern Nepal are populated by peoples sharing common and distinct cultural, linguistic, and historical traditions. Therefore, this is clearly a culture area within the usual meaning of that term. The populations of this area, collec­ tively termed Pahari ( of the mountains ), comprise a variety of subgroups which share basic cultural patterns but show local differences in such features as dialect, ceremonial forms, deities worshipped, house styles, dress and orna­ mentation, range of castes, and rules of marriage. These variations are often extremely limited in distribution so that it is possible for one acquainted with a region to identify readily the particular valley or ridge from which a person comes by his speech or dress. It is not difficult to pass through two or more such areas in a day's trek. This highly localized cultural variability is especially striking to one acquainted with the people of the plains to the south. A second impressive feature, at least in the subarea to be reported here, is the comparative cultural homogeneity across caste lines within a particular locality in the hills. A person's caste affiliation is generally impossible to deter­ mine, even by someone of his own area, except by direct inquiry or by observ­ ing him in his traditional occupation. In this account, the facts supporting these generalizations will be briefly described. Then an attempt will be made to analyze and explain them in terms of common conditions and processes. Some further light may thereby be thrown upon the concepts of cultural drift and culture area, their usefulness and relationship to one another. The research reported here was carried out in and about the village of Sirkanda, situated in the lower JIimalaya mountains of North India, about 150 miles north and slightly east of Delhi and within a day's hike of the well­ known hill station, Mussoorie. 1 Sirkanda is large for a hill village, containing some 384 residents, half of whom live all or most of the time in outlying cattle sheds or field houses and half of whom live in the village proper. The people of Sirkanda are speakers of a subdialect of the Central Pahari language or dialect group. They live on the western border of the area in which that language is spoken, next to Jaunsar Bawar where begins the Western Pahari language. 2 They are also on the western border of the former princely state (now district) of Tehri Garhwal. They spend most of their lives within the 4 air-mile radius of Sirkanda which comprises the 3 parallel spurs of hills known as Bhatbair ( sheep's den ), containing less than 5,000 people in 60 villages and settle­