The Dangers of Foreign Bodies

Abstract

Most tourists to Nepal worry that their food and water is contaminated, understood in biomedical terms. Many Nepalis—historically and in the present—have also been concerned about contamination through food and water, but understood in terms of the logic of caste, and the need to avoid contact with lower castes, such as Mlecch (barbaric pagans), a caste group which includes Europeans and Muslims. In this paper I consider these preoccupations with the dangers of consumption and contact as presented in the travel diaries of Jung Bahadur Rana (traveling to England), and also in the accounts of Mleech travelers in Nepal in the early and mid-twentieth century, as well as my own experiences as an ethnographer. Through these we see the dynamic nature of inter-group perceptions and practices in cultural border zones, in and out of awareness, and in and out of practice.