The Life and Gender of Bamboo Objects in Sunuwar Culture, East Nepal

Abstract

Among the Sunuwar, a tribal group of East Nepal, bamboo is omnipresent both as wild and cultivated plant as well as in material culture. The article tries to show that many aspects of human and social life, including gender, are potentially inscribed in the bamboo plant and are realised in bamboo objects. Culturally vitalised bamboo objects are the ideal medium for intercourse with ancestors, a practice essential for Sunuwar people to stabilise, restore and improve identity and conformity, prestige and authority as well as physical well-being. An important premise for the interpretation of bamboo objects as living is that the Sunuwar economy is mainly a gift economy. To understand how gender can be attributed to bamboo objects, the author assumes the existence of a third gender often ascribed to shamans and saints.