Transforming Herds and Herders: Modeling the Evolution of Himalayan Pastoralism

Abstract

Introduction: Subsistence Types Adaptation to the (and potentialities) of high-elevation, mountainous environments has been a popular theme of anthropologists, as well as geographers and other writers. Orlove and Guillet (1985) discuss three generalized 'mountain subsistence types: ''alpwirtschaft'; Verticality;' and the 'montane production strategy.' All three fit loosely into an adaptationist perspective'; is, each claims that patterns of economic activity and social organization can be understood as responses to environmental constraints (Orlove and Guillet 1985: 7). They reveal, however, like other such adaptationist arguments, and despite their immediate intuitive appeal, they fail in adequately explaining the precise nature of the goals of adaptation, the specific mechanisms of the process of adaptation, and the selection among alternative means to the goals of adaptation (1985:7). researchers, in particular, have struggled in their attempts to examine subsistence systems in ecological terms, in part because of a heavy and uncritical reliance on the notion of 'adaptation.' Despite the drawbacks listed above, many Himalayanists continue to adhere to the rigid environmental determinism inherent in these 'subsistence types' in their piecemeal attempts to describe such subsistence systems as transhumant pastoralism. For instance, it is often said the transhumant pastoral system is adapted to the lack of resources found at high elevations'. Other researchers have suffered from their tendency to focus almost exclusively on the supposed problems of deforestation, soil erosion, and the general deterioration of the mountain environment as described by Eckholm (1976) and Sterling (1976). Many envision change in the region as inevitably following a rapid, irreversible, and destructive trend (Orlove 1987: 98), labelled the Himalayan crisis (Ives and Messerli 1989), following (or even resulting from) the (uncritically assumed) universal progression towards permanent agriculture, increasing sedentarism, and the intensification of subsistence production. Similarly, this pattern is believed to result in attitudes about ecological change leading to cultural loss and (social, political, and non-human) environmental degradation. This paper will address two major shortcomings of much of the research conducted on transhumant pastoralism and ecological change in the Himalayas. First, there has been no attempt to construct an ecosystem model depicting a transhumant pastoral subsistence system, and second, despite substantial attention devoted to examining change (in the social, cultural, political, and/or physical environments), there has been a conspicuous lack of synthesis and holistic analysis. The aim of this paper is to present a holistic model of a transhumant pastoral subsistence system as it has changed during the present century. The following discussion and models are based primarily, though not exclusively, on the Thakali, a transhumant pastoral people inhabiting northcentral Nepal and one of the few ethnic groups in the Himalayas whose changing circumstances have been given much analytical attention.1 The Thakali2 in the Early 20th Century: Tians-Himalayan Pastoral-Traders The Thakali are an agro-pastoral and trading people who reside in the upper Kali Gandaki River valley of northcentral Nepal, and have long been renowned as traders and merchants of great economic and political acumen (Messerschmidt 1982: 266). Thak Khola, the region of the Kali Gandaki in which the Thakali live, is a relatively isolated mountainous river valley wedged between the towering peaks of the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna massif which rise to over 8,000 meters. It falls within the Nepalese administrative district of Mustang in Daulagiri Zone, and stretches approximately 55 kilometers (c. 35 miles) in length while the inhabited areas range in elevation from 2,500 meters to 4,000 meters (Messerschmidt 1982: 268). …