Navel of the Demoness : Tibetan Buddhism and Civil Religion in ...

Social Stratification
fromclanstohouseholdsinte 121
A rather curious template of social stratification has found its way into Te in
relatively recent times. The resulting hierarchy does not pose a serious threat to
village unity, but it is a constant irritant that has, among other things, probably
helped to undermine clan identity.
Chapter 1 outlined Baragaon’s system of social ranking, which places the
villages of the Shöyul in a somewhat nebulous ‘‘Subommoner’’ category, above
the Artisans but below—or rather, apart from—the ordinary Commoners.
There is also a custom of purifying the taint of commensual or sexual contact
with Artisans and outcastes by drinking ‘‘gold water’’ and eating bran (see
chapter 10). Throughout Baragaon, degree of inclusion in a status group is expressed
in terms of two idioms: ‘‘row’’ (SMT, Tk. dral, < Tib. gral) and ‘‘mouth’’
(SMT, Tib. kha, Tk. sung). Full membership means that a person will be allocated
a place in the row of men or women on the basis of his or her age, and will
have the right to ‘‘share the cup’’ with the other members of the group. Certain
factors, such as the doubtful antecedents of an inmarrying outsider—may result
in only partial inclusion, which entails being granted ‘‘row’’ but not ‘‘mouth.’’
So far I have spoken of Te’s five named clans, the sixth, the Önpo, having
become extinct. Although the rule of endogamy has prevented other clans from
marrying in, it has not been able to stop them from being born in. Romantic
liaisons between Tepa women and outsiders have resulted in the irruption of
two maverick lineages into the community. Illegitimacy in Te carries no great
stigma for the child; the unmarried mother will probably not be severely
censured but is unlikely to find a husband if the child survives; for the father,
the penalty is not so harsh as to discourage him from admitting paternity:
he pays 2 rupees to the mother, and that is the end of his responsibility. As far
as the Tepas are concerned, the most serious possible consequence of illegitimacy
is falsely attributed fatherhood, which raises the spectre of an unwittingly
incestuous marriage in a future generation.
To bear the natural children of a non-Tepa father within the village is a far
more serious matter. Of the two outsiders who fathered sons on unmarried
women in the last century, one was a commoner from Lo and the other a
nobleman from the Kyukar house of Purang, in the Muktinath valley. However
elevated the status of the latter may have been in the Baragaon hierarchy, the
Tepas denied the boys ‘‘mouth’’ on the grounds that they were outsiders. In
spite of this, both boys found situations as in-marrying sons-in-law and produced
children of their own, and these in their turn married into other households:
the Tepas’ anxiety about securing heirs to estates, described earlier,