Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume III - South Asia - Overview pot

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD CULTURESDavid Levinson Editor in Chief North America Oceania South Asia Europe Central, Western, and Southeastern Europe East and Southeast Asia Soviet Union Easter

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

Volume III

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD CULTURES

David Levinson Editor in Chief

North America Oceania South Asia Europe (Central, Western, and Southeastern Europe)

East and Southeast Asia Soviet Union (Eastern Europe and Russia) and China

South America Middle America and the Caribbean Africa and the Middle East

Bibliography

The Encyclopedia of World Cultures was prepared under the auspices and with the support of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University HRAF, the foremost international research organization in the field of cul- tural anthropology, is a not-for-profit consortium of twenty-three sponsor- ing members and 300 participating member institutions in twenty-five coun- tries The HRAF archive, established in 1949, contains nearly one million pages of information on the cultures of the world.

Encyclopedia of World Cultures

MEASUREMENT CONVERSIONS

1992bytheHuman Relations AreaFiles, Inc.

Firstpublishedin 1991

by G.K Hall & Co

1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019,6785

All rightsreserved

Allrights reserved

Nopartof this bookmaybereproduced in anyform orbyany means, electronicor

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, orbyanyinformationstorage or

retrievalsystemwithoutpermission in writingfrom thepublisher

10

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

(Revised for volume 3)

Encyclopedia of world cultures.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Filmography: v 1, p 407-415.

Contents: v 1 North America / Timothy J O'Leary,

David Levinson, volume editors v 3 South Asia /

Paul Hockings, volume editor.

1 Ethnology Encyclopedias I Levinson, David,

1947-GN307.E53 1991 306'.03 90-49123

ISBN 0-81611-808-6 (alk paper)

ISBN 0-81688-840-X (set : alk paper)

ISBN 0-81611-812-4 (v 3 : alk paper)

Thepaperusedinthis publication meetstheminimum requirements ofAmericanNationalStandard for Information Sciences-Permanence ofPaper forPrinted Library

Materials ANSI Z39.48-1984 aTm

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OFAMERICA

When You Know Mufltply By To Find LENGTH

TEMPERATURE

OC - (F - 32) x 555 F- ("Cx 1.8) + 32

1 SouthAsia xxviii

2.Cultural Regions of South Asia xxix

3.Major Languages ofSouthAsia xxx

4. Dominant Religious GroupsofSouth Asia xxxi

5.Cultural Groups ofSouth Asia xxxii

Cultures of South Asia 1

Appendix: Additional Castes, Caste Clusters, and Tribes 309

Project Staff Editorial Board

Fernando Camara Barbachano

Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia,Mexico City

Middle America and the Caribbean Norma J Diamond

University of Michigan China

Paul Friedrich

University of Chicago

Soviet UnionTerence E Hays

Rhode Island College

University of Illinois at Chicago

South and Southeast Asia

Robert V Kemper

Southern Methodist University Middle America and the Caribbean Kazuko Matsuzawa

National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka

East Asia

John H Middleton Yale University Africa

vi

Faculty of Oriental Studies

University of Cambridge

Cambridge

United Kingdom

Office of Campus Program

University of Illinoisat Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

United States

Institute of Social andCultural Anthropology

Institut ffirEthnologie

PeterJ Bertocci Bengali

Department ofSociologyandAnthropology

OaklandUniversity

Rochester, Michigan

UnitedStates

vii

viii Contributors

NuritBird-David

Department ofSociologyandAnthropology

TelAvivUniversity

TelAviv

Israel

S K Biswas

Indian Statistical Institute

Calcutta, West Bengal

Laboratoire d'Ethnologie etde SociologieComparative

University de Paris X-Nanterre

Nanterre

France

ThomasHylland Eriksen

International PeaceResearch Institute

Anthropological Survey of India

Calcutta, West Bengal

Muslim; Neo-Buddhist; Refugeesin South Asia;

Sched-uled Castes andScheduled Tribes; Sudra; Thug; touchables; Vaisya

Department ofHumanities and SocialSciences

TokyoInstitute ofTechnology

Tokyo

Japan

Institute for the Study ofLanguagesand Cultures ofAsia

UniversityofTexas atDallas

Universityof California at LosAngeles

LosAngeles, California

UnitedStates

DepartmentofAnthropology

New YorkUniversity

NewYork,NewYork

UnitedStates

DepartmentofReligious Studies

x Contributors

Triloki Nath Madan

Institute ofEconomic Growth

Herbert H LehmanCollege

City UniversityofNewYork

Bronx, NewYork

United States

W D Merchant

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

SouthSuburban College

SouthHolland, Illinois

Nils FinnMunch-Petersen

Louis Berger, International, Inc

New Delhi

India

Serena Nanda

Department ofAnthropology

JohnJay CollegeofCriminal Justice

City University ofNewYork

NewYork, New York

Nambudiri Brahman; Nayar

Bania; Castes, Hindu;Maratha; Parsi

Contributors xi

Alfred Pach III

DepartmentofMedical Education

University of Illinois at Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

United States

Hugh R. Page, Jr

Department ofReligious Studies

California State University

Institutfur Ethnologie

Freie Universitit zu Berlin

Centre for Social Studies

South Gujarat University

Surat, Gujarat

India

Nepali

Abor; Baiga; Bondo; Burusho; Khasi; Lakher;

Nagas; Purum; Sadhu

TheAmericanOccupationalTherapyAssociation, Inc.

PiersVitebsky Sora

Scott Polar ResearchInstitute

HebrewUniversity ofJerusalem

Mount Scopus,Jerusalem

Thisprojectbeganin1987withthe goal ofassemblingabasic

referencesourcethatprovidesaccurate,clear,andconcise

de-scriptions of the cultures of the world Wewantedtobeas

comprehensiveand authoritativeaspossible:comprehensive,

byproviding descriptionsof all the cultures of each region of

the worldorby describingarepresentativesampleofcultures

for regions where full coverage is impossible, and

authori-tativeby providing accurate descriptions of the cultures for

both the past and the present

Thepublication of the Encyclopedia of World Cultures in

the lastdecade of the twentieth centuryisespecially timely

Thepolitical, economic, and social changes of the past fifty

years haveproducedaworldmorecomplexand fluid thanat

anytime inhumanhistory Threesweeping transformations

ofthe worldwide culturallandscapeareespeciallysignificant

Firstiswhatsome socialscientistsarecalling the"New

Diaspora"-thedispersalof cultural groupsto newlocations

acrosstheworld Thisdispersalaffects allnationsand takesa

wide varietyof forms: in East African nations,the formation

ofnew townsinhabitedby people from dozens of different

ethnic groups;inMicronesiaandPolynesia,themovementof

islandersto cities in NewZealand and theUnited States;in

North America,the replacement by Asiansand Latin

Ameri-cansof Europeansasthemost numerousimmigrants;in

Eu-rope,the increased relianceonworkers from the MiddleEast

and NorthAfrica; and so on

Second,and relatedtothisdispersal,isthe internal division

of whatwere once single, unified cultural groups into two or

morerelatively distinctgroups.This pattern of internal division

is mostdramatic amongindigenousorthirdorfourth world

cul-tureswhosetraditional ways of life have been altered bycontact

withthe outside world Underlying this divisionareboth the

populationdispersionmentioned above and sustainedcontact

with theeconomically developed world The resultisthat groups

who atone time sawthemselvesand were seen by others as

sin-glecultural groups have been transformedinto two or more

dis-tinctgroups Thus, in many cultural groups,we finddeepand

probably permanent divisions between those who live in the

countryand those who liveincities, thosewhofollowthe

tradi-tionalreligion and those who have converted toChristianity,

those wholive inland and those who liveonthe seacoast, and

those who livebymeans ofa subsistence economy and those

nowenmeshedin acash economy

The third important transformation of the worldwide

culturallandscape isthe revival of ethnicnationalism, with

manypeoples claiming andfighting for political freedom andterritorial integrity on the basis of ethnic solidarity andethnic-based claimstotheir traditionalhomeland Although

most attentionhas focusedrecentlyonethnic nationalismin

EasternEuropeand the Soviet Union,the trend islessaworldwide phenomenoninvolving, for example, Ameri-

nonethe-can Indian cultures in North and South America, theBasquesinSpain and France, theTamil and Sinhalese in SriLanka, and theTutsiand Hutu in Burundi, among others

Tobe informed citizensof ourrapidly changing tural world we must understand the ways of life of peoplefromcultures different fromour own."We"isused here in thebroadest sense,toincludenotjustscholars who study thecul-turesof the world andbusinesspeople and government offi-cials who workinthe world communitybut also the averagecitizenwho readsorhearsabout multicultural events in thenews every day and young people who are growing up in thiscomplex cultural world For all of these people-whichmeansall ofus-there is a pressingneed for information onthecultures of the world This encyclopedia provides this in-formationin twoways First, itsdescriptions of the traditionalways of life of the world's cultures can serve as a baselineagainstwhich cultural change can be measured and under-stood.Second, it acquaints thereader with the contemporaryways of life throughout the world

multicul-Weare able to provide this information largely throughthe effortsof the volume editors and the nearly one thousandcontributors who wrote the cultural summaries that are theheart ofthe book Thecontributors are social scientists (an-

thropologists, sociologists, historians, and geographers) aswell as educators, government officials, and missionaries whousually have firsthand research-based knowledge of the cul-tures they write about In many cases they are the major ex-pert or oneof the leading experts on the culture, and some arethemselves members ofthecultures As experts, they are able

toprovide accurate, up-to-date information This is crucialfor many partsof the worldwhere indigenous cultures may beoverlooked by official information seekers such as govern-ment census takers Theseexperts have often lived among thepeople they write about, conducting participant-observationswith them andspeaking their language.Thusthey are able toprovideintegrated, holisticdescriptions ofthe cultures, notjust a list of facts Their portraitsof the cultures leave thereader with a real sense of what it means to be a"Taos"or a

"Rom" or a "Sicilian."

Those summaries not writtenbyanexpertonthe culturehaveusually been written by aresearcheratthe Human Rela-tions AreaFiles, Inc., working from primarysourcematerials.The Human Relations Area Files, an international educa-

xiii

xiv Preface.

tionalandresearchinstitute,isrecognized byprofessionalsin

the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and medical

sciencesas amajorsourceofinformationonthe cultures of

the world

Uses ofthe Encyclopedia

Thisencyclopediaismeant tobe usedby avariety ofpeople

foravarietyofpurposes.It can be used bothtogainageneral

understandingofaculture andtofindaspecificpieceof

in-formationbylookingitupunder the relevantsubheadingina

summary It canalsobe used to learn about aparticular

re-gion orsubregion of the world and thesocial,economic, and

politicalforces that have shapedtheculturesinthatregion

The encyclopedia is alsoa resource guidethatleads readers

who want a deeperunderstandingofparticularcultures to

ad-ditional sources of information Resourceguidesinthe

ency-clopedia include ethnonyms listedineach summary, which

can be usedasentry pointsintothe socialscience literature

where the culturemay sometimes be identifiedbyadifferent

name;abibliographyatthe end of eachsummary, whichlists

books andarticles about the culture; andafilmographyatthe

end of eachvolume, which lists films and videosonmany of

the cultures

Beyondbeing a basic reference resource, the

encyclope-dia alsoservesreaders withmorefocused needs.For

research-ers interestedincomparingcultures, the encyclopedia serves

as the most complete and up-to-date sampling frame from

whichtoselect cultures for furtherstudy For those interested

ininternational studies, the encyclopedia leads onequickly

intothe relevant social science literature as wellasproviding

astate-of-the-art assessment ofourknowledge of the cultures

of aparticular region.Forcurriculumdevelopersandteachers

seekingtointernationalize theircurriculum, the encyclopedia

is itself a basic referenceandeducational resource as well as a

directory to other materials For government officials, it is a

repository of information not likely to be available in any

othersingle publication or,insome cases, notavailable at all

Forstudents, from high school through graduate school, it

providesbackground and bibliographic information for term

papers and class projects And for travelers, itprovidesan

in-troduction intothe ways of life of the indigenous peoplesin

the area of the worldtheywillbe visiting

Format of the Encyclopedia

The encyclopedia comprises ten volumes, ordered by

geo-graphical regions of the world The order ofpublication is not

meanttorepresent any sort of priority Volumes 1through 9

contain a total of about fifteen hundred summaries along

withmaps,glossaries, andindexes ofalternate namesforthe

cultural groups The tenth andfinal volume contains

cumula-tive lists of the cultures of the world, their alternate names,

and a bibliography of selected publications pertaining to

thosegroups

North Americacovers the cultures of Canada, Greenland, and

the United States of America

Oceania covers the cultures ofAustralia, New Zealand,

Mela-nesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia

South Asia covers the cultures ofBangladesh, India, Pakistan,

Sri Lanka andother South Asian islands and the Himalayan

states

Europe covers thecultures of Europe

EastandSoutheast Asia coversthecultures ofJapan, Korea,mainland andinsular Southeast Asia,andTaiwan

Soviet Union (Eastern Europe and Russia) and Chinacovers

the cultures of Mongolia, the People's Republic ofChina,and theUnionof SovietSocialist Republics

SouthAmerica coversthe cultures of SouthAmerica

MiddleAmericaandthe Caribbean covers the cultures oftralAmerica, Mexico, andtheCaribbean islands

Cen-Africa and the MiddleEastcoversthecultures ofMadagascarandsub-SaharanAfrica, North Africa, the MiddleEast,andsouth-centralAsia

Format of the Volumes

Each volumecontainsthispreface, anintroductoryessayby

thevolumeeditor, the culturalsummariesrangingfromafewlinestoseveral pageseach,mapspinpointingthe locationof

the cultures,a filmography, anethnonym index of alternate

namesfor thecultures,andaglossaryofscientific andcal terms.All entries arelistedinalphabetical order andare

techni-extensively cross-referenced

Cultures Covered

Acentralissue inselectingculturesfor coverage in the

ency-clopedia has been howtodefine whatwe meanbyacultural

group.The questions of whata culture isand what criteriacanbe usedtoclassifyaparticularsocialgroup(suchasareli-

gious group,ethnic group, nationality, orterritorialgroup) as

a cultural group have long perplexed social scientists andhaveyet tobeanswered to everyone'ssatisfaction.Tworeali-

tiesaccountfor why thequestions cannotbe answered tively.First, awide variety ofdifferenttypesofculturesexist

defini-around the world Among common types are national tures,regional cultures,ethnic groups, indigenous societies,religious groups, and unassimilated immigrant groups No

cul-singlecriterionormarker ofculturaluniqueness can

consis-tently distinguish among the hundreds ofcultures that fitintothesegeneral types Second, asnotedabove, singlecul-tures orwhatwere atone timeidentifiedassinglecultures can

and dovary internally over time and place Thus a markerthatmayidentifyaspecific group as aculture in onelocation

oratone timemay notwork for that culture inanotherplace

oratanothertime Forexample, use of theYiddish language

wouldhave beenamarker of Jewish cultural identity in ern Europe inthe nineteenthcentury, but itwould notserve

East-as amarker for Jews in the twentieth-century UnitedStates,

where mostspeakEnglish Similarly, residence on one of the

Cook IslandsinPolynesia would have been a marker of Cook

Islander identity inthe eighteenth century, but not in thetwentiethcenturywhentwo-thirds of CookIslanders live in

New Zealand and elsewhere

Given theseconsiderations, no attempt has been made

todevelop and use asingledefinition of a cultural unit ortodevelop and use a fixed list ofcriteriaforidentifyingcultural

units Instead, the task ofselecting cultures was left to the

volume editors, and thecriteria andprocedures they usedarediscussed in theirintroductory essays In general, however,sixcriteria wereused,sometimes alone andsometimes incombi-nation to classify socialgroups as cultural groups: (1) geo-graphicallocalization, (2) identification in the socialscience

literature as a distinct group, (3) distinct language, (4)

shared traditions, religion, folklore, or values, (5)

mainte-Preface xv

nanceofgroupidentityinthe faceof strongassimilative

pres-sures, and (6) previouslistingin aninventoryof theworld's

cultures such as Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock 1967) or the

Outline of World Cultures (Murdock 1983)

Ingeneral, we have been bumperss" rather than

"split-ters" in writingthesummaries That is, if there is some

ques-tionabout whetheraparticulargroup isreallyoneculture or

tworelated cultures,wehave moreoften than not treated it as

asingle culture, with internal differences noted in the

sum-mary Similarly, we have sometimes chosen to describe a

number ofvery similar cultures in asingle summary rather

than in a seriesofsummariesthat would be mostly

redun-dant Thereis, however, some variationfromone region to

anotherinthisapproach, and the rationale for eachregion is

discussed inthe volume editor's essay

Twocategoriesof culturesareusuallynotcovered in the

encyclopedia First, extinct cultures, especially those that

have notexistedasdistinct culturalunitsforsome time, are

usually not described Cultural extinction is often, though

certainly not always, indicated by the disappearance of the

culture's language So, forexample, the Aztec are not

cov-ered, although living descendantsof the Aztec, the

Nahuat-speakers of centralMexico, are described

Second, thewaysof lifeof immigrantgroups areusually

notdescribedinmuch detail, unless thereis along history of

resistance to assimilationand thegroup has maintainedits

distinct identity,as havetheAmish inNorthAmerica.These

cultures are, however, described inthe location where they

traditionally livedand, for themostpart, continue tolive, and

migration patterns are noted For example, the Hmong in

Laos aredescribedinthe SoutheastAsiavolume, but the

ref-ugee communities inthe UnitedStatesand Canadaare

cov-ered onlyinthegeneral summaries onSoutheastAsians in

thosetwo countries inthe NorthAmericavolume.Although

itwould be idealtoprovide descriptions of all theimmigrant

culturesorcommunitiesof theworld, thatisanundertaking

wellbeyond thescopeof thisencyclopedia, for there are

prob-ablymorethan five thousand suchcommunitiesintheworld

Finally, itshould be noted that notall nationalitiesare

covered,only those thatare also distinct cultures aswell as

politicalentities Forexample, theVietnameseandBurmese

are included butIndians (citizens ofthe Republic of India)

are not, becausethe latteris apoliticalentitymade up ofa

great mixof cultural groups In the case of nations whose

populations includea number ofdifferent, relatively

unassim-ilated groups or cultural regions, each of the groups is

de-scribed separately.Forexample,thereis nosummaryfor

Ital-ians as suchinthe Europevolume, but thereare summaries

forthe regional cultures ofItaly,suchastheTuscans,

Sicil-ians, and Tirolians, and other cultures such as the Sinti

Piemontese

Cultural Summaries

Theheartof thisencyclopediaisthedescriptivesummariesof

thecultures,which rangefromafew linestofive or six pages

inlength.Theyprovideamixofdemographic, historical,

so-cial, economic, political, and religious information on the

cultures Their emphasis or flavor is cultural; that is, they

focus on the ways of life of the people-both past and

present-and the factors that have caused the culture to

changeover time andplace

A key issue has been how to decide which cultures

should be described by longer summaries and which by

shorter ones.This decisionwasmade bythevolume editors,

who had to balance a number of intellectual and practicalconsiderations Again, the rationale for these decisions is dis-

cussed intheir essays But among the factors that were

con-sideredby all the editorswerethe total number of cultures in

theirregion,the availability ofexperts to writesummaries,the

availabilityofinformationon thecultures, thedegree of larity between cultures, and the importance of a culture in ascientific or political sense

simi-Thesummaryauthors followedastandardizedoutlinesothat each summaryprovides informationon acorelist of top-ics.The authors, however, had some leeway indeciding how

muchattention was tobegiveneachtopicandwhetheradditional information should be included Summaries usually

provide information on the following topics:

CULTURE NAME:The nameusedmostofteninthe socialscienceliteratureto refer tothe cultureorthenamethe groupuses for itself

ETHNONYMS: Alternatenames for the cultureincludingnames used by outsiders, the self-name, and alternatespell-ings, within reasonable limits

ORIENTATIONIdentification Location of the culture and the derivation ofits name and ethnonyms

Location Where the culture is located and a description ofthephysical environment

Demography Population history and the most recent able population figures orestimates

reli-Linguistic Affiliation The name of the language spokenand/or written by the culture, its place in an internationallanguage classification system,and internal variation in lan-guage use

HISTORY AND CULTURAL RELATIONS: A tracing

of theoriginsand history of theculture and the past and rent nature of relationships with other groups

cur-SETTLEMENTS: The locationof settlements, types of tlements, types of structures, housing design and materials.ECONOMY

set-Subsistence and Commercial Activities.The primary

meth-ods of obtaining, consuming, and distributing money, food,

and othernecessities

Industrial Arts Implements and objects produced by the

culture either forits own use or for sale or trade

Trade Products traded and patterns of trade with othergroups

Division ofLabor.How basic economic tasksare assigned byage, sex, ability, occupational specialization, or status.LandTenure Rules and practices concerning the allocation

of land and land-use rights to members ofthe culture and tooutsiders

KINSHIPKin Groups and Descent Rules and practices concerning

kin-basedfeatures of social organization such as lineages and

clans and alliances betweenthesegroups

Kinship Terminology Classification ofthe kinship

termi-nologicalsystem on thebasis of either cousin terms or