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If Each Comes Halfway Meeting
Tamang Women in Nepal Kathryn S.

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"If Each Comes Halfway"
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London
Meeting Tamang Women in Nepal
Kathryn S. March
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED WITH THE AID OF A GRANT FROM THE HULL MEMORIAL
PUBLICATION FUND OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
Copyright© 2002 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must
not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For infor-
mation, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York
1485o.
First published 2002 by Cornell University Press

First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2002
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
March, Kathryn S.
"If each comes halfWay" : meeting Tamang women in Nepal / Kathryn S. March.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-8014-4017-3 (cloth: alk. paper)- ISBN o-8014-8827-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Women, Tamang. 2. Tamang (Nepalese people)-Sociallife and customs.
3· Songs, Tamang. I. Title.
DS493.9.T35 M64 2002
3o 5 .4 8'8954-dc21 2002007 945
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to
the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-
based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly
composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Cloth printing 10 987654 321

Paperback printing 10 987654321
This book is dedicated to our children.
They are the seventy-seven children, living and dead, of Tschirto, Jyomo,
Tasyi, Tikiri, Nhanu, Purngi, Phurko, Mondzom, Mlangdzom, Mhojyo,
Santu, Sukumaya, Setar, Hrisang, David, and myself.
They are: Aiti, Akal Bahadur, Bahadur Singh, Biba, Bijaya Singh, Bir Ba-
hadur, Birbal, Chandra Singh, Chaturman, Chinta, Christopher Allan,
Damji, Dawang, Dewan Moktan, Dudhi Maya, Gadurman, Jayaman, Jyauki,
Kalu, Kamala, Karchung, Karsang, Lali, Lama Shangbo, Laudari, Makku,
Man Kumari, Man Singh, Maya Kathryn, Menchyung, Mohan Lama, Ngy-
hanggu, Ngyhema Wanchyu, Nurbu, Parta Singh, Patta, Pempa Hrinjen,
Phai Ghale, Phul Maya, Phurphu Lama, Poti, Purngi Singh, Purngi, Puthi-
man, Rabindra, Rita, Santu, Sanu Maya, Sarki, Selkar, Setar, Sete Ghale, Sher
Bahadur, Sriman (formerly Birman), Sinen, Sopar, Sujana, Suku, Suku
Maya, Suryaman, Susila, Suwan, Syam Bahadur, Tarshang, Thigyal, Thute,
Tschendzom, Tschirto, Tula Bahadur, Tuli Maya, Urken, the twin daughters
Ganga andjamuna, and four babies whose names were also lost.
They are the reasons this work was undertaken. They will have to find their
own reasons to pass the memory of Tamang life down.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
List of Songs XI
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Closing a Text of Open Conversations
I The Who, Where, and How of This Book 14
II Mondzom: Narrating a Life, Framing a Life 32
III Nhanu: Parsing a Life, Naming What Matters 79
IV Jyomo's Life ofWork 125
v Purngi's Tales of Domestic Intrigue, Love, and Lice 167
VI Sukumaya's Two Homes 203
VII Working with Tamang Women, Their Words, and Their Worlds 233
Glossary 249
Bibliography 255
Index 265
ILLUSTRATIONS
Photographs following page 124
Figures
1. Kinship relations among the four core women 26
2. Relationships among all fourteen women 27
3· First page of original transcription notebook 30
4· Orienting Mondzom and her audience 34
5· Orienting Nhanu and her audience 82
6. Jyomo 's extended household 146
7· Jyomo's household residents in 1977 1 47
8. Cross-cousin marriage 170
g. A fuller view of Tamang bilateral cross-cousin marriage 170
10. Purngi's relationship withJyomo's elder co-wife 182
11. Sukumaya's marriage 205
Map
Density ofTamang residence in Nepal
ix
SONGS
* Included on CD
Chicken Song* Inside the yellow chicken 6
Calfs Lament* Incenses please and suit the
mountain-gods 7
Setar's Bomsang* Trees are said to be old and gnarled 11
Popcorn Song* Popcorn, popped 41
Marriage Song If you go in marriage 54
Lama's Bomsang* Gather round, boys and girls, sons
and daughters 59
Setar's Bomsang* Beautiful, oh beautiful 61
Wara Wara Hwai* The leaves of the juniper growing
by the spring 72
Courtship Song Will we find love or not? 99
Wild Garlic Song On the tops of the mountains 115
LingmaSong [Name and] purify with incense! 129
Song of the Loom* When the cycle of rebirths was
beginning 1 33
Gangjyung Bomo Hwai* The very water of Lhasa 160
Butter Lamp Song* A dead lifeform may take [re]birth 192
xi
Tek Soli Tek* Will we find affection or not? 204
Sai Khola* Moss hangs in the breeze 219
Tobacco Song The golden flower of a water bowl 223
Cooking Pot Song* The cooked rice crust might be
thrown out
xii SONGS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Above all, thanks to Tschirto, Jyomo, Tasyi, Tikiri, Nhanu, Purngi, Phurko,
Mondzom, Mlangdzom, Mhojyo, Santu, Sukumaya, Setar, and Hrisang-the
fourteen beloved women of Stupahill who have so generously shared their
lives. The patient assistance of Suryaman (Nghyema Karma Himdung)
Tamang, Tularam (Dimdung) Tamang, and Sriman (Birman Himdung)
Tamang made this work both possible and enjoyable. Their tact and advice
were always essential. They are exceptional in their willingness to work and
rework translations, to search out and research songs, and to question the
meaning of it all, over and over. To these people and to all my other friends
and fictive relations in and around Stupahill: many, many thanks.
Because this book has been so long in the making, there are many other
friends, colleagues, students, editors, research assistants, and funding agen-
cies to thank. I cannot possibly list all of them here, but I would like to try.
The original research for this book was supported by the National Institute
of Mental Health (National Research Service Award) and the Woodrow Wil-
son National Fellowship Foundation (Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in
Women's Studies). Subsequent grants have included a Cornell Humanities
Faculty Research Grant, a National Endowment for the Humanities Transla-
tion Grant, and a Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute Fellowship. A Fulbright
Senior Research Fellowship not only made further work possible but also re-
Xlll
suited in friendships with John Paul at the U.S. Office of Education and with
Ann Lewis, Penny Walker, and Michael Gill in Nepal at the U.S. Education
Foundation-Fulbright Commission, to whose dedicated staff I continue to be
grateful.
In Kathmandu, good friends Al Eastham and Carolyn Laux, as well as
Carelton Coons Jr., and still later Barbara Butterworth and Mike Gill, and
Bob,Jo, Ryan, andJyoti Yoder all at one time or another gave refuge and en-
couragement generously. The hospitality Dharma Ratna Sakya and his fam-
ily offered us in Trisuli Bazaar transformed a hot dusty stop at the end of the
bus route into a friendly haven. I also express enduring thanks to Chandni
and Mohan Joshi, Doss Mabe and Adel Boehm-Mabe, Durga and Bimala
Ojha, Bina and Jyoti Pradhan, John and Claudia Scholz, and Megh Thapa
for their very special friendship, which began during the first years of field
research in Stupahill. Friends and family who visited or accompanied us on
various trips to Nepal brought much welcome love and support. Thank you,
Chantal Henry, Jacques Henry and Nicole Thimister, Anna Holmberg and
Mark Wagner, Eric Holmberg and LeAnn James, Casey Holmberg and
Damon James, Laura Holmberg,JanJolles, Camille Kurtz, Sally and Carl Mc-
Connell-Ginet, Jayne Dohr and James G. March, and Elaine and Bob
Schroeder.
For support during various stages of writing, I thank many friends and col-
leagues. I am particularly grateful for input and patience from Jane Fajans,
Nelly Furman, Ann Grodzins Gold, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Ernestine
McHugh, Kirin Narayan, Sherry Ortner, Robert]. Smith, Toby Volkman, and
Margery Wolf. At the Bunting Institute I found particularly welcome support
from Bina Agrawal, Judith Berman, Ann Bookman, Valerie Smith, and
Rachelle Taqqu. As graduate students, Harihar and Romila Acharya, Stina
Almroth, Kim Berry, Suzanne Brenner, Thamora Fishel, Sara Friedman,
Kathryn Hartzell, Judy Ledgerwood, Dale Nafziger, Sarita Neupane, Lazima
Onta, Robert Philen, Stacy Pigg, Katharine Rankin, Cabeiri Robinson, Ann
Russ, Abraham Zablocki, and Elayne Zorn all had to put up with my endless
ruminations about life history work in general and this Tamang volume in
particular; thank you, all. I also thank Laura Ahern, Steve Curtis, Ter Elling-
son, Elizabeth Enslin, Steven Feld, Linda Iltis, Carmela Schwartz, and Debra
Skinner for their suggestions and ideas about Tamang and Nepali song or
ethnomusicology more generally. For help with translation, thanks go to An-
dras Hofer, Krishna Pradhan, and Amrit Yonjen for advice regarding details
that only another linguist and translator would care about. In addition,
Pashuram Tamang, as well as Susan Hangen and Mukta Singh Lama
Tamang, were generous in helping me to understand the new ethnic pride
associations and their efforts.
At the Tribhuvan University in Nepal, colleagues such as Krishna B.
Bhattachan, Ram Chhetri, Gyanu Chhetri, Ganesh Gurung, Om Gurung,
Laxmi Keshari Manandhar, Kedar Bhakta Mathema, Gopal Singh Nepali,
X~ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Dhan Prasad Pandit, Bina Pradhan, Kailash Pyakuryal, Navin Rai, Rishike-
shav Regmi, Bihari Shrestha, Mohan Man Sainju, and, of course, the late
Dor Bahadur Bista, have always made me most generously welcome. I also
acknowledge the long friendship and collegial assistance of both Banu and
Shambhu Oja, who, between them, have been the Nepali language teach-
ers and In-Country Director of Cornell's program in Nepal-they have
been integral to the growth and success of Nepal and Himalayan studies at
Cornell.
I also thank the students in my seminar on anthropological life histories
over the years: Italo Barros, Nicole Benjamin, Elena Berg, Sofia Betancourt,
Amelia Bookstein, Catherine Broadbent, Rima Brusi, Elizabeth Butler, Jen-
nifer Burlingame, Mary Cathcart, Florence Cherry, Amy Chilcote, Mary
Churchill, Laura Conklin, David Corrigan, Colleen Costello, Steven Curtis,
Valerie DelRosario, Alexandra Destler, Bethany Dreyfus, Diana Drylie, Jean
Fang, Julie Hemment, Ileana Hernadez, Lynn Hine, Terry Jean-Louis, Erik
Jenson, Tamara Kraus, Laura Krevsky, Barry Kronefeld, Obiagele Lake, Jane
Lee, Katherine Long, Julie Lorber, Wanhua Ma, Bonnie Macintosh, Earl
Martin, Gabrielle Moehring, Mary Moye, Binu Nair, Brigette Orkild, Esther
Ortiz, Jenny Park, Loida Perez, Sara Pollock, Rebecca Prentice, Kavitha Ra-
jaram, Cabeiri Robinson, Samantha Shaber, Elizabeth Shea, Diane Stern-
berg, Anneke Swinehart, Leshan Tan, Tatiana Thieme, Kathryn White, and
Patricia Yoon. I know I may have forgotten some names, but I appreciate the
input of all of my students.
For editing, I am deeply grateful to Grey Osterud, Bevin McLaughlin, and
Karen Hwa, who guided me through the final surgeries, and to Peter Agree
and Fran Benson, who never lost faith that the book could be done success-
fully. Thanks also go to both Mukta Singh Lama Tamang and Julia Cassaniti
for their assistance in verifying the bibliography. I am especially grateful to
the reviewer who argued for-and to the Cornell University Press for agree-
ing to support-the CD associated with this book. And I am deeply indebted
to Martin Hatch who guided me through the intricacies of producing a CD
from field tape recordings.
It is a special pleasure to be able to include my own children among those
to whom this book is dedicated since they are especially beloved to me. But I
also want to mention the children of my good friends Bhim Bahadur and
Dolma Tamang-Bina and Louise-who lived with us and with Cindy,
Donna, and John Dempster-McClain to complete their secondary schooling
in Ithaca. For all of these children, and I hope many others in the growing
Tamang community worldwide, the traditions described in these women's
tales are distant but important parts of their experience and heritage.
Through it all, and more than any author is due, my family has been re-
markable for their forbearance. They even learned (mostly) not to ask
whether this book was "done yet." Both Mohan Lama Holmberg and Maya
Kathryn Holmberg are now reaching an age at which they appreciate the
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XV
subtlety and depth of the support their father has given this work: David H.
Holmberg is the reason I came to work among Stupahill Tamang; his dedica-
tion and support inspire me.
I am deeply grateful for all your encouragement, enthusiasm, advice and,
above all, patience. I am glad-finally-to make good on your faith.
XVI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS
Twenty-five years: this book, like my acqu aintance with the Tamangi women
whose stories I retell, has been a meandering odyssey. How to reconcile the
negotiated openness of dialogue with the people of Stupahill and the au-
thoritative closure of a written text? Twice I thought I had completed this
work. Each time I found something critically lacking and returned to Nepal
to correct what I could. This book reflects a long learning process, with each
stage adding a new layer of concerns.
Those of us who live in the less famous Ithaca tire of allusions to its clas-
sical namesake and its notorious vagrant. In one respect, however, I must
compare the work at hand not to U lysses and his adventures but to
Homer's way of telling-as an epic narrative. Without overstating the paral-
lels to that great account, these stories of the Tamang women should also
be read as an epic. The problem with epics is that, as tellings, they a ppear
to wander, get lost, and retrace their steps. Somehow, though, it is through
these same devices that epics lead us to the heart of the adventure, the ad-
venturers, and ourselves. They are meant to be heard and reheard, told and
retold.
1. Pro nounced with equal emphasis on both syllables and a soft ng: roughly, tah-mahng, not
ta-mayng.
The sense of repetition and retarded pace in reading an epic requires a
different kind of patience, closer in kind to a living, spoken telling. So, too,
Tamang speakers do not use truncated names: William Shakespeare cannot
become a 'Willie" or a "Will," nor Franklin Delano Roosevelt a "Frank" or
even "FDR"; everyone is always addressed or referred to by their complete
name. Reading such a work takes longer; you must slow down; you cannot get
impatient with the space the names or the stories require. By including all of
the dialogue, questions, and interruptions from my original interviews with
the full texts of songs that the women sang or recalled, I have insisted with
these women that their accounts be given their original space and wholeness,
as far as possible, so that you can appreciate how the accounts were told,
where the teller wanted to take you, and what was deployed to get you there.
These stories go on and on, backwards and forwards, to faraway places-geo-
graphical, interpersonal, and imagined.
How could I provide guidance through the stories of the Tamang women
without overtaking them? How could I make them understood, without
claiming perfect understanding, to leave space for your own reactions and
your own understanding? Therein lay the greatest challenge. I wanted the
stories to take you somewhere you hadn't been without either losing you or
taking you only where I have been. I wanted to engage you in understanding
my Tamang women friends based on our shared humanity but also to make
room for unexpected differences.
One decision I faced was how to present the women's songs within their
narratives and how to balance my scholarly hand with their more poetic
ones. The songs show the creative energy of the Tamang authors and allow
us to see their life histories as carefully crafted tales and not 'Just facts"-to
return to Lila Abu-Lughod's ( 1993) phrase-but as important signage on
the path to seeing lives different from our own. Like the stories that Angela
Smith, Kitty Smith, and Annie Ned insisted that Julie Cruikshank ( 1990) in-
corporate as integral to their lives, the songs in the lives of Tschirto, Jyomo,
Tasyi, Tikiri, Nhanu, Purngi, Phurko, Mondzom, Mlangdzom, Mhojyo,
Santu, Sukumaya, Setar, and Hrisang are important to them not as orna-
ment but as constitutive of their lives' most emotive meanings. I imagined
how I might read these stories aloud, as I had read them in my classes. I
would reproduce some of the spoken pace and intensity of detail. I realized,
too, that I would not limit my commentary to introductory remarks or
notes. Instead, I would almost certainly read some of their stories, talk a
little, read more, provide a comment, add a story of my own, explain a story
of theirs, and maybe even sometimes beg you to listen more carefully and try
to tell you why.
Thus this book emerged. As it wanders between their words and mine, be-
tween analysis and song, between answers and questions, I have tried to pro-
duce a text that is itself a conversation. Representing interactions on several
planes, the text is, first of all, based in the relationships among Tschirto,
2 INTRODUCTION
Jyomo, Tasyi, Tikiri, Nhanu, Purngi, Phurko, Mondzom, Mlangdzom, Mho-
jyo, Santu, Sukumaya, Setar, Hrisang, and myself, as well as the relationship
between their transcribed words and my emergent understanding of them.
There is play, too, between the spoken and the sung word. And, finally, of
course, there is the movement between voiced realities, theirs and ours. This
book arises in conversations not only with Tamang women but also with it-
self, about the nature of narrative constructions of life and about sharing and
understanding them.
Translating and understanding difference
The process of translating spoken words into a written text and taking that
text across national, cultural, linguistic, and other borders is complex, as
Ruth Behar attests in her aptly titled book Translated woman ( 1993). Many
of my musings revolve around process and ask whose work this is, how and
why. Like so many who have asked, "Can there be a feminist ethnogra-
phy?" (Abu-Lughod 1990, Enslin 1994, Stacey 1988), I was concerned
about the tensions between the ethnographer and the ethnographed, as
well as those between the possible irrelevance of scholarly debates and the
pressing need for social action and a commitment to shared research
goals. I wanted to see what might emerge from work that conscientiously
attempted to foster and acknowledge the points of view and purposes of
the Tamang women as well as my own. Two mutual goals came into the
foreground: the project of getting to know one another and that of creat-
ing an enduring record.
For me, the most moving aspect of the years of fieldwork in and around
Stupahill has been the affection and friendship that people have offered
me there. Getting to know Tschirto, Jyomo, Tasyi, Tikiri, Nhanu, Purngi,
Phurko, Mondzom, Mlangdzom, Mhojyo, Santu, Sukumaya, Setar, and
Hrisang has been a true adventure. The process of entering into their lives
has been immeasurably satisfying, the more so as I began to realize how
well they had come to know me. When we first met, their lives and worlds
seemed vastly different from my own-technologically, economically, so-
cially, emotionally, spiritually, physically-as mine must have seemed to
them.
I agree with Uma Narayan's succinct depiction of perspectival knowledge
as "the view that our concrete embodiments as members of a specific class,
race, and gender as well as our concrete historical situations necessarily play
significant roles in our perspective on the world .... No point of view is 'neu-
tral' because no one exists unembedded in the world" ( 1989, 262). People in
Stupahill have been unstintingly generous in their attempts to communicate
their worlds to me and their inclusion of me in their worlds. As the years have
gone by, the children who run up to me each time I return to the village have
changed their call of greeting from Tschang kaji! (Daughter-in-law has
CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 3

come!) to Amagren kaji! or Anyi kaji! (Elder Mother or Aunt-mother-in-law2
has come!). Now when I enter Stupahill, it is: Mum kaji! (Grandmother has
come!). I make no claims to anything but partial entry into the lives of the
women of Stupahill, or to an unobstructed view of the world as they see and
live it. But I also share Narayan's humanistic optimism:
It would be a mistake to move from the thesis that knowledge is con-
structed by human subjects who are socially constituted to the conclusion
that those who are differently located socially can never attain some under-
standing of our experience or some sympathy with our cause. In that case,
we would be committed to not just a perspectival view of knowledge but a
relativistic one. Relativism, as I am using it, implies that a person could
have knowledge of only the sorts of things she had experienced personally
and that she would be totally unable to communicate any of the contents
of her knowledge to someone who did not have the same sorts of experi-
ences. Not only does this seem clearly false and perhaps even absurd, but it
is probably a good idea not to have any a priori views that would imply ei-
ther that all our knowledge is always capable of being communicated to
every other person or that would imply that some of our knowledge is nec-
essarily incapable of being communicated to some class of persons ....
Our commitment to the contextual nature of knowledge does not require
us to claim that those who do not inhabit these contexts can never have
any knowledge of them. ( 1g8g, 263-64)
I count myself privileged to record, write, and ponder my acquaintance with
the Tamang women.
That privilege, however, requires some direct consideration. Among the
many differences between me and the women of Stupahill troubling my an-
thropological and feminist interest in representing their lives are the mate-
rial demands of their lives. However much I envy them some aspects of their
lives, and admire them deeply for all, I would not change my life for theirs;
they, meanwhile, repeatedly assert that they would change theirs for mine,
given the chance. Why? Because my life is easier: my house has heat in the
cold months; I cook on gas; I don't have to walk everywhere or carry loads.
My life is more modern: I have television and computers and video games. It
is also more developed: I have indoor plumbing, access to doctors, and an ed-
ucation. We argued about the value of our respective endowments, and I
pointed out that in many ways the Tamang women's lifestyle is as physically,
socially, and emotionally rewarding as it is challenging. I envied them the
2. Compound kin terms, such as "aunt-mother-in-law" or "cousin-brother," are necessary be-

cause some of the most important Tamang kinship relations encompass more than one rela-
tionship: an anyi, or "aunt-mother-in-law," for example, could be the father's sister or mother's
brother's wife (both aunts in most English-language usages) or the mother-in-law (because of
the distinctive patterns of Tamang marriage). See discussions in later chapters for details.
4 INTRODUCTION
quiet and dark of their nights, their closeness to the moon and the seasons,
their songs, the richness of their oral traditions, and their interconnected-
ness. But my appreciation for their lifestyle did not do much to change their
arguments.
I return to Uma Narayan's consideration of epistemic privilege. Mter ar-
guing that we should neither abandon all hope of communication across
human differences nor take our differences too for granted, Narayan re-
minds us that "those who actually live the oppressions of class, race, or gender
have faced the issues that such oppressions generate in a variety of different
situations. The insights and emotional responses engendered by these situa-
tions are a legacy with which they confront any new issue or situation" ( tg8g,
264). To rephrase Narayan, "[I] should realize that nothing [I] may do ...
can make [me] one of the oppressed" ( tg8g, 265). I look forward to the day
when Tamang women write their worlds in their own words; that is when
things will get really complicated and interesting. Until then, I offer not only
my own reticence to simplify my empathy with their situations but also a
warning: awareness of both difference and privilege cannot be broken down
into partial identification. This "crisis about difference," as Abu-Lughod calls
it ( tggo, 23), is absolute and nondivisible; it means a change in paradigm
about the right to represent, but it cannot be permitted to paralyze. If "we"
can't speak about "them," and "she" can't speak about other "she's," into how
many mutually unintelligible pieces shall we slice humanity? It was Carl Sand-
burg who asked:
Who shall speak for the people?

who has the answers?
where is the sure interpreter?
who knows what to say?
I cannot answer with Sandburg's brilliance, but it is to the task of such a rep-
resentation that I have put my training, grants, visas, tape recorder, tran-
scripts, long days and nights, and all the patience of friends, colleagues, stu-
dents, and family.
Memory
If, in addition to my attempt to understand another people, there is a shared
project at the heart of this work, it is remembering and making a record. I
sought to record the Tamang women and their lives as I have known them;
they, to record their lives as they want their children and grandchildren and
children after them to know them. In our early exchanges about the inter-
views and the book they might become, I spoke with the various Tamang
women about the people who might read them-in English, in college
classes. This audience was very far away in every sense. "Why would they want

to read about us?" I was asked repeatedly. I had no answer except my own:
out of curiosity, to get to know you, to learn about other people's lives.
It was the ever-astute Jyomo who reinterpreted my words for a group of lis-
tening women; she told them that things written don't get forgotten. I be-
lieve she was as much chastising me for the inadequacy of my verbal memory
as she was extolling the virtues of texts. No matter. She declared, and it be-
came a communal rallying point, that things were changing rapidly in Stu-
pahill, that much had already been forgotten from their grandfathers' and
grandmothers' times, that their own children would live lives very different
from theirs, that the children might even forget the Tamang language. Thus
it was agreed that we would record their way of life and that the record would
be dedicated to all our children.
At the end of her recording session, Phurko, the oldest woman I worked
with, was joined by Hrisang, her classificatory sister and a formidable local
figure. Her classificatory grandson, Tularam, who helped me with these in-
terviews, asked her, "Of those long-ago times, what seems to come to mind
when you compare those times then and these times now?"
PHURKO replied: What comes to mind? What comes to mind indeed. I for-
got everything about long ago. And now, what? Nothing. No memories
arise.
Long ago, people said in the song: "Clever mother's daughter, 'Wake up
with the rooster!' They say." That's the song anyway. Now, though, when the
rooster crows, what work can I do? All kinds of things would come to mind.
But now. Nothing. I'm not even consciously aware of the daylight now.
HRISANG: You mean the one about "A good mother's daughter gets up be-
fore the rooster; the lazy mother's daughter sleeps in past the sunrise"?
PHURKO: It was called the "Chicken Song," that one was. When there was
only the one, when there was only your egg, still it had to be counted:
[Singing]
Inside the yellow chicken
the white egg came to be.
Inside the white egg,
it seems gold and silver happened.
Inside the gold and silver,
a spot of blood was born, it seems.
On top of the lake of blood,
the nose and eye filled out.
The nose and eye filled out,
then the whole world resounded.
A wise mother's daughter
rises with the chickens;
a cowardly mother's daughter
keeps on sleeping until the sun is high.
6 INTRODUCTION
[Talking normally again] It's said the lazy mother's daughter just sleeps
until the sun has risen. It's said the wise mother's daughter says, "Get up
right with the rooster!" That one's the "Chicken Song." [Everyone chuck-
led.] Now when the rooster does its so-called crowing, you'd wake up,
wouldn't you? We, well, we'd do everything. Now ... too ... if I were
able .... But now, I think of something; then I forget. Even when rebuked
extremely gently, still, I don't remember anything at all.
Mter Phurko sang the "Chicken Song," there was a long silence on the
tape. Finally Tularam and I asked Phurko about other songs she remem-
bered. At first she said, "There aren't any others." Tularam asked her, almost
jokingly, "Were there others? About goats' kids, or cows' calves, or?" Phurko
responded tartly, "We didn't sing about goats' kids or about calves, you silly!"
But a moment later, after Tularam had made a small apology, Phurko volun-
teered, "Actually, there is a calf's song," and began singing again:
Lha-hai-lo!
Incenses please and suit the mountain-gods.
Milk pleases and suits the serpent-gods.3
You eat cheese and even golden butter,
but you don't give even a little bit to me.
She interrupted her singing to explain: "The herder ate all the mother cow's
butter and cheese and didn't give any of the milk to her calf."
TULARAM: The herder didn't give any to the calf?
PHURKO: Yes. No milk.
[Singing again]
When you didn't give me any milk,
tears rolled down from my eyes.
Mter tears rolled down from my eyes,
downstream a river came into being.
[Explaining] It's said the calf's tears created that downstream river, that
Butter River. That was in the beginning. In the era of gods.
HRISANG: That very Marsyandi River4 across over there, you know!
PHURKO: We used to know that kind of song and things. So there were oth-
ers. That one was the "Calf's Lament."
KSM: And that's all of it?
PHURKO: That's it.
3· Incense is the proper offering for ("pleases and suits") the category of divinity known as
lha (gods); milk is appropriate to the divinities of the lakes and underground sources of water,
the lu, often glossed with reference to the Hindu naga or serpent-divinities.
4- The name of one of the major river systems found in central Nepal as it is called in Nepali.
Tamang speakers borrow the Nepali name, with slight alteration in the pronunciation, but the
punned meaning is only significant in Tamang, in which maris "butter" and syongis "river."

TULARAM: But, then, what did the herder reply?
PHURKO: What indeed! He consumed it all up himself. He drank the milk
in one gulp. It's said he'd drink the milk in one gulp; it's said he wouldn't
give the poor calf even the tiniest little bit. When that happened, the calf
sang this song that way, they say.
It was someone else's mother's milk, though, wasn't it!? He should have
given it at least a little bit. Doesn't it have to eat, too? After all, it was some-
one else's mother's milk! A little ... it has to eat just a little bit, doesn't it.
But he would drink every last bit, he would! That's what they say he'd do.
So when he was doing like that, just after the calf sang its song, the
Marsyandi River sprang up, in the beginning then, in the time of the gods,
from the calf's tears, they say.
Then, that's the kind of thing that happened then. Now, well. ... The
era of the gods was long, long ago. It's not the same now. Long, long ago,
there were no people. Long, long ago, there was no time. Long, long ago, we
didn't reap the same harvests.
Near the end of each original taping session, I asked the women whether
they had anything more in their sem (hearts-and-minds)5 that they wanted to
say. The women had very mixed thoughts about the past, the present, and
the future.
As young women and new mothers, Tschirto, Mlangdzom, Mhojyo, Santu,
and Sukumaya, perhaps not surprisingly, reflected on the many uncertainties
still before them. They found it hard to know what the future would bring
and, hence, hard to say exactly what they wanted of it. Mhojyo, with only a
few days to go before her next daughter was to be born, was understandably
preoccupied with the fullness of the moment. She said, "These days, in my
heart-and-mind ... ," continuing very deliberately, after a pause, "I wonder
how it will be for me. If what's inside of me is a source of grief and trouble,
how will I survive? What might happen? That's what comes to me now. I
don't think about anything before now, or anything that might come after."
Mlangdzom, Tschirto, and Santu echoed this sense of uncertainty. "How is it
that others' children get beautiful clothes to wear? How is it that they get to
go travel around? These thoughts come to mind," said Mlangdzom. "I go to
festivals, and then, 'Where have you been? Where did you get to?' they ask,
and then, in my heart-and-mind, just like that, all of that is forgotten, washed
away. And I wander about."
Middle-aged women-like Setar, Jyomo, Tikiri, Nhanu, Tasyi, and even
Purngi-were generally clear about the things they wanted to do: see the last
5· Sem, the inner seat of both thinking and feeling, is different from the other organic bases
of feeling, such as the ting (heart), tu (heart), and pho (stomach). The brain is known and
named but little elaborated upon. For a more nuanced discussion of the Gurung concept re-
lated to sem, see McHugh (1g8g).
8 INTRODUCTION
daughters married, see the youngest sons set up in their own houses, divide
the property among the children. They spoke as if the fulfillment of these ob-
ligations were nearly in sight. Nhanu described her plan to endow her vari-
ous children, saying, 'There's nothing else I have to do. I'll tell each of them,
'Here's this much land for you. Here's this much household wealth for you.'
Then, after telling each of them of their shares, well, whether they find they
are happy with each of their shares or not, my dharma6 will be all worked out
now, won't it?" At this point, her son and daughter-in-law and their children
came home to make the afternoon snack. As the din of their cooking and cry-
ing rose, I joked, "And now you've become a herder of children again, herd-
ing your grandsons and granddaughters."
NHANU replied: Oh, well ... I guess you could say that. It seems I can't just
sit here. It's actually more relaxing to get out and about a bit; I like the free-
dom of walking around outside. I like that freedom and feeling of space.
Whenever I can, I try to find time to walk around outside a little.
Whenever I stay here in the house, first one child cries, then another.
[Indeed several are crying loudly even as she is talking.] It gets me all con-
fused-crowding my head with noises. They're all still just crying babies,
too; not one is even old enough to be a child yet-just babies.
That's it. There's no more; nothing else comes to mind.
And, indeed, it had become impossible to talk about hopes and desires, past
or future, over the chaos of the present.
Older women-like Phurko, Hrisang, and Mondzom-often asserted that
they had nothing left to say or do, and wondered if anyone would listen to
their words. According to Hrisang, "If I had been able to go to school as a
child, I would have learned everything. I remember if it happened on such-
and-such a calendar-year date, such-and-such a day of the week-I remember
it all. Other people forget things quickly. I remember everything. But now I
am a useless old woman. Why remember what happened in my childhood?"
Things were so different "long, long ago": different songs, different mar-
riages, different money, different harvests. The older women spoke
poignantly about being weary of caring for children, herds, homes, and
fields; they spoke bluntly about waiting to die. Hrisang, again: "Such has
been my hardship. You simply have to swallow your joys and sorrows and not
let them always be coming out of your mouth. Whatever one's own hardships
may be, it's better just to join in everyone else's laughter. No matter what sor-
row you have endured."
6. Dharma is a term widely used in South Asia. As it is used here, it roughly means "duty," in
the sense of a religious or predetermined responsibility. (See also the discussion in chapter 3.)

"If each comes halfway •.• "
I have learned much, listening to these words and trying to make them un-
derstandable to you. Regina Harrison, who worked with painstaking care to
distill as much meaning as possible from Quechua song traditions and whose
attention to the problems of translation was acute, admonishes:
The skill of the translator, as Walter Benjamin ( [ 1955] 1g6g) suggests, is

to approach that essential "untranslatability" in the original text and con-
vey, not its informational content, but an additional measure of different-
ness which makes that society not like our own. Translating in this mode
takes us beyond the matter of semantic equivalence to a realm of unfamil-
iar cultural values. Translating these different "forms of life," starting
from the simplistic dictionary definitions, can serve to have us see the ex-
tent to which our rewording of a cultural utterance reveals our society's
relationship to the people who have spoken the words which we write
down .... The quality of that alien speech, articulated by an individual
and a society, must not be muffled in our own desire to translate those
words to our literate tradition, which operates with its own set of codes.
( 1g8g, 28-2g)
My objective has been to make these Tamang words neither too familiar
nor too alien but to strike the right balance. Jyomo and others exacted a
specific promise from me: they did not want to sound stupid; they wanted
you to understand that they are just like you, equally smart and interesting.
I knew (and they knew), however, that you and I are not just like them be-
cause our experiences and our opportunities are so different. And so I have
tried to show that we need not depend on similar stories as the only basis
for recognizing our bonds with these Tamang women: we are rooted with
them in the subsoil of humanity, and our distinctive blossoms emerge from
that soil.
I encourage you to read the words of these Tamang women slowly, out
loud, nurturing the images they offer, trying to produce a sense of the
women's voices and lives. In the end, I think of these stories as I do the pic-
ture Setar asked to have taken of her as David and I left Stupahill one year.
In the picture, composed and framed according to her instructions, Setar is
holding a jug of lamchang, the trail beer that is traditionally offered to those
who depart the village. Normally a drink would result in an answering
drink; in this case, however, a single round is offered with blessings for a
safe journey and a safe return. Setar asked not just that we drink her beer
but that we take a photograph so that we wouldn't forget her, the beer, or
Stupahill.
It was Setar, too, who first taught me about personal bomsang laments by
teaching me hers. Bomsang are the most self-consciously crafted and poeti-
10 INTRODUCTION
cally framed life accounts of Tamang people. It is fitting, then, that I con-
clude this introduction with the overture to Setar's bomsang:
Ha, he! Trees are said to be old and gnarled;
they call flowers young and fresh.
Hwai, ho, li!When the thought of saying "I will die" arises,
I wonder why was I born in my honorable mother's body.
He, ho! Listen! Oh, please listen,
you young men and women!
Ho, ho, li! Does the heart-and-mind remember being born?
Will my body remember dying?
Hwai, ho, li! As the thought of dying arises,
I wonder why I was born.
Ha, he/They call trees old and gnarled;
they call flowers young and fresh.
Ho, li! But even as we cannot decide whether
to tuck a flower into our hair or not,
it is gone, faded and withered.
Ho, li!Listen! Oh, please listen,
people of my grandfather's line everywhere!
Ho, li! Listen! Oh, please listen,
neighbors and friends of my village place!
Noble sons and daughters, my children!
Ifl were not such an old woman,
how could what I know be explained?
Ho, li! Beautiful, oh beautiful,
the rhododendron flower is beautiful.
Ho, li! It has no fragrance only because
the Tsen-Men divinities adorn themselves with its scent.
Ho, fi! Beautiful, oh beautiful,
the laurel flower is beautiful.
Ho, li! It has no fragrance only because
the Tsen-Men divinities adorn themselves with its scent.
Ho, li! Beautiful, oh beautiful,
the tall palm tree is beautiful.
Ho, li! Because its branches emerge
in an order that is not an order,
ho, li!Just so, will the coming year be said
to have happened the same as this year,
in the same order that is not an order?
Ho, li! Mter bending down branches of the mountain cedars,
after bending down the lowland pines,
ho, te! Let's make a shelter where men and women can rest.
Ho, te! If there are men and women of a heart-and-mind to rest,
after making the beer offerings, after making the rice offerings,

welcome them, saying, "Come down, sit and rest."
Ho, tel Listen! Oh, please listen,
Ho, le! Among all the hills and mountains,
the Langtang Himal is the greatest, the oldest, the most senior.
Ho, tel Among all the rivers,
the greatest, oldest, and most senior is the Mhasyul.
Ho, tel But so it is with the power
of greatness, age, and seniority
that it is just like that
of insignificance, youth, and juniority.
Ho, le! Listen! Oh, please listen,
If I were not such an old woman,
how could my knowledge be explained?
If I were not indeed such an old woman,
how could I know what I know?
Ho, tel If a beloved man is on one side of the river, hill, or mountain,
and if a woman is on the other,
their affection, their love is called great,
ancient, and most senior, if,
after tucking flowers in their hair,
each comes halfWay.
This book is above all about listening, remembering, and coming halfway.
Another time, I will explain to you that the Tsen-Men divinities are especially
associated with women, referring you to David Holmberg's work on the sym-
bolic femaleness of Tamang shamanism ( 1983). I should certainly tell you
that Setar was a woman shaman and that, although most Tamang shamans
are men, they become shamans by deploying this female imagery. I'd love to
tell you stories about Himalayan rhododendrons: how they grow as big as
trees and turn whole hillsides red and white, and how deep and alien is the
sleep produced by their honey. I'd beg your forgiveness for a word like ju-
niority in this translation, for a single root word in Tamang means "biggest of
all"-in size, age, or value of any sort, while its opposite stands for everything
little. Ifl could, I'd have you hear bomsang the way I first heard them, sung
solo by a blind Tamang elder, sitting in the hollow of a wall on the side of the
trail, with echoes of his wavering "Ho, le'' refrain haunting the far hills, just
as the internal rhymes of the verses resounded one back on the other. But
what I really want is for you to discover and cherish Setar's central plea: what
we think we know, knowledge itself, is produced in the human effort and
pleasure oflistening.
These tales are epics because what they tell is larger than any one telling,
larger even than the sum of all possible tellings. They reach beyond them-
selves, full of connections apparently outside of, but in the end an integral
part of, the stories. A a pause, an interruption, a name, a song: these are not
simple facts, but are surrounded by the fullness of what I am inviting you to
12 INTRODUCTION
understand as an epic narrative. Reading these stories for speed will point
only to finite referents, leaving out all innuendo and ambiguity. Instead,
these Tamang women's stories must be read so that each voice is heard, the
sweet and the sad, down to the roundest vowel, until every echo straining
your ear quiets, in the text as in the hills we call Himalaya.

I
THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK
Who and where are the Tamang?
Anchoring the northwestern regions of Tamang residence in Nepal-home

to some three hundred thousand of the country's almost one million
Tamang people-is the Trisuli River. It cuts one of the world's most precipi-
tous valleys through that most colossal of mountain ranges, the Himalayas,
from the plateaus of Tibet to the plains of the Ganges. Travel for trade, diplo-
macy, military campaigns, religious pilgrimage, and adventure has moved
through this great canyon ever since people began living in northern India
and southern Tibet. On the northern side of the Himalayas is the Yarlung
Tsangpo (or Brahmaputra) River. Meandering its way from Mount Kailash
across the high steppes of Tibet, the Tsangpo passes near the town of Saga
(or Gyagya) to within sixty miles of the headwaters of one of the many Bhote
Kosi, or Tibetan Streams, flowing into Nepal. The ancestors of the women
telling these tales came into Nepal along these rivers from central Tibet, past
stunning landlocked seas, to the fortified border and market town of
Kyirong.
According to legends, as retold by Dharma Ratna Sakya (n.d.), the first
Tamang people came into Nepal:
In the year A.D. 911, [when] there was a king in Tibet named Galangcha-
ran, who was opposed to Buddhism. Nowadays, he is called Gyalbo Lung-
dar. He brutally suppressed the followers of Buddhism, which was spread
by Acharya Shanta Rakchhit. He buried the idols of Buddha at different
places in Bihar under the sand and forced the Buddhist monks into family
life. Because of such religious persecution, one monk gave up ecclesiasti-
cal clothing, rode on a horse artificially stained black, and in a dramatic
way pretended to be saluting the anti-religious king. Then he shot him
with an arrow and killed him. He then rode the same horse across a river
[which washed the black off and revealed the horse's original white color]
and headed toward the south. His followers, too, were unable to return to
Tibet out of fear of the government. Some were chased to Kyirong from
Tibet. These horse riders started settling at different places in Nepal. Ini-
tially, they were called Lama. Later, they were called Tamang because ta
refers to "horse" in the Tamang language and these people had come rid-
ing on horses. 1
Few people today really believe this to be an accurate historical account of
Tamang origins, but the story continues to play an important role in the
emergent sense of Tamang ethnic solidarity. Whether the first Tamang ar-
rived in A.D. 911, fleeing on horseback, or, more probably, moved across the
border in many successive waves of migration, there is no question about the
deep affinities between Tamang and Tibetan peoples, especially in language
and religion. "Tamang" today refers to the largest non-Indic-origin ethnic
group in Nepal, living to the north, east, and south of the Kathmandu Valley
(see map). The name Tamang, however, is new. It only definitively replaced
the earlier Lama, Murmi, Sain, and Bhote/Bhotiya in 1932, in what Andras
HOfer ( 1979, 73), calls that "famous legislative decree." This decree or-
dained that henceforth only Tamang should be used as the group's official
name.
The land
From Kyirong, the Trisuli River catapults past what is now the Nepali national
border at Rasuwa Gardhi and is joined by the equally surging Langtang
Khola at Syabrubesi.2 As more waters converge, the river, in its precipitous
narrow gorges, roars like a jet plane flying overhead. At first, I assumed this
cyclone of sound came from the cobbled stones on the river bottom rolling
over and over constantly. Apparently, though, it is produced by the force of
1. Other versions can be found in Holmberg ( 1989) and P. Tamang ( 1994).

2. See Andrew Hall ( 1978) for a preliminary history and description of Tamang/Tibetan
contrasts in this region.
THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 15

TIBET (CHINA)
more than
0
• 30 -50% INDIA
0 15-30%
0 5-15%
D less than 5%
Percent reporting Tamang as mother tongue

(Nepal Pofrulalinn Census 1971)
Density ofTamang residence in Nepal

the water streaming over itself-exactly, in fact, as the sound of jets is made
by streams of air on air. By the time the Trisuli passes Betrawati, it has lost the
wild abandon of a high-mountain river; it has also lost over 12,000 feet in el-
evation. Here, the Trisuli River valley is lower than the Kathmandu valley,
making it a tropical paradise, famous for poinsettia in winter and mangoes
and malaria in summer.
Nepali history was transformed permanently when a wooden cantilevered
bridge, a sangu, was spanned below Betrawati across this tumultuous river.
The bridge made possible the A.D. 1644 eastward conquest of Nuwakot by
the first Shah kings, leading to the foundation of the state of Nepal. Trade
flourished, giving the name Sangu Bazaar to the year-round market town that
was established in Nuwakot in the late eighteenth century. With the further
passage of time, and the reconstruction of the bridge, this market town be-
came called, as it is today, Trisuli Bazaar, this time taking its name from the
mighty river itself. According to Hindu legend, again retold by Dharma
Ratna Sakya, the Trisuli River has its origins in mythic times:
When the Gods and Demons had churned the ocean, the poison called
Malabal was produced from the ocean. Mahadeva, the everpleasant, had
drunk the poison but was unable to swallow it down his throat. As his
throat burnt, he madly headed towards Gosainkund and hit a place with
his cane walking stick, and as a result, water was produced. This water
stream is still popularly known as Betrawati. Similarly, he created a pond by
accumulating the water which spouted out when he struck with his trident.
Because he pacified his torment with this water, the pond came to be
known as Gosainkund.
When Tamang people today take part in the annual pilgrimage to Go-
sainkund, they point out all these places in the landscape. There is Laurabi-
nayak, the place where the great ascetic god planted his walking stick, and
Betrawati, the stream tumbling down to the Trisuli River. Above all, both fig-
uratively and-at 14,370 feet-literally, is the lake (or kund) of the holy pil-
grim (or gosain). Gosainkund is one of two sites in all the western Tamang re-
gions of residence deemed "worth a detour"-as if there were motorable
roads-by the Marco Polo tourists' guide map ReiseKarte of Nepal. Some de-
tour: from Trisuli Bazaar to Lake Gosainkund, a vigorous hiker gains (and
loses) 12,000 feet across landscapes that are both the wildest and the most
worked in the world.
At the elevation of Lake Gosainkund, you are nearly to the moon. It is hard
to believe that thousands and thousands of pilgrims pass this way each year.
There seems to be nothing except rock, water, sky, and your own breathing.
The rock is, on close inspection, host to masses of lichens and mosses and, in
summer, small grasses and tenacious flowers. As a composite vista, however,
these heights could pass for Mars: millions of minute plants cannot ade-
quately dispel the sense of emptiness here. Several small lakes radiate com-

pletely distinct hues: some are nearly black; others, jade green; and Go-
sainkund itself is a mythically poisonous blue. As for the sky, it eludes su-
perlatives. All around you, it is biggest, clearest, brightest, and closest. Here,
you touch and breathe not air, but sky.
And breathe you do, harder, longer, and louder than you might have
thought possible. Altitude, sky, and the simple act of passing foot after foot
over rock after rock all precipitate, in me, a transformation: an immediate
and constant awareness of the body I otherwise inhabit so blithely. More
specifically, I become aware of my heart-and-lungs as the conjoint engine
that drives my limbs. The one pounds so that I not only hear it in my ears, but
feel it in my larynx, diaphragm, and fingertips; the other pulls and pushes so
constantly that there seems not even an instant of pause between in and out.
The transformation is corporeal, but it is also spiritual, like the Tamang word
concept of sem, or "heart-and-mind," that innermost part of our being where
sentiment and structure collude. Or perhaps it is only the altitude.
As you begin coming down the mountain, there are a few forests, many
only remnants but still redolent of pine. Colonies of Himalayan birches and
rhododendrons color the slopes gold and yellow in the fall, red and white in
the spring. Unmistakable signs of humanity appear early in the descent. First
are the herding shelters, temporary sheds with woven bamboo roofs. They
are moved up and down the slopes following the sweetest forage for a motley
array of cattle-and-yak crosses. The highest-dwelling bovine species is the yak,
with its more numerous female counterpart the nak. The yak and nak toler-
ate being herded, it seems, only because "herded" here amounts to little
more than being driven away in the morning to spend the remainder of the
day wandering back. They are kept less for their milk than for their hair-
which is woven tightly into heavy, durable blankets-and for their crossed
progeny. Foremost among the crosses is the dzom, as hardy as the yak but
more tractable. Its milk is the highest in butterfat of that of all the bovines
found in Nepal and is the most voluminous. Still farther down the mountain
come the mixed herds of cows and water buffalo, and the outposts of agri-
culture.
Agriculture in the Himalayas is not for the faint of heart with elevations be-
tween four thousand and fourteen thousand feet and pitches nearing forty-
five degrees. Although a few communities make their primary living at the
highest elevations, and all rely on the mountains for resources like medi-
cines, incense, house timbers, and specialty woods, most western Tamang live
well below the snow and forest lines, in a world as dominated by human pres-
ence as the higher world is marked by our seeming absence. This Tamang
landscape includes rivers, boulders, and cliffs so massive they cannot be al-
tered, but everything else bears the mark of human toil.
To begin with, human trails go in all directions. The cardinal directions in
Tamang geography are not the abstract north, south, east, and west, but a
18 CHAPTER l
very concrete tor (up), mor (down), and kyor (across). Up and down and
across, human and animal tracks have drawn and defined the entire face of
the landscape. Trees, too, are of many species, but only two kinds: those
which are sacred and therefore permitted to develop into proper specimens
of their specie; and those which are not and therefore have become scrawny
imitations of trees. Leaves are plucked to make plates and serving dishes;
fresh growth and branches are lopped off for fodder; and the highest
branches are topped for firewood or to allow more sunlight into the terraced
fields. Even the watercourses in the Tamang landscape have been aligned to
serve domestic and agrarian function, piped to water platforms for washing
or channeled into fields for irrigation.
The most telling mark of the land's inhabitants, though, are the terraced
fields. Terraces reach up, down, and across so far it takes hours of hard walk-
ing to mount the distance between a family's lowest and its highest fields.
There are upland terraces dense with dry, durable millet; midland terraces
with maize, pulses, gourds, and beans of many hues; and lowland terraces,
brilliant green with paddy rice. These terraces are literally carved out of
forty-five-degree slopes: you must picture land no one would dream of culti-
vating in the west, with terraces of crops only five to eight feet deep, and as
much as an eight-foot drop to the terrace below.
Mid-hill dwellers in Nepal are often blamed for the deforestation and
degradation of their land, but for every slide they precipitate with their cut-
ting, they surely prevent another with their terracing.3 In some locales, the
Tamang first build the side walls (or bunds) for terraces in the declivities on
cliffs, then put weirs in the river to catch runoff mud and silt, carrying sod-
den basket after sodden basket up to the walled-in cavities until they have
created a field. Even under the best of terrace-making circumstances, it takes
a farmer almost twenty years to turn a slope into a field. In order to maintain
the soil structure, it is plowed annually, each time a little more toward the
horizontal, each year adding to its downhill edge in an attempt to plant a
more complete crop.
Hills are everywhere in the Tamang landscape, sentinels of space, of place,
of belonging. According to Tamang legends about the origin of the world:
In the beginning of beginnings, in the great void, a light appeared; above

and below, sky and the firmament appeared. In the middle of the sky, a
first drop of water appeared and fell to the ground. With that drop, an-
other, and another, until a great lake appeared. In its center, on the water,
algae and mosses appeared. On the algae in the middle, a grain of sand ap-
3· See Robert Hoffpauir (1978) for a case study of the exploitation and transformation of
the environment in another Tamang village on the east side of the Trisuli River.

peared. On that grain, another, and another, and another, until a small
mound grew up. That mound grew into a hill, and on that hill.
The women I came to know in the course of my research consider one par-
ticular hill their home. The local song couplet calls out, "Karki, Lambu, khana-
i gang? Nga-i namsa Mhanegang!"-"Where is [your] hill? Is it Karki? Or
Lambu? Mine is the place called Mhanegang!"
A place called Stupahill

The women whose stories are recorded here live on a hill called Stupahill. Its
name, in Tamang, means "the hill with a stupa," the mounded Buddhist
monument that sits prominently near the lower entrance to the village of
Stupahill. The hill lies two long days' walk over the northwestern rim of the
Kathmandu Valley, up the west bank of the Trisuli River, beyond the town of
Trisuli on the way to the Tibetan border. Bottom to top, people know this hill
and its stories intimately.
Whether in these personal accounts, or in religious recitations, places-
and the names that record them in people's memories-are important to the
Tamang. For this reason, I, too, must record place names, but I am fearful of
intruding on the privacy of the women who worked with me. They worked
with me, in the end, more because they wanted a record for their own de-
scendants than because they wanted others to read about their lives. For their
children, they want these local places named; for everyone else, the Tamang
names have little meaning. They are difficult to spell so that you could pro-
nounce them. They are not the Nepali names-like Nuwakot or Trisuli-
which appear on official maps. Most of all, they lose the semantic resonances
except in translation: Sleepyflats, Seven Crossroads, Daughters' Pleasure,
Old Brahmintown, Warmwaters. For these reasons, I have translated the
Tamang place names in this book into English words based on the Tamang
name meanings.
Not so long ago, just out of living memory, Stupahill and a neighboring
hill, which is today the community of Warmwaters, were one hill and one
community. In those days, Tamang people living in the region, in addition to
taxes and rents, had to provide between thirty and ninety days of unpaid
corvee labor to the ruling families in Kathmandu. Some kept cattle and car-
ried dairy products to the capital; some carried mail; some provided hides to
make shoes for the army; some worked in sulfur mines; some made paper to
record the deeds of the state; some carried timbers to build palaces; some
ran down from the glaciers carrying ice to cool those palaces in the hot
months; others carried mangoes. The people of Stupahill and Warmwaters
worked at a factory in Nuwakot, without pay, making gunpowder for the gov-
ernment's military campaigns. The extent and onerousness of these obliga-
tions varied considerably: work in the sulfur mines was often fatal, while car-
20 CHAPTER 1
rying mangoes was hard mostly because it occurred during peak agricultural
times. Eventually, all these obligations were commuted into cash payments.4
The hill that contained Stupahill and Warmwaters was split by a great land-
slide, creating the two communities as they are today. It takes about twenty
minutes to traverse the still-rocky scar between the two. The spring at the top
juncture of the slide still flows, and the ground around it is unstable. Seen
from the river below, this hill appears bald; its lower shoulders conceal its full
height and the mighty forest and Himalayan vistas at the top. The first few
minutes of the climb up the hill are steep, as one clambers up the most re-
cently eroded shelf of the river. Stone platforms under large welcoming pi pal
and banyan trees provide resting places at regular intervals on the climb to
the post office and school on the southeastern ridge of the village of Stu-
pahill. When David and I lived in Stupahill in 1976, the first contingent of
girls ever to attend school-some thirty girls, from age six to sixteen-
stormed the first grade en masse. The school has been enlarged each time
I've seen it since then. Even now, however, it is a luxury to go to school: it is
neither compulsory nor free; few students go beyond the fifth or sixth grade.
From the schoolyard, many of the dense hamlets that comprise this sprawl-
ing community are visible.
Homelife
Hamlets are family affairs. Each brother, as he matures, builds a new house
on his share of the family land; he will live there with his own wife and chil-
dren. Sisters do not today have rights to land or houses in their fathers' es-
tates5 but receive gifts or portions-called dz~f money, animals, cloth,
grain, jewelry, and other valuables. A Tamang woman's dzo is not a dowry in
the common sense because it is her absolute property to sell, use, or give
away as she pleases. 6 A few women receive gifts of land as their own dzo-prop-
erty, but since women are expected to live with their husbands' families when
they marry, it is more usual to give them moveable wealth.
Houses in Stupahill are rectangular constructions built of mud and stone,
4· Many of these obligations are documented in the works of Mahesh Chandra Regmi
(1963-68, 1976, and 1979) and in the Regmi Research Collections at both the Nepal National
Archives (Ram Shah Path, Kathmandu) and the Nepal Research Center (Naya Baneswar,
Kathmandu). All except for the carrying of ice have been corroborated in oral accounts as
part of recent research David Holmberg and I have been doing in collaboration with Surya-
man Tamang (1999).
5· On July 17, 2001, the Supreme Court of Nepal ruled that discrimination against daugh-
ters' inheritance was unconstitutional and ordered the National Parliament to revise the law.
It remains to be seen how this ruling will affect local practice not only in these Tamang regions
but throughout Nepal.
6. Herein lies one ofmyveryfew proposed amendments to the excellent work of Thomas E.
Fricke and colleagues (notably Dilli Ram Dahal and William G. Axinn): they typically refer to
women's dzo-property as dowry, which I think is inaccurate (see discussion in chapter 3).

plastered with red clay. The relative wealth of the inhabitants is roughly cor-
related to the number of stories-one, two, or three-and the kind of roof-
thatch, shingle, or tin. In 1977, no houses had locks except under extraordi-
nary circumstances; only one house had an outhouse. By 1998, although no
one had plumbing, many families had built outhouses, often with the assis-
tance of a small development organization. 7 Electricity for lighting and ra-
dios arrived almost ten years after these life histories were recorded. In 2000,
everyone still cooked on wood, although many people had moved from the
central open hearths that were universal in 1977 to more efficient and, espe-
cially in the hot season, more pleasant mud-enclosed corner hearths with ex-
ternal pipe flues by 1995.8 As recently as 2001, no one had glass or screens in
their windows, although one family was using manure to produce methane
for cooking.
The hearth room is the heart of the house and the family. Some houses are
nothing more than this one, all-purpose living, cooking, storing, and sleep-
ing room, with one shuttered window and one door. In the many houses with
a second floor, and even in those fewer houses with a third, the entire first
floor is still given to the hearth room. Here, intimates and their guests eat
and socialize, and many also sleep. Water jugs are lined near the entrance.
Hand tools hang from the walls. Since the late 1g8os, there has been a single,
bare, low-watt bulb hanging in many of these hearth rooms, but always there
is still the small kerosene wick lamp to dispel some of the pervasive darkness
of the room. Bronze plates and drinking bowls are stacked unceremoniously
in an alcove or small cupboard, which is the only furniture. Peopl~ sit in rows
on mats woven from rice straw or on small rounds of braided corn husks like
personal placemats. Men sit on one side of the room-with the senior-most
man closest to the hearth-and women on the other-similarly, if not quite
so rigorously, seated in ranks reflecting age, kin, and guest status.
The daily fare of the family is boiled millet (or millet-and-maize) mush,
with some sort of spicy accompaniment. The millet is boiled in a large iron
wok and stirred constantly with a wooden paddle until it is about the consis-
tency of fresh clay; it is tastier than it sounds, and certainly sustaining, al-
though rudimentary. Rice and lentils are more prestigious foods, and very
desirable indeed when served with butter, yogurt, vegetable or meat curries,
and liquor. The most important objects in the hearth room are the beer jugs
along the back wall, behind the central hearth, where only the senior woman
of the house goes, and the hearth itself, with its iron tripod to support the
copper or clay cooking pots and its overhead rack to dry the occasional meat
7· Educate the Children, based in Ithaca, New York, and operating only in Nepal, has run a
number of projects in the Stupahill region, including a bilingual preprimary school and a
women's literacy program. Both are due to be phased out, in hopes that the communities will
be able to sustain them, by 2002 or 2003.
8. Whenever the present tense is used in this book, it refers to the original ethnographic
present of 1975 to 1977, when these narratives were tape-recorded.
22 CHAPTER 1
or fish. There is almost no movement of air through the room. In the warm
season, it can be unbearably hot and insect-ridden, swarms of flies in the day
giving way to battalions of cockroaches, fleas, and bedbugs at night. In all
seasons, the air in the hearth room is heavy with years of smoke, spice, and
sweat.
Every house also has a porch facing a work yard outside. Family, friends,
and passers-by come and go as their daily tasks converge and diverge. The
focal point is the sitting bench on the porch: this bed-sized elevated platform
shelters farm tools and brooding chickens underneath, sometimes to the dis-
may of those who sit and sleep on it, for it is the day sanctuary of large con-
gregations of fleas and bedbugs. Still, the sitting bench is the center of public
life. People-mostly men, but not by any means exclusively-play cards,
smoke, listen to the radio, examine papers, do small handwork, and, above
all, share talk and stories here. From this platform, they can survey the court-
yard and the world beyond. I spent much of my time on these platforms and
in these yards and hearth rooms.
Work took everyone out of these spaces of relative leisure into field, forest,
and pasture. Their work days began before dawn and, although full of inter-
action and interruption, would not end until after dark. Farming and herding
involved grueling effort: plowing with oxen and iron-tipped wooden plows;
planting, weeding, and harvesting with bent backs and hand tools; cutting
and carrying fodder, winnowing, sifting, hulling, and grinding all laboriously
done by hand. Firewood for cooking had to be cut and carried from across
the river; water had to be carried in narrow-necked copper, brass, or clay jugs
from half an hour down the hill; paddy had to be husked in a great eight-to-
ten-foot-long, foot-driven hammer; lentils cracked in a hand mill. Spices were
dried, roasted, and ground, or else bartered or bought and carried from the
market town a half-day's walk away; likewise salt, if no longer carried all the
way from Tibet. Nothing was simple; or, rather, everything was simple, but
since the plainest meal represented hour upon hour of painstaking labor,
nothing was taken for granted. Everything came only from hard work.
Work showed in the very faces, bodies, and hands of the Tamang people,
callused, scarred, and wrinkled. The only calluses I had-as was observed
many times-were from holding a pen or pencil; their bodies were marked
more deeply. Sitting to do the interview that developed into her life history
narrative, Phurko picked up my arm, pulled it within the limited range of
her vision, and commented without any particular emotion, "You know, I
think my skin used to be like this once." Her own was, as she said herself,
more like dried fruit. I thought then that Phurko was about the oldest-look-
ing person imaginable. Eighty-four years of hard work under the Himalayan
sun had taken a toll not only on her skin; her frame was bent and her eyes
cloudy. I couldn't imagine the life that she had led, and was troubled by my
own boldness in trying to imagine it. The least I could do was to respect her

right not only to choose whether or not to respond to my interest but also
how, when, and where.
Recording, transcribing, and translating Tamang women's life histories
The original narratives in this book were recorded in 1977, in a setting, at a

time, and with (or without) other companions present according to the
wishes of each teller. Sometimes there were many people present and the
telling took place in the woman's own house, usually on her porch. This was
more often the case when the teller was an older woman, confident of her au-
dience and her stories, on her own terrain. Sometimes Tularam Tamang,
who was then a young man, came from his nearby village to assist me, espe-
cially when the woman being interviewed was his kinswoman. Tularam was a
generous listener with a reputation as a thoughtful man respected well be-
yond his years. Sometimes the teller and I were the only people present,
maybe at the teller's house, but more often in the upstairs hayloft that had
been converted into a modest house for David and me. This was the venue fa-
vored by younger women who had married into the community from out-
side; they seemed more eager to avail themselves of the privacy, refresh-
ments, and relaxation that I could afford them at my place, away from the
demands of their young children and their husbands' families.
As I recorded these accounts, I tried to provide food and drink as is com-
mon Tamang social practice. I conducted myself as respectfully as I knew
how, with proper Tamang gestures and phrases of hospitality. As much as
possible, I took my cues for opening the interviews from some of the stock
phrases I had heard people use in other contexts to begin unsolicited narra-
tives. For example, I had often heard stories begun, "mine is a tale of sorrow"
or "of comfort." So the recorded encounters often begin with my request to
hear about "the sorrow you've known, the comfort you've known."
In general, my further questions and responses, as well as those ofTularam
Tamang (when he was present), were limited to encouragements to keep on
talking. In spoken western Tamang, the most common way to keep someone
talking consists of repeating the first speaker's verb as if it were a question.
For example:
SPEAKER: I went to see my mother.

LISTENER: Went?
SPEAKER: She wasn't there.
LISTENER: Wasn't?
Tularam and I used the same kind of incitement to remind our tellers that
they had active listeners.
I tried, then, to create contexts familiar to the storytellers and similar to
their other storytelling times, and to make a record that would be of interest
to them as well as to outside readers. Do not misunderstand; my shadow is
24 CHAPTER 1
very long here. I was the original interviewer; I was the primary translator; I
have written this book. It would be a very great conceit to claim I did any-
thing more than be as explicit as I could be, in culturally familiar terms,
about my respect, appreciation, and affection for all the Tamang people in-
volved in this book. I hoped that they would feel comfortable speaking with
me and that they would enjoy it, and I hoped to produce a book they would
want their children to read.
In all, fourteen women's narratives were recorded. To keep this book to a
reasonable length, extended passages from five of the original interviews
were selected. The other nine women, of course, have had a profound influ-
ence on this book; it would not have been possible without the patience and
generosity of every one of them. Parts of those nine women's stories do ap-
pear throughout the book but in shorter references or citations or general
input, not as named chapters.
Mondzom's story was the first one I taped and it is the core of the first
chapter in this collection. Mter Mondzom, I heard from each of the middle-
aged wives of her husband's three grandsons:Jyomo, Nhanu, and Purngi (see
fig. 1). Each of their stories introduced new characters as each woman talked
about her mother or brother or daughter-in-law. The remaining ten accounts
I recorded came from among the other women these first four women talked
about. Their relationships were dense (see fig. 2).
The fourteen women's narratives varied considerably in length from just
under one hour to over four hours. Each was tape-recorded at the invitation
of the teller in a single interaction. Although many other conversations about
the original accounts followed, all the translations used in this book come
from those first continuous tellings.
Transcribing and translating these western Tamang narratives was not a
trivial undertaking. Little was known about Tamang language at the time. Ac-
cording to the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) count, 9 there are 124
living languages and one extinct language in Nepal. The SIL catalogues four
distinct Tamang languages (or dialects): (1) eastern Tamang, with, accord-
ing to their interpretation of the 1991 census, 584,097 to 718,048 speakers in
Kathmandu itself and to the immediate east and south of Kathmandu, and
another 13,177 in India; (2) northwestern Tamang, with 186,408 to 320,350
speakers north and west of Kathmandu; (3) southwestern Tamang, with
some 1oo,ooo speakers south and west of Kathmandu. The last sublanguage
(4), which SIL calls eastern Gorkha Tamang, has only 3,ooo to 4,ooo speak-
ers. Altogether, there were some 904,456 Tamang speakers counted in the
1991 Nepali census, or between 873,505 and 1,142,398 according to SIL in-
g. From their on-line resource, "Ethnologue" (http:/ /www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/

Nepa.html). The Summer Institute of Linguistics was active in many parts of Nepal until 1976,
when disputes over active proselytizing missionary work resulted in their expulsion from the
country.

r I
0 Mondzom = 6 Rich Grandfather
in Stupahill
KEY
0 living woman
I
f:). livingman
marriage
ron whn dm="' yonng
I Nhanu 0 = !'::,.Middle Purngi 0 =!'::,.Youngest

Jyomo 0 =!'::,.Eldest
brother brother brother
Fig. 1. Kinship relations among the four core women
terpretations of the census information, making Tamang the most widely

spoken Tibeto-Burman language in Nepal.IO
Translating from the western Tamang dialect of Stupahill poses several dis-
tinct problems. At the time this work was begun, there were very few sources
on (or in) Tamang: only Santa Bir Lama's early collection of ritual songs
( 1959), Martine Mazaudon's ( 1973) phonology, and a few word lists and scat-
tered other materials assembled by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (Tay-
lor 1969; Taylor, Everitt, and Tamang 1972); Andras HOfer was also working
to translate ritual oral texts (1981). For a variety of reasons, none of these
sources was particularly helpful in translating from contemporary colloquial
western Tamang.
Both Mazaudon's and Lama's works were based on the eastern Tamang di-
alect, which is very different from the western Tamang spoken in Stupahill.
Lama's and Hofer's songs and recitations were in arcane, ancient ritual lan-
guage. And Taylor, Everitt, and Tamang's SIL work, while taken from con-
temporary western Tamang speakers, was often erroneous, even with respect
to basic phonology. Tamang is related to Tibetan, so some of the Tibetan
language source materials were helpful, although I had to be careful not to
get too embroiled in the fascinating, but rarely relevant, etymological
puzzles they posed. Most of my understanding of Tamang, then, was based on
my own fieldwork and the patience of my interlocutors; nothing would have
been possible but for their willingness to repeat, restate, explain, and listen
to my endless questions.
Since Nepal began liberalizing its national language policy in 1993, there
has been a fluorescence of new sources on Tamang language. The works of
10. Because of the methods used by the census, which historically have obscured local lan-
guage and ethnic affiliations, census figures typically underestimate the non-Nepali-speaking
peoples. As a general indication of the importance of Tamang in the Nepali context, however,
they are instructive.
26 CHAPTER 1
a c J.il l fFhll
.A. = Mondzom 0 = .A. Rich Grandfather e
= ====== .A. = .A. .A. # e JyomoSya ....
4 2 •=• •=• •=• 4 I 13 I 1
J l ' Lt~k"~f
.A.=O o=• ••••oo ••
•••=• •=
0
I 0I
0=1::::.
alb a
•=1::::.=0 Jyomo # 1::::.
a 1
1::::.1::::.
ee •=••=• •=• .A.=O Hrisang
4 II 'rim
.-------.---,~,-___._, •• 1 lot:::.t:::.et:::.o••
.A..A..A..A.OSetar
I
e f'..oO f'..--D 0 !'> f'..oO !'>~ Mhojyo O!:::.!:::.!:::.OO 1::::.=0 Mlangdzom !:::.Lambu
1::::.=0 Sukumaya I I 1•••eo KEY

0 living woman
e deadwoman
m Tschirto 0=1::::. 6., living man
Santu 0=1::::. .& dead man
1::::. 00 1,2,3 birth order
.6.1::::.1::::. n a,b,c marriage order
I = marriage
::t divorce
1::::.0 1::::.
Fig. 2. Relationships among all fourteen women

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The Eskimo of Baffin Land
CHAPTER I
The Voyage to the Arctics
A voyage to the Arctics has always been a dangerous and exciting

adventure, whether entered upon by whalers and hunters, intrepid
men lured by the hardy business of the frozen North, or by the no
less intrepid pioneers of exploration and of science. For the moment,
we are not concerned with the latter, but rather with some aspects of
life in the barren lands and icy seas north of “the Circle,” and with the
adventures and experiences of the few ships’ crews who have been
making yearly voyages in those regions for trading purposes ever
since the efforts of the sixteenth century navigators to discover the
famous North West Passage began to chart out these hitherto
unnavigated seas.
The search, indeed, for this passage, a sea route of communication

between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (or, in other words, a short
way to the East Indies without doubling the Cape of Good Hope)—
was incidentally the means of opening up the whole of the north
polar regions to exploration and discovery. As early as the year
1527, the idea of such a [18]passage was suggested to Henry VIII by
a merchant of Bristol; but it was not until the beginning of the
following century that a first expedition was fitted out at the expense
of some London merchants and despatched to the arctic seas.
Centuries before this, however, the Arctic Ocean was entered by a

Norwegian adventurer about the time of King Alfred; and the west
coast of Greenland was colonised from Iceland early in the eleventh
century. But no further progress was made in arctic discovery until
the sixteenth century, when various seas and points of land were
mapped out, mainly in the eastern hemisphere. The navigator Henry
Hudson discovered the Straits and Bay named after him in the great
North American archipelago, in 1610. Frobisher, Drake, and Hall,
made voyages to the west coasts of Greenland and to the opposite
coasts; but the entrance to the arctic regions west of that continent
was discovered by John Davis in 1585. In 1616, Baffin and Bylot
passed through this passage and sailed up Smith Sound, but nothing
further was learned of these parts for another two hundred years.
The Eskimo preserve to this day the story of Frobisher. It was,

indeed, narrated to the writer with a wealth of authentic detail by a
native, to whom it had been handed down amid other oral traditions
of his tribe and locality.
“Now it is said that Frobisher, coming to Nauyatlik for the first time,
not knowing the place or where there was a safe anchorage, crept
along the [19]side (of the land) in his small ship, and was wrecked.
For it was shallow water there, and getting aground, he ordered the
fuel (coal) to be taken out and carried ashore to a place called
Akkelasak. For the ship was no longer habitable. The crew found
refuge on a small, flat island, and pitched tents there of the vessel’s
sails, and began to fashion a graving dock by digging out the soft
ground. When it was finished, they towed the wreck to the spot and
docked her. All this happened a long time ago, but traces of their
work are still visible. The shipwrecked sailors overhauled the hull.
When at length their repairs and rebuilding were complete, they
towed out the ship and moored her alongside a cliff, at the top of
which they fixed their tackle, unstepped and restepped the mast,
their task being completed. At last, and having buried those of their
shipmates who had died during this weary time, they abandoned the
remainder of their fuel and set sail for home. This is the narrative of
one who had it from her mother, who in turn had received it from her
dead father, who had it from his forbears; for thus they were
accustomed to narrate it.”
The above translation, of course, is very free. It would interest the
philologist to have it in the original, or even in a literal version; but
possibly the foregoing will convey to the general reader that graphic
grasp of the story which renders all Eskimo history so reliable and
enduring.
The attempt to find a north west passage by sea, [20]from the Atlantic
Ocean to Behring Strait, where farthest east meets farthest west,
was abandoned until Commander John Ross, in modern times
(1818), was sent out to prosecute further exploration in the Arctic.
Throughout the nineteenth century, many intrepid voyages were
made, with which the names of such men as Parry, Ross,
Richardson, Rae and Franklin are associated. Prior to this wonderful
epoch of dauntless adventure, all within the Arctic Circle upon the
map was a blank. The entire geography of the Canadian arctic
archipelago has been worked out, defined, charted, and named,
since that time. Voyages of discovery were made in rapid
succession, after Sir John Ross’s expedition in 1818, many of the
leaders working in conjunction with the officials of the Hudson Bay
Fur Trading Company, who were anxious to determine the extent
and limits of the immense continent they controlled, now known as
the North West Territories. Every name upon the arctic map, whether
of sea, sound, inlet, strait, island, peninsula or cape, is a historical
association with the personnel or the patrons of these numerous
expeditions.
All the islands of the Arctic Archipelago lying to the northward of the
mainland of the continent, and the whole of Baffin Land, form part of
the British possessions in North America by right of discovery. They
were formally transferred to the Dominion of Canada by Order in
Council of the Imperial Government on September 1st, 1880. [21]
An immense amount of scientific information was derived from all
this hardship, endurance and enterprise. The story of Sir John
Franklin alone is a deathless epic in the annals of this seafaring
nation. And the whole field was opened up for the whalers, sealers,
hunters and fishers, whose business it soon became to demonstrate
that arctic exploration had a bearing on commerce and the hardier
industries of maritime mankind.
The whaling trade originated as early as the discoveries of Barentz

and Hudson, but Sir John Ross opened up the northernmost waters
of Baffin’s Bay to it, in recent times. The search for the North West
Passage, indeed, proved abortive for many years, owing to the fact
that the season in which it was possible to navigate in very high
latitudes only lasted about seven weeks. The most experienced
men, though, never gave up the theory of the probability of its
existence. Half a century went by before the route was found at last.
Captain McClure, in the search for the long-lost Franklin, achieved
the discovery of two routes to the Behring Straits and the Pacific
Ocean, in the autumn of the year 1850. Useless and futile as the
discovery proved to be, who can sufficiently estimate and appraise
all that has gone, of human worth and high resolve, of suffering and
of life itself, to the making of it?
Of the whalers and traders who followed in the wake of the

explorers, the Scottish seamen have been the most persistent.
Scotch vessels continue, to-day, [22]to visit the Arctic every year.
They sail from home in early summer, cross the North Atlantic, work
their way up Davis’ Strait, and, (unless they winter on the coast of
Baffin Land or Greenland), return to Scotland late in “the fall.”
Sometimes the practice was to make the passage, generally through
open water, from Dundee to St. John’s, spend some weeks upon the
sealing grounds, then return to refit at the Newfoundland port for a
whaling cruise farther north in Lancaster Sound. Having secured
their cargo of seal skins and oil, they return home. The vessels of the
Dundee whaling fleet are designed and built for navigation in
northern seas. The hull is of wood, on account of its resisting power
where pressed by ice, and the hardwood (“greenheart”) sheathing
minimises the abrasions caused by conflict with the jagged edges of
the floes. The ship is immensely braced by stout cross beams inside.
The cutwater is protected by iron bands or plates, to enable her to
withstand the heavy strain of the ice. She is barque rigged (i.e., a
square rigged vessel, having yards on the foremast and mainmast,
but not on the mizzen mast), and fitted with steam, to enable her to
proceed during a calm, to shear her way through ice, or to enter and
leave harbour independently of wind or tide. On all other occasions
she depends upon her sails. A whaler fitted after this fashion is
called an “auxiliary steam vessel.” She sails, however, much faster
than she can steam. She carries about 500 tons of coal. [23]
Many of these tried and tested Scottish whaling ships have been
bought up by the leaders of Arctic and Antarctic exploring
expeditions, and remodelled and refitted for the scientific uses to
which they would be put, and have done yeoman service in the
assault on the Poles.
Of late years the Hudson Bay Company (of historic and ubiquitous
enterprise in Canada), have established posts on the southern
shores of Baffin Land, (opposite to that northernmost region of the
bleak Labrador known as Ungava), so that their ships, which sail
from Montreal as annual supply ships for all the Company’s “Forts”
and “Factories” along the Canadian coasts, have points of call along
Hudson Strait en route for Hudson Bay itself and the fur ports of that
vast inland sea.
The Scotch whaling industry has various agents posted in many a

bleak, un-heard of spot along the icebound littoral of the Eskimo
countries, whose duty it is to collect and store the pelts brought in by
the natives—employed by the agent—and ship them away annually
or bi-annually, as the case may be.
A whaling voyage was filled, especially in the earlier days, with as

much danger as adventure. The ships were manned by sailors who
had taken to the life as lads, or, held by the fascination of the North,
returned thither year after year, seldom caring to make voyages
elsewhere. They lived amid the ice. True northman and fine seaman,
many a whaler’s master is proud of the fact that he began his career
[24]as a cabin boy and worked his way aft. He is a fighter, every inch
of him, such as only “the wild” can breed. He has an iron code of
honour, and a strain of true Norse hardness in him for his enemy. But
he has also the manly virtues of his type—fidelity to his fellows, and
generosity to lesser men than himself.
Previous to an Arctic voyage, months were spent in the

commissioning of these vessels. Every rope and block was
overhauled. The ships’ boats were rigorously tested and each
carefully fitted out. Food and stores of all kinds were taken aboard
wholesale, against every contingency experience and foresight could
suggest, especially that of a forced wintering in the north. An
armoury of weapons was carried: harpoons and harpoon guns for
the boats, lances for killing whales, huge knives for cutting up the
carcases, bombs, hatchets, rifles and ammunition. No less
exhaustive was the inventory of the “trade”—articles for the Eskimo
trade and barter—such as needles, soaps (scented and otherwise),
pipes, matches, calico, beads, and, above all, tobacco! Every boy’s
book of adventure will suggest the scope of the slop chest, the
incredible handiness and nattiness of the galley, the reek of the
fo’c’sle, the snug dignity of the Captain’s cabin, and the compressed
completeness of an equipment designed to last a ships’ entire crew
(let us say her tonnage is about 129, and her company number
twenty-nine) over many months of toil, emergency, and utter
isolation. [25]She carried no doctor. The first mate presided over the
medicine chest, and had resort to some small book of directions as
to what to give and what to do in case of illness or accident. In the
early days adventurers to the Arctic were sorely stricken with scurvy,
for want of vegetable food and a knowledge of how to provide
against this deficiency. We have often heard of desperate feats of
amateur surgery carried out on board ship. It has been that the mate
of a whaling vessel often acted, not at all unsuccessfully, as surgeon.
Doctor William S. Bruce, indeed, tells us in his “Polar Exploration”

that, generally speaking, germ diseases are unknown in the Arctic,
the intense cold making everywhere—in the air, on the sea and on
the land—for a high degree of bacterial sterility. “Under ordinary
conditions it is not possible to ‘catch cold’ in the polar regions .…
infectious fevers are practically unknown, unless contracted in a dirty
ship or filthily kept house.” Hence the feasibility of a practical asepsis
in accident or operation. Bishop Bompass once amputated a man’s
leg above the knee, and the operation was completely successful.
The Bishop had no medical knowledge beyond having attended
some lectures at an opthalmic hospital, in order to learn how to treat
his Indians for snow-blindness.
The whaling voyage itself might be uneventful enough until a high

latitude was reached; but after that, the greatest possible skill was
required to navigate [26]the ship safely through the “pack” ice coming
down from the Pole through Davis Straits and Fox Channel, on its
way to the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, to be finally melted
and dispersed in the Gulf Stream.
Arctic navigators and oceanographers enumerate many varieties

and vagaries of the polar ice. Suffice it here to note that “pack ice” is
the jammed and frozen conglomeration of masses of ice from broken
floes and vast disintegrating “fields” of ice. In Straits, this pack is
always heaviest in the centre but less compact along the shores, so
that a vessel can sometimes be worked along the coast when
navigation in the middle would be impossible. This “middle pack” is
rightly dreaded by Arctic seamen. A change of wind might drift it in
upon the shore, when the ship’s destruction would be inevitable. The
great danger in meeting the ice pack out at sea consists in the fact
that the larger part of the floe is almost submerged and little of it is to
be seen. Again, it bristles with spurs and points which stick up and
out like spears and rams, any one of which might rip up a hull sailing
at any speed.
The rapidity with which the ice pack moves is something wonderful.
Miles upon miles of sea will be free from ice, with the exception of
small masses from the floes, and the ship ploughs a steady course
to the north. Suddenly the wind changes. Ice swiftly makes its
appearance on every quarter, and—with incredible rapidity—the
vessel is surrounded. But [27]warning has been given from the
“crow’s nest” (the look-out aloft, a barrel at masthead), and the
Master works a cautious way through the “leads” in the shifting ice.
Should the pack be exceptionally heavy, threatening to pen in the
ship completely, measures for her safety are immediately taken.
Orders ring out sharply. The crew, with ice saws or blasting powder,
quickly make a space in the ice, like a temporary dock, large enough
to warp her into, where she can lie snug while the savage floes grind
and crash against each other without. Woe to the ship caught
between them ere such a refuge can be made! No vessel that ever
adventured in the polar seas could stand the awful grip. There would
be a rending of the stoutest timbers, groans of a ship in agony, a lift
and a quiver, and as the floes swung apart on the black swell below,
the brave creature, mangled, rent, and stove in, would plunge to her
bitter grave. As for her crew, their only chance would be to lower the
boats, and, either marooned on the ice, drift south on the prevailing
current until perchance sighted by a ship; or, if afloat, work their
perilous way to the Greenland coast, and take refuge at one of the
Danish settlements sparsely scattered on its southern extremity.
Icebergs—those rightly dreaded wanderers of the northern seas—

afford a glorious vision in bright, calm weather, as they wend their
majestic course to the south, tinted by the setting sun or by the
indescribable loveliness of the northern sunrise. Sometimes [28]a
large portion having been melted, breaks from the berg, when the
vast mass slowly careens over, plunges with a thunderous crash,
and reasserts itself upon a new floating base, peerless and beautiful
as ever. The ship is fortunate who finds herself standing well away at
such a moment.
In spite, however, of their bad reputation, the bergs have their uses
for those hardy wayfarers of the sea who know them. The ancient
Arctic mariner will tell you that an iceberg can sail against the wind
as well as with it! Gripped for two-thirds of its bulk by a strong under-
current, it can crash its way and forge ahead against the wildest
adverse gale. An old whaler told of an experience he had when his
ship was beset by the loose floe, and like to be crushed to
matchwood. The men were striving all they knew to get her into
safety, when a vast berg drove slowly down beside her through the
ice, shouldering it aside as a giant liner drives through a heavy sea.
With the inspiration of sheer desperation, the Captain saw his
chance! The vessel was cautiously worked still nearer the berg and
then kedged on to it. Towed thus, with resistless might, she too
forged safely through the chafing floe to clear water and deliverance.
Again, a ship—no matter of what class or tonnage—can only carry a

certain quantity of water. So, too, with a whaler; she is limited in her
supply. It sometimes happens that, cruising about week after week,
she runs short of water. On sighting an iceberg, [29]she sends off her
boats loaded with casks, and the crews refill them either with water
from the pools at the foot of the berg, or with the ice itself, which
being fresh water ice, melts down, of course, into splendid drinking
water after the brine and salt coating from the sea has first been
scraped off. For, be it remembered, an iceberg is a portion—the
seaward end—of one of the polar glaciers. As the immense ice river
reaches the coast it is pushed out over the cliffs, and vast masses
break off with terrific detonation, plunge into the sea, and the newly
born icebergs go floating far and wide. A large number of these
bergs are formed in Eternity Fiord on the Greenland coast, and the
crash and roar of them can be heard for miles.
As the season wears on and the whaler’s hold slowly fills with the
cargo of the Arctic hunt, from time to time she puts into the sparse
harbours of the northern coasts, to refit, or to meet the tribes of
Eskimo gathered there to do “trade” with her. The Hudson Bay
Company have lately introduced a form of coinage for this purpose,
anything of the sort being previously quite unknown among the
natives. Pieces of metal in various shapes represent the values of a
currency and are used as money. But the prehistoric marketing of
barter still holds good throughout the greater part of the Arctic
regions.
Sometimes a shipmate has to be left, perforce of accident or illness,

to sleep the long sleep that knows no earthly waking, in this drear
and far-off land. [30]
So much then for the voyage and the voyagers to the Arctic. Now for
that frozen world itself, and for those strange people whose lot,
compared with that of all the rest of the more genially situated sons
of men, would seem to have fallen in the bleakest, harshest and
most forbidding places, where human life might scarcely exist.
When the first ship seen by an Eskimo tribe touched on the coast,
what did they think of it; what was the bewildering impression they
got? An old hunter, recounting the story of his tribe and its
adventures, gave the writer a graphic account of just such an event.
An enormous boat, he said, appeared, filled with Kabloonâtyet
(strangers), speaking an unknown tongue and having hairy faces!
The tall masts were hung with the clouds (sails), and there was a
door in the roof (the companion leading from the deck), instead of in
the side of the house. At first the tribesmen hovered round this
amazing thing in their canoes, afraid to approach too near. Presents
were thrown out to them of which they could make nothing. They just
smelt at the tobacco, biscuit and sweets, and cast them aside. There
were knives, but they cut themselves with these, not knowing how to
handle steel ones. It was almost as if some unimaginable craft from
another sphere were to visit the Earth and make incomprehensible
overtures to us by means of objects which conveyed nothing to our
intelligence—something after the style of Mr. Wells’s Martians. At
last, however, looking glasses resolved the situation. [31]These the
Eskimo received with huge delight and amazement. Eventually they
were induced to board the strange boat and open up some sort of
initial overtures with her alarming crew. His fore-fathers, said the old
hunter, had seen these things and carefully handed them down. [32]
[Contents]
CHAPTER II
Baffin Land
A landfall in the Arctics is forbidding enough. Little is to be seen save bare rocks
broken by ravines, filled with snow even so late as far into July and August—
bare rocks, rising into gaunt hills from 500 to 1,500 feet high. The coastline is
broken by bays and fiords, running deep inland. These inlets with their irregular
outlines have a singular if rather drear beauty of their own, especially in the
summer-time, when what little vegetation there may be—a spare, coarse grass
and a red and white variety of heather—adds a grateful note of relief to the
severe scene. There are miles and miles of rocky coast in places, where not so
much as a handful of soil to support the hardiest little living thing could be found.
Baffin Land, or Baffin Island—the country with which this book has to do—is an
immense portion of the Canadian Arctic archipelago lying between latitude 62°
and 72° N. By far the greater part of it extends north of the Arctic Circle, while its
southern-most cape touches the latitude of the Faroe Islands, ’twixt the
Shetlands and Iceland, in our own more [33]familiar waters. The whole country
lies far beyond the northernmost limit of trees, although it is not without an Arctic
flora of its own. Baffin Sea, or Baffin Bay (that stretch of the North Atlantic
Ocean which, beyond Davis Strait, divides the west coast of Greenland from
North America), was discovered by the navigator William Baffin in 1615. Hence
the name of the country. Discredit was thrown throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries on Baffin’s work in the north; and, after him, Arctic
exploration ceased for about two centuries. Then Sir John Ross verified Baffin’s
observations in 1818, and many of them became the bases of later
expeditionary enterprise.
A glance at the map shows how the country lies. To the north of it, beyond the
whaling grounds of Lancaster Sound, Devon Island is the next stretch of the
poleward tapering continent. The Gulf of Bothnia and Fox Channel divide it on
the west from the enormously broken coasts of the North West Territories. “The
territory now known as Baffin Land was, until about 1875, supposed to consist of
different islands, known as Cockburn Island, Cumberland Island, Baffin’s Land,
Sussex Island, Fox Land, etc. It seems to be now established that these are all
connected and that there is but one great island, comprising them all, to which
the name of Baffin Land has been given. It forms the northern side of Hudson
Strait.… It has a length of about 1,005 English statute miles, with an average
breadth of 305 [34]miles, its greatest width being 500 and its least 150 miles. Its
area approximates 300,000 square miles, and it therefore comprises about one
tenth of the whole Dominion. It is the third largest island in the world, being
exceeded only by Australia and Greenland” (Annual Report of Geolog. Survey of
Canada, 1898.)
It is an entirely Arctic country, immediately north of which runs the polar limit of
human habitation.
Up to the actual time of writing, Baffin Land has been held to be incapable of
inland commercial development, but a Royal Commission of the Government of
the Dominion have recently examined the possibility of establishing there a
reindeer and muskox ranching industry. Their report has not yet been published,
but already some steps are being taken to realise such a project. If this should
have results, a new means of livelihood would be opened up to the Eskimo, at
present employed exclusively by the whaling agents on the coast. But the
natives are not herders, and in all probability Lapps would be brought over from
northern Europe to initiate the industry. From this would ensue doubtless some
racial modifications—probably quite inappreciable to any but those observers,
like the present writer, used to the pure and unmixed Eskimo stock. In the
present book, little account will be taken of those tribes which have been in
contact with other races, like those of Alaska and Labrador, whence results
hybridization or degeneration. The writer proposes to confine his attention
[35]entirely to the people of ancient, unmixed blood, and to depict their life and
customs as uninfluenced by the forces of trade and civilisation, which are
already threatening to usher in a new era and extinguish the last representatives
of the “reindeer age.”
From another point of view, however, Baffin Land should not pass without
remark. It has certain undetermined mineral resources. At Cape Durban, on the
67th parallel, coal is known to exist, and graphite (plumbago) has been found
abundant and pure in several islands. Again, pyrites and mica are all to be found
in its rocks.
The geology of the Arctic regions is, of course, a study in itself beyond the scope
of this book. It may be of interest, however, to note that the two great distinctive
bodies of rock to be observed in a country like Baffin Land are the granite and
the finer grained, darker, basic rock. The ironstone from there is very similar to
that brought from India to be smelted in England. The graphite might be
mistaken for coal, but for its formation under geological conditions which could
not have given rise to the latter. The two pyrites occur in the rocks of all ages;
the one is a brassy yellow, very hard mineral, and the other a brilliant black
stone (magnetic pyrites) looking much like a mass of loosely formed crystals.
Garnets are also formed in several kinds of rock, but are chiefly to be found in
the schist. As a rule, these little gems are far too much broken and split by the
[36]intense frost to be worth collecting. In the winter, the hardest rock is so split
by the cold that every peculiarity of its composition can be clearly seen. The
graphite can be chipped out with an axe and utilised very conveniently for
writing.
The scenery everywhere is typical of the “Barrens,” the “Bad Lands of the
North.” In winter, a featureless waste of snow, where in that dark season “come
those wonderful nights of glittering stars and northern lights playing far and wide
upon the icy deserts; or where the moon, here most melancholy, wanders on her
silent way through scenes of desolation and death. In these regions the heavens
count for more than elsewhere; they give colour and character, while the
landscape, simple and unvarying, has no power to draw the eye.” (Nansen.) In
summer, when the iron grip of ice is relaxed around the frozen coast, snow may
disappear from the interminable wastes of rounded granite hills which are a
feature of the interior. The effect of this endless succession of low bare
elevations is one of “appalling desolation.” The long, high-pitched howl of the
wolf, the ultimate note of the wilderness, falls occasionally upon the ear of the
twilight camper. This, and the cry of the loon from the lakes, with the crowing
bleat of the ptarmigan in the low scrub, are the chance evening sounds (of
spring and summer) in the Barrens.
The country generally is mountainous and of a hilly and barren aspect. In some
districts comparatively [37]level Laurentian areas occur, where immense herds of
reindeer roam in the summer. At this season the ranges have a dark or nearly
black appearance, owing to the growth of lichens upon them, but this sombre
character is often relieved in valleys and on hill-sides by strips and patches of
green, due to grasses and sedges in the lower bottoms, and a variety of
flowering plants on sheltered slopes exposed to the sun.
The high interior of Baffin Land, lying just north of Cumberland Sound, is
apparently all covered with ice, like the interior of Greenland. Around the
margins of this ice cap the general elevation above the sea is about 5,000 feet,
and it rises to about 8,000 feet in the central parts. Large portions of the
northern interior are over 1,000 feet above the sea, so that vast regions of the
country may be said to be truly mountainous.
There are no trees or shrubs of any kind in Baffin Land. Of Arctic flowers, a
small yellow poppy seems to be the hardiest and most widespread. Even in
those parts where desolation seems to reign supreme, this poppy (Papaver
radicatum), and a tiny purple saxifrage (Saxifraga appositifolia) can generally be
discerned. There are coarse grasses growing in scant patches, and immense
tracts of reindeer moss, upon which the cariboo entirely subsist.
Unlike the sterile Antarctic, however, it is well known that the flora of Arctic lands
is a feature of such importance that it has been the subject of an immense
amount of expert investigation carried out [38]by very many eminent botanists
from every country. Professor Bruce says it is quite impossible to enter into
detail regarding arctic botany, largely on account of its sheer profusion. “No
matter how far the explorer goes, no matter how desolate a region he visits, he
is sure to come across one or more species of flowering plants.… Every arctic
traveller is thoroughly familiar with scurvy grass, the sulphur coloured buttercup,
the little bladder campion, several potentillas, the blaeberry, many saxifrages,
the rock rose, the cotton grass and the arctic willow.” In Grinnell Land (far north
of Baffin Land) the British Arctic Expedition of 1875 met with “luxuriant
vegetation.” The presence or absence of the Arctic current along the shores of
these countries seems to have much to do with the problems of vegetation.
Baffin Land, bathed in its icy waters, is far more barren than Greenland, where it
does not touch. Possibly Grinnell Land is immune from its influence. It is,
nevertheless, quite possible for a dense plant life to flourish—under certain
conditions of climate, altitude and situation—deep within the Arctic Circle, where
even the tundra, a wilderness of snow in the winter, becomes an impassable
fever-haunted, mosquito ridden, torrid, flower decked swamp in the summer.
But there is more than this in the botany of Baffin Land! The natural or geological
history of the Arctic regions generally is that of the earth’s crust itself, and from
this point of view the study of these [39]northern blossoms is more wonderful
than that of its rocks.
The fossil plants of these ice-bound countries belong to the Miocene period, an
epoch warmer than the present, which preceded the glacial age now triumphant
there. The latitudes of Baffin Land were once covered by extensive forests
representing fifty or sixty different species of arborescent trees, most of them
with deciduous leaves, some three or four inches in diameter, the elm, pine, oak,
maple, plane, and even some evergreens, showing an entirely different condition
of seasons to that which now holds sway in the far, far north. The modern
botany of the Arctics, comprising some 300 kinds of flowering plants, besides
mosses, algae, lichens, fungi, is characteristic of the Scandinavian peninsula.
Now, the Scandinavian flora is one of the oldest on the globe. It represents
unique problems in distribution, from which the most tremendous scientific
deductions have been drawn, such as those concerning a former disposition of
terrestrial continents and oceans, and some concerning changes in the direction
of the earth’s axis itself! All this is very far beyond the scope of any such account
of Baffin Land as the present. Suffice it, nevertheless, to indicate the deep vistas
of interest that lie behind the “appalling desolation” of its appearance to-day, and
the limitations of its hyperborean native folk.
The reindeer moss is a very important asset of the country. It is a delicate grey-
green in colour and [40]beautiful in form as well. It grows luxuriantly to about the
height of six inches. When dry, it is brittle, and may be crumbled to powder in the
hands; but when wet it is very much of the consistency of jelly, and very slippery.
The reindeer live entirely upon it all the year round. In the winter, when it lies
under a deep blanket of snow, to get at it the deer have to scrape their way
down with their great splay hoofs. It sometimes happens that a season comes
when a thaw may be followed by a sharp frost. In this case the surface of the
snow is first melted and then quickly frozen, making a coating of ice over all the
surface of the ground. To scrape this would cut the deers’ legs, so there is an
exodus of the herd to other feeding places, and hunger even to famine and
starvation may reign in the district they have deserted. Generally speaking, the
herds keep to the high grounds and hills in the winter, because there the moss is
more exposed and easier to come at. They move down to the coast at intervals,
to lick the salt which comes up through the “sigjak,” i.e., ground ice, along the
shore, when the tides rises and the water leaves pools behind it.

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If Each Comes Halfway Meeting

Tamang Women in Nepal Kathryn S.

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Copyright© 2002 by Cornell University

First published 2002 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cloth printing 10 987654 321

Introduction: Closing a Text of Open Conversations

I The Who, Where, and How of This Book 14

II Mondzom: Narrating a Life, Framing a Life 32

III Nhanu: Parsing a Life, Naming What Matters 79

IV Jyomo's Life ofWork 125

v Purngi's Tales of Domestic Intrigue, Love, and Lice 167

VI Sukumaya's Two Homes 203

Photographs following page 124

Translating and understanding difference

CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 3

2. Compound kin terms, such as "aunt-mother-in-law" or "cousin-brother," are necessary be-

Who shall speak for the people?

CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 5

CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 7

CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 9

The skill of the translator, as Walter Benjamin ( [ 1955] 1g6g) suggests, is

CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 11

CLOSING A TEXT OF OPEN CONVERSATIONS 13

Who and where are the Tamang?

Anchoring the northwestern regions of Tamang residence in Nepal-home

1. Other versions can be found in Holmberg ( 1989) and P. Tamang ( 1994).

THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 15

Percent reporting Tamang as mother tongue

Density ofTamang residence in Nepal

THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 17

In the beginning of beginnings, in the great void, a light appeared; above

THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 19

A place called Stupahill

THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 21

THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 23

Recording, transcribing, and translating Tamang women's life histories

The original narratives in this book were recorded in 1977, in a setting, at a

SPEAKER: I went to see my mother.

g. From their on-line resource, "Ethnologue" (http:/ /www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/

THE WHO, WHERE, AND HOW OF THIS BOOK 25

I Nhanu 0 = !'::,.Middle Purngi 0 =!'::,.Youngest

Fig. 1. Kinship relations among the four core women

terpretations of the census information, making Tamang the most widely

1::::.=0 Sukumaya I I 1•••eo KEY

Fig. 2. Relationships among all fourteen women

A voyage to the Arctics has always been a dangerous and exciting

The search, indeed, for this passage, a sea route of communication

Centuries before this, however, the Arctic Ocean was entered by a

The Eskimo preserve to this day the story of Frobisher. It was,

The whaling trade originated as early as the discoveries of Barentz

Of the whalers and traders who followed in the wake of the

The Scotch whaling industry has various agents posted in many a

A whaling voyage was filled, especially in the earlier days, with as