Verwandtschaft und Mythologie bei den Mewahang Rai in Ostnepal: Eine ethnographische Studie zum Problem der "ethnischen Identitat.".

• Author: ROCHER, LURO
• Position: Review

Verwandtschaft und Mythologie bei den Mewahang Rai in Ostnepal: Eine ethnographische Studie zum Problem der "ethnischen Identit[ddot{a}]t." By MARTIN GAENSZLE. Beitr[ddot{a}]ge zur S[ddot{u}]dasienforschung, S[ddot{u}]dasien-Institut, Universit[ddot{a}]t Heidelberg, vol. 136. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1991. Pp. xvi + 409. Maps, tables, charts, photographs. DM 86.

Gaenszle's 1989 Ph.D. dissertation at Heidelberg was based on fieldwork carried out intermittently in Nepal from 1984 to 1988. The Mewahang (also Newahang or Nawahang) Rai, who are the object of this study, live on the western bank of the Arun River (Ar[bar{u}na Ko[acute{s}]i), between the Apsuw[bar{a}] Khol[bar{a}] (or Chhoyeng River) to the north, and the Chirkhuw[bar{a}] Khol[bar{a}] to the south. Gaenszle selected the Mewahang, a "sub-tribe" of eastern Nepal's heterogeneous Rai community, because they are less well known than other Rai, and since he hoped that on account of their relative isolation "die Welle der 'Hinduisierung' bier noch weniger zu sp[ddot{u}]ren war" (p. 17). Yet, even in Tamkhu village, where he started his research, he found not only that Nepali is rapidly replacing the Mewahang language (of Sino-Tibetan origin), but also that the people have become more and more oblivious of the local traditional lore.

Notwithstanding all this Gaenszle has produced a most interesting volume on a community which, in the absence of reliable demographic...