ABSTRACT
In 1976 Allen wrote with regard to Nepal that “in thinking about the hill peoples the attitude one tribe/one culture is a positive hindrance” (1976a: 501), a point reiterated elsewhere (Allen, 1981: 168) and taken up by other writers (e.g. Fisher, 1978: 50; Holmberg, 1989: 12-3). What Allen intended by his comment was to alert us to the danger of overlooking the possibility that features could be shared by different groups, or of ignoring questions of the “Y-a-t-il un civilisation Himalayenne?” [‘is there a Himalayan civilization?’] variety (Macdonald, 1981: 38). Allen, Macdonald, and others are interested in cultural forms which predate the arrival of Hindu culture to the middle hills of Nepal. Yet if we are looking for evidence of cultural homogenization, it is models of Hinduization or Sanskritization (Srinivas, 1962), which see tribal groups losing their traditional values and beliefs in the wake of overbearing Hindu influence, that offer more potent explanations for relatively recent convergences in Himalayan civilization. However, studies of the interactions of tribal and Hindu groups (e.g. Caplan, 1970; Jones, 1976; Manzardo, 1982; Messerschmidt, 1982a; Allen, 1987 and this volume) have shown this process to be more complex and less unidirectional than the ‘Sanskritization’ model might imply.
