ABSTRACT
In this chapter I conclude the presentation of the ethnographic data with a description of Assamese beliefs and practices relating to food which provides an idiom for the expression of all social relationships previously described (family, agnatic descent, affinity, caste, sectarian divisions and Name House affiliation). The significance of the commensal hierarchy in the caste system is widely recognized and food transactions are usually regarded as the clearest and most intelligible language in which ritual status is expressed. Apart, however, from the recent work of Khare (1976), little attention has so far been paid to ideas regarding the properties of food itself which form the rationale of these practices. In what follows I give a brief account of Assamese beliefs regarding both the physical and psychical qualities associated with food as a basis for understanding its use in social relations.
