CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF BEHAVIOR 



1449 



officials responsible to the Maharajah. They 

 are exi^loited by Indian money lenders and 

 are increasingly dependent on imported ob- 

 jects such as cloth. From an examination of 

 some historic sources and of the three par- 

 allel religions which exist side by side, it 

 is conjectured that the Lepchas once lived 

 isolated lives as hunters and food gatherers 

 with a little primitive agriculture; they were 

 harassed by slave raiders and only settled 

 into larger communities when the area was 

 l)acified. Growing cardamum seed for trade 

 is a recent adjustment to the money lenders 

 who exploit their willingness to replace with 

 imported goods products based on difficult 

 handicrafts. 



An external analysis of Lepcha culture 

 would describe it as very complex. Money is 

 used; the lamas (Mahayana Buddhists) 

 learn to read the sacred texts; there is a 

 variety of domestic animals, oxen, goats, 

 pigs, and hens; oxen are used for plowing; 

 houses are built on stone supports and have 

 a somewhat complicated architecture; peo- 

 ple wear tailored clothing, in the main sim- 

 ilar for both sexes; the customary para- 

 phernalia of peasants in the Far East who 

 live in relation with higher authorities is 

 present, a courtesy language, taxation, cen- 

 trally deputized power to preserve law and 

 order, and so forth. 



Although the activities which would 

 classify the Lepchas as members of a com- 

 plex culture take up a great deal of time in 

 an endless round of recurrent lamaistic 

 feasts, rites de passage, and hard and con- 

 tinuous agricultural work, on inspection the 

 Lepchas prove to be a very simple people 

 who have preserved the attitudes and be- 

 havior patterns appropriate to a much less 

 complicated way of life. Remnants of hunt- 

 ing behavior, with a bow and poisoned ar- 

 rows, still exist. Two religious cults are 

 practiced parallel to lamaism; the beliefs 

 are often conti'adictory, and where the con- 

 trast is too great parallel practices develop; 

 in the conflicting beliefs between a life after 

 death which is a better version of this life 

 and the lamaistic belief in reincarnation, 

 lamas and nuns are treated in one way at 

 death, laymen in another. For both the 

 lamas and the practitioners of the earlier 

 cult, ritual is rigidly in the hands of pro- 

 fessionals, leaving the rest of the i)opulation 



free to feast and gossip while ceremonial 

 goes on. 



The model on which Lepcha expectations 

 about human relationships are built is the 

 4-generation household containing some 16 

 or more members. A man who has slowly 

 attained self-assurance and authority pre- 

 sides over the household, and young men 

 who are themselves diffident and dependent 

 work for it. The young daughters-in-law, 

 who come from outside the community in 

 most cases, are the most put upon and un- 

 happy, and young children are treated 

 kindly but ambivalently as a present ex- 

 pense and burden and a possible dangerous 

 menace in case they die in childhood. Within 

 such a household and within a group of such 

 households, which form a community of 

 houses scattered over the mountainsides 

 and ceremonially focused on a monastery, 

 competition is muted. Young men have 

 sexual access to wives of their elder brothers 

 and of the father's younger brothers, 

 whereas elder brothers have to observe the 

 strictest incest taboo toward their younger 

 brothers' wives, so that within the family 

 the extremes of permission and taboo are 

 present. Marriages are arranged by go- 

 betweens. Childhood, seen as the period 

 when children are learning to work, is 

 followed by a period of sexual freedom ex- 

 cept within incest relationships (counted to 

 9 generations on the father's side and 4 on 

 the mother's) and by an early betrothal 

 for a marriage in which both partners may 

 be unwilling but into which, after 2 or 3 

 years of difficulty, they are expected to set- 

 tle down after the first child is born. 

 The birth of the first child results in a 

 name change for the group, the parents and 

 grandparents assuming the name of "the 

 parent of X," "the grandparent of X," and 

 so forth. Cooperative work under the leader- 

 ship of the housefather, within the household 

 presided over by the housemother, is ex- 

 pected to provide enough materials for a 

 continuously generous diet of food and drink 

 (a beer brewed from rice or millet) , enough 

 for abundant sacrifices to the gods and fre- 

 quent hearty feasting. At the feasts, enor- 

 mous amounts of food and drink are con- 

 sumed, people become loud mouthed and 

 gaily obscene, but quarreling is guarded 

 against. 



