Table of Contents

I-IV -- General Editor's Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- SECTION ONE General Issues -- Fourfold Classifications of Society in the Himalayas -- Kinship and Culture in the Himalayan Region -- Cultural Implications of Tibetan History -- Homo hierarchicus Nepalensis: A Cultural Subspecies -- Hierarchy or Stratification? Two Case Studies from Nepal and East Africa -- Himalayan Research: What, Whither, and Whether -- SECTION TWO The South Asian Perspective -- Actual and Ideal Himalayas: Hindu Views of the Mountains -- Stratification and Religion in a Himalayan Society -- Changing Patterns of Multiethnic Interaction in the Western Himalayas -- An Additional Perspective on the Nepali Caste System -- Maiti-Ghar: The Dual Role of High Caste Women in Nepal -- Dhikurs: Rotating Credit Associations in Nepal -- The Role of the Priest in Sunuwar Society -- A New Rural Elite in Central Nepal -- Nepalis in Tibet -- Modernizing a Traditional Administrative System: Sikkim 1890-1973 -- Bureaucracy and Bureaucrats: A Few Themes Drawn from the Nepal Experience -- SECTION THREE The Central Asian Perspective -- The Retention of Pastoralism among the Kirghiz of the Afghan Pamirs -- Correlation of Contradictions: A Tibetan Semantic Device -- The White-Black Ones: The Sherpa View of Human Nature -- Tibetan Oracles -- Some Aspects of Pön -- Tibetan Bon Rites in China: A Case of Cultural Diffusion -- The Saintly Madman in Tibet -- Trans-Himalayan Traders in Transition -- Tibetan Communities of the High Valleys of Nepal: Life in an Exceptional Environment and Economy -- Tibetan Culture and Personality: Refugee Responses to a Culture-Bound TAT -- ?thnogenesis and Resource Competition among Tibetan Refugees in South India: A New Face to the Indo-Tibetan Interface -- The "Abominable Snowman": Himalayan Religion and Folklore from the Lepchas of Sikkim -- SECTION FOUR Perspectives Merged: The Newars -- Notes on the Origins of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal -- Symbolic Fields in Nepalese Religious Iconography: A Preliminary Investigation -- Intercaste Relations in a Newar Community -- The Role of the Priest in Newar Society -- Structure and Change of a Newari Festival Organization -- A Descriptive Analysis of the Content of Nepalese Buddhist P?j?s as a Medical-Cultural System with References to Tibetan Parallels -- Biographical Notes -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects