Joan P. Mencher

The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle [and Comments and Replies]

The relationship between human and bovine population in India has hitherto been widely regarded as an important example of resource mismanagement under the influence of religious doctrine. It is suggested that insufficient attention has been paid to such positive-functioned features of the Hindu cattle complex as traction power and milk, dung, beef and hide production in relationship to the costs of ecologically viable alternatives. In general, the exploitation of cattle resources proceeds in such a way as not to impair the survival and economic well-being of the human population. The relationship between the human and bovine population is symbiotic rather than competitive; more traction animals than are presently available are needed for carrying out essential agricultural tasks. Under existing techno-environmental conditions, a relatively high ratio of cattle to humans is ecologically unavoidable. This does not mean, that with altered techno-environmental conditions, new and more efficient food energy systems cannot be evolved.

The Caste System Upside Down, or The Not-So-Mysterious East

It has been pointed out that in stratified societies, the evolutionary viability of the state rests in large part on the perfection of institutional structures that protect the ruling class from confrontation with coalitions of educated commoners. This paper makes use of historical materials from various parts of India, as well as contemporary material from one part of India, Tamilnadu, to examine the role of the caste system in preventing the formation of social classes with any commonality of interest or unity of purpose. Analyzing caste from the point of view of those at the bottom, the paper attempts to show that, like social stratification systems the world over, caste has functioned (and continues to function) as a very effective system of economic exploitation. In the context of Indias determination to create a socialist state, it appears impossible to bring about significant social change without a breakdown of the barriers between poor untouchables and other poor people. The paper suggests that, though caste has been condemned overtly, the great emphasis placed on it during the colonial period and even today (at least covertly) has been motivated in part by a desire to prevent the recognition or conscious development of organized class-based groups.

Why Some of the Poor Get Richer: Economic Change and Mobility in Rural Western India [and Comments]

To the extent that peasants, particularly Indian peasants, are ever considered to be economically mobile, they are generally seen from one of two perspectives: either the Malthusian perspective, which predicts that most landholdings will shrink over time, due to partitioning among multiple heirs; or the Marxian perspective, which predicts that a few landholdings will increase in size at the expense of the vast majority-the latter diminishing, in many cases, to nothing at all. These two perspectives can be used to generate a number of specific hypotheses concerning changes in the distribution of land in rural India. Naturally, some of the Malthusian hypotheses contradict Marxian ones, but there are others which are mutually congruent (the poor will generally get poorer, from either perspective, though the rich also get richer, according to the latter). In this paper, historical and contemporary data collected from a highly commercialized and densely populated village in western India are used to test a number of these hypotheses. Where the Malthusian and Marxian hypotheses are congruent, they sometimes appear to fit the data. However, most of these data are better explained by exogenous factors, such as migration, than by the hypotheses which they appear superficially to confirm. In addition, where the Malthusian and Marxian hypotheses contradict each other, the former show a better fit with the data. The reason is simply that the largest landholdings did not get larger, they got smaller. Moreover, while many of the smaller holdings also diminished, some got larger. The concentration of landholdings has not increased, contrary to the Marxian hypotheses. Most interestingly, neither set of hypotheses can explain the significant amount of upward mobility which has ocurred among smallholders, and even among those who were landless. Coupled with frequent downward mobility among landholders of all sizes, this means an unexpectedly low correlation between the size of a familys holding in 1920 and its size in 1970. The distribution of land is neither rigidly fixed by a static social system nor deteriorating according to a pattern predicted by the Malthusian or Marxian perspectives. Since the village in question has undergone intensive commercialization, this implies that commercialization as such is not necessarily a cause of increased poverty and inequality.

Changing Familial Roles among South Malabar Nayars

1 This paper is a revision of one first presented at the 1960 meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Minneapolis. The data for the paper were obtained during a brief village survey conducted in 1958 and an additional study of six months in one South Malabar village in 1959-60. The research was conducted under the auspices of the American Association of University Women and the United States Educational Foundation in India. I wish to thank the following people for helpful suggestions regarding the paper: Dr. Stanley A. Freed, Dr. Robert L. Carneiro, Dr. Lucie A. Wood, and Miss Julia G. Crane. 2 Murdock, 1949, p. 3. 3 Gough, 1961, p. 595. 4 Unni, 1958, passim. 5 Rao, 1957, p. 120.

Growing Up in Eastville, a Barrio of New York

From the early to mid-l950s, a number of studies were carried out among the various ethnic populations in New York City. In 1954, Dr. Beatrice Berle (a medical doctor) and Professor Charles Wagley from Columbia University conceived of the idea of doing a medical-cum-ethnographic study of a slum area in New York’s East Harlem, an area that was bounded by 99th Street on the south, 105th Street on the north, the East k v e r on the east and Second Avenue (where there had been a large urban renewal project earlier) on the west. Dr. Elena Padilla, who had worked on Julian Steward’s study in Puerto h c o , was selected to direct the anthropological study, and four graduate students were given fellowships to work on the project. My own research started there in 1953-55 and was supplemented by short visits during 1956-58. Dr. Berle set up a free clinic in the area, because it was recognized that the public hospitals and clinics serving the area were often not meeting the needs of the people in the barrio. Each of the anthropologists collected basic data from a sample of 25 households. Apart from these 25 families (which were visited repeatedly over the course of a year) approximately 250 other families were visited for brief periods of time to collect basic demographic materials. The work on the project was divided in the following manner: I was assigned the study of the socialization of children from birth until the age of six, or the start of the first grade; Joan Campbell studied the effects of the school on the child between the age of six and the start of adolescence; Vera Green worked with adolescent girls; Dr. Edwin Seda and Mr. Wee