Resistance and change. A case study of economic changes and its effect on language, food habits and dress of the nomadic hunting-gathering Raute of Nepal

Abstract

Raute, an endangered indigenous group, are the last nomadic hunting-gathering tribe of Nepal who basically traverse through four districts: Dailekh, Salyan, Surkhet and Jajarkot of mid-west Nepal. Hunting monkeys and rhesus, foraging wild plants and fruits, and manufacturing woodenwares to barter for food and non-food items with the sedentary villagers are the primary economic sources of their traditional life. However, the changes that occurred in the socio-cultural practices in surrounding sedentary societies (due to global economic politics) and ecology (due to global warming) have significantly influenced the Raute’s traditional mode of economy for the last few decades in spite of their resistance. This ethnography basically focuses on the changes in the economic structure of Raute despite their meticulous resistive practices applied to avoid the external forces for cultural assimilation and its impacts on traditional language, food habit and dress, thereby maintaining cultural intactness. The changes in Nepalese national political scenario over the last seventy years, mainly after 1990, formation of various national laws including several forest acts and the growing involvement of local villagers for forest resource management have significantly curbed the Raute’s traditional ways of using forest resources these days. Additionally, depletion of resources, which were the sole sources of Raute economy, because of ecological degradation caused by global warming has further cumulated the effects on the Raute’s ancestral economic structure. Although, the hunting-gathering culture of this nomadic tribe has been getting multiple arrows from different angles, the sensible manoeuvres that they have been applying to parry the external blows have remarkably diluted the imposed impacts. This study also highlights how the same resistive strategies on the other hand play a significant role in the Raute’s adaptation to the changing socio-ecological context. Key words: Raute, economy, nomadic, hunter-gatherers, sedentary, economic change, ecology, woodenwares, barter, resistance, asymmetrical, adaptation