4. MARCO CONTEXTUAL
4.2. El sistema agrario en la Nueva Granada
At the micro-level of society, it is possible to see, from an
individual point of view, how human coalitions are formed and become
an effective, integral element of the total society. Some forms of
cohesion, such as the neighbourhood one, do not emerge as organisational elements on any other level of society, and thus remain significant only
within the confines of the village. They are thus only loosely
integrative, i.e. they allow for an informal network to emerge which operates above ethnic allegiances, but they do not prevent these
allegiances from crystalising at other levels of society. They do not
have the power to weaken or diffuse ethnic ties. Thus, even if
ethnicity does not appear in certain village societies as an organi sational element on a formal level, it is still part of the individual’s mode of identification and affiliation, and thus finds its expression
in different ways depending upon the specific village context. The
societds, for instance, which are socio-religious associations, do not
have the same cohesive force in all the villages. In some, like
Plaine Magnien, they have an overtly organisational function, and are active in expressing the importance of the 'group' in the society. In Trois Boutiques, as we shall see in a later section, they do not validate the existence of the group as such, but merely offer forms
of social and financial help on an individual level. What then, are
the ways in which ethnic identity finds its expression in such villages as Trois Boutiques, where any overt assertion of one's identity is negatively assessed as contradicting the communal village feeling?
(i) Marriage
The relationship between Telugus and North Indians, which is maintained on a basis of cordiality and friendship, and the reiteration that there are not many differences between the religious and cultural features of each group, does not however create a foundation for inter-marriage. Inter-marriage does occur occasionally, just as it does between Muslims and Hindus, but, if it is better tolerated than the latter, it is still not looked upon, favourably, and in general, the respective parents will do anything they can to prevent the marriage from going through until its inevitability is clearly demonstrated by the couple itself. When
faced with a choice between the different types of inter-marriage, people will admit that it is better for Telugus and North Indian to marry than any other combination, because the two groups are more
rappvoahd (closer) and similar. The main argument in this case is that they eat the same things, that Telugus in villages speak bhojpuri, and that their religious rites are not very different.
The food restriction is the strongest aspect involved in the
prohibition of intermarriage between Hindus and Muslims, and it is more frequently given as a reason than the religious difference.
The arguments against inter-marriage between Telugus and North
Indians are based on incompatibility or lack of understanding of each
o ther’s cultural features. For instance, it is said that they will
not be able to understand each other’s prayers, and a daughter-in-law who is of a different qualitS will not be able to hold a ceremony in her household if she does not understand it.
Thus, if it is a matter of choice between several negatively evaluated exogamous marriages, it is better to choose the closer one, on the basis of degrees of differentiation between the two groups - the North Indians and the Tamils for instance feel more strongly differentiated and such a marriage is strongly condemned - and on the basis of
similarity of food habits. The groups are thus classified on a
conceptual grid according to the distance between them, and this distance is assessed upon the features mentioned above, i.e. food,
religion, language spoken etc., or the"codes for conduct?'which characterize
each group. The ranking is not necessarily mutual, and one group may
rank another closer to itself while the latter may have the former
further away on its ranking system. In fact, this is the case between
North Indians and Telugus, for the former tend to rank the latter
closest to them, while the Telugus rank North Indians further from them
than Tamils. This stems from two main reasons; one is that, as a
’minority group', the Telugus have to put stronger restrictions on inter marriage because the group is more vulnerable to diffusion, and they see North Indians as a majority-group which threatens their unity; secondly, North Indians see their eating-habits as being broadly similar to those of the Telugus, whereas the latter see them as "dal" and "brede" (which are a pulse and a green vegetable) eaters, i.e. a people who are stingy
about food and make money by subsisting on the simplest kind of food. This creates a discrepancy in the mutual evaluation of the groups.
The degree of distancing between the groups is thus closely linked with assessments of differences that are partly stereotypes - e.g.
"dal and brede eaters" - and partly based on actual contrasts. However, the assessment of each group is not expressed so much in
terms of separate constructs of religion, language and cultural habits as in terms of a mixture of all those subsumed under the idea of mutual
"understanding", "similarity". A man will say, "I cannot give my
daughter into a household where they eat beef and pork" or "X cannot take a daughter-in-law who is not my qualite, and who will not
understand my way of thinking, into my house". This seems to indicate
that qualite^ as a notion, goes deeper than more overt aspects of
ethnicity such as religion, language etc. Food is closely linked with
people’s qualite, and similarity and understanding are both related
to the sense of commonness within a qualite. Differences between groups
can thus be seen more in terms of qualitative differences, which allow for degrees in distancing to appear, than in terms of empirical
differences. Inter-marriage is not just a matter of difficulty of
integration, but it is a threat to the internal quality of the group. Marriage is the primary means of perpetuating the group, and the most
important link between its members. Therefore, when we are looking at
the expression of ethnicity at this level, we must look in terms of moral solidarity and ascription rather than at other external forms of cohesion.
In Trois Boutique^, there are two forms of marriage selection based on ’p l a c e ’s one is recruitment from the nearest possible radius of villages, and from the village itself, and the other is from villages further away
that have a large number of the qualite group. Marriage is in this sense
a kind of ethnic recruitment to the village, perhaps in a way that is parallel to economic recruitment of kin and ethnic members in Plaine
Magnien, The Telugus’ pattern of choice seems fairly equally divided
between village-endogamy and the villages where their qualite group is \numerous, whereas the North Indians’ choice is more oriented towards the
radius of nearby villages than within the village itself. The choice
of marriage for each group is dependent on several variables; village- endogamy for the Telugus is based on the pattern of intra-kingroup
marriage and on the repetition of ties with the same affinal group,
as we shall see in Chapter six. The need to know the family also acts
as an incentive to choose within the village or from a nearby village. One thus has an intensification of qualite ties through the
establishing and repeating of marriage links between them. The second
type of marriage recruitment, which is oriented towards villages where the qualite group is numerous and sometimes dominant, is peculiar to the minority groups of the Indian community, because of their limitations
in numbers. There is a need to establish ties and contact? with areas
where the group is well-organised and numerous, so that the marriage- partner who is moving into the village does not find him/herself isolated
in an unfamiliar environment. There are thus marriage ties between
people of Trois Boutiques, in the South, and those of, say, Riviere-du- Rempart in the North, because there is a numerous Telugu population in
both these villages. This finally achieves a kind of concentration of
the qualite group in certain villages, and also serves to establish effective ties far outside the village on the basis of qualite links.
Among the North Indians, the choice is subjected to a different set
of variables. Village endogamy is not frequent, although it is not
explicitly attributed to a prohibition, but merely to a preference for
village-exogamy. When it happens, it is mainly because the couple has
chosen the marriage by themselves, i.e. it is a love-marriage, or when there are corresponding caste groups in the village which allow
people to inter-marry. Three of the love-marriages recorded in the
village during fieldwork were in fact between largely discrepant castes,
so that the marriages were severely condemned. There is only one Maraz
(Brahmin) family S., in Trois Boutiques. S has two sons and a daughter
and is a retired sardar. The two sons married low-caste chamar girls
from the village, This caused an uproar in the family, and I was told
that there had been disputes when the families found out that their
children wanted to get married. One of the chamar girls comes from an
extremely poor family, and this did not make things easier for her. Further, both sons only had partial employment as day labourers, which meant that they had to go on living with the father, but the daughter
stressed the fact that they kept separate kitchens, and she and her mother never attended the temple with the sons* wives.
In another case where a Babuji (Kshatriya) m a n ’s son married a Chamar girl, the father, being an Arya Samaji, and having been involved in the case above as a mediator, had to accept his s o n ’s decision without too much protest, but in the course of time, there was increasing friction between the so n ’s wife and her mother-in-law, who was the s o n ’s step
mother (i.e. his father’s second wife). First, the mother-
in-law bought the wife a complete set of kitchen utensils to use in the kitchen, which was explained by the father as being a gift, but the son and his wife took the gesture as meaning that the latter could not use the household utensils
because of her caste. Later on, the father himself was
overheard by the s o n ’s x-d.fe saying "Chamara will always be Chamars and keep their dirty habits.” ' She the provoked a
discussion and, according to the father, induced the son
to break away from the family and to settle in town. Both
the son and his wife were educated, and he had a good job which allowed him to be financially and socially mobile
once he had moved to town. This further led to distancing
between him and his family, and the rift is now so complete that the father told me that he would not even recognise his grand-children if he saw them.
In the above cases, the discrepancy of caste was too great for marriage
to take place without dispute. However, in general, North Indians from
Trois Boutiques are not too highly conscious of caste in their marriage
choices, as long as they are broadly equal. The main caste names used
by people in qualifying themselves are Maraz, Babuji and Vaish, or
sub-caste names such as Kurmi, Ahir etc. The varna categories thus
serve only for the three higher varnas, and nobody will qualify him or
herself, if asked, as a Shudra or a low-caste. The sub-caste names are
thus in a way a means of avoiding classifying oneself unequivocally as a low caste, since in general, people are not very much aware of what
varna category a sub-caste name corresponds to. Low caste
classification then serves only in classifying others, and in fact those who belong to a low caste are very unwilling to specify their
caste or to talk about it. They tend to dismiss it as a thing of
the past, and see caste mainly as a means for Brahmans to obtain
prerogatives that they could not obtain. Caste consciousness is thus
preserved almost entirely by the higher castes, and by their exclusion of specific family-names from the grand-nation (high caste) category
Thus, within the grand nation boundary, people fall into Maraz and Babuji castes; below it, people are classified as Vaish; and, below
the Vaish come the ti nation (low-caste). The Vaish thus fall into
a middle category between grand and ti nation. The ti nation category
includes all the people who cannot classify themselves or who use sub caste names, and at the lowest level of this category come the Chamars } who are recognised as such and can thus not conceal their caste.
GRAND NATION MID-CATEGORY TI NATION
Maraz
Vaish Unspecified
Babuji Chamar
Chart No.l; Caste categories among North Indians
The Vaish fall into a middle category because there have been many intermarriages between them and grand nation members, especially Babujis, so that they cannot be unequivocally classified as low
castes. Some families are in fact still classified as half-Babuji
half-Vaish. The original incorporative aspect of caste, where the
m a l e ’s caste prevailed in both hyper and hypogamous unions has not survived in Mauritius, and one finds families who claim high status
through a m a l e ’s union to a high caste female. In Trois Boutiques,
however, there are not many high caste people, and the low castes tend to be satisfied with broadly similar caste or status groups
from which to select spouses. The wider radius of villages around
the village provide them with an adequate selection from which to choose,while at the same time providing the advantage of knowing the
situation of the family from which one is choosing. In villages, one
finds that social ranking broadly correlates status and caste, and the "unspecified" ti-nation category offers the widest choice, since people cannot arrange marriages into higher castes, and prefer not to
arrange marriages with Chamars.. This is probably why actual caste
names have become so diffuse in this category, since repeated marriages have blurred divisions considerably.
For North Indians, the need to marry from or into villages where their group is predominant does not arise, since they are far more numerous
than any other group and are dominant in a large number of villages. Choice within the group of villages in the vicinity thus serves to establish links between the villages, with caste, occupation or social
status being the main criteria of choice. Among the grand nation, in
particular the Maraz,choice tends to move away from the village because the caste affiliation gives them more bargaining power in their marriage preferences, and especially when looking for spouses for their daughters, they are not entirely restricted by the occupational status of the
father. For instance, a Babuji sardar's daughter got married, during
my fieldwork, to a Babuji minister's son. The caste affiliation was
considered to be more important in the match than the occupational status, and the consideration that they were both "good families" was
several times reiterated. The grand nation attribute thus largely
enhances the status of the family over and above occupational and
financial status. The grand nation are not as much bound as the Vaish
and ti nation categories are by their occupational status in the latitude
of choice. In the latter's case, it is on the contrary finance and
occupation that allow them a better bargaining power. In Trois Boutiques,
since the families are fairly similar in status with members of the same caste categories in other villages, choice is fairly straight-forward and is largely based on previous acquaintance.
In Trois Boutiques, therefore, caste does not act as a strongly
differentiating factor within the North Indian group because most of the villagers belong to the ti-nation category or to the Vaish category. Their adherence to the Arya Samaj has also served to diffuse caste differences, except in the case of the few grand nation in the village. In fact, people who are aware of the specific caste they belong to tend to see the relationship with other members of the same caste as "fami" relations. They thus see it as a notion of relatedness rather than as a means of differentiation, in particular because caste boundaries are at
best vague and undefined. This again corresponds to the classification
used by the Jaffna Tamils described by David (1973) where kinship and caste belong to the same order of substantial identity, and both lcin- members and caste members are "sharers" of substance, but to a different
degree. For the North Indians, this can perhaps be expressed in the following terms; lcin-members are those with whom we eat, caste-members are those with whom we marry, and qualite-identity incorporates both
extremely important as long as qualite endogamy is preserved. Strong caste boundaries, such as those the grand nation have, tend to lead marriage choices away from the village because of the restricted possibilities and of the wish to use caste for manipulative purposes, whereas looser boundaries, as those within the unspecified ti nation category, allow choice to operate within a narrower radius, thus strengthening the links between qualite members in these villages.
Marriage choices among Telugus and North Indians can thus be summarised as follows;
VILLAGE CONTIGUOUS
VILLAGE FAR AWAY VILLAGE
Telugus Intra familial
marriages Close affinal bonds Previous acquain tance ease of communication and access Numerical predomi nance strong organisation of quality
North Indians -■ 'Love marriages' - Similarity of - Similarity of caste
caste and status for grand nation
- Exactly corres
ponding castes - Previous - Mobility
acquaintance
Chart No . 2; Marriage choices among Telugus and North Indians
Although the bases of choice are different for each group, they tend to establish links with qualite members both within and outside the village, thus serving to maintain internal cohesion and to widen the sphere of
ethnic relations across village boundaries. Marriage is thus the
principal way of crossing the closed-in village context and creates a network of qualitd relations that transcends its bounds.
(ii) The internal network of qualite
In the village, although the neighbourhood set is meant to fulfill duties of cooperation and assistance towards each of its members, in fact those duties very often fall back onto qualite or kin members. They form part of the1codes for conduct! pertaining to ascriptive