Growth characteristics of populations of Tibetan origin in Nepal.

Previous growth studies of highland-dwelling populations in the ecologically diverse areas of Peru and Ethiopia have yielded highly varied results: the retarded growth of the Peruvian sample was attributed to the effects of hypoxia, while the increased height and weight of the highland Ethiopian sample could be traced to better health conditions in the highland village than in the lowland village studied. In an attempt to provide a basis for evaluating studies of growth at high altitude, the present study compared Sherpa children living in the Everest region of Nepal with Tibetan children living in Kathmandu. It was found that: (1) the growth of Sherpa and Tibetan children is considerably retarded compared to other high altitude populations; (2) despite conditions favorable for optimum growth among the Tibetans, their growth resembled that of the Sherpas and (3) increased chest circumference, which seems to reflect a developmental acclimatization to hypoxia among Peruvian high-altitude natives, was not seen among the Sherpas.     

Genetic polymorphisms in isolated Sherpa populations of Nepal

Data are reported on the incidence of variants in the ABO blood group system, four red cell enzyme polymorphisms, and the PTU taster/non-taster polymorphism in 155 Sherpas and Tamangs living in two villages in the isolated Rolwaling valley in east Nepal. The incidence of phenotype AB was unexpectedly high in one village, as has been reproted insome other high-altitude populations: possible causes are discussed. Each of the other polymorphisms has a different pattern of distribution between the populations studied; the Sherpas' allele distribution in the phosphoglucomutase (PGM) system seems to be distinct from the surrounding populations'. ABO gene frequencies suggest affinities between Sherpas in the study villages and old- and new-clan Sherpa populations, respectively, in Solu and Khumbu.     

Stratigraphy and Practical Reason

The organization of human behavior often defies utilitarian or practical reason. Inferences based in practical reason simplify behavioral variability and as a result obscure evidence of ritual organization contained in sequences of archaeological deposits. To expose such sequences, 1 offer a behaviorally based artifact life history approach to the study of prehistoric ritual stratigraphy. I illustrate this approach through a case study of ethnographic and archaeological evidence of ritual and warfare in the American Southwest. [Key words: theory, ritual, war, stratigraphy, Casas Grandes]     

Skin color variation in eastern Nepal

The purpose of this paper is to provide skin color data on several endogamous groups of eastern Nepal and to demonstrate genetic microdifferentiation in skin color. Skin reflectance measures were taken at the upper inner arm and forehead sites, using the British DSL Model 99 Reflectance Spectrophotometer fitted with blue, green, and red filters. Measurements on 484 males representing six endogamous groups (Jirel, Sunwar, Sherpa, Tamang, Brahman, Chetri) were utilized. After adjusting for group-specific age effects, multivariate likelihood ratio permutation tests were used to assess ethnic differences in skin reflectance means and covariance matrices. Ethnic group membership had a highly significant effect on skin color at the upper inner arm site and at the forehead site. Differential tanning responses among groups were also detected and may represent the influence of genotype-environment interaction on reflectance traits. Mahalanobis distance analysis revealed patterns of microdifferentiation that are inconsistent with oral historical accounts. Little support was found for the ethnohistorical belief that Jirels are a hybrid group descended from Sunwars and Sherpas, even though this scenario is supported by linguistic, anthropometric, and dermatoglyphic data. We suggest that while reflectometric studies of skin pigmentation may be useful in assessing the macrodifferentiation of human populations, the use of skin color in differentiation studies at the local population level needs to be carefully evaluated.     

中国夏尔巴人的体质特征研究

为分析夏尔巴人的体质特征,2016年在西藏测量了182例(男性98例,女性84例)夏尔巴人成人的头面部及体部指标。运用Excel 2010和SPSS 21.0对数据进行统计分析。夏尔巴人的分析结果显示,根据头面部指标均数,夏尔巴人男性和女性属于圆头型、高头型、阔头型、中鼻型。根据体部指标均数,夏尔巴人男性和女性属于中躯干型、中肩型、窄骨盆型和亚中等身高,男性为亚长腿型,女性为中腿型。与其他族群对比发现,夏尔巴人体质特征与门巴族最接近,其次是珞巴族,属于藏彝走廊类型。国内目前尚无夏尔巴人的体质特征报道,本研究丰富了民族体质数据资料库,为研究夏尔巴人的族源提供了一定的数据支持。     

从体型特征来探讨中国夏尔巴人的族源

中国夏尔巴人是未识别民族。本文研究中国夏尔巴人体型特点,并通过夏尔巴人与中国其他族群体型比较,从体质人类学角度为夏尔巴人的族源研究提出新的证据。测量夏尔巴人的体质数据,采用Heath-Carter法计算夏尔巴人的体型值,通过主成分分析法分析夏尔巴人与其他族群体型的特点和相似程度,从体质人类学方面对夏尔巴人的族源提出看法。西藏夏尔巴人男性平均体型为均衡的中胚层体型,体脂发育水平中等,骨骼、肌肉比较发达,身体线性度中等。女性平均体型为偏内胚层的中胚层体型,夏尔巴人女性的体型特点是体脂欠发达,骨骼和肌肉含量中等,身体线性度中等。夏尔巴人男性、女性与怒族、木雅人、尔苏人体型接近。体部特征分析不支持夏尔巴人是藏族分支的观点。体型特征支持夏尔巴人源于党项羌的观点。     

Becoming a Christian in Fiji: an ethnographic study of ontogeny

By means of an ethnographic and developmental analysis, this article shows how everyday ritual practice is fundamental to people's constitution over time of ideas that, in this case, inform a specifically Fijian Christianity. Focusing on the developmental process that is the fixation of belief, and on the significance of ritual for this process, it explores transformations in ideas about God, Sunday school, and death ceremonies held by Sawaieke girls and boys between 7 years, 10 months and 13 years old. The broader objective is to demonstrate, first, how data obtained systematically from children can illuminate our understanding of ritual and its significance, and, secondly, how an analysis of the developmental process necessarily entails a concomitant analysis of the social relations that inform it.     

Becoming a Christian in Fiji: an ethnographic study of ontogeny

By means of an ethnographic and developmental analysis, this article shows how everyday ritual practice is fundamental to people's constitution over time of ideas that, in this case, inform a specifically Fijian Christianity. Focusing on the developmental process that is the fixation of belief, and on the significance of ritual for this process, it explores transformations in ideas about God, Sunday school, and death ceremonies held by Sawaieke girls and boys between 7 years, 10 months and 13 years old. The broader objective is to demonstrate, first, how data obtained systematically from children can illuminate our understanding of ritual and its significance, and, secondly, how an analysis of the developmental process necessarily entails a concomitant analysis of the social relations that inform it.     

On religious ritual as deference and communicative excess

I shall argue that most religious ritual is a performance that not only invokes but also performs communication. The ethnographic material from which I derive this argument is from China, in particular the temple rituals of local festivals. My argument is that a deep obeisance of welcome and departure that is both like and not like the normal ritual of greeting marks a religious from a non-religious ritual occasion and place. It is a ritual doubling that makes the honoured guest also a host. Religious ritual is a medium, and as a medium it is double in another sense. It is deference and deferral, a repeated transmission of obeisance to authority that has the authority of repetition. As well as doubling, religious ritual is excessively communicative. The medium is a performance not only of invitation and departure but also of communicative response, and it repeats this communication as a test of communicative response over and over again. Religious ritual performs both the opening and closing of communication, both the seeking and the responsive reciprocation of gift offerings with bounteousness. It is shadowed by the possibility of no response, of giving offence, of being abandoned. This possibility is acknowledged by being prevented, while the possibility that the performers are their own responders is disavowed.     

Rathwa Pithoro: Writing about Writing and Reading Painted Ethnography

Based on fieldwork among the Rathwa tribal community of Gujarat, this article is an analysis of the ritual and installation of wall painting known as Pithoro. The analysis of the culture's own construct of what constitutes writing and reading is considered to bring out the magical power in interpreting that which is written and/or drawn. As the reading capacity is more significant, especially the one undertaken by the ritual specialist, the ethnographic account treats the paintings installed not only for the sake of ritual but to alter politicoeconomic situations of the Rathwa tribals in the course of history. This article presents the paintings as a total communication system, which is not just the work of art drawn but also written within the culture, as their own ethnography for the culture itself.     

Aesthetics, Intuition, and Reference in Fijian Ritual Communication: Modularity in and out of Language

The ethnographic interpretation of "meaningless" ritual—ritual in which participants are not able to give verbal accounts of the symbolic meanings involved—poses basic questions about the relationships among language, culture, and meaning. Along with verbal meaning expressible in language, rituals are often observed to have important practical meaning outside of language. Aside from basic how-to, facilitating dimensions, practical meaning systems can also constitute metaphor and accomplish reference in ways that are parallel to, yet distinct from, verbal and gestural language functions. Techniques of language analysis are useful in interpreting practical meaning in ritual if language meaning is viewed from the perspective of Wittgensteinian use-based semantics and language is seen in context of a more general multidomain meaning system module that supports the communicative aspects of culture. [Keywords: ritual, aesthetics, communication, ethnography, Fiji]     

Laterality: a sideways look at ritual

Much study of ritual has focused on demarcated spaces and times of performance, and the often spectacular features of such collective behaviour provide rich resources for analysis of formal, symbolically dense action. This article shifts attention to dimensions of ritual events that entail zones of ambiguous, diffuse, or limited engagement where the boundaries between participant and non-participant, viewer and viewed, may be unclear. Focusing on visits to the English pilgrimage site of Walsingham, I examine multiple modalities of participation through analysing the relationships among observing, engaging in, and narrating ritual action. In doing so, I develop a lexicon for the study of performances whose ethnographic profile does not stand out in sharp relief. Key terms for my analysis are ‘laterality’ (as opposed to liminality) and ‘penumbra’ (as opposed to centre).     

Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production in Small-Scale Societies

Economic intensification has been documented in a diversity of small-scale societies. The existing archaeological theory concerning such intensification has tended to privilege economic and political explanations and largely ignores social action and ritual performance as motivations for economic change. In this article, 1 use both ethnographic and archaeological data to argue that ceremonial feasting and the need for socially valued goods, which are critical for ritual performance and necessary for a variety of social transactions, create the demand that underwrites and sustains economic intensification in small-scale societies. Food for large-scale feasts is acquired through the intensification of food production and procurement targeted specifically for feasting, rather than from the surplus available from routine subsistence production. Large-scale demands for socially valued goods tend to result in specialization on the production of "extraordinary" material culture, which is characterized by two modes of circulation, in networks of social obligations or as offerings in sacred locations. [Key words.craft specialization, exchange, feasting, ritual]     

Techniques of vision: photography, disco and renderings of present perceptions in highland Papua

This article draws on ethnographic and historical materials to interpret several related photographs and ritual images created by Fuyuge-speakers of highland Papua. The images are analysed as techniques of vision. That is, the images are shown to bring forth present perceptions in a timely manner, as evaluated by Fuyuge men and women. It is shown how the representations are informed by distinctive Fuyuge retentions of the past in the present, and extensions of the present in the future. The article suggests that the tendency to 'read' photographic images for their semiotic connotations misses the local perceptions at work in their creation and use. Rather, photographic and ritual images are analogous to the relations of persons that produce them, with their mutually connected temporality.     

门巴族、珞巴族与夏尔巴人身体成分特点及比较

为研究门巴族、珞巴族和夏尔巴人的身体成分特点,2016年在西藏采用生物电阻抗法测量了门巴族276例(男性为98例,女性为178例)、珞巴族93例(男性为34例,女性为59例)和夏尔巴人181例(男性为97例,女性为84例)的19项身体成分指标。运用Excel2003和SPSS19对各项指标进行统计学分析。结果显示,门巴族女性和珞巴族女性体脂率均值处于肥胖范围。门巴族男性内脏脂肪等级均数为10.26,属于内脏肥胖型,这可能会导致相关疾病的高发。门巴族与珞巴族男性身体成分具有明显的一致性,且与藏族、木雅人男性接近。3个族群女性肌肉量接近,夏尔巴人男性肌肉量低于门巴族和珞巴族,但夏尔巴人体重轻,肌肉率远高于门巴族和珞巴族。目前国内对门巴族、珞巴族和夏尔巴人的体成分研究尚处于空白。此次调查研究,丰富了西藏地区人群的体质数据,对提高营养健康水平和身体素质具有一定参考意义。     

Discursive Formation,Ethnographic Encounter,Photographic Evidence: The Centenary of Durkheim's Basic Forms of Religious Life and the Anthropological Study of Australian Aboriginal Religion in His Time

Historical research on the work of Émile Durkheim has often been confined to textual analysis aiming to reconstruct his research in the context of anthropological discourses at the turn of the 20th century. As radical changes in the visual culture of the late 19th century shaped the formation of anthropology as an academic discipline, the ambition of this article is to elaborate the ways Durkheim's use of ethnographic data and visual material formed the foundation of the theoretical and methodological design of his approach to religion. By tracing features in his Basic Forms that emphasize visual material and prioritize religious practice, I submit that the photographic evidence given in Spencer and Gillen's account of Aboriginal religion allowed Durkheim to theorize religion primarily through ritual. Photography, as a visual means of representation, enhanced the study of religion by focusing on ritual without necessarily demanding consideration of its mythical narratives and cosmological accounts. Based on a thorough analysis of his Basic Forms, this article argues that Durkheim used the photographs of the Aborigines of Central Australia systematically and that this use of photographs consequently guided his ethnographic depiction and his selection of theoretical concepts and methodological procedures.     

Shellfish, Gender, and Status on the Northwest Coast: Reconciling Archeological, Ethnographic, and Ethnohistorical Records of the Tlingit

Archeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical data provide ambiguous evidence of the dietary and economic importance of shellfish in Northwest Coast cultures. In the case of the Tlingit, I find that understanding shellfish from an emic perspective is critical to reconciling these equivocal data on economic importance. The Tlingit associated shellfish with poverty, laziness, and ritual impurity, and those who sought to be "ideal" persons avoided shellfish. An individual's rank and gender determined the degree to which such dietary guidelines were actually followed. The social and symbolic meaning of shellfish in Tlingit culture is partly explained by ecological factors, including the danger of paralytic shellfish poisoning. The analysis also reveals a number of biases inherent in the ethnographic and archeological data.     

The Heterogeneity of Khumbu Sherpa Ecological Knowledge and Understanding in Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park and Buffer Zone,Nepal

The ecological knowledge and understanding of indigenous peoples and long-term settlers is heterogeneous and continually in flux as they adapt to ecological, political and economic changes. This research focuses on Khumbu Sherpa ecological knowledge and its relation to environmental decision-making. The Sherpa, Tibetan Buddhists who practice agro-pastoralism, provide tourism services to visitors of Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park and Buffer Zone. Utilizing mixed quantitative and qualitative methods, I selected a stratified random sample of 100 individuals to assess spiritual values, and species and landscape knowledge. The results generally showed that individuals who lived on the tourist route and younger generations had less knowledge of these domains. These findings suggest that some Sherpa ecological knowledge and understanding had shifted from spiritual and agro-pastoralist socioeconomic values to a more tourism-centered economic logic. Future environmental decisions may be influenced by these changes.