Resources and Population- A Study of the Gurungs of Nepal

About the Book In many areas of the world the destruction of natural resources and the rapid growth of population are among the most important problems facing individuals and governments. This book utilizes the tools of social anthropology and population studies in an attempt to see some of the causes and consequences of population growth and some of the effects of change in natural resources. It analyses a particular 'community' in the Annapurna range of the central.

Himalayas during this century, and investigates how the destruction of forests and the growth of settled rice cultivation have occurred, and some of the consequences. The Gurungs are famous as recruits to the Gurkha regiments of the British and Indian armies, and the demographic and economic effects of foreign merce nary labour are among the topics examined.

The book is a contribution to the literature on population patterns in small, non-industrial communities and supplements our information on domestic economics. It also contri butes to the debate, centred on the work of Malthus and Boserup, on the relation between agricultural system and population growth. The conclusions are extremely gloomy, especially when set within the context of more general theories concerning the relations between population and economy.

About the Author Born in Shillong, India in 1941, Alan Macfarlane was educated at Sedbergh School, and at Worcester College, Oxford, where he took a D.Phil. in history. He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He is the author of eleven books on history and anthropology and is currently Professor of Anthropological Science at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1986. He has visited Nepal on fourteen occasions, for a total period of nearly three years.

Preface I first came to Nepal in December 1968 with my wife Gill and stayed for fifteen months. We spent a year working in the Gurung village of Thak, about five hours walk north of Pokhara. I returned with my second wife, Sarah Harrison, in 1986 and we have visited Nepal and Thak for periods of between three weeks and three months in almost every year since. The first fieldwork led to a Ph.D. in anthropology which was subsequently published as Resources and Population: A Study of the Gurungs of Nepal (Cambridge, 1976). The re-publication of this book makes it appropriate to reflect on some of the changes which have occurred in one village in the more than thirty years since I first visited it. This brief account, based on arguably the most intensive longitudinal study of a single Himalayan community ever made, can only sketch in a few of the changes. We hope to publish a more detailed ethnography, possibly based not only on the extensive genealogical and survey accounts but also the many films and photographs which we have taken, at a later point.

In one sense, at least on the surface, there has been little change in the village since my first fieldwork. The basic agricultural and craft techniques described in 'Resources and Population' are still used. The amount of labour input for various tasks is roughly the same and the village lands shown in the maps have not changed greatly. The main village and the nearby hamlets are not greatly changed in their physical form, though a number of houses have tin roofs and there is now a diesel mill and two television sets (powered by car batteries) in the village. The track up the valley is somewhat improved and it is possible to get a car to the bottom of the steep climb up to the village, saving a three hour walk. The water pipe is larger and a number of houses have taken small pipes off it. Yet there is still no electricity, no telephone, no motorable road, and no health post. The children no longer have to climb down to a school forty minutes below the village, as there is a village school with five classes in it. There is a government office and a large water tank with watchman's house (unoccupied). The two 'shops' have a much wider range of goods, including beer and coke, than in 1968 when they basically only had tea.

**Contents and Sample Pages**