The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the implications of some ethnic categories used in Byans, Far-Western Nepal. The region, spreading over the territory of Nepal and India, is ihnabited by people who think of themselves as members of one ethnic group. Scholars and administrators, however, have used different ethnic terms for them according to their nationality. In India they are generally labeled Bhotiya (as a Scheduled Tribe), together with inhabitants of other Himalayan valleys in Uttar Pradesh. In the context of Nepalese ethnography, they are mentioned as Byansi. Local Hindu people call them Sauka. This paper will firstly sort out this confusion by investigating their own ethnic categories, and secondly illustrates that these ethnic categories are re-defined by two "modern" concepts: race and religion. The ethnic category of the people of Byans which connotes them in their own mother tongue is Rang. This category, together with other two categories, Pang (Tibetan) and Wolan (South Asian people), composes a triad of ethnic categories in Byans. The Rang category, commonly defined as "the people who live in Byans, Chaudans, and Darma", is different from both Bhotiya (which includes inhabitants of Johar, Niti, and Mana) and Byansi (which excludes inhabitants of Chaudans and Darma). Rang as a category, however, is not a direct outcome of some reality, such as place of residence, kinship ties or ecological constraints. Rather, it is a self-evident precondition for all the ethnic discourses of the people of Byans. The essence of the Rang category lies in a tautological categorical imperative that we (as the Rang] are the Rang. Those alleged criteria as their residence and kinship network have given this categorical imperative some pretended foundation and substance. Pang and Wolan, on the other hand, are two names for non-members given by those who consider themselves to be Rang. But actually the Rang category came into existence simultaneously with the formation of those two categories. People of Byans use, or avoid, many ethnic terms in other languages fairly opportunistically. They prefer Sauka when they speak Pahari, whereas Bhotiya is highly detested, mainly because the word, which means Tibetans also, is dreadfully derogatory to them. The term Byansi is used by at least some Nepalese Rang, as it reminds many Hindus of Vyasa Rsi, the legendary writer of Mahabharata. In recent years, the Rang-Pang-Wolan triad has been re-explained by Rang themselves, using foreign concepts of race and religion. According to them, the Rang are not Aryan but Mongolian, and the Rang are not Tibetan Buddhists but Hindus. The Mongolian/Aryan dichotomy roughly coincides with the distinction between Rang and Wolan, and the Hinduism/Buddhism dichotomy of Rang and Pang. The use of these categories has thrown a new light on their ethnic categories. It enables them on the one hand to create a counter-discourse in general terms against "Aryan" hierarchicalideas and practices. On the other hand, insisting that they are Hindus, they resist against the stereotyped wrong image imposed by Wolan that they are Tibetans and beef eaters. The people of Byans utilize those concepts to indicate themselves not as Bhotiyas but as Hindu Mongolians. This difficult strategy on two fronts has been only partly successful. The discussion above shows that the over-determinedness of ethnic categories is exploited by the Rang for their own sake. Here the over-determinedness can be observed both between ethnic terms in many levels and in many languages, and among diverse fixed narratives or discourses, not always mutually consistent. Despite these inconsistencies, however, the existence of the ethnic group is not doubted by its "imagined" members in most cases, because each and every individual is preceded by those ethnic categories and discourses. It is inaccurate,
(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)
View full abstract