Kusunda: Crisis of Identity

 

Introduction

Cultural identity is a self-selected concept that includes the beliefs, values and concepts. The cultural identity is used to promote the contractive integration into society. The identity formation arises as a product of skin color, language differences, behavioral pattern, cultural values and norms, social stereotypes, religious beliefs (Spencer & Markstorm, 1989). The conventional view of culture has been as social glue being people through their common past but at present social scientist used it to remarking group identities. The people used culture to organize society into cohesive group with political, economic and moral goal. The anthropological use of culture is basis for new social identities. Malinowski (1922), Brown (1938) and other anthropologists describe specific culture of the ethnic community, that is used to identify the specific community. It is used to specify a variety of ways to explain as assortment of phenomena and for identification of a community. But if any cultural group loss their cultural characteristics, they are in identity crisis because these cultural components are the components for ethnic identity. In another sense crises used to denote shortage of cultural heritage. Kusunda people are facing the loss of their culture as well as cultural identity. It is because of the changing nature of culture, local people’s intervention, and also the assimilation and acculturation process of the Kusunda community.

Construction and Re-construction of Cultural codes

Cultural codes are defined as symbols and systems of meaning that are relevant to members of a particular culture (or subculture). These codes can be utilized to facilitate communication within the ‘inside group’ and also to obscure the meaning to ‘outside groups’. Cultural codes are those hidden systems of meaning that guide social and political action in specific settings which are initially only known to insider groups. Meanings are conveyed in shorthand, language and symbols known only to that group for ease of communication or deliberately to disguise. Codes are ‘a secret system of words, symbols or behaviors’ that are used to convey messages that are contextually bound. Codes are generally expressed at an observable level, through verbal and non-verbal means, but they are the result of the effects of, and interaction with, the other levels of culture. This means that what is observed often does not make sense to the outsider and known only to the insider group. They can be used as shorthand by such a group for brevity or to allow rapid communication. They can also be used to disguise the ‘real message’ and to keep it hidden from outsiders (Hyatt & Simons 1999). In case of Kusunda, most of their cultural practices and codes are lost due to acculturation and assimilation process. Some cultural practices or cultural codes, they have been constructing in the process of their daily life process.

Cultural codes that Kusundas are using to construct their group identity to be distinct from others in their community are discussed. In this process of identification, construction and re-construction, their understanding about how others define them as Kusundas plays an important role. Their co-existence with other groups plays an important role to be identified as an ethnic group and to construct their ethnic identity. For their separate identification Kusundas along with all indigenous ethnic groups are using cultural codes as ethnic markers to be distinct from other groups.

Each and every indigenous ethnic group is reviving or inventing their traditional cultural practices transmitted to them by their elders (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983) as cultural codes. Kusunda has been constructing some communal cultural codes in the process of transition from hunting-gathering to agricultural stages. These constructed identities are for group identification to achieve collective goals. Collective representation is established through the process of institutionalization of its social organization by creating central to local levels. Affiliated members of their organizations work as change agents who are trained and socialized under the process of enculturation. These activists carry different individual traits due to their diverse socialization. The blended cultural identity with individual backgrounds encourages them to adapt and assimilate into the collective (Friedman, 1994) constructing Kusunda identity. Some of the major cultural codes which Kusunda are constructing and re-constructing in their life process are mentioned here:

1. Tagging Kusunda for Becoming a Community Member

The movement of Kusunda for identification is also linked with the Kusunda title being attached to their names. This is in addition to the ethnic names since Kusundas have numerous names, clans and sub-clans. When Kusunda shifted from jungle to settled life, they had numerous problems of social recognition. The movement of writing Kusunda after their names, clan and sub-clan names and getting the citizenship card in their own thar were some of the major issues at that time. The president of Kusunda Bikash Samaj, Mr. Dhan Bahadur Kusunda commented that the campaign of writing Kusunda after their name must be promoted by the Kusunda Bikash Samaj, the leading organization of Kusunda at national level.

2. Language awareness Campaign

Language is a primary characteristic and an always present characteristic of ethnicity.  Without language you would have an incomplete description of ethnicity.  Language is the primary component of ethnicity. Ethnicity is a complex concept, entailing self-identity, shared experiences in a specific community or community segment, at various levels, and many other factors.  Among them language is very important factors of identity and it is the only one factor in the ethno-linguistic description of a people, or an ethnic group. But in Kusunda, the language cannot be the identity maker because it is almost dead. They know that, language is tied up with their psyche, as individuals and as a community. They also know that the language is a component of thought and the differences in worldview involve differences in thought and language.  Hence language is the primary component of ethnic identity. Kusunda language is their heritage because it is incomparable to the other language of the world.

Kusunda language is given more priority to identify them as Kusundas. To feeling the importance of their language heritage, they trying to revitalizing the Kusunda language. There are only eight persons who can speak their language and the Kusunda Bikash Samaj has already conducted two language training for others including their children. Due to low educational attainment among Kusundas very few are involved in training, writing and publication of Kusunda literature.

January 2019, Kusunda Bikash Samaj organized training on their language at Lamahi, Dang.  Gyanimaya Kusunda and her sister Kamala Kusunda, who are among the handful of people who can still speak their native language in its original form, were delighted to see a group of people from their community learning their language in a classroom of Aadarsha Secondary School in Lamahi, Dang. Uday Raj Aaley, an author and researcher of Kusunda language, has been appointed as the facilitator and the language teacher. The number of Kusunda language speakers is said to have dwindled to the point of extinction due to lack of integrated settlement. The Kusunda people are scattered in various parts of the country. When you have no one in your neighborhood and community to speak your native language, it is only natural for your native dialect to go extinct, said Dhan Bahadur Kusunda, the chairman of Kusunda Development Society (K.C, 2019). Similar type of training was also conducted in 2017 at Dang, Ghorahi with the financial assistance of Language Commission of Nepal.

3. Re- construction of Dress Codes

Clothes convey other social messages including the stating or claiming personal, ethnic and communal identity by the establishing, maintaining, or defying socio-cultural norms and appreciating comfort and functionality. In every culture, current dress governs the manner of consciously constructing, assembling, and wearing clothing to convey a social message. The identification of a group by dress code helps them to differentiate them from others. These processes of group identification help them to gain recognition as a distinct group. Kusunda community has diverse groups with diverse cultural and ritual practices as well as dress patterns. The cultural differences are visible based on the different geographical locations, and the settlement within homogenous and heterogeneous societies. With invention of the dress codes by the Kusunda leaders for a separate identity, Kusunda men and women took to wearing their traditional dresses.

Women are seen as the agents to carry the culture through following ethnic dress codes. Kusunda women has been wearing their traditional dress with blouse, printed Sari, shawls with gado and it is  tied up crossing over the chest covering the back of the body. The senior male members also wear their kachad, the white linen wrapped around their waist covering below the knee, bhangra the wrapper behind the whole body and wearing common shoes. In general, males only wrapped bhangra around their back with corner tied crossed against the chest as Kusunda dress in the cultural ceremony. Very few male and female wear full Kusundas dress during their cultural activities and most of the youth has not wear their traditional dress. Dhan Bahadur Kusunda claimed that, he was the first person who modified or reconstruct their traditional dress. But as a identity symbol, I did not see any dress of Kusundas.

Cultural and Ritual Practices

A ritual practice was used to elucidate the social existence and influence of religious ideas. Rituals of various kinds are a feature of almost all known human societies, past or present. They include not only the various worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also the rites of passage of certain societies, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, and others (Parish 2014). Durkheim (1965), argued that religion is composed of beliefs and rites: beliefs consist of representations of the sacred; rites are determined modes of action that can be characterized only in terms of the representations of the sacred that are their object. Hence, ritual is the means by which individual perception and behavior are socially appropriated or conditioned. In Durkheim's model the ritual activity of cult constitutes the necessary interaction between the collective representations of social life (as a type of mental or meta-mental category) and individual experience and behavior (as a category of activity) (Bell 2009). Kusundas from Tanahau and Gorkha are found completely assimilated into Hindu cultural practices whereas Kusundas of Pyuthan, Dang and Surkhet area follow Hinduism and shamanism. Depending upon the diverse geographical locations, clan and sub clan cultural practices, the celebration of festivals and rituals differ from each other. Kusundas of Tanahau, Gorkha and Kapilbastu celebrate the Hindu festival Dashain and Tihar along with other festivals whereas Kusundas of Pyuthan, Dang, Rolpa and Surkhet celebrate Dashian, Tihar as well as Nabami of Dashain as a kulpooja and Baisakh purnima celebrate as their other festival. While all Kusundas admitted celebrating Dashain, Tihar, Maghe Sankranti, Saune Sankranti, Baisakh Purne, Teej, Loshar, as common festivals. Likewise, worshipping of ancestors also differs according to the geographical locations. They sacrifice animals and cocks that are specially designated for that special day. Some sacrifice male goats, cocks and Kalij to make their ancestors happy and for ensuring safety of the family, prosperity and strength for success depending upon their clans and sub-clans. The designated sacrificial animal for the rituals is dependent upon the availability of the animal in their geographical environment and the culture of the clans.

The traditional common practices among all these Kusundas reflect the worship of the nature as ‘prakriti pujak’. All their local deities are attached with the belief of a soul, the spirit of the dead in some form. Having a deep belief in spirits, they consult the shamans at the first sign of any problem such as uneasiness, headache etc (Thapa, 2008). In relation to the beliefs and ritual practices of the Kusundas, it has been argued that they are animists who worship nature in the form of stones, water, trees and young girls (Kanya Keti). They also worship souls that travel as their wishes have not been fulfilled in their lives. These souls often appear in the form of their ancestral gods and goddesses and are worshiped with delicious food when new crops are harvested or meat of sacrifice animals. Influence of Hinduism and getting exposed to other ethnic groups, they reconstructed new practices as well as  adopted themselves to the new environment blending their old traditions, culture, beliefs and rituals practices. Hence, Kusunda culture and cultural related components are in crises because of their transitional economy and social practices.  

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