Newar

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Newar girls attend the Bel wedding . In this fertility ritual, they are symbolically married to the bel tree .

Newar ( नेवार ) is an ethnic group in Nepal , which is mainly settled in the Kathmandu valley. Originally she provided the staff for various services at important religious festivals in the capital. The Newar are highly respected and belong to the higher strata of Nepalese society.

Religion and society

Their origin is largely unknown, and their religion is in many cases a complex synthesis of Buddhism and Hinduism . Numerous deities are worshiped, which were added to traditional Hinduism and Buddhism. According to a 2001 survey, 84.13 percent of the Newar in Bhaktapur are Hindus and 15.31 percent are Buddhists. In Patan this ratio is almost exactly the opposite and in Kathmandu it is more or less balanced. The Hindu Newar have developed their own caste system only for the residents of the Kathmandu Valley. This system was partially adopted by the Buddhist Newar. In general, this caste system is weak and has never been able to assert itself as strongly in the egalitarian Newari community as in other ethnic groups.

Nevertheless, this box order finds concrete expression in the city as part of a universal order model. The highest castes live in the center of the city, the lower ones on the periphery and the untouchable form the outer ring in the urban fabric. The most consistent application of spatial separation of castes took place during the reign of Jayasthiti-Malla, when each caste lived in its own quarters. Usually certain professions are tied to certain castes. The caste affiliation is patrilinear , inherited from father to son, and marriage is usually only endogamous , i.e. within one's own caste. Exogamy , i.e. marrying into the next higher caste, is possible, but involves considerable expenditure of money.

The caste hierarchy comprises a superordinate and a subordinate group, which are further subdivided into the upper and middle classes as well as the impure and Dalit . Low-level services (waste disposal, street cleaning, slaughter) were institutionalized and fixed in society and carried out cooperatively by the untouchables.

Guthis , caste-oriented organizations with diverse social functions, form another component of the social structure of the Newar . Guthis grant their members private or communal services for contributions. Most important is the sana guthi , which is used when a newari has died to perform the burial ritual. The nasa puja guthi ensures that the musical tradition of religious cults is preserved.

Kumari

Sajani Shakya, Kumari from Bhaktapur

A component of the religious understanding of the Newari is the child goddess Kumari ( कुमारी "girl"), who is worshiped as the incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga ( दुर्गा "the difficult to access / to comprehend"). She is selected from the Shakya caste of the Buddhist Newar and is considered a "living goddess" by some Hindus and the Nepalese (but not the Tibetan) Buddhists until her first menstruation . There are several Kumaris in Nepal, the most famous in Kathmandu.

Culture

In their homeland, the Kathmandu Valley , the Newar developed a pagoda style that spread across large parts of Asia , especially to East Asia .

A number of ritual mask dances are held at certain annual festivals, which are aimed at Buddhist or Hindu deities and mythical figures. The Indra Jatra , a festival that takes place in Kathmandu in September, is particularly well known . Among other things, the mask dances Majipa lakhe and Mahakali pyakhan are performed.

Newar music is predominantly rhythmically based and has 15 different drums . These include the large barrel drum dhimay , the double-headed large pashchima , the nagara kettle drum, which belongs to a widespread group , the smaller single- headed koncha khin , the dholak and a frame drum called daha . The beat give cymbals before. Melody instruments are the string instrument sarangi , the curved double-reed instrument mohali (corresponds to the Indian shehnai ) and the bamboo flute bansuri . The long metal trumpet karna is also blown during ceremonies .

literature

  • Alex Künzle, Giovanni Scheibler: Bhaktapur; medieval city in Nepal . Verlag der Fachvereine, Zurich 1977, ISBN 3-7281-0169-9 .
  • Peter Löwdin: Food Ritual and Society among the Newars. A Study of Social Structure and Food Symbolism among the Newars. Uppsala University 1985 ( online )
  • Hans-Georg Behr , photos: Bruno Barbey : Kathmandu : Newar do not mourn. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1979.2, pp. 122-148. Informative report about the customs of the Newar. ISSN  0342-8311

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Künzle / Schreiber (1977), p. 15 f.

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