Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:59:09.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Exorcisms: problems of wealth, pollution, and reincarnation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Sherry B. Ortner
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Get access

Summary

The discussion of hospitality in its status, as opposed to exchange, aspects raised the point of wealth differences in Sherpa society. In the context of the hospitality analysis, these differences of wealth were seen merely as the objective basis, the point of departure, for status ordering, which in turn was seen as providing the idiom of political self-regulation in the community. Yet differences of wealth which, along with pedigree and piety, place people in the categories of “big,” “middle,” and “small,” also have other ramifications, which must be taken up here.

It is important to begin by noting that although these categories or strata are not true classes (defined in terms of any sort of surplus-extraction relationships), there are nonetheless real structural differences – and not just differences of comfort and life-style – generated by relative wealth and relative poverty. The immediate advantage of wealth is greater economic flexibility. The wealthy can take advantage of market opportunities when the poor cannot. The wealthy can also absorb a few bad economic breaks without being seriously undermined, whereas for the poor a few bad breaks may send them over the brink. It is clear that at some point a Sherpa family may pass a point of “take-off,” where its wealth sustains itself and even increases, and where anxiety about staying afloat and simply maintaining what it has becomes insignificant.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×