The Untouchable Bard as Author of his Royal Patron: A Social Approach to Oral Epic Poetry in Western Nepal

The relationship between a bard and his patron in western Nepal links individuals situated at opposite extremes of the social hierarchy within the caste organization. At first sight their relationship is totally foreign to those in modern Western societies as described by Pierre Bourdieu. For Bourdieu, authoritative speech emanates from persons in a higher social position, which is bestowed to them by the tacit mandate of a group for which they serve as the mouthpiece.¹ To summarize, verbal communication directly reflects and reproduces the sociopolitical order. In the Himalayan bard/patron relationship, on the other hand, we are confronted with a paradoxical situation wherein the superior delegates the authority to speak in public to an inferior. This reverse transmission of the authority to speak, as puzzling as it may appear, was not uncommon in Medieval Europe, for instance, between the king and his jester. Openly contrary to the established order, the relationships involved in these cases are necessarily ritualized and highly regulated. They therefore call for a contextual approach in order to examine them and the rules that condition them, and make them acceptable. Yet studies dealing with comparable, yet defunct practices often lack the information necessary to undertake a detailed contextual approach and easily reconcile their paradoxical or contradictory elements, such as the two opposite depictions of the ancient Greek bard, as a prestigious poet on the one hand, and as a poor wanderer on the other.

The perpetuation of a fully oral bardic tradition, as well as its specific social setting in western Nepal, thus presents a rare opportunity to examine in all its complexity one such “reverse” relationship of authority within its context of enunciation and its wider social context. Such a configuration makes possible an ethnography of the conditions framing ritualized speech,² which obeys a greater variety of rules than the ordinary communication Bourdieu describes. In particular, it sheds light on the ambiguity of the role and position of oral poetry with regard to the sociopolitical order, an ambiguity that is widely attested in through time periods and across geopolitical boundaries, starting with Plato rejecting Homer from the ideal city.

In these pages, I will first present a sociological portrayal of the bard in his relation to his patron, and then discuss elements relative to the form of his art, before examining a new oral composition—an embryonic epic of the People’s War waged in Nepal between 1996 and 2006—as a final discussion about the nature of the bardic contract.

The Huḍke Bard and the Damai Caste

In western Nepal, bards belong to the untouchable caste of tailor-musicians called Damai or Dholi. No formal categories other than castes distinguish the category of people considered untouchable (achut) in western Nepal.³ The various untouchable castes, however, seem internally hierarchized according to the nature of their compensation for their work. Thus, the castes of artisans who are linked by contract to upper-caste patrons and receive a fixed amount of grain from them in exchange for work may be called “contractual” untouchable castes. Due to their tailoring activities, the Damai caste is ranked within this category. Yet the Damais are also part-time musicians, and in this respect, they are akin to a second category of untouchable castes, mainly of musicians, such as the Gaines and Badis, who are not contractual and are ranked below them at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Contrary to the contractual upper-untouchable castes, who live off the share of the crops that they receive from their “pure”-caste patrons as a salary for work, musician castes, which are small and scattered, have no regular source of income and are popularly said to “beg” when asking for money in exchange for their musical performances.⁴

The Damais, being both tailors and musicians, can be said to have a dual belonging, and this may explain why they hold the lowest rank among untouchable contractual castes and the highest rank among the untouchable “begging” castes. Contrary to the “begging” castes, playing music during their...