recent occurrences into their manuscript.
In sum, Riaz and Basu have written a clear and engaging
book. As a political history of modern Nepal, the book
is remarkable in that it is compact while also offering
considerable detail in its review of key trends. The bookwould work well in undergraduate classes on the politics ofdeveloping countries or South Asia, and will also serve as aconvenient reference work for scholars.
Susan Hangen teaches anthropology at Ramapo College.

GROUNDED KNOWLEDGE/
WALKING LAND:ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCHAND ETHNO-HISTORICALIDENTITY IN CENTRAL NEPALBY CHRISTOPHER EVANS WITH JUDITH
PETTIGREW, YARJUNG KROMCHA TAMU
AND MARK TURIN
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK: McDonald
Institute Monograph, McDonald Institute for ArchaeologicalResearch, 2009. xii + 211pp., iIllustrated. ISBN: 978-1902937-50-2.

REVIEWED BY DON MESSERSCHMIDT
Until recently, knowledge and understanding of thearchaeology and anthropology of ancient central Nepal
has been shrouded in mystery as dense as the clouds thatcover the high hills during the monsoon. Virtually no ethnoarchaeological/historical studies have been done on ethnicorigins in the hills until recent research conducted at a remotesite in the high forest below the Annapurna snow peaks
northeast of Pokhara. The result is Grounding Knowledge/Walking Land.
The book is remarkable both for what it is, what it isn’t,
and how it was researched and written. On the one hand,
it is a long awaited study in Nepalese pre-history, focusedon a set of ruins and storied places of cultural-historic andreligious significance in the upper mid-hills. But it is nota fully finished product, for the researchers were seriouslyconstrained by the political circumstances (insurgency)

132 HIMALAYA XXX (1-2) 2010

in Nepal during the decade of their work. It is unique for
how it was created, by a multidisciplinary team representing
archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, shamanism, and socialactivism.
The focal point is a set of unique ruins called Kohla, alarge ancient site in the high forest. Kohla is over 700 years
old and is considered by scientists and ethnic Gurungs tobe the earliest known village of the Gurung (or Tamu-mai)ancestors. (Note that many Gurungs prefer to call themselvesby their indigenous name Tamu (plural Tamu-mai), and thatboth terms are used interchangeably here.)
The study of these ancient Gurung/Tamu ruins wasa collaborative venture involving several institutions andindividuals, including researchers from the University ofCambridge (UK) led by archaeologist Christopher Evans;members of the Tamu Pye Lhu Sangh, an ethnic religious
and socio-cultural organization headquartered in Pokhara,
including the indigenous shaman Yarjung Kromchai Tamu1;
the Irish anthropologist and Tamu specialist Judith Pettigrew;
and the British linguist and expert on ethnic languages of
Nepal Mark Turin. This team was also joined in various tasks
by several other scholars.
The study is “concerned with histories and journeys, andwith land and identities...,” and Evans notes that “it could bea story of high adventure, relating the discovery of Himalayan
ruins and particularly the extraordinary site of Kohla...”, orit “could equally have a quality of historical inspired myth.”
By tradition, Kohla predates Gurung settlements acrossthe Himalayan foothills by hundreds of years. It is “reportedto be the last place that the Tamu-mai/Gurung of central
Nepal lived collectively together as a people (before dispersing
to villages at lower elevations).” Dates of occupation areestimated between 1000 and 1300 AD.
Kohla and vicinity, and routes to and from the site, include
several places of great significance in Gurung/Tamu mythand legend, particularly associated with the spirit journey of
traditional Gurung shamans known as pajyu. This journeyis related and recited by the shaman in the form of sacredoral texts called pye. Grounding Knowledge/Walking Land
includes a translation of the lengthy Lemakõ Rõh Pye, recitedfrom memory by the shamans during the death ritual (pyelaba). The traditional death rites are among Tamu society’s
most richly significant social events. The oral text speaks ofmany ancient places, linking past with present, myth withreality, and the spirit world with the living.
The Lemakõ Rõh Pye is also significant for relating theorigins of both humans and animals, as well as the names ofplaces associated with Kohla, which figures prominently instories about the arrival of the Tamu ancestors centuries ago
out of Tibet and into Nepal’s central highlands. It also tells ofa series of events that occurred in and around Kohla in thatearly time.
While the study concentrates on Kohla, the researchers
also investigated several other sites revealed in the oral texts.
Some of them appear to be most closely associated with thecontemporary village of Yangjakot southwest of Kohla, andothers are closer to Kohla.
The large Kohla site itself is located at an elevation of 3200
m. (10,500 ft) above sea level, consists of 55 buildings andextends over 6.5 ha. (16 acres or 0.03 sq. mi.). The structures
are described in some detail. The site is known (from the ritualtext) as Kohla Sõ Pre, or “Kohla of the Three Parts” and, indeed,
it was found to have three distinct “quarters”— east, central
and west, with nine, forty, and six structures, respectively. Of
these three parts, “The central is by far the most dense andvillage-like, and there is evidence of formalized public space.
By comparison, the eastern and western sectors can only
be considered to be “hamlet-like” in scale. The central andeastern portions are separated by a stream, whose channel
flows down through a deep erosion gully; the eastern portion
lies on a slight scarp overlooking the central settlement.”1
Two of the largest and best preserved of the edifices,identified as Structures 5 and 6, are located in the western“hamlet” and are described by the archaeologist as “quiteextraordinary” though “relatively small.” Their sizes are 130.3
square meters (1,402.5 sq.ft) and 39 square meters (420sq.ft), respectively. Structure 5, attributed as being “the palaceof the Ghale Raja, is among the largest in the settlement andcertainly has the most elaborate architectural details.” (Ghale
is a clan of the Gurung/Tamu-mai.) Structure 6 is describedas “the highest building on the site, and was definitely twostoreyed.”
The so-called “palace” is of special significance to theTamu, for whom part of the Kohla study involved a search forevidence of ancient ethnic Tamu “kingdoms” or “chiefdoms.”
A locally popular story is told in the book about an incidentof legendary trickery that led to the demise of the last Ghale
Raja or “king” some centuries ago.2Among other findings at Kohla are a number of ritualfeatures including several cists (capstones), numerous pottery
shards, and some worked stone implements.
1. This reviewer was the first Westerner and first anthropologist to
have visited the site of Kohla, in 1972. My Gurung informants called it“Khhol.” I published a brief description of the site in my 1976 article,“Ecological change and adaptation among the Gurungs of the Nepal
Himalaya” (Human Ecology v.4, pp.167-85, esp. p.172, fn.10). While atthe site, my companions from two villages east of Kohla and representingclans from both of the Gurung’s endogamous moieties, Sõgi and Kugi (Nep.
Charjat and Sohrajat), informed me that the small hamlet on the east sideof Khhol/Kohla was known by them and their elders as home to the village
blacksmiths (Gurung clansmen?). Reacting to this, Christopher Evans, in
Grounding Knowledge (page 96), writes that this observation has resulted
in “raising the spectre of caste-based distinctions”—a sensitive issue among
the Tamu-mai. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what I wrote,
especially in light of contentiousness about alleged status (i.e., “caste”-like)distinctions within Gurung society. Had Evans inquired directly with me
about it earlier, I would have set the record straight immediately—that there
was no mention, implied or otherwise, of “caste” distinctions high or low
by my informants, nor in my brief description of the site. I have responded
to his misrepresentation of my observations directly to Evans subsequent to
the publication of the book.
2. The legend is discussed in D. Messerschmidt, The Gurungs ofNepal: Conflict and Change in a Village Society (Warminster, UK: Aris &Phillips, 1976).

The entire site of Kohla is a natural amphitheater, a bowllike space backed by a forested ridge and fronted (to the south)
by a steep open slope dropping down into the valleys below.
High up on the ridge about a kilometer north of Kohla is aninteresting site identified (in legend) as a horse racing ground.
Another site known as a “cave of nuns” is located about twokilometers northeast of Kohla. It is probably of more recent
origin, and may have served as a small meditation site forfemale Gurung mendicants, or “nuns.” Strangely missing, orat least not discovered even after extensive searching, is any
evidence of a funeral grounds associated with Kohla.
Kohla was apparently abandoned sometime in the 14thcentury, around the time of disruptive historic events leading
up to the so-called “Gorkha Conquest” across the Himalayanfoothills. Now, only herdsmen visit the site each monsoon
with their cattle herds. That the Gurung/Tamu ancestors once
lived in a compact community in the high Himalayan forest
has great significance to their descendants. Today’s Tamu tend
to evoke the “specialness” of Kohla that “relates to the qualityof the ruins themselves and their setting . . . [The] site hasa unique status in the Tamu-mai cultural narrative, but its
density and the height to which its buildings survive also
make it a “classic” ruin in the archaeological sense. “There is agenuine and obvious sense of many people having lived there
in the past and, conjuring up the ethos of other great “lostcities,” nothing else seen in the [Himalayan] uplands comesclose to having its qualities.” It is considered an especiallysacred site to the modern Tamu-mai, as the shaman on theresearch team continually reminded and demonstrated to theresearchers during the field studies and analyses.
The “histories and journeys . . . land and identities”
aspects of the book, from which it takes its title, refer as
much to the process of conducting the research as they doto what is learned about the people, their history, socialorganization, mythology, and sacred heritage. The fieldwork
was conducted in several parts and required the researchers
to engage in physically taxing expeditions to Kohla for indepth investigation of the long abandoned site. They also
conducted treks of discovery along the ancient north-southmigration route, as delineated in the shaman’s oral texts.3
Thus, “Spanning deep valleys, jungles and high Himalayansnow capped passes, the fieldwork conditions were variously
tough and exquisitely beautiful.”
The researchers kept detailed journals, and because it waslandscape-based research, walking and writing intermeshed.
3. See J. Pettigrew, “Parallel landscapes: Ritual and political values ofa shamanic soul journey,” in B. Bickel and M. Gaenszle, eds., Himalayan
Space: Cultural Horizons and Practices (Zurich: Völkerkundemuseum,1999). There are two other important publications about Kohla: J. Pettigrew
and Y. Tamu, “The Kohla Project: Studying the past with the Tamu-mai,”Studies in Nepali History and Society 4: 327-364 (1999); and M. Temple,“The ruins of an early Gurung settlement,” European Bulletin of Himalayan
Research 7: 43-48 (1993). And on Gurung/Tamu ethno-history, identity,and shamanism see J. Pettigrew, Shamanic Dialogue: History, Representationand Landscape in Nepal, unpublished PhD Dissertation (University ofCambridge, UK, 1995).

REVIEWS 133

The archaeologist Evans was concerned, however, that “It[was] difficult to know how, or even whether, to incorporatesuch raw observations” in the formal analysis. This difficulty
gave rise to discomfort between the researchers in theirindividual professional roles, both while collecting raw dataand in the interpretation of those data.
Pettigrew, the ethnographer, has described the greatsignificance of involving several Western professionals (alongwith the local shaman) on site in the research. “The Kohla
Project is an example of a successful multi-disciplinary
collaboration between [Tamu] community activists, foreign
and Nepali archaeologists, a social anthropologist, and alinguistic anthropologist. Multi-agency and professionalactivist collaborations along these lines are relatively rare andhave not previously taken place in Nepal.”Pettigrew has also pointed out that the research findings
have a lot to do with who the Tamu are, for it prompted anintense re-examination of their history and social order onmany levels, and has also allowed them to come to termswith a rich ancestral past. These aspects of the study werecombined with ambitions to rejuvenate their language,
reclaim their culture, deal with the disturbing historicaleffects of Hinduization—especially issues of “caste”-like social
status discrimination between the two sets of clans. Because
there are few documentary sources, this study of Kohla andof the shamanic and legendary evidence that it reveals helps
the Tamu/Gurung reexamine and confirm their identity as agroup.
“The project has undoubtedly made a uniquecontribution to the study of Tamu ethno-history as thedetailed archaeological findings of this book clearly attest,”
says Pettigrew. She goes on to allude to the difficulties ofsuch collaborative work, to “tensions both in the fieldwork
and in the production of the text [the book], as the project
was overwhelmingly archaeological oriented, which at times
diminished the more implicit achievements of ethnographicenquiry.” She concludes that “anthropology was intrinsic to

134 HIMALAYA XXX (1-2) 2010

the development success of the work as it was dependent
on the networks, linkages, cultural understandings, insightsand brokerage skills that developed out of in-depth and longterm ethnography.” In short, without the anthropological andlinguistic inputs, the archaeological aspects would be far lesssignificant and the historic ethnic Tamu/Gurung identity lessmeaningful.
The book has five chapters: (1) Introduction–Journeys
and Knowledges (Evans), (2) Anthropology and Shamanic
Considerations (Pettigrew, Tamu and Turin), (3) A Trailside
Archaeology–Survey Results (Evans et al), (4) Approaching
Kohla (Evans et al), and (5) Landscape, Histories and Narrative
Trails (Evans). There are also many photographs, maps, andtables. Unfortunately, the book lacks an index, which is sorely
needed in a monograph of this importance, magnitude, anddetail. As a result, navigating the book in search of specifictopics is difficult.
Grounding Knowledge/Walking Land is a unique andworthy sourcebook for Himalayan area scholars andacademics and for interested non-academic readers, alike.
It has important historical and ethnographic ramifications
not only for the Gurung/Tamu ethnic community, but also
for other hill ethnic groups all across Nepal. It is clearly asignificant contribution to our understanding of the history
and pre-history of the Nepal hills and, more broadly, of thegreater Himalayan region.
Don Messerschmidt, PhD, is an applied
anthropologist with many years of experience
with community forestry and development in theHimalayas. He is also a writer/editor associatedwith ECS Nepal magazine (Kathmandu), and has
published many articles and several books. His
latest book is Big Dogs of Tibet and the Himalayas:
A Personal Journey (2010). He can be contacted atdmesserschmidt@gmail.com.