TheImprovement ofTropical and Subtropical Rangelands

CHANGING PATrERNS IN THE BEDTHI-AGHANASHINI VALLEYS 301
of endogamous caste groupe. Members of any caste group almost
always marry within their own caste. Outside their caste group they
have considerable economic interaction but little social intercourse.
Each caste has its own leadership that resolves many of its internal
conflicts and regulates its behavior. Each caste has customarily been
assigned a position in the social hierarchy, and based on such position
the castes have been divided into five varnas: Brahmins, or priests;
Kshatriyas, or warriors; Vaisyas, or traders and artisans; Shudras,
or peasants; and Panchamas, or untouchables. These varnas are,
however, an artificial construct, the genetic affinity generally being
stronger among different cute groupe in the same locality, regardless
of varna affiliation, than among different caste groupe 8Il8igned to
the same varna. There is also little social intercourse among different
endogamous groupe within the lame varna, this being strong only
within a given endogamous group. The existence of these castes is not
restricted to those belonging to the Hindu religion; the cute system
hu been retained by those converted to Islam and Christianity u
well (Karve, 1961).
Each sedentary caste group hu its own compact settlement;
a village is thus a collection of several cute-based settlements, or
clans. A:n.y village community is then made up of one or more clans.
Members of a given clan have great commonality in their pattern
of resource use; traditionally, they even cultivated land communally
or participated in communal hunts. However, different clans within
a given village community may differ markedly in their pattern of
resource use. The sedentary clans would further differ markedly in
their pattern of nomadic endogamous cute groupe in their resource
use patterns.
Our estimate is that around 30 sedentary and 20 nomadic endogamous
groupe occupy the region of 2,000 km 2 of interest to us.
It is sufficient for our purpose, however, to consider nine of these
groups-one nomadic and eight sedentary. Of these, Havugallas are
nomadic hunter-gatherers, Ambigas are fishermen, Halakkis have a
broad subsistence pattern including farming, Patagars and Naiks are
farmers, Haviks are a priestly caste primarily devoted to horticulture,
Saraswats are a priestly caste involved in trading, Moslem traders
are a group engaged in maritime trade, and Acharis are carpenters
(Campbell, 1883).