Review of Ramirez, P; 2000: De la disparition des chefs: Une anthropologie politique Népalaise. Collection Monde Indien, Paris.
Nepali intellectuals from the dominant Parbatiya, Bahun-Chetri or Indo-Nepalese group often complain that foreign anthropologists are only interested in the minority 'tribals' nowadays known by the epithet janajati. This is not true: ethnographic monographs on the Parbatiyas written by Westerners include several that are among the very best written on Nepal, including little-known and unrecognised classics (little known and unrecognised outside Himalayan classicists that is) such as Lynn Bennett's Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters (1983, Colombia University Press) and Linda Stone's Illness and Feeding the Dead in Hindu Nepal: An Ethnographic Analysis (1988, E Mellon Press). What is true is that if one subscribes to an ethnographic law of proportional representation, whereby Parbatiyas should have 40% of the ethnography written about them because they constitute 40% of the population, then it is probably true that the Parbatiyas suffer from under-representation. On the other hand, they are far less under-represented than many other groups, especially those in the Tarai or low-status ones such as Parbatiya Untouchables.
