Rivalry and Tribute is a book written by Bruce Elliot Tapper that offers a peek into a 1970's village society in India.
This book is a study of the interplay between society and ritual, set in a village in Andhra Pradesh in south India. Tapper considers the dynamics of competition -- between people and between groups -- and explains the significance of Hinduism in their lives. In particular it focuses on Gavara farmers in the sugarcane growing belt of Visakhapatnam district in the context of historical and contemporary shifts in wealth and power.
The book presents case studies and statistical data on such issues as landholding, loan-giving, wealth, divorce, dispute settlement, leadership, and inter-caste economic relations. It examines rivalries between brothers, tensions in the relationship between husbands and wives, inequalities between caste members, and competitive aspects of settlement growth. It documents controversies over the conduct of festivals, which arose from such rivalries. Above all, it defines the essential principles of social organization- hierarchy (of age, sex and caste) and mutual obligations (among kinsmen and between caste groups)
This book describes beliefs -- including those about obligations toward deities, ideologies about the character of women, and ideas about female deities, astrology, and evil eye -- explaining them in terms of their social significance. It highlights the importance of puja -- a basic form of Hindu worship -- which it interprets as a symbolic payment of tribute, expressing a moral code that links the acceptance of hierarchy and social obligations with the maintenance of health and well-being.
The full range of rituals -- life cycle, seasonal, and agricultural -- are examined in detail, with discussion of the ways they define and reaffirm the basic structures of society despite rivaling and competitive tendencies.
Famous quotes containing the words rivalry, society, ritual, village, south and/or india:
“It seems to me that we have to draw the line in sibling rivalry whenever rivalry goes out of bounds into destructive behavior of a physical or verbal kind. The principle needs to be this: Whatever the reasons for your feelings you will have to find civilized solutions.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“...I cannot conceive a more odious society than one where nothing is considered indecent or impious.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“A few years later, I would have answered, “I never repeat anything.” That is the ritual phrase of society people, by which the gossip is reassured every time.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There were metal detectors on the staff-room doors and Hernandez usually had a drawer full of push-daggers, nunchuks, stun-guns, knucks, boot-knives, and whatever else the detectors had picked up. Like Friday morning at a South Miami high school.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.”
—Indira Gandhi (1917–1984)