The Arts Of Deception: Verbal Performances By The Ra¯ute Of Nepal

A small population of Tibeto‐Burman‐speaking hunter‐gatherers, the Ra¯ute avoid intercultural communication with surrounding Nepa¯li‐speaking agriculturalists except during barter sessions. During these intercultural interactions, Ra¯ute often charm their trading partners with Nepa¯li verbal art, including recitation of rhymes, songs, and blessings. In this article I suggest that Ra¯ute perform verbal art in order to draw attention away from their radically different lifestyle and as a way of resisting the hegemonic process of Hinduization. The article details Ra¯ute oral performance as a strategy of verbal indirection, focusing on the context and framing of rhyming proverbs as a means of camouflaging Ra¯ute people’s actual cultural practices. ba¯darko sa¯pet.o Ra¯uteko dha¯mi la¯i,kheti cha¯ina pa¯ti cha¯ina, ke kha¯nu ha¯mi la¯i? ‘The monkey’s thigh is the shaman’s meat, Having no farmland, what shall we eat?’ Gogane Ra¯ute