On Christmas Day, a couple of Limbu friends favored us with a visit to our place at Kogarah, and, over orange juice and canapes, we discussed the consanguinity taboos that govern Limbu marriages. My friend's spouse pointed out that if the consanguinity taboos were observed strictly, a Limbu lad or lash would find it difficult to find a suitable match.
The Limbu marriage code forbids two types of marriages on consanguinity grounds. First, marriages between parties having same surnames are proscribed in most cases. I said "most cases". For example, my mother's Limbu surname is "Menyangbo", and, as far as I know, a Menyangbo cannot wed another Menyangbo.
My own Limbu surname is "Thebe". Thebes are further sub-divided into "Thupukko", "Sing" and "Maabo". A union between a Thupukko Thebe such as myself and a Sing Thebe is legitimate but not, as far as I know, between other Thebe sub-types. This inconsistency betrays the somewhat arbitrary, malleable nature of this particular taboo, and may suggest that Sing Thebes were once a distinct clan who were assimilated by the numerically superior Thebes at some point in history.
Local legend has this to say about the origins of Sing Thebes: The first Sing Thebe was a Thupukko Thebe who went foraging for firewood in the forest and got lost. So, he became Sing or "Firewood" Thebe. This legend is a warning to any future Sing Thebe genealogist tempted to find false glory by tracing their roots to the "Singhs" of North India. Bull dust such as "Sing Thebes descended from Rajput kings of North India who fled the bountiful plains of Rajasthan after losing a bloody palace power struggle and hid in the forested eastern foothills of what is now Nepal. The defeated royal warriors took Thebe girls for wives and concubines and, in time, their descendants combined the hallowed surnames of their royal ancestors and tribal mothers to emerge as Sing Thebes" should be left to the fawning astrologers of the now defunct courts of pompous Shahs and Ranas. But I digress.
The second type of marriage forbidden by Limbu tradition is between parties separated by up to five (some say nine) degrees of consanguinity. The definition and degree of consanguinity as understood and practiced by the Limbus is different to those of other groups within Nepal such as Magars, Gurungs and Ranas and those of Europeans.
Let us imagine a Thebe lad named Kaanden who is scanning a mental list of prospective brides. Since he is a Thebe, all Thebe girls anywhere except Sing Thebes are classed as Chelis (sisters) and expected to be treated as such. Even flirting and minor indiscretions (surely an oxymoron) with these Thebe girls would be strictly forbidden and attract severe consequences. In olden times, this basically meant the collective loss of face of the offender's extended family, blood feuds with the girl's own extended family, and the banishment of the offender into "Munglan", the land of the Mughals, i.e. India and Sikkim.
Let us imagine that our would-be bridegroom's mother is a Menyango. According to Limbu practice, this places the set of all Menyango girls at a distance of one degree of consanguinity. They are off limits to Kaanden and as sacred as his own mother.
Kaanden's paternal grandmother was a Maaden and maternal grandmother a Jabegu. So, any union with Maaden and Jabegu girls would be illicit as they are just two degrees removed, and, yes, Kanden needs to pay the same degree of respects to these girls as due to his own grandmothers. In fact, the prescribed way for Kanden to address these girls is as "grannies".
Kaanden's paternal grandfather's mother was a Lingden and maternal grandfather's mother a Chongbang. This means all Lingden and Chongbang girls are only three degrees removed and out of Kaanden's matrimonial calculus.
This hypothetical case illustrates the complexity of the web of clans that a Limbu has to negotiate to properly observe marriage taboos. Without getting lost in the forest of Kaanden's ancestral extended family, the number of clans, here loosely equated with major surname groups, excluded from Kaanden's marriage suit equals 32. Thirty-two! If nine degrees of consanguinity were to be observed, as is sometimes claimed, this number shoots up to 512. Are there even this many Limbu clans?
In practice, though, I suspect that even five degrees of consanguinity was always maintained on the female, the so-called 'leaf', sides of the family, branching off from mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. Though the Limbus have their own script, mass literacy is still a work in progress, and, in the absence of written records, folk memory can retain only so much information.
Late in the afternoon on the Christmas Day, we, along with our visiting friends, drove to a small park in Marrickville, an inner west suburb of Sydney, to mark the rite of passage of a Limbu friend's 10-month-old son. As many as 70-80 Limbus from various parts of the Limbuwan in eastern Nepal had flocked there. I suspect that if we all had taken the trouble to introduce ourselves and map our family trees, most of us would have found some common branches in our family trees, making most of us related by blood as per Limbu tradition.
