Why are kamis considered low class?

K

Kmark

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In just about every metalworking culture in the world, the smith is a highly respected figure in the community. Only he has the knowledge, tools and experience to take a lump of steel and transform it into a blade of surpassing excellence, whether it's a sword or a knife.

The Vikings respected their smiths and showered them with gifts in appreciation of their sword forging skills. The Japanese take it a step further and declare especially good smiths to be 'Living National Treasures'.

Why, in spite of all this, are kamis considered to be low class?
 
If I understand it correctly, the Kamis (who are Hindus) are born into their "caste". It's not something they get to elect as social position is very structured in traditional Hindu society. They are members of a low caste and the work that they do is the work that is available for members of that caste. For example, you wouldn't find Brahmins (the upper class) performing hot, difficult work over a forge.

So, it doesn't really boil down to whether they are perceived as, or capable as artisans as we would perceive them through Western eyes, but rather to the social milieu they are integrally bound to.
(I imagine the Maoists in Nepal take a different view of how things should be, however.)
 
Morning Kmark, Uncle will correct me if I'm wrong here( my Nepal history has been wavering lately) Its a religious based thing. The classes were started in ancient times and are still followed today more so in the rural areas than the urban, where education and work force needs are modifying the classes. Since the Kamis work with materials from the earth that puts them in the "dirt" or lowest class. Uncle will have to elaborate on this. The Kamis are in a kind of mixed situation they're "dirt" but clean "dirt".
 
The Hindu caste system considers those who work with the base materials of the earth to be only just above the level of Untouchables who (for example) handle dead bodies (including the skins of dead animals). Kamis or lohars (Bishwakarmas), or blacksmiths, are therefore members of the Sudra caste.
Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Click to expand...
-- Ambrose Bierce, Collected Works (1912)
 
Good question.

I was reading around in the site suggested in the Historical Weapons of Bharat, where I came on the quotation, "the Visvakarma caste comprises blacksmiths, carpenters, coppersmiths, sculptors, and goldsmiths. The caste as a whole claims the Brahmin status." The similarity of the word "Visvakarma" to "Bishwakarma" (Nepali kami deity and surname) struck me, and I tried to look further into this. The Brahmin castes are the highest, the extreme opposite of the untouchable castes of the kamis and sarkis.

I didn't had any success, so maybe it is just a coincidence, but in the process, I did come across this page from the "MS Nepal: Danish Association for International Cooperation" about one Sher Bahadur Bishwakarma, who has the same name as our own Sher, maker of massive khukuris.

Maybe the site is propaganda, but it and the links at the bottom of that page bring the effects of the caste system down to a human level that is hard to ignore.

I consider myself broadminded and might even allow for some cultural relativism, but I find it hard to see any reason not to consider the caste system, especially as it applies to the kamis and sarkis, as despicable. I understand that Gandhi and the Buddha himself opposed it.

These kamis and sarkis are men I admire and respect.

I'm glad they are getting some good ole American cash money from us, and I hope they have well-deserved pride in their unparalleled skill. For that I thank Himalayan Imports and Uncle Bill. I'm glad he went over there and spent some time with them.

Sorry to rant at length. Maybe I am off-base. Be glad to be enlightened by better information and insight.

Chris
 
I think the question has been answered and many thanks for good help.

Hindu society generally considers me to be an untouchable so maybe that's why I get along pretty well with the kamis -- just one of the boys. In Nepal I am routinely denied entrance to Hindu temples and shrines and the only way I could get into the Shrine of the goddess Manakamana was to fake being an old half American half Nepali Brahmin.
 
That makes sense now...I was thinking of their skill in smithing, but not thinking of the caste system (which, by the way, I think is backwards and should be scrapped). If you think about it, how would Nepal's society have survived if they didn't have metal tools to work with?

It's actually funny to think of how they would perceive a Japanese smith who smelts his own steel... :

"Look, that foreigner is grubbing in the dirty mountainside, mining his own steel and smelting it! And he's a kami too!"

"But he makes extraordinarily beautiful katana..."

"So what! He works with materials dug up from the ground, therefore he is scum..."
 
Bill, you said you had trouble getting into a tempel or some place. How would the other people know you are an untouchable? Do you have some marking on you? Like those marks on your forehead, or maby the clothes you wear?

Forgive my ignorance sir, I dont know much about your socity. I am from Ireland and we do not have such a system over here. I find it terrible to think thats the way it is where you live, no offence intended. Its just hard for me to imagine how people can put up with such a system of discrimination.


How would a higher class person know that you were a lower class person?
Or would they not know?


Also, is this system widley accepted in your countrie? More importantly is it respected, do people see it as being 'moraly correct'?

yours
Simon Mc Glynn
 
Simon,

Uncle Bill is a "red-blooded American" (whatever that means), and, as a foreigner, would be considered, literally, "out of caste," an "outcaste," just as you or I would be in Nepal.

He was able to outfox the Hindu rules and enter the temple, as you can read in this very interesting thread.

There is another good thread from the same time about the kamis and the high regard we have for them.

Reminds me that maybe it's high time we forumites devised some way of showing our appreciation and respect to them again.

Chris
 
I've been around the world six or seven times in my life and I always made it a point not to try to hide the fact that I'm an American since I'm rather proud of being one. But, when I lived in Nepal and visited there I found at times my foreign appearance and demeanor were a disadvantage so I used to take some meansures to at least confuse the folks as to who and what I really was.

On my last journey to Nepal when I went to do my puja at Manakamana with my Nepali family I wanted to do just that -- do the puja and get the blessing -- so I played the role of a half Nepali, half American who had been living out of country for 20 years and it worked.

I knew there was deception involved and had second thoughts about that but I figured Manakamana would be the final judge. I got the blessing I asked for so my guess is she was chucking to herself at my antics and didn't regard the deception as being "black".

To the best of my knowledge the caste system has been outlawed in both India and Nepal but it is still practiced nevertheless.
 
:
I can understand the reluctance to give up something that's been practiced for so long that the beginnings of it has been blurred with time.
It hasn't always been easy for me too walk in two worlds, and many times been an outcaste in both of them, being a mixed blood.
But much of that was my own fault since I always danced to my own Drum, I still do largely, and yet by becoming more attuned to the culture I chose to dance in I have been totally accepted by my own
people.
The results of that however has sometimes lead to me being a total outcast in the predominant culture here in the states.
I can now sometimes sorta set back and laugh at the predominant culture acting the way they do with the stereotyping that is common among so many people although those actions at the time, when directed towards myself and close friends, especially close friends and Especially Elders, has made me furious.
There are parts of this country where I have to be on total guard all the time and watch very carefully what I do, and sometimes say, so as to not set off alarms in the places I may visit. Just entering a store such as WalMart, for example, bring watchful eyes from all the employees there because of the sterotype that all ndns are thieves, and given a moments inattention, they will definitely steal from you as everyone knows the ndns don't have the money to buy what they may be looking at, a new boombox or television for example.
But that outlook doesn't just pertain to the ndns, but other subcultures as well, hence the steel bars on the doors and windows of many establisments in different parts of a city.

What has this to do with the caste system?
In many ways it is exactly the same, the way things are done in this country, as there are people that we would gladly associate with and others we want no part of just because we tend to, consciously or unconsciously, lump everyone of a different race or color or creed or religion into their own category without making a conscious effort or decision to judge each person on their own merits.
From my point of view I see no difference in our way of life and the way of life in Nepal or India, nor perhaps other places in the world I have no immediate knowledge of, it's just that people in this country have a different way of looking at it.

Cultural comforts, ways we have become accustomed too and comfortable with, are very difficult to erase but given enough time perhaps they will start to get a bit more blurry and hopefully, disappear entirely.
 
Kmark, it is not really uncommon for blacksmiths to be valuable and revered, yet simultaneously reviled. Having the secrets to metal is almost magical and in some African cultures smiths are also healers and magicians. Other cultures allow smiths to perform marriages (historically). Perhaps the dichotomy is one way of preventing one craft from attaining too much influence, or perhaps is it human nature to pull others off their pedestals. I can tell you that in Georgia, there's one blacksmith who is appreciated for the little gifts he brings but pretty well ticks off the neighbors when I (I meant he) is banging on the anvil....

heh

Stephen
 
Some cultures look up to blacksmiths and others look down on them. The one thing that's constant is blacksmiths are not ordinary people. They are magical people, with knowledge and powers beyond those of ordinary men. I suspect whether a culture regards magic as divine or demonic has a lot to do with their attitude toward smiths. Most cultures believe in both good and bad magic, of course (though they may not call the good kind magic; they'll call it miracle or prayer or something), but there's always a default ... when people hear of magic their first assumption is it's divine in some cultures, demonic in others....

Although Europeans mostly looked up to blacksmiths, there are some European folk tales about evil blacksmiths. The common element is the smith is so confident in his own strength and knowledge he denies the existence of anything he can't see and touch, including God, and of course comes to a bad end. In the most common variant when the smith dies they won't let him into Heaven because he didn't go to church (and because he swore, drank whiskey, etc.) and the Devil won't let him into Hell because he's so strong -- earlier in the story he beats up the Devil, plays tricks on him -- ends up the Devil is too afraid of him to let him into Hell. That is depicted as the worst possible fate ... he is forced to wander the Earth with no place to rest, and ends up becoming the Will O' the Wisp (marsh gas glowing at night).

The tales don't say all smiths are atheists, just the particular one the story is about, but variants of that tale are so common it's part of the stereotype about smiths that they're likely to be atheists, and hardheaded practical men who don't believe in anything they haven't seen for themselves.

Incidentally, a friend of mine who tells modernized versions of folk tales turns the smith into a dishonest auto mechanic. Is a mechanic a modern smith? I dunno, but I can't think of a better analog.
 
I find it somewhat strange that Sri Bishwakarma -- the world's first kami as far as I know -- is accorded god status in Hindu mythology but kamis are considered to be members of the Sudra.
 
Been there, brother. I was made fun of as a kid 'cause of my obvious mixed blood, called a "breed" as an adult by a white man and "mestizo" with a sneer by a Native American...was told that a certain group probably wouldn't want me to sweat with them because of my lack of "heritage" - after my natural mother (who had one of the most common Metis surnames there is) abandoned me I was raised white (told that the reason I was different was because I was "Black Irish" :rolleyes: ) ... and being French/Indian with no tribal history just wasn't "Indian" enough for them...

Yeah, I been there too. :confused:
 
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