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0105 The Pulse of Asia : vol.1
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 / Page 105 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000233
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benefit. I carefully moved it to an uncomfortable place
near the smoking stove. I did not enjoy the heat, nor the
smell of cooking fat, but my head was close to the single
small hole in the wall, through which a mild gust of wind
occasionally thinned the smoke. "Talkan," or parched
flour, stirred into a paste with Himalayan tea, sugar, and
plenty of melted butter, was placed before me, and was
followed by a bowl of salt tea, flat cakes of bread, and
fried eggs, the latter most unsavory in appearance, but not
unappetizing. The visit seemed to give real pleasure to
the household. Whenever I looked at the wrinkled little
mother-in-law, she made a half curtsey, jerked her hand
to her forehead, and smilingly said, "Ju!" In spite of
being a Mohammedan, the only one in the village, she was
unveiled, and went about freely among the men like the
Buddhist women.
The position of women among the Ladakhis, as among
the Tibetans, of whom, it will be remembered, they are a
branch, is peculiar because of the practice of polyandry.
This custom, like the prevalence of monasticism, as sev-
eral writers have pointed out, is probably due chiefly to
the limited amount of land available for cultivation, and
to the consequent necessity of restricting population. If
two brothers from a family of three have a single wife, and
if the other becomes a lama, the entire family heritage of
fields can be kept undivided, and a single house will serve
for the whole family. But the question at once arises,
What becomes of the daughters for whom there can be no
husbands under such a system? There do not seem to be
any. For some unexplained reason, girls appear to be less