Nyinkinba Tribe Social Structure

Introduction The Nyinba Culture is an endogamous group located along the northern border-lands of Nepal. The Nyinba live in Humla, a district of the Karnali Zone (Levine 1992). The Nyinba people are a distinct group with very interesting rituals, which is why I have chosen to explore deeper into their culture. Together we will take a look at Nyinba background and three significant roles of their culture we will begin with looking at their superstructure, following with social structure, and lastly their infrastructure.
Background
The Nyinba speak a dialect of the Tibetan language (Levine 1980). They live where the terrain is rough and arable land is scarce. There is limited rainfall in the summer, and heavy snowfall in the winter. All Nyinba own some type of land but the states have rights over all the lands. Their houses are tightly clustered, they are large and three stories tall. The ground level is the barn, the middles section is the family’s main quarters with the kitchen and living room,
Nyinba culture marriage system is polyandry, also includes similar marriages called con-joint, polyaynous, or polygynandry. The Nyinba consider all the marriages the same practice. Marriage begins with all male siblings coming together to jointly wed a single woman. Three basic principles are shown in these types of marriages, number one is the unity of brothers. The second principle is that seniority can cause conflict among the brothers. Lastly the wife must learn to respect each brother individually and their differences. The brothers are to have equal sexual access to the wife, and wife is too fulfil each brother’s wishes while performing chores. Problems can arise when there are too many brothers with the same wives which can lead to marriages having two wives (Levine 1980). To prevent problems at home most the time the husbands are not home at the same time (Levine