Traditional Occupation of Damai and Kami Community (A case study of Daman VDC, Makawanpur District, Nepal)

Abstract

Development and Modernization are the processes of social change where by less developed societies acquire common characteristics to modern societies. Dalit people are occupation caste groups and they are fully dependent with other high caste. Their socio-economic condition is poorer than other castes/ ethnic groups because their traditional occupations are on the decline by the readymade goods. So, they are going to adopt alternative strategies to survive their life. In Nepalese society caste based discrimination prevailing in the social level is great challenge. Social and religious discrimination creates a great wall between the high caste and low caste and the low caste people can not cross the high wall. They are not allowed to follow some occupations followed by the high caste people. So, they are following their traditional occupation and tradition is like a tree they should 'as a leaf cling to it. The study is 'The Traditional occupation of the Damai and Kami community' (A case study of Daman VDC, Makawanpur). It has been taken using pimary data sources obtained from Damai and Kami settlement area of Daman VDC, Makwanpur district. The objective of this study is "To identity the traditional occupations in changing context related with Damai and Kami communities,social status, educational status and adaptation occupation to surviving on the study area.Descriptive research design has been adopted for this study and other method of methodology techniques, research design, data collection and interview,sampling etc. are used. There are 73 households in Damai and Kami settlement area in Daman VDC. Among them 30 households are selected as sample size.To generate the primary data the structure questionnaire, interview, key informant, focus group discussion and observation are also limited in DamanVDC only Kami and Damai people.Large number of Damai and Kami people in this study area surviving under food deficiency. The economic condition of Damai and Kami people are miserable than other upper caste people. By the change of the time they can not germinate the layer of the society. They can not develop their traditional occupation because their society is replete with conservative thinking.Traditionally, their economy had been mainly based on traditional occupation itself but it has changed to agriculture based livelihoods. At present, the livelihood strategy of Damai and Kami are primarily based on agriculture. They earn their livelihood by involving in agriculture as well as business and local agriculture wage labours. Their traditional occupation is only a supporting means of livelihood. Only those who are commercially involved in their traditional occupation accept it as their primary livelihood.