Bihar Days
About this ebook
In 1980, anthropologist Carolyn Brown Heinz was privileged to see inside this elite community with a one-year grant from the Indo-US Subcommission and return trips over the next two decades. Independence had brought elimination of royal titles and dismantling of the vast Darbhanga Raj estate. The last king had died. These changes upended the old order, and she was able to observe the fall-out at close range. Told in first person, this is a highly personal account, told with grace and compassion.
An unexpected development during the same period was the emergence of a women’s art form known as Mithila or Madhubani Art, which Heinz was also able to observe at first hand and describe in this work.
About the author
Carolyn Brown Heinz is a cultural anthropologist and emerita professor of Anthropology, California State University, Chico. Her teaching and research areas are South Asia, religion, social organization, culture history, and women’s cultures. Carolyn is the author most recently of Asian Cultural Traditions (Waveland Press, 1999, 2018).
