Note 1360 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

A comparison of social conditions in the adjoining provinces of Baltistan and Ladak, which together comprise the Himalayan valley of the Indus, reveals the character of polyandry as a response to geographic environment. Both provinces are inhabited by a Mongolian stock, but the Ladaki living on the uppermost stretch of the basin near Tibet are Buddhists and polyandrists, while the Baltis farther down the valley are Mussulmen and polygamists. The Baltis, with their plurality of wives and numerous children, are wretchedly poor and live in squalor on the verge of starvation; but as the elevation of their valley ranges only from 4000 to 8500 feet, they are inured to heat, and therefore emigrate in large numbers to the neighboring Mohammedan province of the Punjab, where they work as coolies and navvies. The Ladakis, on the other hand, living 9000 to 13,000 feet above the sea, die of bilious fever when they reach the lowlands. Cut off from emigration, they curtail population by means of polyandry and lamaseries. Consequently they show signs of prosperity, are well fed, well clothed and comfortably housed.1360 Baltistan's social condition illustrates in a striking way the power of an idea like an alien creed, assimilated as the result of close vicinal location, to counteract for a time the influences of local geographic conditions.