Landscape, Ritual and Identity among the Hyolmo of Nepal by Davide Torri

Author:Davide Torri [Torri, Davide]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Indigenous Studies, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Religion, Ethnic & Tribal
ISBN: 9781317108153
Google: si7YDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-03-20T05:00:49+00:00

Laurence A. Waddell and his colleagues were just recording instances of a different ontology, which, at the popular level, was not revolving around philosophical or theological speculations but, more pragmatically, aimed at solving the daily needs of the communities. At this vernacular level, not the high divinities of the Book were the main interlocutors of the people but the ambiguous hosts of the local deities, the lords of the soil, the owners of the waters, and the restless spirits of the dead. Through possession and mediumship, their presence was made visible in daily life; through oracles, they were making their voice heard; through exorcists and shamans, they were dealt with, appeased or banished.

For the purpose of the present chapter, I will define shamanism as that particular religious expression, centred on the incorporation of non-human entities (mainly helpers) and the ability to travel across different dimensions, including those not totally accessible to the non-initiated in order to perform a series of actions mainly related to negotiate with non-human entities on behalf of its sponsors in order to ensure welfare and well-being on behalf of its sponsors.7 Consequently, I will employ the word “shaman” to describe the bombo. I will instead use the term “oracle” and “spirit-mediums” to describe other religious specialists well known in the Tibeto-sphere, like for example the lha pa and the dpa’ bo. The latter categories may have close family resemblances to what I previously defined as “shamans”, but they also differ in some fundamental aspects, i.e. the underlying ideas concerning the possession, the alleged degree of agency retained by the subject during the modified state of consciousness (possession), and the overarching linkage, and subordination, to the Buddhist framework, its establishment and its arch-narratives.

A branch of Nepalese studies has been devoted almost exclusively to investigate Nepalese shamanism, or jhankrism as it has been sometimes called. Among the excellent works written on the subject, I will mention here the entire work of Michael Oppitz (1968, 1981, 1988, 1991, 1997a, 2013); the works of Gregory G. Maskarinec (1995, 1998) on western Nepal; the volumes of Casper J. Miller on faith-healers (1997); Bernard Pignède (1966) and Stan R. Mumford (1989) on the Gurungs; Anne de Sales on the Magar (1991); Martin Gaenszle on the Rai (2000, 2007); Philippe Sagant (2008); the anthology of John T. Hitchcock and Rex L. Jones (1996); Martino Nicoletti (1999, 2006); Diana Riboli (2000) and others. I was, at first, directly inspired by those of Romano Mastromattei (1995, 1999), with whom I undertook my first fieldwork in Nepal. A set of scholars devoted themselves to the consistent study of Tamang shamanic traditions (Höfer 1981; Holmberg 1989; Steinmann 2001; Tautscher 2007; Campbell 2013), and finally, and closer to my own area, Robert R. Desjarlais (1992, 2003, 2016) dealt directly with the Hyolmo. Moreover, even recent works, mainly focusing on the larger framework of ethnic identity, policies and environmental issues have devoted a consistent part of their works to the shamans, their words and their rituals (Campbell 2013; Shneiderman 2015).

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