Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T10:47:14.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ritual Paradoxes in Nepal: Comparative Perspectives on Tamang Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

David Holmberg
Get access

Abstract

Every religious system in Nepal, including that of the Tamang, is multifaceted and has numerous practitioners. Without apparent contradiction, western Tamang simultaneously engage Buddhist lamas who preside over elaborate rites of death, sacrificial lambu who propitiate chthonic divinities and exorcise harmful agents, and shamanic bombo who recapture lost shadow souls, revive life-force, unveil an enigmatic divine, and reveal. Interpretations of religion in Nepal have treated divergent ritual strands as isolates, and there is a persistent image of the religious situation in Nepal as an amalgam of Hindu, Buddhist, and indigenous strands. This article, which ends with a Tamang myth about diverse ritual strands, concludes that particular ritual practices must be interpreted with reference to their relations to other strands in an encompassing ritual field. The field, though, need not be coherent and unified, as has often been assumed in culture theory. The ritual structure of the Tamang emerges as a variant of other ritual systems found throughout Nepal and in greater South and Southeast Asia.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , August 1984 , pp. 697 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Allen, Nicholas. 1976. “Shamanism Among the Thulung Rai.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 124–140. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Allen, Nicholas. 1981. “The Thulung Myth of the Bhume Sites and Some Indo-Tibetan Comparisons.” In Asian Highland Societies, ed. von Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph, pp. 168–82. New Delhi: Sterling.Google Scholar
Ames, Michael M. 1964. “Magical Animism and Buddhism: A Structural Analysis of the Sinhalese Religious System,” In Aspects of Religion in South Asia, ed. Harper, Edward B., pp. 21–52. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Babb, Lawrence A. 1975. The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Berglie, Per-Arne. 1976. “Preliminary Remarks on Some Tibetan ‘Spirit-Mediums” in Nepal. Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies 4.1:85–108.Google Scholar
Berreman, Gerald D. 1964. “Brahmins and Shamans in Pahari Religion.” In Religion in South Asia, ed. Harper, Edward B., pp. 53–69. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Bista, Dor Bahadur. 1972. People of Nepal. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar.Google Scholar
Bloch, , Maurice, , and Parry, Jonathan, editors. 1982. Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boon, James. 1973. “Further Operations of Culture in Anthropology: A Synthesis of and for Debate.” In The Idea of Culture in the Social Sciences, ed. Schneider, Louis and Bonejan, Charles M., pp. 1–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, Kenneth. 1970. The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caplan, Lionel. 1970. Land and Social Change in East Nepal: A Study of Hindu-Tribal Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daś, S. C. 1881. “Dispute between a Buddhist and a Bon-po Priest for the Possession of Mt. Kailaś and the Lake of Manasa.” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1:206–11.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1976. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis. 1970a. “Toward a Sociology of India.” In his Religion, Politics, and History in India, pp. 1–28. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis. 1970b. “World Renunciation in Indian Religions.” In his Religion, Politics, and History in India, pp. 33–60. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis. 1970c. Homo Hierarchies: An Essay on the Caste System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis, and Pocock, David. 1959a. “On the Different Aspects or Levels of Hinduism.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 3:40–54.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis, and Pocock, David. 1959b. “Possession and Priesthood.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 3:55–74.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. 1965. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Ekvall, Robert. 1964. Religious Observances in Tibet: Patterns and Function. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Eliade, Mircea. 1974. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elkin, A. R. 1944. Aboriginal Men of High Degree. New York: St. Martin's.Google Scholar
Evans-Wentz, W Y. 1974. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fournier, Alain. 1976. “A Preliminary Report on the Puimbo and the Ngiami: The Sunuwar Shamans of Sabra.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 100–123. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Fournier, Alain. 1978. “The Role of Priest in Sunuwar Society.” In Himalayan Anthropology, ed. Fisher, James, pp. 167–78. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von. 1955. “Pre-Buddhist Elements in Sherpa Belief and Ritual.” Man 55.61:49–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von. 1956. “Ethnographic Notes on the Tamangs of Nepal.” Eastern Anthropologist 9.3–4:166–77.Google Scholar
Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von. 1966. “Caste Concepts and Status Distinction in Buddhist Communities in Western Nepal.” In Caste and Kin in Nepal, India and Ceylon, ed. von Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph, pp. 140–60. New Delhi: Sterling.Google Scholar
Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph von. 1972. The Sherpas of Nepal: Buddhist Highlanders. London: John Murray. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Religion as a Cultural System.” In his The Interpretation of Cultures, pp. 87–125. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gombrich, Richard. 1971. Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack R., editor. 1968. Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gorer, Geoffrey. 1938. Himalayan Village: An Account of the Lepchas of Sikkim. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Greve, Reinhard. 1981–1982. “A Shaman's Concept of Illness and Healing Ritual in the Mustang District, Nepal.” Journal of the Nepal Research Centre 5.6:99–124.Google Scholar
Hall, Andrew. 1978. “Preliminary Report on the Langtang Region.” Contributions to Nepalese Studies 5.2:51–68.Google Scholar
Herrenschmidt, Olivier. 1982a. “Sacrifice, Symbolic or Effective?” In Between Belief and Transgression: Essays in Religion, History, and Myth, ed. Izard, Michel and Smith, Pierre, pp. 24–42. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Herrenschmidt, Olivier. 1982b. “Quelles Fêtes pour Quelles Castes?” L'Homme 22.3:11–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertz, Robert. 1960. Death and the Right Hand. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, John. 1966. The Magars of Banyan Hill. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, John. 1976. “Introduction.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. xii–xxviii. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., editors. 1976. Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Höfer, András. 1969. “Preliminary Report on Field Research in a Western Tamang Group, Nepal.” Bulletin of the International Committee for Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research, Vienna 11:17–31.Google Scholar
Höfer, András. 1971a. “Notes sur le Culte du Terroir chez les Tamang du Népal.” In Langues et Techniques, Nature et Société: Contributions in Honour of André Handicourt, ed. Thomas, J. M. C. and Bernot, L., pp. 147–56. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Höfer, András. 1971b. “Some Non-Buddhist Elements in Tamang Religion.” Vasudha 4:11–23.Google Scholar
Höfer, András. 1974. “Is the ‘bombo’ an Ecstatic? Some Ritual Techniques of Tamang Shamanism.” In Contributions to the Anthropology of Nepal, ed. von Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph, pp. 168–82. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips.Google Scholar
Höfer, András. 1975. “Urgyen Pema und Tūsor [recte: Dūsur] Bon: Eine Padmasambhava- Legende der Tamang, Nepal.” In Müheliche überlieferungen in Südasien, ed. Berger, Hermann. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH.Google Scholar
Höfer, András. 1981. Tamang Ritual Texts I: Preliminary Studies in the Folk Religion of an Ethnic Minority in Nepal. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Höfer, András, and Shrestha, Bishnu R. 1973. “Ghost Exorcism Among the Brahmans of Central Nepal.” Central Asiatic Journal 17:51–77.Google Scholar
Holmberg, David. 1980. “Lama, Shaman, and Lambu in Tamang Religious Practice.” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Holmberg, David. 1983. “Shamanic Soundings: Femaleness in the Tamang Ritual Structure.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 9.1(Autumn).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Richard, and Metcalf, Peter. 1979. Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jest, Corneille. 1976. “Encounters with Intercessors in Nepal.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 294–308. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Jones, Rex L. 1976a. “Spirit Possession and Society in Nepal.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 1–11. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Jones, Rex L. 1976b. “Limbu Spirit Possession and Shamanism.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 29–53. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Jones, Shirley Kurz. 1976. “Limbu Spirit Possession: A Case Study.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 22–28. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles F., and Daniel, E. Valentine, editors. 1983. Karma: An Anthropological Inquiry. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kirsch, A. Thomas. 1972. “The Thai Buddhist Quest for Merit.” In Southeast Asia: The Politics of National Integration, ed. McAlister, John T. Jr., pp. 188–201. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Kirsch, A. Thomas. 1977. “Complexity in the Thai Religious System: An Interpretation.” Journal of Asian Studies 36.2:241–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lama, Santabir. 1959. Tamba Kaiten Hvai Rimthim. Darjeeling.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963. Totemism. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1967. “Structure and Dialectics.” In his Structural Anthropology vol. 1. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1968. “The Story of Asdiwal.” In The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, ed. Leach, Edmund, pp. 1–47. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1969. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1976. “Comparative Religions of Nonliterate Peoples.” In Structural Anthropology, vol. 2, pp. 60–67. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
MacDonald, Alexander. 1975. “The Healer in the Nepalese World.” In his Essays on the Ethnology of Nepal and South Asia, pp. 113–28. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar.Google Scholar
March, Kathryn. 1979. “The Intermediacy of Women: Female Gender Symbolism and the Social Position of Women Among Tamangs and Sherpas of Highland Nepal.” Ph.D dissertation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
March, Kathryn. 1983. “Hospitality, Women, and the Efficacy of Beer.” Department of Anthropology and Women's Studies Program, Cornell University. Typescript.Google Scholar
March, Kathryn. 1984. “Weaving, Writing, and Gender: Metaphors of Continuity and Exchange.” Man (n.s.) 18.4:729–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazudon, Martine. 1973. Phonologie Tamang. Paris: Société d'Etudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France.Google Scholar
Messerschmidt, Donald A. 1976a. “Ethnographic Observations of Gurung Shamanism in Lamjung District.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 197–213. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Messerschmidt, Donald A. 1976b. The Gurungs of Nepal. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips. Michl, Wolf D. 1976. “Notes on the jhakhri of Ath Hajar Parbat/Dhaulagiri Himalaya.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 153–64. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Milarepa, . 1962. The Hundred Thousand Songs of Mi larepa. Trans. Chang, Garma C. C.. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Miller, Caspar J. 1979. Faith Healers in the Himalayas. Kirtipur, Nepal: Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath. 1963. “The Great Tradition and the Little in the Perspective of Sinhalese Buddhism.” Journal of Asian Studies 22.2:139–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath. 1966. “The Buddhist Pantheon in Ceylon and Its Extensions.” In Anthropological Studies of Theravada Buddhism, ed. Nash, Manning, pp. 1–26. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies Cultural Report Series.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath. 1969. “The Sanni Demons: Collective Representations of Disease in Ceylon.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 11.2:174–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1973. Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of śiva. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, editor. 1980. Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. 1980. “Shamans and Imu: Among Two Ainu Groups: Toward a Cross-Cultural Model of Comparison.” Ethos 8.3:204–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okada, Ferdinand. 1976. “Notes on Two Shaman-Curers in Kathmandu.” Contributions to Nepalese Studies 3 (special issue): 107–12.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry. 1978a. Sherpas Through Their Rituals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortner, Sherry. 1978b. The Decline of Sherpa Shamanism. Mimeographed.Google Scholar
Paul, Robert. 1976. “Some Observations on Sherpa Shamanism.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 141–51. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar
Paul, Robert. 1979. “Dumje: Paradox and Resolution in Sherpa Ritual Symbolism.” American Ethnologist 6.2:274–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, Robert. 1982. The Tibetan Symbolic World: Psychoanalytic Explorations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Larry. 1981. Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal. Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publication Pignède, Bernard. 1966. Les Gurungs: line Population Himalayenne du Nepal. Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
Rahmann, Rudolf. 1959. “Shamanistic and Related Phenomena in Northern and Middle India.” Anthropos 54:681–760.Google Scholar
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1971. Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rinpoche, Guru (according to Karma Lingpa). 1975. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation Through Hearing in the Bardo. Trans, Freemantle, Francesca and Trungpa, Chögyam. Berkeley, Calif.: Shambhala.Google Scholar
Sagant, Ph. 1973. “Prêtres Limbu et Categories Domestiques.” Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies 1.1:41–75.Google Scholar
Samuel, Geoffrey. 1978a. “Religion in Tibetan Society: A New Approach. Part One: A Structural Model.” Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies 6.1:45–67.Google Scholar
Samuel, Geoffrey. 1978b. “Religion in Tibetan Society: A New Approach. Part Two: The Sherpas of Nepal: A Case Study.” Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies 6.2:99–114.Google Scholar
Sharma, Prayag Raj. 1978. “Nepal: Hindu Tribal Interface.” Contributions to Nepalese Studies 6.1:1–14.Google Scholar
Shirokogoroff, S. M. 1935. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. London: Trubner.Google Scholar
Slusser, Mary Shepherd. 1982. Nepal Mandala: A Cultural History of the Kathmandu Valley. Volume I: Text. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Spiro, Melford. 1967. Burmese Supernaturalism. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Stanner, W. E. H. 1959–1963. On Aboriginal Religion. Oceania Monograph no. 11. Sydney: University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Stein, R. A. 1972. Tibetan Civilization. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Stone, Linda. 1976. “Concepts of Illness and Curing in a Central Nepal Village.” Contributions to Nepalese Studies 6(special issue):55–80.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1968. “Literacy in a Buddhist Village in Northeast Thailand.” In Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody, Jack R., pp. 86–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1970. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults of Northeast Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Toffin, Gerard. 1976. “The Peoples of the Upper Ankhu Khola Valley.” Contributions to Nepalese Studies 3.1:34–46.Google Scholar
Wadley, Susan S. 1976. “The Spirit ‘Rides’ or the Spirit ‘Comes”: Possession in a North Indian Village. In The Realm of the Extra-Human: Agents and Audiences, ed. Bharati, Agehananda, pp. 233–52. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watters, D. 1975. “Siberian Shamanistic Traditions Among the Kham Magar of Nepal.” Contributions to Nepalese Studies 2.1:123–68.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1969. The Sociology of Religion. Trans. Fischoff, Ephraim. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Winkler, Walter. 1976. “Spirit Possession in Far Western Nepal.” In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, ed. Hitchcock, John T. and Jones, Rex L., pp. 244–62. New York: International Publications Service.Google Scholar