Where the Gods Are Mountains: Three Years Among the People of The
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ere are (Mx>unt4\m& THREE YEARS AMONG THE PEOPLE Of'THE HIMALAYAS ,-** RENE WN NEBESKY-WOJK- $4.75 WL ere tUe yie>i>s <avc lM by RENE VON NEBESKY-WOJKOWITZ dis Rene von Nebesky-Wojkowitz, the tinguished Austrian anthropologist, went mountain to Tibet and the neighboring countries to study the legends, customs and religious traditions of the Himalayan peoples. His three-year visit coincided with the turbulent period when revolu tion broke out in Nepal and Tibet was conquered by Red China. In this account of his travels he describes his own experi ences and gives much new and fascinating information about the people he was liv ing among. tie met lamas and explorers, princes and adventurers, saints and ministers. He visited Bhutan, which has been pene trated by only a dozen Europeans in the twelve centuries of its history; Kalim- pong, the terminus of the great caravan route which leads from Lhasa to India; the home of the Sherpas, whose customs have long been ignored by Europeans who concentrate on their abilities as climbers; and Tibet itself, where he was initiated into the mysteries of its religion, and studied the exquisite Tibetan paint ing and literature. He witnessed the ex traordinary trance of an "oracle-priest"; the mystical marathon run by the Yogis every twelve years; and a royal Sikkimese wedding, at which the weather-makers produced torrents of rain by mistake. He also discusses the complicated marital re lationships in Tibet, where women hold an exalted position and polyandry is common. Where the Gods are Mountains WTiere the Gods are Mountains THREE YEARS AMONG THE PEOPLE OF THE HIMALAYAS Rene von Nebesky-Wbjkowitz TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY Michael Bullock REYNAL AND COMPANY NEW YORK First published in Germany under the title Wo Berge Goetter Sind Published in the United States by Reynal and Company, Inc. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN Contents I Darjeeling The 'Place ofthe Thunderbolt' 9 II The Five Treasures of the Eternal Snow 29 III Tibetan Books 37 IV The City of the Seven New Years 55 V Turbulent Days 83 VI Forbidden Sikkim 118 VII The Brothers of the Bamboo 129 VIII The Dying Village 144 IX Sherpas and Snowmen J5i X Bhutan The 'Land of Dragons' 162 XI The Festival of Kali the Terrible 169 XII Pilgrims from the Land of the Gods 174 XIII The Last of the Bards 182 XIV Reborn Saints 187 XV An Offering to the Mighty Thunderbolt J97 XVI Oracle-Priests and Demons 204 XVII Lhagpa Tondup's Trance 216 XVIII A Mystic Marathon 227 XIX The Dance of the Gods 234 XX Thread Crosses and Weather-Makers 240 XXI The Masters of Black Magic 245 XXII Hashish and Red Pepper 254 Illustrations and Maps Map of Eastern Himalayas and map of Sikkim Facing page 32 Lepcha paddy fields on a Sikkimese mountainside Facing page 33 Tibetan wool merchants at Kalimpong market Facing page 33 Hard-worked Lepcha children fetch water in bamboo con tainers Facing page 48 The Royal Temple at Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim Facing page 49 The Dance of the Rivers, the legendary wedding of the Rangit with the Teesta Facing page 49 A Sherpa peasant making roofing shingles of bamboo Facing page 96 Sherpa women pounding rice Facing page 96 A reborn saint: Rimpoche Dando Tulku Facing page 7 The wail of flutes and the thud of drums accompany the lamas' dances Facing page 97 Tibetan old age Facing page 1 1 2 Nepalese youth Facing page 112 A mendicant monk from the Land of Gods Facing page 1 1 3 Champa Sangda, a Tibetan bard, singing the Kesar epos for me Facing page 113 Demon traps on the mountains protect the crops from hail storms. The skull-drum, oracle-book and magic dagger are the most important instruments of the Tibetan weather- maker Facing page 144 7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The lamas spend weeks constructing their large demon traps Facing page 145 A lama helps the oracle-priest to put on his ritual garments Facing page 160 The beginning of the ceremony : the medium's face starts to change Facing page 161 Shaken with convulsions, the seer flings the khatag into the air Facing page 161 The climax has been reached. The demon has taken posses sion of the soothsayer. His face, shrouded by incense, re sembles the terrifying countenance of the divinity who ani mates him Facing page 1 76 The end of the ceremony. Helpers support the fainting soothsayer Facing page 177 The Mighty Thunderbolt rides on a fire-breathing dragon Facing page 177 A master ofBlack Magic wears a silver crown Facingpage 1 92 Bhutanese priests perform a masked dance Facing page 193 For the last time I watch a Tibetan caravan set out Facing page 193 8 CHAPTER I Darjeeling The 'Place of the Thunderbolt5 Our plane, an Indian Airways machine, had taken off an hour ago on its scheduled flight from Calcutta to the North Bengal airport of Bagdogra. The day had started with an unfriendly grey morning, saturated with the sultry humidity of the Indian rainy season. When I left my hotel around 5 a.m. a few scantily clothed figures were yawning and stretching on thin straw mats beneath the corrugated-iron roof of the porch hotel servants who had taken refuge in the open air from the heat of their poky rooms. With the slow dignity appropriate to a sacred animal a cow made its way between the prostrate, tired bodies, turned into the hotel compound and breakfasted on withered cabbage leaves out of a rubbish bin. A bearded, khaki-clad Sikh was giving a leisurely polish to the gleaming chromium-plating of his taxi bonnet, while beside him a rickshaw-wallah was also doing his best to clean up his ramshackle vehicle. A bored policeman in a snow-white uniform stood watching them both, until the arrival of the antiquated bus that was to take me to the airport. After travelling through sheets of rain we had only a short wait in the big hall before being escorted to the plane under the shelter of brilliant red umbrellas. The plane made a smooth take-off, despite the violent gusts of wind and now I was standing in the perspex- covered cockpit looking down, from a height of 9,000 feet, on one of the most glorious sights in the world : the chain of Himalayan peaks. The conical mountain in front of us was Siniolchu, held by mountaineers to be the most beautiful of all; beside it stood Kangchenjunga, which has since been 9 THE PEOPLE OF THE HIMALAYAS conquered. These two were followed by the group of moun tains situated in Nepal Gosainthan, Annapurna, Dhaul- agiri and above them all towered Mount Everest. The biggest mountain range on earth stretched for miles and miles, from horizon to horizon, covered in ice and snow. I went to my seat in the cabin and looked out of the window at the rainclouds that were now coming up again. The plane shuddered as it was hit by a sudden squall; the woman in front of me uttered a low cry and pressed her child to her anxiously. But we were soon through the overcast and sailing serenely along in a sea of yellow light. I had spent many years preparing myself for the task that lay ahead, studying the history, languages and religions of the peoples of Central Asia at a number of European univer sities and museums. Now my main purpose was to investigate the religious ideas and ceremonies of those ancient Tibetan sects whose holy places lie in the secrecy of the Himalayas. In addition, I hoped to collect all sorts of new material on the religions of almost unknown Himalayan tribes. Was I destined to succeed in these plans? The land looked peaceful and friendly from up here, but this gave little indication of the way things really stood among its isolated inhabitants. I felt some apprehension regarding the next few hours. My first goal was Darjeeling, but whether I should be able to reach the town without difficulty was doubtful. Two months before, when I had left London by plane for India, headlines ' in the British Press had announced Torrential rains on Dar jeeling', 'Hundreds of victims the town is being supplied from the air'. A few weeks later the Indian province of Assam, on the edge of the Eastern Himalayas, had been shaken by a severe earthquake. Even in Calcutta, several hundred miles from the source ofthe disturbance, the ground had trembled so violently that the panic-stricken inhabitants rushed screaming from their houses. A few slight tremors had made themselves felt as far away as Kashmir, where I hap pened to be staying at the time. Now, a month after the disaster, the devastated province, and the mountainous country bordering it, were still rocked by after-tremors. News from the affected area was only gradually seeping 10 DARJEELING THE PLACE OF THE THUNDERBOLT through. An English botanist, who had been travelling through the almost unexplored terrain of the Eastern Hima layas at the time of the catastrophe, told me that the ground suddenly began to sway like the deck of a ship in a storm. Avalanches of stones hurtled down the mountainsides, and boulders the size of a house came crashing down into the valley, breaking up as they went. An American journalist I met in Calcutta, who had been visiting Assam, told a similar story. The exact number of victims was never known, for the earthquake raged most violently in the unexplored territory between Tibet and Assam, over which India has so far only partially established her authority.