THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit : www.SacredHoop.org/offer.html ) bonethe art of

Nicholas Breeze Wood Introduces the use of Human Bone in Tibetan Ritual

There have been many cultures Tibetan tantric Buddhist practice often made from a human skull. that have used human bones in uses a wide range of human body In the West it used to be some form of ritual way. Close to parts (either actual parts or fashionable to have a human skull home, the ancient Celts placed symbolic representations of them) memento mori to serve as a human heads and skulls into in its rituals and ritual equipment - reminder of life's impermanence, special carved niches, and even especially those practices and although this is not the main today Catholics preserve the bones connected to the wrathful protector symbolic reason for using a skull of saints. But perhaps no culture beings of . bowl in Tibetan practice; it also has developed If you read the book ‘Oracles and serves as that - as there can be the practice Demons of ’ by Rene De perhaps no greater symbol of our with such Nebesky-Wojkowitz, you will - to own mortality. artistry as quote one Tibetologist - be the introduced to ‘spooky Buddhism’ For use as a kapala, a skull has Tibetans. rather than ‘Californian Buddhism.’ to be carefully sourced. They are And you will probably find the list of often described as ‘jewel bowls’ ingredients used in wrathful practice (Tib: rin chen thod pa) or ‘wish and traditional Tibetan protective fulfilling gems’ (Tib: yid bzhin norbu), magic a little on the unsavoury but only if found with the right side; including as it does characteristics and in the right such things as clarified circumstances. corpse fat, the Although the skull that is used menstrual blood of can be of either sex, it is considered widows, hearts of important to know whether it is male children born out or female, and there are traditional of an incestuous tests to identify the sex which unions, and flayed include listening to the quality of the skin altar cloths. sound made when the finder However, leaving the urinates into the skull - a technique more squidgy bits of no doubt lacking in modern forensic people aside, the main departments. human remains used in If the head is still on the are bones, which are corpse, Tibetan lore says that used to fashion a variety of where it was found is important, as ritual objects. is the direction it faced. If found upon a mountain, for instance, the SKULL OFFERING BOWLS new owner of the kapala will The word kapala (Tib: obtain dominance over others; if thod-pa) denotes a skull bowl or found close to a village, the owner cup, sometimes made from metal, will gain followers; if found in the sometimes a monkey skull, but very springtime, they will be cured of

Top: Tibetan tsam mask worn during ritual dances Inset: carved human bone decorations from tsam dancer’s ornaments Left: human skull kapala offering bowl S H ISSUE 79 2013 22 www.sacredhoop.org THIS IS A FREE ARTICLE FROM SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE. Sacred Hoop is an independent magazine about Shamanism and Animistic Spirituality, based in West Wales, published four times a year since 1993. You may share this in any non-commercial way but reference to www.SacredHoop.org must be made if it is reprinted anywhere. To get a very special low-cost subscription to Sacred Hoop please visit :

circumstances should they things, some are silver or gold, Left: beautifully be left empty, or lying others lotus seeds, or stones like carved huma