Nepal Ritual Space and Politics in a Border Himalayan Village

8/9/2019 Nepal Ritual Space and Politics in a Border Himalayan Village

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At the Margins of Death: Ritual Space and the Politics of Location in an Indo-Himalayan

Border VillageAuthor(s): Ravina AggarwalSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Aug., 2001), pp. 549-573Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3095063

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at the marginsof death:ritual pace andthepoliticsof locationinan Indo-Himalayanbordervillage

RAVINAAGGARWALSmithCollege

Ibase this article on an event thattranspiredduringa funeralceremony in thevillage ofAchinathang in Ladakh,India.Thisincident, which coincided witha period of interreligiousconflicts between Muslim and Buddhistcommuni-ties, led me to question the manner in which margins become sites for thedefinition and contestation of citizenship and power. Here, Ianalyze the con-structionof margins in multiple contexts: in negotiating boundaries betweendeath and rebirth, in coping with and challenging the control exerted bytown-based political reform movements over ruralspace, and finally, in lo-cating the position of the ethnographerin historiesand spaces of domination.[deathrituals,social space, politics of location, Buddhism,SouthAsia]

On the 48th day afterthe sky-door (nam-sgo)had opened to release the forces ofdeath, on the 48th day afterhe had collapsed at his daughter's residence in a neigh-boring hamlet, preparationsbegan in earnest for the funeral feast (shi-zan)for Jamy-ang Chosphel of the devoutly BuddhistTung-pahouse.1 The rainfell gently, bringinga lusterto fields that were graduallyregainingtheir green. It was springtime,the mat-ing season. Flowerswere in bloom, sheep were reproducing,the river swelled. Itwasmy second month in the Himalayanvillage of Achinathang,situatedon the Indo-Paki-stani border, in the districtof Ladakh n North India-a districtwhere both Buddhismand Islamare practiced. Iwas researching culturalperformances, so when I learnedthat female relativesof the deceased were kneading dough in the Tung-pa kitchen tomake fried flat breads (kab-tse)for the banquet the next day, I decided (at my hosts'urging) o witness the event. Ithought it would help me to make sense of the funeraltowhich the entire neighborhood had been invited. Cautious not to appear obtrusive, Ipaused at the main entrance door, the rgyal-sgo,while my companion (a daughterofthe family with whom I was residing)ventured in at my request to solicit permissionfor my presence. Nawang, the male head of the Tung-pa household, happened to besittingin the courtyardbetween the main door and the kitchen.2He was the one whoresponded to the petition, and his response startledboth of us. He yelled at my com-panion, saying that there was nothing to "see"and that Iwould bringdishonor to theentirevillage through my writings.Then, apparentlyregrettinghis loud tone or alertedto my presence at the portal by the loud whispers of children, he conceded that wecould come in ifwe wanted to. We did not go in.I was consumed with regretfor my poor judgment and dismay about the anthro-pological process itself through which I had attempted to make a spectacle out ofdeath and personal grieving. Later,a discussion about Nawang's conduct ensued inthe kitchen of Aba and Ama, my hosts. Aba was not surprised by Nawang's behavior.

American Ethnologist28(3):549-573. Copyright? 2001, AmericanAnthropological Association.


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american ethnologistHe insisted that I should not have asked permission but should have entered quietlybecause, according to local convention, people may walk directly into the house tothe inner door of the kitchen, unlike in Leh, the capital town of Ladakh,where theywait at the main door before they are summoned in. Aba arguedthatasking questionsarouses suspicion and provides the host with unwarrantedpower to refuse. He saidthat Ihad created new thresholds for arbitration n my eagerness to avoid trespassing,which only succeeded in highlighting my status as an outsider who could not betrusted. His wife, Ama, on the other hand, thought that circumspection was appropri-ate because the time for dealing with the dead was potentially charged for both guestsand members of the Tung-pa household. She warned that taking photographs of thedead body could cause my film to rot just as audiotaping the laments of wailingwomen could lead to other mechanical debacles. A few months later, Nawang him-self provided a reason for his hostile behavior, explaining that my presence had beensuspect because I was positioned as an urbanyouth at a time when farmers were atodds with youth groups thatwere restricting he foods to be served at mortuary easts.The explanatory narrativesof Aba, his wife, and Nawang framed my understandingofhow thresholds (as represented in this case by a literaldoorway) become obstacles fordepartingsouls and barricadesfortrespassersin Achinathang.Inthis article, I illustratethe differentplanes of experience at which the metaphorof marginalityresonates. I begin by exploring marginalityin death ritualswhere sym-bolic thresholds occupied by the deceased and the mourners represent ideal realmsand sociocultural patternsof village life.3Second, Itrace the manner in which ritualmargins become dangerous arenas of liminality in regional power struggles, socialspaces that are politically charged. Mortuaryrites illuminate the crisis of citizenshipand residence as conflicts arise between the eternal and the historically contiguousand between local praxisand religious allegiance. Third,Iexamine marginalityas it isconstructed by the process of fieldwork, drawingfrom anthropological concerns withreflexivityand representationto investigate how borders related to the projectof eth-nographyarise.Because death marksa symbolic and literalborder, death ritualsare particularlyproductivejuncturesfor the studyof indeterminacyand multimarginality.Myanalysisof funeraryrites is informed by CliffordGeertz's well-known essay, "Ritualand SocialChange"(1973a), in which he writes about the controversy surroundinga funeralper-formance in Central Java when worldviews and lifestyles, religion and politics,clashed in a system that was traditionallya synthesis of local customs, Hinduism,andIslam. In his case study, Geertz infuses a dynamic perspective into symbolic theoriesof ritualby paying special attentionto the micropolitics of death ritualsas they are af-fected by historical socioeconomic changes. But, as Jamyang'sfuneral illustrates,inAchinathang it is not just social conditions that impact and alter rituals;death ritualsthemselves induce horizons that are fraughtwith ambiguityand subject to mediation.Culturalmeanings of death are not static, originary,or fixed in predetermined struc-tural oppositions. Rather, they are themselves composed, authenticated, and evendisruptedin lived space.

Furthermore,while I have deconstructed some aspects of my interaction withNawang to elucidate systems of social differentiationand identification in Ladakhi o-ciety, Icannot make claims to total culturalentry.4As Geertz himself has noted else-where (Geertz 1988), introductory episodes that narrate the linear transition of theethnographerfrom fumbling outsider to specialized cultural expert are devices usedto assert and ratifythe ethnographer'sauthority.In practice, the discipline of anthro-pology is fraughtwith the potentialfor failed communication as itspractitioners ttempt

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at the margins of death

to converse across cultural borders. These failures, according to KamalaVisweswaran(1994:99), "areas much a partof the process of knowledge constitution as are our oft-heralded successes." Ethnography,she advises, must take into account moments ofdisidentification between observers and their subjects as much as it does points ofcultural entry and moments of rapport.5 tmust be "multi-sited," o use George Mar-cus's (1995) term, delving into multiplefacets of location and marginalityand placingethnographers in a world system scenario where they are implicated in histories ofknowledge production and not merely complicit observers gaining access to insiderworlds.A multisited ethnography that moves away from what Gupta and Ferguson(1997) call the "hierarchyof purity"can demonstrate that place is emergent and thatareas designated as remote or local offer significant precedents forcraftingalternativeculturaland national frameworks.Thisdecentralizing approach is especially relevanttoday with the escalation of borderdisputes between India and Pakistan.Most of post-colonial India's major wars with neighboring China (in 1961-62) and Pakistan (in1948, 1965, 1971, and most recently in 1999) have been fought in Ladakh. As thefrontierbecomes more permeable and the line of control is rent by bullets and mis-siles, there is an even greater attempt by right-wingactivists to control puritywithinthe interiors of both nations. Government officials are making conscious efforts toerase hybrid histories and pluralcultures by controlling information,redesigning his-tory books, and designating some ritualsas more authentic than others. Yet, people inthe border community of Achinathang trace identity and define ritual meaningthrough spatial classifications that defy such strictcategorization, undercuttingties ofreligion or residence at times and reinforcingthem at others.The sections of my article portrayvariousfacets of marginalityin Achinathang toillustratehow ritualboundaries transformand are transformedby those borders con-stitutedby regional politics and anthropological fieldwork.lived landscapes

The name of the area now called Ladakh s etymologically linkedto the term la-dwags, "adwelling amidst high mountainpasses." Itshares borders with Pakistan,oc-cupied Tibet, and the Kashmirvalley. It is a land where Buddhism, Islam,and Christi-anity are practiced. From the ninth century until 1846, when it was conquered byDogra rulersfromJammu,the region was an independent kingdom of fluctuatingsizeand fortune. Currently,it is partof Jammuand Kashmir,a state whose name is drawnfrom two geographically specific locales (Jammuin the south and Kashmirin thenorth),but excludes any mention of Ladakh, ts largestdistrict.IfLadakh is a borderzone, situated on the outskirts of the Indiannation, the vil-lage of Achinathang is the quintessential margin land. It is located at a considerabledistance from the center of Ladakh,on the peripheries of the predominantlyBuddhistdistrict of Leh and the predominantlyMuslim precinct of Kargil,a place rarelymen-tioned in the greathistories of empire, rarelydebated in the speeches of parliamentarydignitaries, seldom visited by curious travelerseager to glimpse the splendors of theHimalayas. Itsmarginal location, however, does not lessen its importance. As AnnaTsing (1993) has powerfully demonstrated, places isolated, traditional,and fixed arenonetheless integralpartsof national and transnationalprocesses, and people who in-habitthem actively reinterpretestablished categories of centers and margins, insidersand outsiders. The increase of diasporic and communication networks should noterase the fact that people in the most "out-of-the-way" places (Tsing1993) have beeninvading,traveling,and migrating or centuries, bringingwith them cultural importsof

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american ethnologistvarious commodities and ideologies. Not only do these people resist and oppose in-corporation into centralized ideologies, but in the praxis of everyday life they oftensee themselves as constitutingthe center of the nation itself.A focus, therefore, on the"inhabited spaces" (Herzfeld 1991:13) of Achinathang is useful in understandinglived contexts where centers are shiftingand historiesare multiple.

Achinathang is defined by both its social associations and territorialcontours.The Ladakhiword forvillage is yul. The village or yul of Achinathang is both an imag-ined community and a social reality, an abstractcategory and a contextual referencepoint for various locales (cf., Srinivas 1998). In its narrowest, territorialsense, yulmeans a place where one possesses a house. Ina wider context, it can mean a wholeregion (Ladakh-yul)or nation (Gyagar-yul,the Ladakhiterm for India). It can be theland of one's birth (skyes-yul),the land of one's fathers (pha-yul),or simply a placewhere one dwells.6 Ideally, to be considered a fellow villager (yul-pa),a person mustbe able to undertakethe exchange of fire (symbolic of hospitalityaround the hearth)and water (symbolic of labor reciprocity outside the house), participatein ritualcele-brations, and claim a shared history.Buddhist families in Achinathang often call their village thang (the plain), whileidentifying the larger village of Skyurbuchan, 14 kilometers to the east, as yul. Mosthouseholds in Achinathangtrace their origins to an area in Skyurbuchan.They haverelatives from that region, owe allegiance to its monastery, and send their children toits high school. Marriagebetween the inhabitantsof the two communities is frequent.Some families in Achinathangare still requiredto contributeto a Skyurbuchanvillagefund. Now a hamlet of approximatelyfive hundred people, over seventy-five percentof whom are Buddhist,Achinathang officially falls under the leadership of the head-man of Skyurbuchanwho has the authorityto collect taxes from its landholders.The inhabitantsof Achinathang, however, acknowledge other zonal affiliationsbesides those with Skyurbuchan,each replete with its own historyabout how thingscame to be as they are. Seven kilometers southwest of Achinathang is Hanu, the landof the 'Brog-pa(people of the high pastures).Across the Indus,toward the west, liesChigtan, an area that was converted to Shi'a Islam through a gradual process thatcommenced about four hundredyears ago. The people of Achinathang have been in-fluenced by the histories of both these places. Achinathang's spatial configurationalso reflects its changes through time. The village has expanded over the years andcontinues to do so in a descending movement along the mountain. A three-hourwalkfrom the road leads one to its highest settlement, Achina Lungba.A 15-minute walkaway from the road (at an altitude of about 9,000 feet above sea level) lies Achi-nathang's most densely populated section, Gongmathang, founded 200 years ago. In1991, allof the 27 main houses and 26 branch houses inthese two areaswere Buddhist.The period from the 16th century through the 19th century can be regardedlargelyas a time when Buddhismin Achinathangwas consolidated due mainly to thefact that King JamyangNamgyal donated the entire area of LowerLadakh o the 'Bri-gung-pa sect after he was healed from leprosy. But historians like Sikander Khan(1987) argue that Achinathang was actually founded in the ninth century by a kingcalled Ti Sug and his queen, Ganga Sug, who took shelter in a castle on the other sideof the Indus from Achinathang when attacked by invaders. They were believed tohave been pre-Buddhist"Dardic"rulerswho had migratedfrom a royal lineage in Gil-git, now in Pakistan. Called 'Brog-pa,their descendents are said to be of Indo-Aryanheritage, racially distinct from those of Tibetanorigin.7Thisorigin storyhas its propo-nents and opponents in Achinathang, but most elders concede that the village waspartially inhabited long before the 16th century and the earlier habitationwas called

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'Brog-pa'i-mos (the grazing ground of the 'Brog-pa), now a segment of AchinaLungba.Oral deeds for some houses in Achina Lungbaattestthat landthere had beenpurchased in exchange for fields in Hanu. Place names in this area reveal a connec-tion with the Shina-speaking 'Brog-pa people of Da-Hanu. At some point, the 'Brog-pa may have lived with other Ladakhisuntil they were pushed back into the region ofHanu.

Today, most Buddhist villages have a protective deity (yul-lha) who bestowsprosperity on its occupants and whom the occupants, in turn, honor with monthlyand annual rituals.The village deity (yul-lha) of Achinathang is brag dmar Iha chen(The GreatGod of the Red Rocks).8Buddhist households take on the responsibility ofpatronizing the prayerceremonies (sangs) held during the third day of the new yearand the ritualsperformed in the monastery for the benefit of the yul-lha. Like the so-dalities formed for herding village cattle and goats, gods are tended through a systemof household rotation (Iha-res).In addition, villagers sponsor household prayers byproviding sustenance to the monks and by supplying the ingredients required forprayerceremonies thatare held in the temples.The Gongmathang settlement is divided by a valley from the third major neigh-borhood Yogmathang, which lies close to the road. Yogmathang was settled abouteighty years ago, principally by Muslim migrants rom the areas of Chigtanand Kargilwith which many residents still maintain strong alliances. Of the 20 households(population 117 in 1991) that lived in this section, 15 belonged to Shi'a Muslim fami-lies. Muslim households are responsible for donations to the mosque and the matam-serai (house of mourning)in Yogmathang.During my fieldwork, Iobserved diverse religious groups and members of differ-ent sections in Achinathang interactwith each other in myriad ways. Representativesfrom both religious communities attended weddings and funerals. Economic ex-change was especially importantfor occasions such as wedding feasts or accidentaldeaths, which produced sudden shortages of barley grain in Buddhistfamilies. Theseshortages could be remedied by purchasing surplus grain from Muslim householdswhere there were often extra supplies because Muslims did not brew alcohol. Col-laboration and collective decision-making were requiredfor operating projects suchas the micro hydel electric generator and for monitoring the working of the schoolsystem. Years of living in close proximityhad paved the way for friendships and alli-ances between the residents. Although there were instances of friction between theMuslim and Buddhistresidents of Achinathang on issues such as the rightsto grazinggrounds in the Achina Lungbaand the prohibitionfor Muslims on accepting cookedfoods from the hands of non-Muslims, cooperation was a necessary partof living to-gether. When differences arose in lifestyles and rituals,people explained these differ-ences on the basis of factors such as kinship, history, and customs of residence andplace (yul-pa'i khrims),not just the canonical dictates of religion.9Thus the village ofAchinathang, the geographical backdrop against which Jamyang'sfuneral was per-formed, had a layout and history that fostered divergent and intersecting forms ofidentification thatcould not be reduced to any single factor.the thresholds of death

The funeral feast (shi-zan) for Jamyang Chosphel was staged on his family'sthreshing ground (g.yul 'thag) located behind the house where he had lived. Thethreshing groundwas a circularspace, borderedwith stones, where cattle were drivenin circles duringthe autumn months to tramplethe freshly harvested and winnowedawns. The sound of rhythmic male voices humming and chanting the Om Mane

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american ethnologistPadme Hum litany in unison reverberatedthroughthe airthatday. Inthe evening, theguests arrived:Jamyang's relatives and clients from neighboring villages and malerepresentativesfrom Achina Lungba,all bearing chang (beer) and tagi (wheat-bread).The deceased man was precious and moral, they said. They had come for this lastfarewell, bringing gifts in memory of this expert weaver who had woven so manyrobes to clothe their bodies. Therewas so much beer that the keg was filled. A neigh-bor collected the offeringson the family's behalf, announcing the house names of thedonors.

The joking and laughter of the men (who had taken up positions on the righthand side of the threshing ground) merged with the elegy of the widow and her chil-dren (seated on the left)and the incantations recited by the astrologer(who sat at thecenter).10More and more people came. The number of tagi they bore ranged fromfour to 16, even numbers since this was a sorrowfuloccasion. Basketsfilled with anassortmentof dried black peas, roasted barley grain, apricot seeds, and sun-dried ap-ricots had been laid out. Generous quantities of apricot oil and rice broth blendedwith stewed chillies and crushed walnuts were handed out to the guests. Finallythekab-tse (the deep-fried, flat bread that had been cooked by the women the day before)and pa-ba, roundballs of barley flour mixed with water, were served by relatives.Wewere also served one or two big slices of wheat bread, one half-slice over which asmall piece of pa-ba was applied, and one kab-tse. The pa-ba was taken from a con-coction called pha gnyen ma gnyen, symbolizing the synchronization of the male andfemale principles, the mother's and the father'skin, agnates and affines, meshed andground together, from which the child, now passed away in his old age, had firstemerged. "Generally,this is served on the seventh day. It is the food of comfort afterthe suffering has abated a little. The people cry give me some, give me a little,"ob-served one guest.The guests folded the bread, broke off a piece, and dropped it on the floor forthedead person. The food was distributed,people ate, children passed their share on totheir mothers when they could eat no more, and mothers collected the remainderofthe goodies in pockets or baskets, all the while drinkingbeer.As this was a public ritual, I was invited to attend by members of the Tung-pafamily. Ichose to attend in orderto overcome my embarrassmentcaused by the tenseencounter the day before. During the funeral feast, Nawang came up to me and ex-plained, "Funeralsare the most extravagantand expensive occasions, costing morethan weddings. My brotheris dead. That is his wife and those are his children. Todaywe will eat and feast a lot and give him some, too."Unlike wedding feasts, which can be postponed for as long as a year, Buddhistfunerals have stipulated durations and obligatory expenses because they are associ-ated with a period of ritualpollution that poses a potential threatto the community asa whole. The actions of living people have a lasting impact on the fate of the dead,which must be decided within 49 days.'1The shi-zan marksthe transmigrationof thesoul from death to rebirthduring which it detaches itself from its erstwhile existenceand assumes a new corporeal form. Anything that goes wrong

in this transitioncanprove harmfulto the successful rebirthof the departed and to the sanctity of the livingif the soul should be reborn in undesirable form. Reincarnation in the land of gods,demigods, and humans, is considered auspicious (even though the goal of enlighten-ment is ultimately achieved through deliverance from the worldly cycles of birth,death, and rebirth)whereas reincarnation into the lands of animals, hungry ghosts,and hell is visualized as a lowly, tortuouspitof ignorance.

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The interimstage between death and rebirthis called bar-do. It is described as anarrowpassageway throughwhich the soul squeezes (Evans-Wentz1957).12Bar-do isa liminal, twilight zone, "between and betwixt"two worlds (Turner1967). Duringthisperiod, monks and villagers nourish and instructthe soul for its journey toward re-birth. The villagers communicate with the departed, feeding them with food pro-duced in the village, so that they get a sense and taste of thatfood on theirway to theother life. The turmoil of the bar-do stage is recounted as terrifyingand hellish imagesin art,folk tales, and litanies of a text entitled the Bar-dothos grol (liberationin the in-termediate state). Bar-dois a particularlydifficultperiod because it calls on the livingand the dead to accomplish the ideal of detachment from a habitusthat is familiar. Ineveryday life, people liken travel away from the comforts of home to bar-do. InAchi-nathang,children often sing a song in which a young soldier proclaimsthe joys of pa-triotismbut also sighs about the forbiddingglaciers of Siachen where he has been sta-tioned. Faraway from his village, living a life filled with obstacles, he has seen bar-do,the song announces.The experience of death, like birth, is considered a physical, emotional, and so-cial separation in the Buddhist world. The journey of the dead from the hearth athome to the edge of the village and beyond illuminates the shifting marginsof ritualspace. The migrationof the itinerant soul in the hybridbar-do stage unsettles quotid-ian frontiers between persons and nonpersons, insiders and outsiders. The dead per-son must be weaned away from familiarterritoryand, until that time, the hearth, thehome, and the village aretinged with impurity.13 erritorialboundaries, where the de-partureof the dead is moderated, are importantsacred and social sites forthe commu-nityof the living.14The soul or consciousness (rnam-shes)of the deceased is channeled out of thebody by a highly rankedmonk throughan opening that he makes in the skull by pull-ing out some hair. The soul must migrateor "change body" ('pho-ba 'deb pa) and thefirst ceremony performed by the monk is to guide and facilitate the transition fromembodied existence into an asomatic state.15Women begin wailing as the demise of anear relative is announced, broadcastingto the world the virtues of the deceased andthe pain they are experiencing. Monks recite verses and perform liturgiesto guide thesoul through bar-do and propel it to the western paradise, the abode of BuddhaAmi-tabha.'6The prayers astfor several days. Astrologers (dbon-po) prepare horoscopes tointerpret he signs and the obscurants that caused death. They determine future datesand routes for the dead.The soul of the dead person lingersin the home for seven days, graduallybecom-ing aware of its condition afterthe fourthday, when it no longer perceives itsfootstepsor shadow. The bdun-tshigs feast (held seven days after the cremation) marks thesoul's departurefrom the home. The monks execute the g.yang-'gugs ceremony in thehouse with the main-door firmly secured from inside to prevent the wealth of thehousehold fromescaping with the dead.'7 Suspended between death and rebirth,thesoul wanders for 41 additional days in the vicinity of the village. It is at this time thatthe shi-zan (funeralfeast) is held.Formalpolitical power is in the hands of men in Achinathang, but the shi-zan isdominated by women whose elegies situate the phenomena of death within a com-plex nexus of social power. Laments(bshad-paor ngus-mang) express bereavementthroughtears and talk,evoking paradoxical states of hierarchyand equality, order anddisorder.A woman's advise to an unfortunate dead soul to live and eat well in the af-terlife may contain a veiled barb that the deceased person was not well fed or clothedwhen alive. At a parent'sdeath, women might go on to curse their own helplessness

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american ethnologistas poor daughters who were unavailable to provide filial care, indirectly pointing toneglect on the part of their brothers who were at hand because they were the oneswho inherited the natal home. Surviving spouses may hint that the cause of death layin the misbehavior of relatives while sistersof a dead man may charge a sister-in-law,marriedin polyandry, for favoringone brother over others. Occasionally, the stylizedverses of the laments may lead to open hostilities. But in most cases, moderation isdisplayed for people judge those verses with favor that hold subtle revelations of truthand have emotional and aesthetic appeal.18 During Jamyang'sfuneral, the air sim-mered with soulful sobs as the words of women threatened to expose some of the ten-sions that had existed between Jamyangand his family members.After the gathering had cleared, the funeral partymoved to the Tung-pahouse todrink,cry a little, laugh a little, and burytheir sorrows. The next day there would beno collective grieving or tears holding the soul of the dead back from its inevitablepassage onto rebirth.So thatJamyangwould know in the shi-yul, the land of the dead,how much was given for him, his relatives weighed portions of pa-ba with an imita-tion wooden scale and churning stick. Once the weight was recorded, they markedthe mock scale and discarded it along the path between the house and the threshingground. "Hewill receive equal amounts in that distant land,"commented an age-mateof Jamyang. The maximum duration for sanctioned private mourning for all socialpersons who have passed away is one year, after which sorrow must be contained,dancing resumed, drabapparel put away, and celebrations of joy attendedonce again.Buddhism in contested fields

The funeral of Jamyang Chosphel was closely linked with the vicissitudes of dailylife in which kinship, economic, and residential alliances were affirmedin the habi-tats of the living. It re-ordered the world of the residents of Achinathang but not ina finite way; some social differences were resolved and others were exposed. Fusinghierarchyand interdependence, solidarityand segmentation, the shi-zan was a "cul-turalperformance"(Singer1972) upheld by the villagers as a spectacularexemplifica-tion of their ideologies of charity, hospitality, citizenship, and power. There weremarkedvariations in the roles of men and women, monks and laity, adults and chil-dren, and poor and affluent individuals that were reinforced in the negotiations ofseating arrangements,funeral pyres, donations to monasteries, and the sponsorshipofprayers,all of which had to be handled with delicacy lest they lead to quarrelsaboutrankand place. Under these circumstances, effortsto maintain the sanctity of sacredspace duringthe funeralbroughtfarmersand town dwellers, village hosts and ethnog-rapher guest, to the brink of confrontation. The danger of disorder lurkingin deathritualswas made all the more potent by the cultural reformsand boycott dictums sothat the conventional repertoireof rites and behaviors that mournerscould draw onforaverting danger were thrown intodisarray.Tung-paJamyang'sfuneral transpiredduringa ritually charged period of bard-doand during a phase of my fieldwork that Turner(1974:38) would deem a moment ofescalated "crisis."The year, 1991, was the year of India'sadoption of the World Bankdriven economic liberalization reformpackage and the year in which youth powerwas being harnessed in the Indian plains to support a brand of cultural nationalismthat would eventually result in the Ayodhya riots. Strugglesaround issues of identityhad been generated by Ladakh'sstrategic location in the strife-tornstate of Jammuand Kashmir.There were violent clashes between Muslim and Buddhistyouth fac-tions in the capital town of Leh. Buddhistsuse the word phyi-pa, meaning "outsiders,"to classify Muslims; referringto themselves as nang-pa (insiders). Friction against

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Ladakh'smarginalization in the Indian State was verbalized by the LadakhBuddhistAssociation (LBA) n religious terms, a move that intersected with the growing com-munal sentiment of Indian nationalism.The LBA aunched an agitation in 1989 for Scheduled Tribe and Union Territorystatus that would bring Ladakhunder the direct control of the federal government, ar-guing that Ladakh'sincorporation into Jammuand Kashmirhad resulted in a "futuredark and their race and culture threatened in the hands of the Kashmirgovernment"(LadakhPeople's Movement for Union TerritoryStatus1989). The LBA,an outgrowthof the Young Men's BuddhistAssociation that was registered in 1938 to representtheneeds of Buddhistswithin the Indiannation, originally had a membership consistingmostly of elite men from Leh,butover the years, it came to adjudicate mattersrelatedto religion and local politics and claim as its members all Buddhist Ladakhis.19Withthe breakdown of partypolitics and the suspension of elections in the state in 1990, itsinfluence deepened. A wide network of village and block-level youth committees,collectively called "youth-pa" y locals,functioned as enforcementbranchesof the LBA.In 1989 (and through 1992) the LBAcalled for a social boycott, urging Buddhiststo refrain rom interacting,interdining,and intermarryingwith Muslims.Although theprotestwas firstdirected against the Kashmirigovernment, it was projected onto theSunni Muslim Argons of Ladakhwhom the LBAcriticized as being opportunisticagents of the state and recipients of special favors because of theirracial and religiousaffinities with Kashmiris.Muslim groups marked for boycott eventually included theShi'a community, which is in the majorityin the Kargildivision. The LBAembarkedon a mission of social reformin the ruralareas to strengthen its foothold as the voiceof Buddhist Ladakh,to instill a sense of religious purity,and to prevent cultural heri-tage fromdecaying.In Kargil,two factions with connections to Islamic centers in the Middle Eastfunctioned as purveyors of Islam:the Islamiya School, founded in the 1950s as aschool for religious instruction,and the Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust(IKMT), s-tablished after the death of Khomeinias a welfare organization devoted to education.As Grist(1998) has pointed out, with the dismissal of foreign clerics from Iraq n 1974,several Kargilisclerics returned to Leh and set about reformingreligious practices inthe countryside, preaching a textual Islam and imposing a stricterstandard againstdance, music, and alcohol consumption. The IKMThad been aligned with the state-level National Conference party,a move that furtherlinked it to Kashmiriseparatistsin the eyes of the LBAwho primarilysupportedthe Congress partyat the national andstate level.On the one hand, the LBAsought the collusion of the peasantry in its attemptedpan-Buddhistagitation against state discrimination but on the other hand, it depictedpeasants as immobile, unworldly, and antiprogressive with obsolete ideologies thatthrived on ritual and rumor.Similarlyconflicted articulations of Buddhistnationalismcan be found in SriLanka,where Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988) attributechang-ing social trends in Sinhalese Buddhism in the 19th century to the rise of an anticleri-cal village intelligentsia who attempted to fashion a Buddhist social and economicethic grounded in material rationalityand personalized worship. In Ladakh, too, ashift in the political economy from subsistence agricultureto cash labor resulted inthe fragmentation and reformulation of traditional political and economic authoritybut, as Bertelsen (1997) argues, this took place not through the privatizationof wor-ship butthroughthe abstractionand universalization of Buddhism in a mannerthat at-tacked local customs and religiouspluralism.The systemic organizationand extensivebureaucracyenabled the LBA o reinscribevaried communal and regional differences

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american ethnologistinto one unified manifestdestiny of Ladakh.A set of guidelines was issued to TouringCommittees, formed to mobilize villagers and recruitrepresentativesfrom the ruralar-eas, instructing them to implement the boycott and penalize defaulters (Bertelsen1996). Through motivational and intimidationtactics, the LBAmaintained a front ofconsensus. Itsoffice-bearersproclaimed that once the value of the boycott was under-stood, it caught on "as a hysteria."Farmers did not accept the marginalization and fossilization of their lives intotemporally and socially distorted pasts. Through "everyday acts of resistance" (Scott1985), strategic manipulations, and "counter-archaeologies" (Herzfeld 1991), theyclaimed alternative centers.20Inargumentsabout food, alcohol, and ancestors, villag-ers from Achinathang positioned themselves in multiple ways, and the margins be-tween those who dwelled on the inside and those who were on the outside fluctuatedin the face of differentsociopolitical circumstances.21The impact of the new policies was felt strongly in Achinathang. JamyangChosphel's brother, Nawang, a practicing farmer (shar-ba) in his fifties who hadserved in the armyin his youth, was an elected representativeof the village council ofthe Gongmathang community. He was often asked to act as an intermediarybetweenvisiting dignitaries and the villagers. Since 1989, there had been an unusual numberof visitorsfrom Leh to Achinathang:external politicians; abbots;government adminis-trators;and the diasporic community of wage-earners who returnedto justifythe boy-cott, seek collaboration againstthe state, and initiate reforms.As in other villages, cul-tural preservation committees and youth vigilante groups had sprung up inAchinathang and Skyurbuchan.They were supported by the Youth Wing of the LBAunder the leadership of town-based wage-earners with rootsand land in Achinathangwho deployed the younger generation of adult men (roughlybetween the ages of 18and 35) in the village to carryforth their mission. The youths with whom I spoke in-itially saw themselves as part of a progressive rebellion that would simultaneouslyfree them from the hegemony of tradition,ally them with a largercultural movement,and save their religion from persecution. Nawang's position as a councillor wasstressfulbecause he often had to appease older and younger landholders.Any eupho-ria that older farmersmay have felt for the emancipatory potential of the social boy-cott began waning by 1991, and some of the youth in the village were disillusionedtoo. As one young farmer old me, "The benefit is forthose in Leh."Clandestine rebel-lions against the boycott were frequent;these had to be hidden from the gaze of out-siders for fear of repercussion and exposure.Since 1989, grave altercations had ensued between youth-pa and older farmersabout the quantity and nature of food offerings to be distributedduring feasts.22Al-ready, the reformistshad called for a reduction in the size of the 'brang-rgyas,themeal-mountain carved frombarley-doughthat stood at the center of the ritualgroundduring marriageand birthbanquets and on the fourth day of the New Year.23 n thepast, barley was the staple crop of the Ladakhicountryside. Households in Achi-nathang had a mixed economy comprised of agriculture,animal husbandry,and hor-ticulture. A complex trade network of salt and wool had enabled villagers to diversifytheir lifestyles in the past. Yet, village communities were sustained largelyby raw ma-terials available in the local environment and by the reciprocalexchange of laborandgoods. Inrecent times, subsidized rations of rice and wheat, new commercial marketsfor apricots,and increasingemployment in the armyand civil service sectors had begunto compete with older habitsof food consumption causing the importanceof barley inurbanareas and among the youth to decline. The youth enjoined the farmersto retainthe symbolic value of the meal-mountainwithout subjectingthemselves to unnecessary

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economic burdens. A similar move toward controlling the presentation of food hadbeen imposed on Shi'a Muslims by the IKMTrom Kargil, imitingthe number of daysfor wedding feasts and the number of dishes that could be served in order to decreasethe monetarystrain on the bride's family who bears the brunt of the culinary costs in-curred.24Formortuaryfeasts, the LBAhad denounced the convention of distributingbar-ley-flour balls, deeming them inedible and prescribingtheir substitution with a dishcalled tshogs (made with a betterquality of barelyflour and sweetened with jaggery)to prevent undue wastage. But defending the custom, one grandmotherfrom Achi-nathang argued, "Theshi-zan is a type of las-bes (laborexchange). We make the foodso that the dead will receive it in their world, adding on to our list of merit."Anothervillager declared that offerings were made in order to feed a soul in transition, be-cause to be rebornas hungryghosts (yi-dwags)who capriciously devour souls but arenever content or satiated is the worst destiny imaginable. Villagers believe thatghosts(shi 'dre),who rise fromthe dead, and cannibalistic witches (gong-mo),who envy thepossessions of others, have ravenous appetites. They lure unsuspecting persons withinvitations to tea or to meals. The victims hear voices soliciting them and can be af-flicted by sudden illness if they allow themselves to be tempted by these venomoussolicitations. Villagersconsidered envy and greed to be the roots of such sorcery.Older men used the notion of charity as a powerful critique against attempts bythe cultural revivalistswho had restricted sacrificial offerings, categorizing them asanti-Buddhistsquanderingsof precious resources that prevented people from capital-izing on surplus. "Idon't believe in the hunger of the dead," contended one guest,"butthe next day Ifind that the food I laid out has disappeared. An impoverished fel-low villager, a starvingchild, or a bird or animal must have eaten it. That is the es-sence of true Buddhism-charity toward all sentient beings." Another guest added,"Andso what if the pa-ba is unpalatable. We feed it to our cattle. We are farmers andherders,afterall."Mortuaryrituals affirm power structures but they have subversive facets, too,which undermine social hierarchies. Feasts are also about the resolution of social

inequity, challenging karmic laws of reward and punishment. Among the guidingprinciples underlyingfeasts are charity, humanitarianism,and egalitarianism. Corre-spondingly, Brauen(1982:323) affirms that the 'brel-tho(connection-list), a remark-ably detailed record of the goods received by a household during the funeral, bearstestimony to the importance of reciprocity in creating solidarity and cohesion be-tween individual households. Accordingly, the receiving family consults the 'brel-thowhen the donors host a similar celebration (Brauen 1982). Their gift will be of anequal amount or a bit in excess of the foodstuffsthey originally received. Thus, feastsare not undertakensolely for the benefit of the dead. They are closely linked with thevicissitudes of daily life, in which kinship and residentialalliances are reaffirmedandeconomic exchange attestedto in the habitat of the living.Another majorsource of controversy in the practice of funeraryrites involves thecentrality accorded by Buddhistfarmers to the keg of chang. Chang, or beer made ofbarley (nas), is brewed in every Buddhisthousehold and served at funerals and festiveoccasions. Drinkingchang is intricatelytied with a patternof agricultural ife and witha sense of collective and personal identity.Alcohol partiesoften set the stage for mak-ing political decisions about the future course of village affairs.Traditionally, it wasmiddle-aged farmerswho made these decisions, but since the boycott their authorityand leadership were challenged by the youth. For the latter,barley and chang werelinkedto a peasantidentityand to a nonproductiveeconomy. For he elders, the policies

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american ethnologistto prohibitchang were unilateral decisions made by the youth wings (gzho-nu tshogs-pa). The elders told me that these external organizations were not qualified to evalu-ate the state of commerce for all of Ladakh.

The LBAused a discourse similar to Britishcolonial critiques against chang to ar-gue that it was drinkingthat kept the villagers steeped in indolence and ignorance,hindering the modernization and development of Ladakh.25Antialcohol campaignswere launched through modern morality plays, extended village tours, and educationprograms. These operations received some support from student groups in Achi-nathangand Skyurbuchan, especially in those houses where alcoholism had resultedin abuse and illness.

Farmersgenerally provided powerful justificationsfor their drinking, emphasiz-ing "tradition"and recognizing drinking as a vital ingredient of social practice andLadakhiidentity. Elderswhom I interviewed noted that chang was consumed at pub-lic congregations in the past but now that personal profithad taken ascendancy oversocial largesse (and land was not the chief source of sustenance for many), drinkinghad become more private. People blamed the beer that was consumed by those hud-dled in the privacyof their houses for the presentdiscord.Beer was not only brewed for secular ceremonies but forthose occasions associ-ated with sacred dates as well. The LBAsought to cleanse what it believed was deca-dent and defiling to Buddhism by mandatingthat both monks, who must maintain rit-ual purity, and readers and astrologers, who come in contact with venerated textsduring prayerfeasts, be subjected to strongantialcohol prohibitions.Throughthe per-suasions of the youths, the villagers agreed to shift their beer partiesto alternatedatesor to abstain from drinking on holy days. But there was considerable resistance toadopting these measures. One elder pointed out that it was inconceivable to him thatanyone might consider drinking chang antireligious. Chang, he argued, was a libationfor the gods and ancestors who would be offended if the appropriate offerings werenot made. He was referring o the custom of sprinklingthe firstdrops of each pitcherof beer with the fourth finger as an offering (Ihagsol-ces) for the deities of the threeworlds, (the Iha,the klu and the btsan)and also for the dead (shi-mi).Anothervillager,arguing against sanctions on drinkingalcohol on the tenth night of each month (rtsis-bcu) to honor Guru Rin-po-che, saint of the Kargyud-pasect to which Buddhists inAchinathang belong, claimed that Guru Rin-po-che himself was the patron of liq-uor.26As his devotees, villagers were obliged to follow his deeds.Yet if drinkingtoo much chang was considered pathological by the LBAand inviolation of the ideals of Buddhistidentity,drinkingno chang was considered equallysacrilegious by many villagers The few young people who had responded to the so-cial measures and had given up drinking chang altogether were put under immensepressureto drink at parties.When they declined, they were mockingly called Purig-pa(Muslimswho were believed to have originally come from the Purig region), a termthatchallenged their claim of being pious Buddhists.According to the Muslim inhabi-tants of Achinathangwith whom Ispoke, chang was also perhapsthe most salient fea-ture distinguishing them from Buddhists.Young Muslim children learned to wrinkletheir noses at even a whiff of alcoholic breath. Achinathang Muslims often criticizedBuddhists forfailing to live up to the prohibitionson alcohol dictated in their religioustexts. Among the Islamic community of the village, the intake of intoxicating agentslike chang was forbidden, and people justified abstinence in this life by insisting itwould be rewarded by flowing riversof wine in the afterlife.A middle-aged pilgrim,newly returnedfrom hadjj, explained that alcohol clouded one's abilityto reason andprevented one from functioning effectively. Even so, some elderly Muslims whose

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ancestors had emigratedfrom the Purig region recalled stories of partiesthat had beencelebrated with much song and dance at a time when Islamicpractice had been moretolerant and even Islamic festivals (Id)were marked by the consumption of a specialbeer called id-chang.27Incontrastto their view of Muslims, Buddhistfarmers considered migrantwork-ers from Nepal (called "Gorkhas,"regardlessof their ethnicity) who worked as rock-cutters or masons in Achinathang to be hearty drinkers. These workers had an am-bivalent standing in the community; they were praised for their hospitality andgenerosity and disparagedfor their propensityto spend theirwages on meat and alco-hol. Buddhist villagers emphasized their own distinctiveness as landholders whowere obliged to reinvest in their land as opposed to the landless Gorkhas who wan-dered from place to place in search of jobs and a roof over their heads, buildinghouses and clearing fields thatthey would never inhabit.

Drinkingalcohol was a means of creating boundaries between insiders and out-siders. To abstain from drink was to surrender desire for sociality and become a de-voutly religious person (chos-pa), borderingon celibacy and monkhood. Conversely,abstaining from drinkingwas to give up religion altogether and become like a Mus-lim. To drinktoo much was to violate the norms of propriety.From the point of viewof older farmers, an upstanding Buddhist was not a teetotaler but one who couldmaintainan appropriatebalance, who was prosperousbut not too haughtyor self-suf-ficient to share a cup of beer with villagers, and who could indulge in alcohol but notlose control.

Yet another issue of dissension between the town-based youth-pa and farmerswas whether or not dead souls (shi-mi)were authorized to participatein the world ofthe living as ancestors. Eachpatrilineage (pha-spun)in the village has its own crema-tion hearth (spur-khang).28 he pyresof monks are builtseparately at an exalted heighton the grounds of their families. Aba described cremation areas as dangerous, andschool children admitted to me that they were afraid to walk near them lest they runinto wayward, malignant ghosts. On the fourth day after death, the surviving bonefragment,relics of the corpse, are pulverized and mixed with clay and the dust of thefive elements to construct clay tablets called tsha-tsha(cf. Brauen1982; Khan1987).The clay tablets are entombed in a mchod-rten(reliquaries)or in the niche of a sacredwall, or preserved in the chapel, depending on the economic standing of the family.Rich families tend to build separate shrines to commemorate their dead (Khan1987).Byand large, mchod-rten are built in honor of high monks or individuals of renown oraffluence. Conversely, ancestor worship in fields and houses is a means forfarmerstodemarcate the landscape with their personal and collective histories. With the aban-donment of ancestral practices and the metamorphosisof land from areas of cultiva-tion into guesthouses for tourists, field ancestors have become almost outmoded intowns, contributingto judgments by the reformists hatthey areoutmoded in all areas.The LBAhad legitimated social segregation in the name of religious preservation.For this purpose, the LBAsurrendered the dialectic tension between circular time(which marks the genesis, destruction, and reincarnation of the dead) and lineartime(in which the dead have forsaken the world of the living to enter into a removed andremote domain) in favor of a doctrinal interpretationof Buddhism, labeling local cus-toms as heterodox. Butmortuaryrituals,as David Holmberg (1989) has illustrated,donot necessarily contradict the textual constructions of Buddhism;ratherthey can be"paratexts" Holmberg 1989:205) through which Buddhist ideology takes accessibleform.29

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american ethnologistFor Buddhist farmers in Achinathang, burialgrounds and crematoria lie outsidethe trails on which the living tread, but exclusion of the dead is not fixed and final. If

displeased, they might return as malignant spooks, hungry ghosts, or souls that havelost direction. If appeased with appropriate rituals of hospitality, they can becomeprotectors of the living. On the eve of the Buddhist New Year, women mark theirkitchen doors with fresh spots of flour to ensure that ghosts, if they should wanderback into their houses, would flounder in confusion on seeing these unfamiliar marksand, becoming convinced that they have entered the wrong houses, leave onceagain. Ancestors, however, are verbally invoked at the hearth on occasions when im-portantmeals are served and fields are plowed for the firstcrop. They are propitiatedwith food and offeringson the hearth,on the rocks outside the homestead, and on theedges of the mother-field (regardedas the original field sown by the family's ances-tors). Bits of wheat bread, barley cakes, liquid butter,and beer are placed on rocks atthe margins of fields in gratitudefor the founders who firstcleared the land. The firsthouseholds to commence plowing are those that belong to the families of the initialsettlers.

To honor ancestral beings, the festival of mamani is celebrated inthe cold of win-ter by both Buddhist and Muslim families in Achinathang, although dates of obser-vance differ.The victuals for mamani include the cooked legs and heads of goats andsheep that have been stored throughoutthe year and buckwheat bread (tan-tan, thefruit of the second harvest).30On January21, Muslim villagers visit graves of their for-bears and read the Koran.They exchange food with each other in an appointed field.

Historically, mamani is said to be of 'Brog-paorigin, having found its way intoPurig and Ladakhby way of Gilgit (Francke 1904).31In Khalatse,the mamani feastused to be held beside a row of shrines called mamani mchod-rten, a name that de-notes an admixture of Buddhistand 'Brog-paviews of the world. Yet in the ideologyof puritythat prevailed duringthe boycott, the past had to be polarized into discretesegments in which a syncretic religion could not survive. The devotional or placatoryaspect of ancestor ritualsmet with stern reprovalfrom some Islamic clerics in Kargilwho denounced the veneration of ancestors as jeopardizing the fundamental belief inone god. Celebrations of mamani and ancestor propitiation,with their animal sacri-fices and legacy of burial,were also condemned by the LBAas Islamic in nature or asremnantsof an unenlightened and misguided pre-Buddhistpast. If,as Khan(1987) re-ports, citing an inscriptiondeciphered by Francke(1904), mamani is held to pay hom-age to the founders of the Ba-ni-yartribe of Gilgit and to the first 'Brog-pa leader,Melo, then its significance is particularlysubversive, challenging Buddhism'sauthen-tic and timeless control in the territoryof Ladakh.Moreover, ancestors are present even in more orthodox Buddhistpractices, spa-tially concretized through reliquaries (mchod-rten), edifices bearing the relics ofsaints, venerable monks, and dead relatives.These shrines sometimes occurred in for-mations of three (riggsum mgon po), paintedwhite, red, and blue. Althoughthis colorsystem is attributed to the Buddha trinity of Great Protectors [Avalokitesvara(Boddhisatva of compassion), Vajrapani (Boddhisatva of power), and Manjusri(Boddhisatva of knowledge)], laypeople often gave alternate explanations, relatingwhite to iha-yul (landof the gods), red to btsan yul (land of the terrestrialdeities or de-mons) and blue to klu-yul (land of the subterraneanguardians and water serpents), acosmological division that stems from local beliefs.Farmers in Achinathang are not ignorant of the formal significance of sacredshrines either. The new dben-sdum mchod-rten in the midst of the residentialcenter,constructed in 1986, was selected from among the eight differentarchitecturalstyles

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of mchod-rten hatare representativef the eightessentialactsof the Buddha's ife(Tucci 1980). After a particularly istressingand conflict-riddenphase in Achi-nathang,villagershopedthatwith theconstruction f this shrinepeacewouldprevail,as it hadwhen a council of monksconstructed nepitaphof peacewhen Polemicdis-cord threatenedo disrupthe unityof theSangha themonasticorder)during he lifeof Buddha. nthe courseof theirroutineactivities,peoplecircumambulatehis struc-turein a clockwisedirection,creatinga repertoire f meritandsymboliccapitalwiththe circularmotionof theirbodies,agentssetting naction he wheel oftime.In1991, however,peacewas hard o procure.Theeffectsof theboycottwere far-reaching, ransformingll major acetsof life in Ladakh.As a resultof the boycott,MuslimneighborsromAchinathang,who would otherwisehave attendedJamyang'sfuneral,were not invited.Although landestinerebellionsagainst heboycottcontin-ued throughcovertpurchasesromMuslim hopsand informal ocialvisits betweenBuddhists ndMuslims, he policingof the boycottin thevillage generatedan envi-ronmentof intensecensorshipandsuspicion.The ritualhabits hatwere aspectsofJamyang'suneral east-such as consumingchangand foods liketshogsandkap-tse,andfeedingthe ancestors-were now inseparableromthe reigning onflict aroundidentity.Viewedthrough his broadpoliticaland social framework, ybridcustomsbecame all the more conspicuousand the attempts o contain them all the moreforceful.

ethnography at the marginsAt a timewhen boundaries f livedspace hadbeen exposedandrearrangednthe displacementunleashedby death,when severeconstraintswere placed on theresidentsof Achinathang ue to regional truggles,myeffort o examinethe prepara-tionof funeral oodsattheTung-pahouse was a remindero somethatIwas an urbanoutsiderwho might udgetheircultureunfavorably.Nationalandtransnationalitesof knowledgeproductionhadinspired natmospherenwhich selectiveideas of pro-gresswere absorbed ntoreformist iscourse,oftenatthe expenseof syncretichisto-riesandtransgressiveiewpoints.Asananthropologistoncernedwithobservingandrecording,myarrival oo was inscribedndiscoursesandhistories f cultural ontrolandsurveillance.When I first arrived n Achinathang, illagersoften thoughtI was a Kashmirischoolteacher,healthworker,orsome suchgovernment fficial.Developmentwas acentralconcern of the stateadministrationndgovernment mployeesoccasionallyvisited the villageto file progress eportsand survey he statusof education,health,andeconomicgrowth.Staffmembers fthesebureausweregenerallyappointed romareasoutsideAchinathang.AsPigg 1992)hasshown,thetargeting fvillagesocietiesin frameworks f developmentplansoftenessentializesvillagersas backward.Like-wise, governmentpolicies for taraqi Urdu or"progress")n Ladakh re frequentlyconcocted and executedwithoutadequatelyassessing heirrelevance o the villagecommunity. In Achinathang'sLungbasettlement,for instance,a primaryschool

buildingwas constructedby government ontractors, ut itwas placedrightnext tothe cremationgroundandremained bandoned or a long periodbecause mostof thepupilsandteacherswere afraid o approach t.On questioning ome of the govern-mentcontractors bout heiraction,Iwas informed hat heonly pieceof landthevil-lagerswere willing to surrender or erectingthe schoolhouse was that which theydeemed worthless orcultivation.This ailedproject s an indication f the alienationthat armers eel toward he modern ducation ystem.

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american ethnologistBesides being associated with development personnel, I was also classified by

my profession. When asked what my profession was, Icould not find a correspondingword for "anthropologist," o I identified myself generically as a writer ('bris-mkhan). Iwas always asking questions about history and culture, and the purpose of my en-deavor was unclear to many villagers. Several villagers made sense of my project bythinking of it as a guidebook for tourists.Tourism is fast emerging as Ladakh'slargestincome generating industry, spurred by the popularityof Buddhism in the West. Intravel brochures, Ladakhis described as "LittleTibet"and portrayed as a pure andpristine haven, untouched by modernity. The cultural pluralityof the region is rarelyalluded to and seldom do texts mention that almost half the population practices Is-lam. Due to security considerations, several partsof Ladakhsituated close to borderzones were sealed off from the gaze of tourists, includingAchinathang,which firstbe-came partof the touristcircuit in 1995. Even Indiancitizens were requiredto obtainInner Linepermitsto visit the area. Although it is now open to visitors,Achinathang isgenerally used as a reststop by those travelerseager to reach the Da-Hanu area to ex-perience what is advertised as its authentic and quaint 'Brog-pa Indo-Aryanculture.Although touriststend to pass by ratherthan engage in the life of Achinathang, theirexistence is not peripheral; residents use it as a measure to separate Achinathang'seconomy and culture from other villages, which they define as affluent and corruptbecause of tourism. Inturn,villagers are indirectlysubject to constructions of authen-ticity shaped by tourists' preferences. Indeed, Westerners impacted the history ofAchinathang long before 1995. Inthe 19th century, during British colonial times, amission of the Moravian church was established at the block capital of Khalatse.At-tempts were made by missionaries to convert the inhabitantsof the region to Christi-anity in orderto liberatethem from devil worship and heathen beliefs (Bray1985).Today, more and more facilities in Ladakhare being provided to accommodatetravelers. Houses in Lehhave been converted to guesthouses and several restaurantshave opened in the last decade. The influx of national and internationaltourists hascreated a considerable demand for travel agencies and consumer shops. There is anincreased sense that Buddhism is on display. Most of the monasteries are now acces-sible by road and many have shiftedtheir annual festivalsto the summer months to at-tract tourists.32Tourist literature emphasizes some rites and customs over others.Those practices that Westerners may consider eye-catching and exotic find a specialplace in this literature;for example, several travelogues on Tibet (lyer 1988; Seth1983) reportthe spectacle of the disposal of the dead by feeding their flesh to birds.One of the most widely read texts on Tibetan Buddhismin the West is the Bar-dothosgrol (popularlytranslatedas the TibetanBook of the Dead), a spiritualtranslationof atext of the Nyingmapa sect of Buddhismthat has come to standfor Buddhisteschatol-ogy in the West and has been reincarnated in various versions, each version shapedby its translators Lopez 1998). Even as the "ritualistic"aspects of religious life are be-coming objects of curiosity, the packaging and marketingof Buddhism reveals thehistorical proclivity in the West forgrantingcredibilityto its meditative, monastic, andtextual forms.According to Bishop (1989:95), "Itwas easier forthe West to produce

arational and coherent 'Buddhism'from textual sources than from the seemingly cha-otic and culture-bound practices of Tibetan religion."Such views of purityare also part of academic discourses on Ladakhthat havebeen predisposed to concentrate almost exclusively on Buddhistsociety.33Thus,JohnCrook (1990) conflates KashmiriMuslims with LadakhiMuslims and blames Islamiccapitalists and leaders for creating cultural strife by gaining undue trade advantages

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over their innocent and naive Buddhist compatriots. Simultaneously, Crook deniesBuddhistsagency by denouncing the social boycott as a phenomenon merely rootedin modernization, mobility, and bourgeois sentiments of competition and individual-ism, perpetuated by Buddhist Ladakhisignorantof the true principles of Buddhism.Attributingthe boycott crisis to a fall from spiritual purity, Crook writes: "Of Bud-dhism itselfthey have little learning,and their interest in meditation is limited to stressreducing, mind calming practices of a non-hierarchical non-monastic form suitablefor improvingthe performancesof bank managersorengineers" (1990:385).Likerovingsouls who may or may not become beneficial ancestors, touristsandscholars also display itinerantbehavior and unpredictable loyalty. Residents of Achi-nathang have their own interpretationsand divisions to delineate the community ofinsiders. These interpretationshad a large impact on how Iwas perceived. Althoughmy religious affiliationcontinued to be a source of interrogation,itwas spatial catego-ries by which Iwas mostly identified. Indians are regardedas those fromdown below,from the plains versus the mountains. My presence in Achinathang (into which onlyIndiannationals were usually permitted)convinced the villagers that Iwas an Indiannational, but as a young woman travelingalone Idid not conform to stereotypes of In-dian plainswomen (whom they had mostly encountered as armywives, schoolteach-ers, or actors on the Bollywood screen). My double agency confounded notions offoreign and national and, initially, Iwas subjected to occasional inquisitions and per-mit checks. I was told the tale of a haggard, beggarly woman who had once passedthroughthis village. So pitifulwas her plight that some women had been moved intogiving her barley and water. But they soon learned that their hospitality had fed astrangerwho turned out to be a spy, a young able-bodied woman disguised as an oldhag. Travelersoften resorted to disguise to reach Ladakhand Tibet during colonialrule. And during my stay in this area where militaryinspections regulated entry andexit, stories of espionage were still frequent. Ialso heardneighborsand visitors refertome as "Kha-chul-ma"woman from Kashmir),probablyassuming that I was a govern-ment official or schoolteacher because women from outside the parameters of thestate territoryare seldom found in Achinathang.Afterthe agitationof 1989, antipathytoward Kashmirwas growing in most partsof Ladakhand to be mistaken for a Kash-mirihad risky political ramifications.When Ifirstboarded the public bus from Lehto Achinathang, one month beforethe funeral of Tung-paJamyang, interested largely in ritualand politics, Ithought my-self unusually fortunatewhen a wedding partyheaded forAchinathang came aboardin Skyurbuchan.On reaching Achinathang, Iwas informedthat the wedding was thelast of the year because itwas also the firstday of spring in LowerLadakhand the sea-son for sowing had begun. It is only in the cold of the winter, when fields are bare andthere is labor to spare, that nuptial feasts are celebrated. Ihad observed several wed-dings in Lehduring the summer and had not anticipated any seasonal constrictionselsewhere. Discouraged, Istopped by the house of the Yogmathang representativeofthe village council, requesting that he inform me of upcoming weddings. The wordthat Iused forweddings was bag-ston. Insteadof pronouncing the initialconsonant asa "b",Ienunciated it as a "p"so that the word sounded more like pak-ston;this was away of speakingthat Ihad learned in Leh thatthe Achinathangvillagers designated asstod-skad (high speech). The representativemistook me as requesting informationonPakistan. That incident, coupled with my own expressed expectation that ritualtimein Achinathang would be no different from that in Leh, enhanced my identificationwith educated elite and the exotic world of internationalespionage.34

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american ethnologist

My habit of asking questions and taking notes accentuated my difference fromfarmers. Their distrust of me was even more pronounced under the ritualdanger ofbar-do,for social reintegrationand successful rebirthcome notwith fixitybutwith de-tachment and acceptance of mutability.Never would people performfuneral lamentsfor me outside a funeral setting, and I was instructed never to reproduce them inLadakhi.My tendency for observation and documentation through writing, recording,and filming rendered eternal those traitsthat had their place in ritual time and socialrebirth.Likea soul in bar-do, my inabilityto comprehend impermanence could haveproven haunting and menacing in multiple ways.35At the door of the Tung-pa house that day, amidst the crisis of regenerationcaused by death, the uncertainty over ritualperformances, and the political clashesthat rocked life on the border, my presence as a fieldworker called for new thresholdsof arbitrationbetween insiders and outsiders.36Throughthis encounter, Icame to un-derstandthat domains of inclusion and exclusion in Ladakhvarywith shiftingcondi-tions and times. Therefore, a focus on rituals in their dynamic and social settings(Geertz 1973a), on the multiple sites of experience (Marcus 1995), and on the net-works of domination within which the ethnographer is situated (Haraway 1988) canprovide opportunities to convert lost paths into pragmatic maps and negotiate en-trances that are sensitive to power and context.notes

Acknowledgments.I thank SonamPhuntsog,KonchokPhandey,Ama Dolma,ShemaSpalzes, he lateApoRoziali,Master afferKhan, ndotherresidents fAchinathangorsharingtheirknowledgeand hospitalitywithme. DebboraBattaglia,PascaleDollfus,NicolaGrist,MichaelHerzfeld,MichaelJackson,SunainaMaira,ElliotSperling,andChristopherWheeleroffered upportive ndinsightfuluggestions.Myarticlealsobenefited rom hethoughtfulndencouragingommentsof AmericanEthnologisteviewers.1. Accordingo Buddhist osmology, heearthand the skyareshutofffrom he worldofhumansby apertures alled nam-sgo skydoor)andsa-sgo(earthdoor).Onthe east andwestsidesof housewalls,a complexthreaded ontraptions hungto ensure hatthe doorsdo notopen(Powell1977).2. Tung-pa amyang ndNawangarepsuedonyms.3. HereIdraw romMaryDouglas's1966)workon symbolicmargins. he assertshatno-tions aboutpurityand pollutionworkto controlboundariesbetween internaland externalstates,butIdepart rom he implications f herthesisthatthese statesarefixed,abstract ndcognitive,alwaysindicativeof a realityout there.CharlesFrake 1975) usefullyextendstheanalysisof thresholdso theorganizationf socialspace,showinghowdoors ntroduce roce-dures ordiscerning ndregulatinglassesof people.4. Fornstance,myfocuson publicperformanceoesnotaccount or hepsychological rprivatemeanings f death.Besides,as Rosaldo 1989)andGrindal1995)haveshown,death sanemotional ventthatcannotbecomprehended yanalytical evicesalone.Anemphasisonexperiential nd collectivemodesof seeingand sensingrituals s also important,s Jackson(1989),Stoller 1989),andTurnert al. (1992)havedemonstrated.Whileresearchingorceryamong heSonghay f Niger,one of PaulStoller'seachers oldhim,"If oulisten o us,youwilllearnmuchaboutourways.But o havevision,youmustgrowoldwithus" Stoller 989:83).5. Suchan assumptionof ethnographic apport nderlies he methodof "thickdescrip-tion"prescribedby Geertz(1973b).AlthoughGeertzprobesinto the contextual ierswithinwhich culture s performed,bringing he studyof ritual o intricate crutiny,hismethodhasalso invokedmuchcriticism orbeingpredicatedon the separationof the observer rom heobserved in a way thatsanctionsthe interpretive uthorityof the observer(Clifford 986;Marcus1995).

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6. In his study of Tamil personhood, E. Valentine Daniel (1987) contrasts the abstract,bounded, and constant units of territorialdemarcation (tecam and kiranam)with the person-centered and shifting notions of country, nation, state, or village (urand natu).The definition ofyul is similar to the latter.

7. The term, 'Brog-pa,is considered disparaging if used as a contemporary appellation orform of address for the residents of Da and Hanu who are called Dards by some authors(Francke1906, Vohra 1989). The residents of Da and Hanuwere subjugatedthrougha series ofbattles and broughtunderthe suzeraintyof the Ladakhiking. Subsequently, the kingforbade thepeople of Hanu to speak in their language and dismissed their religious practices as primitiveand shameful. Storiesglorifyingthe resistance of local heroes are still told in these parts(SonamPhuntshog1999).8. This deity was installed by a monkjust 65 years ago. Itwas broughtfrom the Skindiangvalley of Khalatse.9. As Grist(1998) has illustrated, n Kargil,voting patternsin the elections for the State As-sembly and LokSabha in 1996 and 1998 denoted diverse affiliations based on kinship, resi-dence, economic transactions,and historicalties that often undermined religious solidarity.10. In his classic essay, "ThePre-eminence of the RightHand:A Studyin RitualPolarity,"Robert Hertz (1960) proposes that sanctions that privilege the use of the righthand over the leftare based on ideological social institutions.The rightside is identified with male vitalityand sa-cred spheres while the left side is linked with women, death, and profanity.Inher analysis ofHindu rituals n India,Veena Das (1977) disputesthis dichotomy between impureand pureandtraces the relation between lineage gods, ancestors, and the left hand to death. Similarly, Beck(1972) ties the principles underlying caste organization in Konkusociety in South India to theright/left divergence, in which left-hand caste deities are generally female and connected todeath, serpents, and darkness.11. See Evans-Wentz (1957:6-7) for the symbolic significance of the number 49. This ismore of a normativeschedule than an actual one, forrebirthcan take place at any time afterthesoul becomes aware of its state and looks fora new body.12. Composed in the eighth centuryby Padmasambhava,Bar-dothosgrol isa treasuretextabout the art of dying. There are three main bar-do states described in this book, each of themcontaining the potential for enlightenment (Evans-Wentz 1957). The first state is called 'chikha'i bar-do (transitionalstate of the moment of death); here the soul is not yet aware of death,but if it comprehends realityin the clear lightthat dawns duringthis period, it can be spared re-birth. The second state, chos-nyid bar-do (experiencing of the glimpsing of reality)marksthebreakdown of the personalitywhen the soul realizes that it no longer possesses a body. Ifrealityis still not comprehended, the third state, sridpa'i bar-do (transitionalstate of rebirth),sets in.This state is defined by the quest for a new body. A description of the symbolism of the bar-dostages is provided in Corlin 1988.13. The stampof ritualimpurity irstaffects intimatemembers of the deceased person'sex-tended household. Forone month, they must not approach the hearth or eat from everydayutensils. The hearth is the center of social life in the household in Achinathang, a zone wherehospitalityis most poignantly expressed. The relatives of the dead are also banned fromcrossingirrigationcanals or entering fields (see Gergan 1940). They are more or less sequestered in thehouse and barredfrom public celebrations. For those with suspicious natures, any sickness,crop failure, or climactic misfortune that prevails can be attributed to the surviving spouse.When the obligatory uncleanliness hasended, a personfrom theirpha-spun (residentialdescentgroupswith an agnatic idiom) consoles and feeds the mourners, helps them to wash their hair,and providesthem with a sumptuousmeal (sdug-zan),symbolizing the conclusion of the periodof contamination.When the process of cremation has begun, a patrilinealkin member makes breadfrom theflourbrought by villagers and gives some to the women present.All the villagersmustgatherbe-low the main gate (rgyal-sgo) n an open space on the propertyof the dead person.An innerringis formed by men who conceal the corpse-bierfrom the women while women circumambulatethe men and the body. InAchinathang, it is only men who carrythe corpse to the funeralpyre,which they encircle three times, prostratingthemselves on the floor between each circle,

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shoulderinghe thrust f contagiouscontact.Thecremation ites for most householdsand theopensheltersbehindrocks,wherebodiesarepreserved ntil tisappropriateo immolatehem,arelocatedat theperipheryfthevillagewhere hefieldsend. Themenwhocarryhecorpse othe funeralpyrecanpause orrestonlyon the landsownedbytheir ineagemembers.14. Theya-trarituals one suchexample; tassociates ravelwithdeath.Incase theydonotreturn, eoplewho planto set outforpilgrimagesr longjourneyshrowa banquet orvil-lagersbeforedeparting. t s mostlyMuslim amilies nAchinathangwho practice hiscustom,eventhough he ritual s notconsideredo be of Islamic rigin.It s saidto haveonce prevailedamong he 'Brog-pa illagesnearby.Tomyknowledge, nDa andHanueldersstill hrowban-quetsforvillagerswho plan o travel thoughheydo not have o isolate hemselves fterwardsinthepast).15. ThisBuddhistxtractioneremonyhasbeendiscussednconsiderableetailbyGergan(1940),Kvaerne1985),Paul 1982),andWaddell 1978).Ihavenotseen itperformed,uthaveheard t describedby layvillagers nd one monk romAchinathang.16. The monksmostoftenperform rayers f atonement skong-bshag)norder o purify

the sins andobstaclesofthe dead andthe living.Theyalsoperformhepeaceraterites g.yang-zab orzhi-khro) edicated o Samantabhadrauddha r Kun-tuBzang-po,he earliestmanifes-tationof the Buddhadepictedwithoutclothes.The wo arealwaysperformedimultaneously.17. Theg.yang-'gugsituals alsoperformed hen a bride eaveshernatalhometo residewith herhusband'samilyandatthe endof the secondharvest achyear.18. Similarly,Briggs 1992)writesabout the significanceof women'swailingin Waraodeathrituals.19. A detailedhistory f the LBAan befound nBertelsen 997 andvanBeek1996. Grist1998 providesa goodbackgroundn political actions nKargil.20. MichaelHerzfeld1991)offersa contrast etween"social ime" what s constitutedntheeveryday nteractions etweenpeopleandintheir ormalrelationships)nd "monumentaltime" what s appropriatedy a modernistbureaucracyo naturalizepace)."Thebattle,"hewritesof theCretan ownof Rethemnos, isoverthefuture fthepast" 1991:5).ThecitizensofRethemnos ctivelydebateclaimsto authenticity ndantiquity, efending heirstanceby for-warding"counter-archaeologies"stheystrive ora "place nhistory."21. The manner in which peasant insurgencies ransformedbourgeois politics andhegemonicgovernmentpoliciesincolonialIndiahas been well documentedbythe subalternstudiesschool (Guha1983).Thetransitiono nationalismn Indiamaynothaveproceededdi-rectlyfrompeasantrevoltsbut it would be erroneous,maintainsChatterjee1993),to rejectthemas localizedeventswithout ignificance.22. ArjunAppadurai1981)labelsas "gastro-political"heconflicts urroundingoodex-changes.Ortner1975, 1977),too,writesabout hepoliticalpowerof ritual fferingsntheBud-dhistpractices f theSherpas f Nepal.23. MartinBrauen 1983)asserts hatthe meal-mountains a symbolicrepresentationfMountMeru ri-rab), hich,inBuddhistheology,standsat the heart fthe universe.24. Propaganda y youthgroups o curtailwedding expenses is also notedby TakashiMaeda(1976:156) nJapanwhere,he alleges,thecrusaders reseldombound o thriftn theirown practices.25. Sucha directiverom heBritishnthe 1930sispresentedn Bertelsen 997.AboutIn-dia ingeneral,David Hardiman1986)describes he manner n which the revenue-collectionsystemof the colonial British egimecriminalizedhome-brewedalcohol by transferringhebrunt f taxationon the subaltern easantry,while simultaneouslyorwardingtselfas a moralimperativehatcurtailed "pernicious abit."Asthe controloverthe production nd distribu-tion of liquorwas wrested rom hepeasants, lcoholbecamea nonlocal, llicitcommodity.Al-thoughthe discourseof modernityvalidateditself as a rationaloutgrowthof commodityexchangeandsurplusproduction,tnevertheless eployedthe hallmarksf "tradition"ntheenterprise f alcoholproduction.26. Itis believedthatinthe ninthcentury,GuruRin-po-che r PadmasambhavainSan-skrit)pread he doctrineof BuddhismnLadakh.He was a Tantric ractitionerromIndiawhotamed resistantdivinitiesand converted hem to protectors f Buddhism.Among he marvels

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at the margins of deaththat are attributedo himarethediscoveryof apricots,new methodsof irrigationndagricul-tural ertility, ndthe invention fchang,originally nofferingoappease lesh-eating ndalco-hol-drinkingeities(Paul1982:152).27. Id s theArabicword or estivals onnectedwiththereligious slamic alendar.

28. Thepha-spun,which literallymeans"father's rothers,"s a systemof inclusionandexclusion,found argely mongBuddhistLadakhis.Members re connectedbytheprinciple f"bone" rus) escent,a substance nheritedromone's fathers.Despite he normative rescrip-tions, however,descent hroughhe pha-spuns flexibleand is largelynfluencedby residenceand the maintenance f cordialrelations etween amilies.29. Inhisstudyof Tamang ituals,Holmberg1989)argues hatthedichotomybetweensacrificial actionsand canonicalBuddhism s a misconception.Heexplores hepolyphonyormultivocalityf religiouspractice nthe ritual ndmythical ieldsofTamang ociety, usinganinterpretivemodelin which culture s viewed as a text. Inthe tradition f Brohm 1963)andTambiah1970),Holmbergocuseson thedialectical ensionandthecomplementaryynthesisof lamaicandsacrificialormulationsnthesingle otal ieldof religionnNepal.InTamang ul-ture,Buddhismstribalized ndclan-based,not universal nd totalitarian.Holmberg ttributesthis to the history f state-formationn Nepalwheretheregimes npowerhave favoredHindu-ism andwhere the divergencesamongTamang itualpractitionerslama, imbu,andbombo)are not exclusiveandabsolute,butpermeable ndtransformative.30. Accordingo SikanderKhan 1987), in the pasta live sheeporgoatwas slaughteredandeaten raw n'Brog-yulo appeasebloodthirstyncestralpirits.31. Mamaniwasoriginallyelebrated roundburial ites.Excavatedravesand bonesareevidence that beforetheywere converted o the Buddhistbelief in incineration,he old no-madic ribesof Gilgitburied heirdead.32. Similarly,he stagingof mortuaryituals mongthe Sa'adanTorajan Indonesiahasbeen alteredby nationalbureaucracy,massmedia,and tourism o accommodatenew humanaudienceswho havegainedmore mportancever traditionalpiritualnvitees Adams1993).33. Thefirst ystematicnquirynto the Muslimcommunityby a non-Ladakhi as con-ductedbyNicola Gristn 1998. Otherhistorical, olitical,and culturalperspectives avebeenprovidedbyAggarwal 994, Dollfus1995, Pinnault 999, Rizvi1983, Srinivas 998, and vanBeek 1996.34. Ihavebeenentering ndexitingLadakhveryyear or he lastelevenyears.Thevillag-ers'impression f megradually hangedas Igainedconfidence nmy ability o speak he localdialects,as Ilearned o be comfortablewithmysurroundings-allowingmy bodyto follow thepaths up and downthe mountainwithoutreflectinguponthe possibility f falling-and as Iabandonedmyefforts o eatinisolationnmy private oomattheedgeof thecourtyardnd be-ganto spendmostof mytimeinthefamilykitchen, he centerof social life.Eventually,s theseasonswent by and as Ibeganteachinginthe school and making riends,Icame to be ad-dressedbymyfirstnameorbykin erms uch as a-che-le(elderone)orno-mo-le younger ne).35. RobertDesjarlais1992)connectsanthropologicalpistemologywith heaestheticsofsoul loss inanotherHimalayanommunity,he Yolmoof Nepal. My approachdiffers romhisin that Iseek to integratehe politicalandpoeticdimensionsof ethnographic racticewithoutassumingunproblematicommonalities fexperience.36. The Indo-Pakistaniorder bearstestimonyto the staggeringdisplacementof thetwelve millionpeople who crossed sides during he Partition f 1947. Villagers rom Achi-nathang elated ccountsofthesoundandfuryofshellsshotacross he border uringhe recentKargilwar of 1999. Theydescribed he sightof thousandsof soldiers'corpsestransportedthrough heirvillageand the strainof working or the armyas porters,nightlycarryingo thefrontline 5 kilosofarmamentsach.references citedAdams,Kathleen1993 ClubDead, NotClubMed:StagingDeathinContemporaryanaTorajaIndonesia).SoutheastAsianJournalf SocialScience21(2):62-72.

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Aggarwal, Ravina1994 From Mixed Strainsof BarleyGrain:Person and Place in a LadakhiVillage. Ph.D. dis-sertation, Departmentof Anthropology, IndianaUniversity.Appadurai, Arjun1981 Gastro-politicsin Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist8(3):494-501.Beck, Brenda1972 Peasant Society in Konku: A Studyof Rightand Left Sub-castes in South India. Van-couver: Universityof BritishColumbia.Bertelsen, KristofferBrix1996 Our Communalized Future:Sustainable Development, Social Identification,and thePolitics of Representation in Ladakh. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of EthnographyandSocial Anthropology.AarhusUniversity, Denmark.1997 EarlyModern Buddhism in Ladakh:On the Constructionof Buddhist LadakhiIdentityand ItsConsequence. In Recent Research on Ladakh 7. ThierryDodin and Heinz Rather,

eds. Pp. 67-88. Bonn: Ulmer KulturanthropologischeSchriften.Bishop, Peter1989 The Myth of Shangri-La:Tibet, Travel Writing and the Western Creation of SacredLandscape. Berkeley: Universityof California Press.Brauen,Martin

1982 Death Customs in Ladakh. Kailash9(4):319-332.1983 The Cosmic Center in the LadakhiMarriageRitual. In Recent Research on Ladakh.Detlef Kantowskyand ReinhardSander,eds. Pp. 107-113. Munich: WeltforumVerlag.

Bray,John1985 The HimalayanMission. Leh,Ladakh:Moravian Church.Briggs,Charles1992 Since IAm a Woman, IWill ChastiseMy Relatives:Gender, Reported Speech, and the(Re) Production of Social Relations in Warao Ritual Wailing. American Ethnologist19(4):337-361.Brohm,John

1963 Buddhism and Animism in a Burmese Village. Journal of Asian Studies 22(2):155-167.Chatterjee,Partha

1993 The Nation and ItsFragments:Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Prince-ton UniversityPress.Clifford,James1986 Introduction:Partial Truths.InWritingCulture:The Poetics and Politics of Ethnogra-phy. JamesClifford and George Marcus, eds. Pp. 1-26. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress.

Corlin,Claes1988 The Journey Throughthe Bardo: Notes on the Symbolism of Tibetan MortuaryRitesand the Tibetan Book of the Dead. InOn the Meaning of Death: Essayson MortuaryRitualsand Eschatological Beliefs. Sven Cederroth, Claes Corlin, and Jan Lindstrom,eds. Pp.63-76. Uppsala: Almqvistand Wiksell International.Crook,John1990 Buddhist Ethicsand the Problem of Ethnic Minorities:The Case of Ladakh.InRadicalConservatism: Buddhism in the ContemporaryWorld. Sulak Sivaraksa,ed. Pp. 376-391.Bangkok:InternationalNetwork of EngagedBuddhists.Daniel, E.Valentine1987 FluidSigns: Being a Person the TamilWay. Berkeley:Universityof California Press.Das, Veena

1977 On the Categorization of Space in Hindu Ritual.In Text and Context: The Social An-thropology of Tradition2. RavindraJain,ed. Pp. 9-27. Philadelphia: Institute or the Studyof Human Issues.

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1995 The Historyof Muslims in CentralLadakh.The TibetJournal20(3):35-58.Douglas, Mary1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York:FrederickA. Praeger.E

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Nepal Ritual Space and Politics in a Border Himalayan Village

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