Post on 11-Jan-2023
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau
My presentation today is part of a broad project exploring several questions about
cultural diversity on the pre-modern Tibetan Plateau. Firstly – just how diverse was the
Tibetan Plateau? Then – how did the diversity of the region originate? How was it
patterned? How was it maintained? My purpose in seeking answers to these questions is
to understand the extent and nature of the present cultural change and loss in the region.
I was first exposed to the issues I will discuss today one morning on the
21st of December, 2008. At that time, my co-researcher and I were in Guojia Village, on
the western edge of a region known as Sanchuan – the Three Rivers or Valleys – in
northeast Qinghai Province, on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
Figure 1. The Sanchuan Region.
Sanchuan is an ethnically diverse region, with the main populations being Mangghuer
(Tu), Tibetans, and Han Chinese. My co-researcher and I were interviewing a huala, a
medium who embodies local tutelary deities during healing and other rituals. My
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
collaborator carried out the interview in the Mangghuer language, an archaic Mongolic
dialect. The huala was describing healing rituals that he had conducted, when he
provided the following account:
Once I went to treat a man in a neighboring county. His whole body was swollen.
He'd been sick like that for eleven or twelve years, and had spent more than
100,000 RMB trying to cure his illness. Doctors, Muslim clerics, lamas – nobody
could help him. In the end, only I was able to cure him. He was sick because he'd
taken something from a Tibetan family.
Over the next three years, as we continued conducting research in Sanchuan, we
heard similar stories about members of other ethnic groups – Han and Mangghuer –
falling seriously ill because they had taken things from Tibetan families. Though the
work of da Col (2012) and others (e.g. Leach 1954) on poisoning in Tibet and south-east
Asia are obviously relevant to such cases, my initial reaction to these anecdotes was to
turn to the work of Diamond (1988) and her assertion that inter-ethnic accusations of
poisoning in southwest China were primarily a form of 'othering' – a way reifying ethnic
boundaries by appeal to stereotypes that inverted the self. However, the argument I will
make today is that what appears to be evidence for a decisive cultural break between
Tibetan and non-Tibetan populations, when examined more carefully, actually
demonstrates the existence of a broadly shared, trans-ethnic cultural logic in which
Tibetan, Han, and Mangghuer participate. This, in turn, I take as evidence for a preceding
process of creolization in the region.
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
Creolization is one of just several clustered concepts, often used interchangeably,
to describe processes of cultural change. In addition to creolization, this cluster of
concepts includes syncretism, hybridization, and transculturation (see Kraidy 2005 for a
review). So, before proceeding, I will clarify what I mean by 'creolization'. The word has
its roots in Spanish and Portuguese terms that arose following the colonization of the
Americas. The term criollo was originally applied to people of Iberian descent who were
born in the Americas (Stewart 2007, Chauderson 2001, Baron and Cara 2011). Such
people were though to be inherently transformed by their alien natal environment,
typically in degenerate ways. The term was later picked up by the French, in the late
1500s, and used in much the same way. However, the word gradually lost the
implications of creoles as inferior, degenerate people, and took on the meaning of 'local'
or 'provincial' and was applied to anyone living in the colonies, regardless of their
ancestry (Chauderson 2001). During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the word
began to take on its contemporary meaning of, roughly, 'mixed', with the study of the
languages of creole populations in the Caribbean and the French colonies of the Indian
Ocean. My usage of the terms creole and creolization carries all three senses of the word:
someone born outside their native land, and who is part of a localized population that
shares cultural features derived from multiple historical sources. Creolization, in this
sense, is not a process of mixture, but more like cultural drift or convergence – the
emergence of novel, localized cultural forms in situations where people from diverse
ancestries live in intimate contact over long periods of time.
So, what I will argue today is that the phenomenon of 'disease-causing Tibetans'
arises largely from a shared, trans-ethnic logic that emerged as a result of creolization in
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
the Sanchuan region. This, in turn, suggests that creolization – the emergence of
localized, convergent, transethnic cultural forms – played a role in structuring the cultural
diversity of the pre-modern Tibetan Plateau. Rather than discussing the process of
creolization, a topic I have addressed elsewhere (Roche, forthcoming), today I will focus
on the result of creolization, using a case study that is particularly illustrative for the way
in which it enables ethnic and transethnic factors to be teased out.
In the following, I outline the local logic of 'disease-causing Tibetans' in
Sanchuan, taking special care to delineate the ethnic and transethnic factors involved. In
terms of transethnic factors, I begin by looking at the house as a transethnic structure, and
also discuss efficacy as a transethnic religious logic. I finally outline where ethnic
distinction comes into the causative chain by examining the differing styles of faith
pursued by various ethnic groups in the region. I will begin my discussion by talking
about the house in Sanchuan.
Levi-Strauss (1983) originally proposed the concept of the 'house' and 'house
societies' as modes of social organization. In her discussion of Levi-Strauss's house
concept, Hsu (1998) characterized 'the house' according to the following three features.
Firstly, houses are maintained by diverse and flexible kinship practices that focus on
territory more than descent. Secondly, houses are corporate units consisting of human and
non-human beings and material and immaterial wealth. And thirdly, houses are also
enduring social units construed as moral persons. Carston and Hugh-Jones (1995),
recommended that Levi-Strauss's criteria, and the concepts of 'house' and 'house
societies', rather than being typological devices, are best viewed as analytical tools that
allow us to access the interplay between social, symbolic, and physical/ aesthetic domains
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
frequently provided in 'native' discourses. The 'house', in this sense, is good to think with.
My aim in applying the 'house' concept to Sanchuan is not to classify Sanchuan as a
'house society' – we may note, for example, the absence of inter-generationally stable
house names, inheritable titles, and heirlooms. Rather, in the following, I use 'the house'
to think about transethnic culture in Sanchuan, in much the same way that Mueggler
(2001) and Wellens (2010) have used 'the house' to think about ethnic specificities among
the Yi and Prmi, respectively.
Regarding the first of Levi-Strauss's criteria – diverse and flexible kinship
practices – we may first note that both patrilocal and matrilocal post-marital residence
were traditionally practiced among all local ethnic groups. Polyandry and polygny were
practiced in addition to monogamy. Adoption was a widely employed strategy for
maintaining the house. Though lineages did exist among all three ethnic groups, they
were typically shallow in generational depth and weak in social power. These diverse
marriage and kinship practices, along with the weak lineage structures, suggest that the
house was a significant social unit for all three ethnic groups, and that its continuity was a
major concern.
Secondly, the house existed as a unit incorporating human and non-human beings
as well as material and immaterial wealth. This can be seen most clearly in local disease
etiologies whereby a house member angers, for example, the soil deity, who then
retaliates by first sickening and killing livestock, and then family members, at random.
The collective, trans-personal and trans-species nature of the house can also be seen in
notions of collective fortune, such as the Tibetan concept of g.yang and Mangghuer
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
concept of diandiar whereby individuals and the house reciprocally influence each others'
fortunes.
Finally, we may also note that the house was an enduring social unit construed as
a moral person. This was particularly made evident by the fact that for domestic life-
cycle rituals, such as weddings and funerals, and in community rituals, for example the
annual Sanchuan harvest festivals, participation was mandatory at the level of the house,
i.e., each house was required to send a representative. The community was therefore
made up of houses, rather than persons. Houses also had corporate repute that extended
across generations. Within the community, houses therefore had enduring social roles and
identities.
In addition to this transethnic social organization based on the house as the
fundamental unit of social organization, Mangghuer, Tibetans, and local Han in Sanchuan
also shared a transethnic religious logic centered on the concept of efficacy. This concept
has been best described in the literature on popular Chinese religion, as in the following
quote from Chau (2006): "At the core of Chinese popular religion is the concept of
magical efficacy (ling), which is conceived of as a particular deity's miraculous response
(lingying) to the worshiper's request for divine assistance..." Overmyer (2009: 153-154)
describes the focus of such requests as: "… for peace and good fortune, sons, good
husbands or wives, healing, travel safety, good business, promotion in school, safe
driving and success in law suits … [and in another context for,] long life, the birth of
sons, good health, good relationships with neighbors, making money, passing
examinations, promotions, finding wives, peace, good harvests, rain during droughts and
similar practical goals." In Sanchuan, requests for divine assistance typically focus on the
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
following, as expressed by a deity through a huala, "… gentle breezes, gentle rain
showers, and much grass. Livestock will fill your yard. Evil winds and storms will be
kept away. I will give you a peaceful life." The focus of such requests is not for ethical
advice, cosmological insights into the nature of reality, divine retribution, or spiritual
empowerment, but rather for the deity to intervene in worldly affairs related to the
supplicant's peace and prosperity.
In the Han and Mangghuer contexts, miaoshen – temple deities – typically
possess divine efficacy, whereas among Tibetans, worldly, efficacious deities are
typically yul lha and gzhi bdag – 'mountain deities'. The logics of these deities' efficacy
overlap to the extent that Mangghuer venerate Tibetan mountain deities as temple deities,
and vice versa. In addition to temple and mountain deities, however, other classes of
deities may also possess divine efficacy. Of particular significance for the present case
are house deities, in Mangghuer called jiashen and in Tibetan called srung ma. These
deities are associated exclusively with particular houses, in the sense outlined above, as
enduring territorial, corporate groups that encompass both material and immaterial
property. House deities ensure prosperity for the house that venerates them, rather than
for individuals or for the larger community. However, house deities are often regarded
with ambiguity because, firstly, they require intense maintenance through offerings to
ensure their continued service to their host house, and secondly, because they often assist
a house at the expense of other houses, or at the expense of the wider community.
In fact, the cult of house deities is the basis for the syndrome of disease-causing
Tibetans. It is not the Tibetans that are believed to cause illness, but rather the house
deities they venerate. This is because house deities protect the house, in part, by
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
maintaining and containing its corporate integrity, including human and non-human
beings, material as well as immaterial wealth. House deities therefore punish anyone who
diminishes this integrity, even if only by borrowing a kitchen utensil. Importantly, this
logic has no ethnic basis – illness may occur when a Tibetan borrows from a Tibetan, or a
Mangghuer from a Mangghuer. As a Tibetan consultant stated, "We shouldn't take even
one bowl from others. If someone takes a bowl from other families then we should break
it. If it is clothes, we burn them."
Another significant aspect of the transethnic cult of efficacy is that the efficacy of
deities – house deities, temple deities, mountain deities – is seen to rest not only on their
inherent power, but also in people's faith in those deities. Faith is seen as a tendon linking
divinity to humanity; it is the fulcrum that gives leverage to divine efficacy. The more
faith people have in a deity, the more efficacious a deity can be. And it is here, at this
critical pivot linking the house, divine efficacy, and individual attitudes, that truly ethnic
distinction comes into play in the etiology of 'disease-causing Tibetans'. And so I now
turn to a discussion of different modalities of faith in Sanchuan.
Faith is perhaps not the best term to use. As Needham (1972: 3-4) notes for the
term 'belief', 'faith' "… has been taken for granted as a common psychological category
denoting a human capacity that can immediately be ascribed to all men…" A more
adequate term might be 'dispositions towards divinity', as this focus on 'disposition'
covers the divergent presuppositions that different ethnic groups in Sanchuan adhere to.
Nonetheless, I will continue to use the term 'faith' as a sort of shorthand for 'dispositions
towards divinity' in the following examination of different modalities of faith in
Sanchuan.
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
Local Han and Mangghuer in Sanchuan espouse what has been called 'practical
belief'. Chau (2006), Bruun (2003), and Overmeyer (2009) all contain helpful discussions
of this disposition. Although all these scholars work on the Han Chinese community, I do
not mean to suggest that this 'practical belief' is an exclusively Han phenomenon or that
all Han necessarily espouse it, but rather than 'practical belief' is the predominant
disposition towards the divine among certain communities, in this case, local Han and
Mangghuer. This disenchanted, cognitive style of faith focuses on the extent of deities'
efficacy rather than the existence of deities per se. It rests on spectacular displays of
divine capacity – what Chau calls 'miraculous response'. This is most palpably manifested
in Sanchuan through the acts of violence and self-harm carried out by mediums who
embody deities. These mediums – the huala – pierce themselves with skewers, beat
themselves with iron flails, lick hot swords, and walk on coals. Such displays are
intended to invoke awe and fear in observers. For the person who is possessed, their
experience is one of total unconsciousness, as their self is completely replaced with a
more powerful being. However, in the absence of such displays of divine awesomeness,
locals intellectualize their dispositions towards divine efficacy to the point of irony. Even
trance mediums who incarnate temple deities can claim to not have much faith in deities.
In the logic of 'practical belief', one's disposition towards the divine is typically reliant on
external stimulus that is constantly weighed and judged. Local discourse is rife with
concerns over fakes –fake huala, fake possession, fake miracles, and so on.
In contrast, Tibetans seem to be able to deploy another disposition towards the
divine. This mode of faith is overwhelmingly emotive rather than intellectual and based
on internal cultivation rather than external evidence. Ekvall (1964: 57-59) defines the
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
Tibetan term for religious faith, dad pa, as: "…a once-and-for-all attitude… The circle
which delimits the semantic content of dad pa is a much larger one than the circle which
delimits the semantic content of the English word 'faith'. The terms which cluster around
dad pa express aspects of faith, belief, trust, confidence, acceptance, devotion, reverence,
and adoration." This complex attitude is exemplified in two case studies where Tibetan
devotees were observed to be carried into ecstatic trances due to their deep faith in
particular lamas or deities. Meriam (2012), in her discussion of the lha babs rituals she
observed in Khri 'du County, stated that people who appeared to become possessed,
described themselves as being in a state of heightened consciousness, one that was deeply
emotional, driving many of them to tears. Similarly, Dpa' mo rgyal (2012), in her study of
ecstatic trances among Bon devotees in Reb gong, emphasizes that those in trance
experience heightened consciousness, and simultaneously, strong emotional states. In
both cases, these ecstatic, emotional trances were brought on by a deepened feeling of
faith that was internally generated by the believer. This practice of self-cultivated,
conscious, emotional ecstasy differs drastically from the spectacular, unconscious, violent
possessions that predominate among local Han and Mangghuer.
This difference in faith styles – cognitive and reliant on display versus emotional
and reliant on internal cultivation – gives rise to stereotypes among Han and Mangghuer
that portray Tibetans as devout to the point of fanaticism. One example of such
stereotypes is seen in the annual harvest festivals in Sanchuan, in depictions of two
Tibetans running around, prostrating haphazardly in every direction, and even on top of
one another. Such stereotypes of Tibetan dispositions towards divinity then feed into the
logic of house deities and their efficacy. The local logic runs that if Tibetans are
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
fanatically faithful, then their deities must be fantastically powerful, as deities' efficacy is
directly dependent on believers' faith in them. So, though all house deities are attributed
with causing illness within and between ethnic groups, Tibetan house deities are
construed as causing particularly chronic and resilient illness by Han and Mangghuer.
The underlying logic as to why borrowing from Tibetan households causes illness
for members of other ethnic groups is fundamentally transethnic. It is based firstly in a
logic of social organization centered on the house. Secondly, it is rooted in a religious
logic focused on the efficacy of deities, particularly house deities. These deities send
sickness between houses, regardless of ethnicity. However, their ability to send illness is
dependent on the faith of the house deity's host. It is only in differing styles of faith –
cognitive versus emotive – that the syndrome's etiology takes on ethnic dimensions. It is
precisely because Han and Mangghuer are so like Tibetans that this etiology is possible,
not because of any divisive cultural cleft between the groups. I believe that such a
broadly shared transethnic cultural logic most likely results from a long process of
creolization – the convergence of local cultural forms. The distinctiveness of this
localized form can be highlighted by contrasting the present case with the poisoning
described by da Col (2012) in Dechen. In Dechen, 'poisoning' is caused by a 'poison god',
rather than a 'house god'. In Dechen, poison is administered in food, and grows as a
parasite inside the person who eats the food, whereas no physical contact is necessary for
'house deities' to cause sickness in Sanchuan. Women are the main human agents of
poisoning in Dechen, whereas sickness is caused by corporate households in Sanchuan.
Finally, poisoning in Dechen is culturally derived from idioms of hospitality and fortune,
whereas I have argued today that idioms of house and efficacy lay at the root of the
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
cultural logic of 'disease-causing Tibetans'. Though superficially similar, the 'disease-
causing Tibetans' of Sanchuan and the poisoners of Dechen are remarkably unalike.
Despite the temptation to identify a pervasive, homogenous poisoning culture across the
Tibetan Plateau, broad patterns of difference and discrete patches of similarity are
identifiable.
I argue that such patterns are caused by creolization and therefore refer to areas of
cultural similarity as zones of creolization. Such zones were non-bounded, overlapping
spaces within which peoples of diverse ancestry engaged in intimate interactions over
prolonged periods of time stretching across generations. Creolization came about as a
result of numerous processes – micro-migrations, agro-pastoral transhumance,
pilgrimage, small-scale trade, intermarriage – that were dependent on the spatial
limitations of neighborly intimacy. Rather than creating a fused, hybrid culture, the
peoples involved in these interactions co-created a shared and highly localized culture
that gradually saw them drift towards each other and away from the traditions of their
root populations. Despite maintaining distinct identities, whether ethnic, clanic,
territorial, cultic, or denominational, the populations came to share a common cultural
logic that involved them in a shared syndrome, but also produced a common vernacular
architecture, interrelated musical forms, common styles of dress, similar life-cycle rituals,
overlapping lexical profiles and grammatical structures, mutually understood gestures,
common work practices, similar ambitions, and a shared pool of folk heroes and
narratives.
I argue that a large part of the cultural diversity on the Tibetan Plateau was
produced in this way. In the same way that the northeast Tibetan Plateau formed a single
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
zone of creolization, there were numerous other such zones that produced their own
unique vernaculars. We may note, for example, the Rgyal rong region, with its mixture of
Qiang, Qiangic, and Tibetan populations. This region has a distinctive architectural style,
unique women's clothing, and forms of sociality and communalism. The practice of
'walking marriage' in the Lavrung and Zhaba regions also suggests locally distinct social
structures. Another zone of creolization existed in the 'Na' region where Sichuan and
Yunnan provinces meet. Despite the differences described by Wellens (2010), we may
note similarities in dress and architecture among the Prmi, Naxi, Tibetan, Yi, Namuyi,
and Moso populations. We can also note the importance of pork as not only a food but
also as a ritual substance. All groups in the area practice similar New Year and funerary
rites, and sing songs using the vocable madami. Even the Tibetan heartlands contained
distinctive populations that gave rise to local creolized vernaculars, for example, the
Kashmiri influenced musical traditions of Lhasa. The recognition of these zones of
creolization and their unique vernaculars requires, I believe, a redrawing of the map of
Tibet, one that breaks out of the tripartite mold of Amdo, Khams, and U-Tsang, and
which also fully recognizes the contribution of the non-Bodic populations to the cultural
makeup of the Tibetan Plateau. It is only such a novel cartography that will allow us to
fully understand the complete extent of the sweeping social and cultural changes
currently taking place in the region.
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
Bibliography Poisoning
• Da Col, Giovanni. “The Poisoner and the Parasite: Cosmoeconomics, Fear, and Hospitality among Dechen Tibetans” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (NS).18.S1 ( 2012): S175-S195.
• Diamond, Norma. "The Miao and Poison: Interactions on China's Southwest Frontier" Ethnology 27.1:1-25. (1988).
• Leach, Edmund. Political Systems of Highland Burma. Oxford: Berg Publishers. (1957).
• Shin, Leo K. The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2006).
Creolization
• Baron, Robert and Ana Cara (eds.). Creolization as Cultural Creativity. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. (2011).
• Canclini, Nestor Garcia. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity. London: University of Minnesota Press. (1995).
• Chauderson, Robert. Creolization of Language and Culture. London: Routledge. (2001).
• de Lancy, Scott. “Creolization in the Divergence of Tibeto-Burman” nd. • Kraidy, Marwan. Hybridity, or The Cultural Logic of Globalization. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press. (2005). • Stewart, Charles (ed.). Creolization: History, Ethnography, Theory. Walnut
Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. (2007). The House
• Carston, Janet and Stephen Hugh-Jones. "Introduction" in Janet Carston and Stephen Hugh-Jones (eds) About the House: Levi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1995):1-46.
• Corlin, Claes. “The Symbolism of the House in Rgyal-thang” in Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi (eds.) Tibetan Studies in Honor of Hugh Richardson: Proceedings of the International Seminar on Tibetan Studies, Oxford 1979. Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips. (1980):87-92.
• Hsu, Elisabeth. "Moso and Naxi: The House" in Michael Oppitz and Elisabeth Hsu (eds) Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs. Zurich: Volkerkundemuseum Zurich. (1998).
• Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1983. The Way of the Masks. London: Jonathan Cape. • Mueggler, Erik. The Age of Wild Ghosts: Memory, Violence, and Place in
Southwest China. Berkeley: University of California Press. (2001). • Wellens, Koen. Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands: The Premi of
Southwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (2010).
Gerald Roche. 2012. Zones of Creolization on the Tibetan Plateau. Guest lecture for Société Française d’Etudes du Monde Tibétain, Paris. 5 October 2012.
Efficacy • Borretz, Avron. Ghosts, Gods, and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial Arts, and
Masculinity on the Margins of Chinese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. (2010).
• Bruun, Ole. Fengshui in China: Geomantic Divination Between State Orthodoxy and Popular Religion. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. (2003).
• Chau, Adam Yuet. Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (2006).
• Johnson, David. Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. (2009).
• Overmeyer, Daniel. Local Religion in North China in the Twentieth Century: The Structure and Organization of Community Rituals and Beliefs. Leiden: Brill. (2009).
Dispositions Towards Divinity
• Ekvall Robert. Religious Observances in Tibet: Pattern and Function. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1964).
• Dpal mo rgyal. My Faith (dad-pa) is Growing Inside of Me: The Chos-thog chen-mo Ritual Dance in a Tibetan Bon Community in Amdo Mtsho sgnon Province. MA thesis, University of Oslo. (2012).
• Meriam, Beth. China's 'Tibetan' Frontiers: Sharing the Contested Ground. Leiden: Brill. (2011).