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Tamang Ritual Texts. Notes on the Interpretation of an Oral Tradition of Nepal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

András Höfer
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Extract

In a recent issue of J.R.A.S. (2, 1982, 205–207), Tadeusz Skorupski reviewed my Tamang Ritual Texts I, Preliminary Studies in the Folk-religion of an Ethnic Minority in Nepal (henceforth “TRT”). His criticism is based on some postulates that I question. And since ours is a controversy between two disciplines, namely philology and anthropology, I think it worthwhile to examine more closely some of the arguments put forward by Skorupski. The point at issue is our approach to texts of an oral tradition.

Though neither Tibetans proper nor “Bhotias”, the Tamangs speak a language of the Bodic Division (in R. Shafer's terminology), and one component of the religious tradition is Tibetan Buddhism, which in the past exercised some influence on components of the oral tradition, such as shamanism and exorcism. An adequate interpretation of oral tradition, particularly in the diachronic perspective, necessitates some sort of cooperation between the Tibetologist and the anthropologist. Thus, my reply to the Tibetologist Skorupski is a programmatic rather than a polemic attempt.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 117 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 23 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1985

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References

1 In Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, Band 65, Wiesbaden: F. Steiner 1981.Google Scholar

2 cf. his An Introduction to Sino-Tibetan, Part II. Wiesbaden 1967.Google Scholar

3 Bloch, M. (ed.): Political Language and Oratory in Traditional Society, London 1975, 12 ffGoogle Scholar. The formalization in the Tamang texts also include what Maranda has labelled “verbodynamics”, that is, a streamlining mechanism imposing cliches upon the discourse. Cf. Maranda, P., Comment [on Content Analysis of Oral Literature], in Jason, H. and Segal, D. (eds.), Patterns in Oral Literature, The Hague 1977, 303Google Scholar. For two exemplary preliminary analyses of oral texts of the Rais and Gurungs of Nepal cf. Allen, N. J. “Sewala Puja Bintila Puja: Notes on Thulung Rai Ritual Language”, Kailash, A Journal of Himalayan Studies, VI, 4, 1978Google Scholar; and Strickland, S. S., Belief, Practices, and Legends: A Study in the Narrative Poetry of the Gurungs of Nepal, Cambridge 1982 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis).Google Scholar

4 Under the given circumstances changes in what one may call the macro-cultural frame of reference further enhance ambiguity. Thus, contacts with Hindu population groups over the past 200 years have resulted in broadening or doubling identifications, for example, in the frequent equation of Tamang with Hindu gods or the explanation of Tamang rituals in terms of Hindu rituals. The process no doubt bears some resemblance to the Levi-Straussian “bricolage”, with the difference, however, that here it is not so much the text but its interpretation that is subject to “re-assemblage”.

5 I am referring to the distinction by Hymes, D., quoted by Tedlock, D., “The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation in American Indian Religion”, p. 48Google Scholar, in Kroeber, K. (ed.), Traditional Literatures of the American Indian. Texts and Interpretations, Lincoln 1981.Google Scholar

6 Nach Babel. Aspekte der Sprache und der Übersetzung, Frankfurt 1981, pp. 19 ff.Google Scholar

7 I appreciate Skorupski's courage and fairness in giving one illustration of how he would translate the text (p. 206), but I cannot accept his resorting to a “blow-up” of a particularly obscure passage in the Tamang original.