2His article concerns the Upper Tromo community in the Chumbi Valley, which is made up of seven or eight villages divided into two halves. Power is exercised by two officers called kongdu, alternating from one of the halves to the other. Every three years new elections are held. On the 15th day of the 4th month, the citizens of the “little republic” flock from all of the villages to a cairn in order to celebrate the local deity (yul-lha). A banner is planted in front of the altar. The two officers reaching the end of their terms preside over the election. Each village puts forward candidates called tsho-pa. From this open list, on which any given village can present several candidates, the two officers choose four names, those of the men they consider best equipped to succeed them. From among these four names, the two new officers are chosen by lot.

3The elected officers take up their post on the 11th month. Another ceremony is held before the altar to the local deity. A yak is sacrificed. With their hand on the bleeding skin, the officers take their oath. They receive the banner—the insignia of their office.

4The officers of Tromo told Walsh they did not get their power from the Tibetan government, but from the local deity (yul-lha). Through rolls of the dice, it is the gods that indicate their choice, singling out those who should take power.

5Thus in Tromo, the officers are elected by the sacred mountain, the local deity.

7The political organisations of these populations are different. Nevertheless, three common constants have appeared:

• • 3 On the mnga’-thang, equivalent to the dbang-thang, cf. among others Tucci (1955: 199–200; [1956] 19 (...)

  It is the sacred mountain, the local deity that bestows the dbang or dbang-thang, a virtue that some individuals possess more than others. This is translated by Tibetologists as “majestas”, power, prosperity, etc. It opens access to political power.3

• • 4 For Tucci (1955: 200) the mnga’-thang and the “powerful helmet” or the “high head” cannot be separa (...)

  Inseparable from this virtue, the notion of “head held high” appears, or dbu-’phangs mtho in Tibetan, śir-uṭhāune in Nepalese, sām phongmā in Limbu, etc. It is a characteristic similar to honour.4

• • 5 Editor’s note: In French “la place du rang” go’phang is the non-honorific for dbu-phangs, meaning “ (...)
  • 6 On the “ranked sitting position” among the Limbus, cf. Sagant, 1976.

  This notion of “head held high” or “powerful helmet” varies depending on the individual. At a given moment, the honour of some members of the community dominates over that of the others. It determines the “ranked sitting position” (go-’phang)5 of each individual in an assembly, or even in a house when the community assembles there, during a wedding for example.6

8As we see, although these small populations are marginal, they are nonetheless players in Tibetan tradition. Comparable themes appear in studies by Giuseppe Tucci (1950, 1955), Ariane Macdonald (1971), Erik Haarh (1969) and others on the Yarlung dynasty of the first Tibetan kings, and also in Rolf Stein’s studies on the Epic of King Gesar (1956, 1959).

12What interests me in Nyishang is that one finds a close relationship between rituals and political organisation. However, unlike the populations mentioned above, power was strongly centralised in the context of the three communities or three Cho (Ny). Here I would like to show how in Nyishang, as elsewhere among earlier populations of Tibetan culture, rituals are the foundation of political life, and how the “religion of men” (mi-chos) is ready to be governed, as Tibetans say.

Annual festivals and the god of the soil’s “chosen ones”

15The fundamental rite of each festival is a fumigation (bsangs). It is both a purification of the village and an offering of incense to the gods. Possessed people called lha-phen (Ny) call the god of the soil by means of a drum. They make him “descend” upon them. They embody him. In every detail, these possessed people are comparable to the lha-pa who appear during annual festivals just about everywhere in Tibet.

17All kinds of competitions and jousts take place during these seasonal rites: archery and horseraces as we have seen, but there are also tugs of war between boys and girls, rock-lifting competitions, alternating chants etc.

18The winners of some of these competitions, like archery and horseracing, enjoy acclaim and a kind of triumph. It is said that their “name is big”, that their feat is a sign of the god’s favour.

The god of the soil’s chosen ones and political power

20In the Tibetan epic, Gesar wins the horserace during celebrations in the land of Ling, and all at once he conquers a treasure, a woman and a kingdom. These details are not solely the stuff of poetic fiction. There are Tibetan-culture populations in which the winner of a joust held during an annual festival is said to be favoured by the sacred mountain, the local deity. His feat brings him renown. If it is confirmed, this renown leads him to political power.

21In the winter, the Sharwa of Amdo used to assemble large caravans that set off on trading missions from Songpan across the plateau. These expeditions were risky. The land was infested with bandits. When the caravan was being formed, there was an election to choose a headman, who had extensive powers. The election was comparable to that of the officers of Tromo in the Chumbi Valley. The villagers would come from the four corners of the Sharwa river valley to put forward their candidates. These were men who had acquired good reputations in their community. They were said to have obtained the favour of the local deity, to have shown this by performing feats. Some had gained their renown though speech. They knew the legends and chants, or they had succeeded at a difficult political arbitration that benefited their small community. Others had displayed extraordinary strength or corporeal dexterity. These were the men who had won the horseraces or gun-shooting competitions during the seasonal festivals, or they were great hunters in everyday life. Others had displayed strength of mind: they knew how to earn everyone’s trust. If they fell into an ambush, they were capable of courage and decisiveness. More than others, all of these men possessed that dbang-thang virtue, a gift from the mountain god. And it was because of this virtue that they were put forward as election candidates. At the entrance to Amdo’s broad plateau, the people in the caravan would hold discussions. Some names were selected, others were set aside. From among the selected names, the expedition headman was chosen by lot through a roll of the dice. He took charge.

22As we have seen, in Tromo and in Sharwa country, the election essentially proceeds through three rounds. In the first, the sacred mountain—the local deity—singles out candidates by making them perform feats. In the second, when the caravan is being formed, the men recognise the god’s chosen ones and select the best of them as candidates for power. Finally, in the third round (the lot-casting round), it is once again the sacred mountain that intervenes: through the dice, the local deity chooses the headman.

23What happens in Nyishang? There are jousts, just as there are among the Sharwa. The winners are said to be favoured by the god of the soil. That is the first round. Will those men rise to power?

Village councils

26Elections are held every year. There are two systems. The first concerns the headman and his deputies. The second, which differs in some villages, concerns the councillors.

28However, the similarity ends there. Among the Sharwa, candidates for power are subject to a strict selection process based on feat-morality criteria, the “nine strengths of man” (Stein, 1959: 328). In Nyishang there is also a preselection process, but it is done in a quite different spirit. It has nothing to do with feats or renown. It is age—seniority in an age category—that is decisive, as is clan representation. In the village of Braga for example, each of the clans puts forward as candidates all of the young men who turned 25 that year. It is from among them that the choice is made by lot. And every year, the older ones make way for the younger ones.

29Therefore in Nyishang, they do not give power to men who have in some way shown more talent, courage or dbang-thang virtue than others. The winner of the archery competition or the horserace can also be a candidate if he is the right age. But his feat gives him no advantage over the others. In Nyishang, they have a different, profoundly egalitarian idea. The aim is, over the course of the years, to place as many young men as possible at the head of the council for a short period, preserving the process of election by the god of the soil, underpinned by feat-morality, and then dismiss them after a year to make way for others.

30Thus in Nyishang, in this first type of election involving young men from all clans, we find the idea of a headman being elected by the god of the soil, as among the Sharwa. Winning the draw is in itself a feat. But during the candidate selection process, the god’s favour is controlled by men. The ideas of rotation, equal opportunity among clans, age and majority, demonstrate a kind of reservation with regard to the inherent elitism of feat-morality. One might say that they are mistrustful of the god of the soil’s favour.

31The process of electing councillors (mukhya) is different from that for headmen and their deputies. As soon as they are elected, the young headmen (dhapa) consult each clan, particularly its elder, to choose the councillors. There is no drawing lots as far as they are concerned. Usually, based on the favourable opinion of the members of a given clan and its elder, the headmen renews the mandate of the previous year’s councillor. It is only when one of them has failed in his task that a new councillor is named. Therefore, generally it is not consultation with the god of the soil that enables a headman to gather his councillors around him, but primarily consultation with the elders of the clans.

32Other differences appear between the Sharwa and Nyishangba. Among the Sharwa, a man rises to power to perform a given task for a limited period. The authority the population delegates to him is extensive and real. In Nyishang, almost the opposite is true. The political bodies are permanent. And although the headmen and their deputies are officially recognised as standing at the top of the council hierarchies, their posts are in truth more honorary than real. Those headmen are young men with no political experience. Having gained a bit of that experience, they are removed from the body after a year, and their mandate is not renewable. Of course, they officially possess judicial authority and decision-making power. But usually they only record the councillors’ proposals. They are primarily managers who deal with everything that comes in from the everyday life of the village. They are highly comparable to their Sherpa neighbours’ naua, which are sort of like France’s garde-champêtres (Fürer-Haimendorf, [1964] 1980: 136). Real power lies elsewhere.

The two bodies of the valley

34Let us now turn to an examination of the two bodies in the Nyishang region.

38Finally, the last body recognised by the King of Nepal until 1977 is the Assembly of the Representatives of the Three Communities of the Nyishang Region (Cooke, 1985a: 152), which in principle is convoked by the Council of the Three Communities. It is made up of all of the house headmen. Representation is very egalitarian. The voice of one house carries as much weight as that of another. Votes are cast with stones.

40Merritt Todd Cooke attended the assembly in 1980 (ibid.). A thousand men sat in a ring. Bottles of alcohol were passed from mouth to mouth, marking, by commensality, the common acceptance of the ritual purity of all members of the ethnic group. At the beginning, confusion reigned: half of the participants demanded the floor. Then little by little, the orators took over, confronting one another. The assembly finally reached a consensus on the proposals of some members: they were acclaimed. The representatives of the three communities offered them a delegation of power.

41In Braga in 1986, I was told how on other occasions, lone men and women representing only themselves succeeded in being heard by the representatives of the powerful factions, requesting that the assembly of the Three Communities—in declared opposition to the Council—put an end to armed conflicts, or decide to introduce the Nepalese municipalities. These orators “spoke from the heart”. They were favoured by the local deities. They had accomplished a feat. Their names were remembered. Then in the villages, lots were dawn and the “chosen ones” received the resources to implement their policy. Here we find the three rounds used among the Sharwas to elect a caravan headman.

42In the Council of the Three Communities power is so centralised (giving primacy to age and to the privileges of a few clans), and the assembly meetings are so marked by very old political practices reflecting feat-morality and the favour of the local gods, that it is as if in its dying days, the organisation of the Three Communities of Nyishang reverted to the way it had done things in its infancy.

43Thus in the village and valley, there are two contradictory political ideologies. We should verify that the first ideology (centralisation, age, privileged clans) has broadly supplanted the second ideology in institutions. To this end, we need to turn to an examination of “ranked sitting position” criteria.

44However, it should be noted in passing that, like weapons, the notion of dbang-thang has vanished from political life. In the village they tell me that this is a matter for the king.

The god of the soil’s favour and ranked sitting position

45Among certain populations, the Limbu for example, the notion of dbang, which is linked to power, is inseparable from that of “head held high”. And these two qualities, interrelated as they were among the kings of the Yarlung Dynasty (Tucci, 1955: 199–200), constitute the main criterion determining each individual’s hierarchical position in his society, his “ranked sitting position” What of Nyishang?

46In Nyishang, the winner of the archery competition or horserace, the headman elected by lot, and many others who win more ordinary competitions such as a successful mediator or a man who wins his court case, benefit from a triumph presided over by the god of the soil Jo-bo yul-sa, embodied by his drummer. On the day of their triumph, the “chosen ones” are carried back to their house on the shoulders of their fellow citizens. At home, they receive congratulations from the village. A white turban is placed on their head. Women line up to attach juniper branches, signs of purity. Gifts from every house are placed at their feet. The political leaders congratulate them. The lamas also join the party, burning incense sticks to celebrate the presence of the gods of the soil in these men. All night long, the young people of the community dance to the beat of a drum on the roof terrace of the house. And that night, at home, as they receive the population’s tributes, the god of the soil’s “chosen ones” occupy the highest ranked sitting position.

47However, this triumph is short-lived. And the day after their victory, the god of the soil’s chosen ones—including the headman dhapa—submit to rules of precedence that are quite different. These rules are seen in operation in every house that receives visitors. They are closely connected with a very elaborate organisation of domestic space, which I will return to later. They bring out the social hierarchy criteria. And for the most part, these criteria are no longer those of feat-morality.

48Lamas sit at the top of the rank; among them, seats of honour are determined by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In the social order, men of religion are above laypeople, so Buddhist monks are above house headmen.

51Between two men who belong to the same stratum, the fundamental criterion that determines the rank hierarchy is age. It is according to their respective age that laypeople of identical status take their place, those who are older occupying the higher positions.

52Beyond the triumphs of the god of the soil’s chosen ones, the feat criterion has a presence in everyday life. But it remains entirely secondary. It only appears on rare occasions. Between two men from the same clan who are the same age or almost the same age, precedence is given to the best singer, the most inspired orator, headman (dhapa), archer or dancer—to the hero.

53An examination of “ranked sitting position” therefore confirms the facts of everyday political life. The feat-morality tradition has a presence on certain exceptional days, when the god of the soil’s favour underpins the social hierarchy. But in everyday life, this type of hierarchy broadly gives way to another. And among laypeople, we once again find the primacy of age and clan heredity, and on top of that, there is the pre-eminence of the monastic order.

55We have arrived at a turning point in this paper. The political ideology of feat-morality has a presence in Nyishang. But it gives way to another one, stemming from different values, based on age and clan privilege, which determines both political centralisation and the social hierarchy, in harmony with Buddhism since lamas preside over lay gatherings.

56As far as feat-morality and the god of the soil’s favour are concerned, it is clear to see that it is the extension, into the social hierarchy and political life, of elements that exist in the annual festivals, in the rituals organised by villages in honour of the god of the soil.

57But what about that second ideology, the one which favours age and clan heredity with the blessing of the monks? Is there no other ritual that it is based on, that could explain it?

The Paten ritual: the principal stages

61Dorje Legpa worship is primarily a lay event, and the ritual roles are played by laypeople. Like the annual village festivals, it reflects Tibetan cultural tradition and the ancient “religion of men” (mi-chos). Nevertheless, in the course of its pomp, the festival incorporates a Buddhist exorcism ritual (tarkya) (Ny), held at the monastery in Bodjo near Manang, and offers the population a dance show (’cham) organised by the lamas.

65At the end of the ceremony, taking the red pennant and yak tail, the army sets off for Manang, “ready for battle”. At the front of the procession are the two red Dorje Legpa drummers, followed by the carrier of the white yak’s tail, the red warriors, a man wearing a white mask called khe-li (Ny), who represents the king, and two people who will later play the role of yaks. The whole population follows, precedes and surrounds. Gunfire rings out all round.

67At dawn on the second day, another offering of incense and alcohol is made to the flag, still to the sound of the red drum. At the end of the ritual, the young women dressed in white who play the role of the women once sacrificed by the king withdraw, led by the god of the soil’s white drummers. They come face-to-face with the red men-at-arms, their past sacrificers. A traditional jostling ensues, using only the shoulders.

68On those three days, the exorcism ritual is held at the monastery in Bodjo near Manang, with the expulsion of a scapegoat. The whole population leaves Manang to watch the lamas’ dances. Two lay rituals take place in front of the monastery.

70Later, during a break in the lamas’ dances, children come and offer alcohol to the monastery’s dancers. The Dorje Legpa drummers and the warriors mi-chen are also invited, and they receive their share amid the lamas.

72On the morning of the sixth day, the same offerings are once again made to the army’s flag and to Dorje Legpa’s red stone. Next, summoned by the dara-dara drum, the “big men” prepare to sacrifice goats—seven from Manang and seven from Braga in 1961. They lay down their weapons and remove their coats of mail. They start running to catch the animals. They press the nose of each of goat against the red stone three times. They grab it by its hind legs and hold it over their head. They smash it down on the red stone until its skull shatters.

73In the afternoon of the same day, everyone returns to the central Chamal square in Manang, following the same ceremonial as during the outward journey. The sacrificed goats are transported back, surrounded by the crowd. On the plaza, three men dismember the animals so they can then be cooked. Every villager from Braga and Manang gets a share of the meat “the size of a half-fist”. This guarantees him the strength of Dorje Legpa. Then there are new offerings to the army’s flag. To the sound of the red dara-dara drum, a final goat is sacrificed, by either Manang’s or Braga’s warrior (they take turns every three years). The flag is brought. The sacrificed goat is carried by the two “yaks” (one black and the other white, those who “bear the king’s burdens”) to the house where the king and all of the Dorje Legpa ritual officiants are waiting. The animal is dismembered. Everyone gets a share.

74On the seventh day, a closing ceremony is held near Manang in the “large stone” (yongben-yu) (Ny) area, but without the red pennant, nor the white yak’s tail, nor the dara-dara drum, which were given to one of the drummers the previous day to keep in his house until the next ritual in three years, in accordance with tradition. The men confront the women with alternating chants. The political leaders of the villages of Manang and Braga throw bread rolls called khurpa (Ny) into the crowd. The festival is over.

A few interpretations

1. Ritual roles

75A number of ritual roles appear during the Paten ritual: the two red drummers on the dara-dara drum, the two white drummers from Manang and Braga on the ngo-plih drum, the king, the two yaks, the sacrificer-warriors and the young white women, seven each from Manang and Braga. Who plays these roles?

77In 1961, seven of the young women were from Manang, and the seven others were from Braga. In Braga, the selection process is rigorous. It is done in springtime, during the filling of the irrigation canals. These women must have undergone menarche, but should be unmarried—that is to say pure. They must have a father and mother in the village and belong to the Tongraden clan. All other clans are excluded, even though these make up the majority of the population. These women are the elders of their age group, the last of the unmarried. There must be seven of them, and this usually necessitates a secondary selection by lot. It used to be the case that these women, like the headmen dhapa, were chosen from among those who had reached age twenty-five that year. Sometimes there were not enough of them, so the age was lowered, or if there were too many of them, the age was raised. The draw by lot was identical to that of the headman. They too were considered to have been chosen by the god of the soil. In short, two fundamental criteria determine their selection: age group seniority and clan membership.

78All of the other ritual roles are filled by the other age group (the married adults) according to the same principles for the most part.

79Ever since the withdrawal from the Paten ritual of the village of Ngawal, where one still finds the ruins of the fortress of the kings who once reigned over Nyishang, the king in the ritual has been played by the elder house headman of Manang’s Khe clan, which has royal ancestry.

80The two yaks—one from Manang and the other from Braga—are played by the men who held the roles of the sacrificers three years earlier.

81The two warriors (mi-chen) who sacrifice the animals—the “elder” from Manang and the “younger” from Braga—are chosen by lot prior to the ritual from among the elders of the filiation groups descended from the Tonde clan (the Tonde and Samden in Manang, the Tongraden in Braga).

82And the same goes for the god of the soil’s drummers from Manang and Braga, who also belong to the same privileged sub-clans. Only the selection of the two dara-dara drummers is a bit special. The office is handed down through heredity within the two houses descended from the Ngarchopa clan in Manang.

83Regardless of age group, almost all of the roles are allocated according to the same criteria: seniority in one of the two age groups and centralisation in the hands of a few clans.

2. Worship of the ancestor, and founding clans

3. The “elected king”

86Furthermore, through comparison with Tibetan facts relating to the “religion of men” (mi-chos), the brief analysis of Paten enables a few other characteristics to be attributed to that king.

87The dances would seem to suggest that he belongs to the “elected” kings category. He subjugates the two yaks, which then “bear his burdens”. As we know, wild yaks and sheep often embody the sacred mountains, which are the local deities (yul-lha), or at least their traditional representation. On the first night of Paten worship, a red drummer approaches one of the men who played the role of a yak: probably with a view to purifying him, he makes him an offering of some incense. This gesture only makes sense if the yak character is possessed (lha-phen), if he embodies the Manang peak or the Braga lake.

4. The “army king”

88There are two types of drummer, the god of the soil’s “white” drummer, and Dorje Legpa’s red drummer. Examining their roles shows the mechanisms by which the Khe kings of Nyishang, like Gesar, became “army kings”.

89A legend recounts the origins of the white drum. It is the three sons of the Khe king—that of the ritual—who gave it to the population. They were children. One day, they built the first white drum to amuse themselves, then started playing it and dancing. This delighted the god of the soil, who appeared and joined in the fun. Later, the drum was played when they got married, and once again the god of the soil appeared in order to take part in the festivities. Still today, if the drum is silent, then the village cannot gather, the god of the soil does not appear, and no celebration is possible. In other words, the drummers now control the coming of the gods. The opportunities to call them are numerous, as they concern all aspects of social life. Every village therefore has considerable freedom to organise itself as it sees fit. However, there is one exception to this autonomy: unmarried young people have the mission of defending the village. But it is not to the sound of the white drum that they can take up arms. Thus, ever since the king’s sons made a gift of the white drum to the population, the call to arms no longer depends on the village authorities.

5. Creative dismemberment

91I have described the phases of the Paten ritual that bring together the whole population for the same act of worship. However, outside of these collective events, the rest of the time, the clans meet separately in different houses (N. J. Gurung, 1977a: 195; Fürer-Haimendorf, 1983: 69, 93).

92During annual festivals, this type of meeting also exists in the villages, and the social order is fully reflected in it. Among other things, it underpins each clan’s right to worship the god of the soil. It determines the system for choosing the white drummers. In Braga, only one of them is authorised to officially take part in the Paten ritual. But there were three of them in the village in 1986. And those three men were selected by lot from among eleven candidates. I will explain the reason for these numbers.

93The number eleven: in Braga, aside from the Tibetans and the Nepalese smiths (kāmi, N), there are six clans that include a total of eleven sub-clans. Each of these sub-clans has the right to put forward an elder as a candidate for the election.

94The number three: during the autumn festivals in the villages, Braga’s six clans meet in three different houses to slaughter a yak in each of them. In the first house, the Tongraden sub-clans (28 houses in 1986) meet with the seven houses of the Khe clan. In the second house, the 52 or 53 houses of the Braga-lam sub-clans meet. And in the third house is a meeting of the Kurtsong (25 houses), the Chyurpen (26 houses) and the Dzyamal Thapki (3 houses). Each of the three houses has a right to its own drummer. The election by lot is conducted according to a system of three separate rounds.

95The number one: of the three elected drummers, only the one from the first ballot (from the Tongraden clan) has the official right to take part in Paten.

96These village hierarchies concern the god of the soil. They are expressed through clan meetings in different houses. They get interconnected during Paten, this time in a social order that applies to the whole of the ethnic group, related to worship of the great red bcan, the army god.

6. Strata

98This hierarchy of ritual roles underpins social stratification, not only in Nyishang but throughout the Nepalese hills to which the Khe descended to found a line.

99Among the Gurung, for example, Bernard Pignède observed the presence of two hierarchical, endogamous strata (1966: 170–173). The first was made up of four clans, the second of sixteen. Here are the components of the upper stratum as he noted them:

• The Ghale: clans with royal ancestry. Is the word Nepalese? It relates to the king (rgyal-po) of the Tibetans. It corresponds to the khe of Nyishang.

• The Ghotane: past administrators of the Ghale kings, often still village headmen in 1961, the Kon clans of the Gurung.

• The Lama among the Gurung, the clan from which Buddhist officiants are recruited.

• The Plon: Gurung clans whose members are often also village headmen. The word relates to the Tibetan blon, king’s advisers, often descendents of the headmen of earlier, subjugated principalities.

• The Lamichane, which relates to the Tibetan bla-ma mchod-gnas: “chaplains, priests who make offerings, sacrificers.”

100Pignède also notes that the Plon and the Lamichane ended up merging into one category in modern times. He concludes that the four clans in the upper stratum form two pairs: the lords (the Ghale and Ghotane) and the priests (the Lama and Lamichane). Among themselves, they follow special marriage rules, including stratum endogamy, which perpetuates their superiority over the sixteen other clans.

• The king, Khe clan, Ghale among the Gurung.

• • 51 We thus find the questions of classification by 2, 3, 4: cf. among others Haarh, 1969: 77 sqq.

  The lamas, Braga Lam clan: they somewhat pushed aside the yaks in the time of the king of the ritual; they introduce a fourth component into a classification that previously had only three.51

• The sacrificers, Tonde clan.

• The drummer-priests, Ngarchopa clan.

103Therefore, we find the four clans described among the Gurung. They make up an endogamous stratum that has special marriage rules and consist of two pairs in a hierarchy: the Khe and the Braga Lam (descended from royalty), and the Tonde and the Ngarchopa (the founding clans of the phalme of Nyishang, called lamichane by the Gurung).

104Pignède was essentially right: in Nyishang and also among the Gurung, social stratification is based on ritual tasks.

7. Political power

105The status of the “Three Communities of the Nyishang Region”, granted by the Gurkha king of Nepal in 1783, was ultimately only the recognition of a political state of affairs that existed in the time of the Khe kings. This reality is staged during the Paten ritual.

106The Khe king of the ritual introduced Buddhism into Manang. There was a shift from worship of the local deities (Yul-lha)—the Manang peak, the Braga lake—to worship of the gods of the soil (Jo-bo yul-sa) confined to the villages, and of the army god controlled by the king. With its gift of the two drums, Buddhism no doubt changed the religious practices.

107It was necessary to restrain the traditional political system as it still existed recently among the Limbu of Nepal, the Sharwa of Amdo and the Tromo of the Chumbi river valley. The king’s authority was constantly being challenged by the unpredictable favour of the mountain god. It was no longer possible for just any feat to bring just anyone the “head held high” status, or the highest ranked sitting position, or that virtue called dbang-thang, which opened doors to power. Now the king, supported by the clan elders, controls the presence of the gods. There has been a shift from a system based on feat-morality—that of the old Tibetan aristocracy (Stein, 1959: 328, 330), some forms of which have been preserved—to another system that bases authority on age and clan heredity.

*

* *

109The Paten ritual is royal worship linked to the historical Khe or Ghale dynasty that once reigned in central Nepal. For the duration of this festival, the ritual gives presence to the fifth of those kings, an “elected king”, the “army king”, like Gesar or the Yar-lung kings in the past, and at the same time it manifests the religious organisation, social stratification, individual hierarchy principles, and political order as they existed in the society of that king’s own time. Paten is a representation of what were once the Three Cho of Nyishang.

110Even though the Khe kings disappeared centuries ago, the ritual was perpetuated into modern times, because it expressed the consensus surrounding Nyishang’s traditional institutions among the nine villages, including Nar and Phu.

111When the consensus disappeared and the social and political order was brutally attacked, including with weapons over the last particularly turbulent thirty years in Nyishang, the ritual also disappeared and the institutions collapsed. In 1977, Nyishang agreed to introduce the Nepalese municipalities.

112Five centuries: the Tibetans are right when they say that the “religion of men’, mi-chos, is ready to be governed.

113Above all, the Paten ritual shows the shift from a decentralised political system (or one could almost call it “undivided”, to use Pierre Clastres’s term), in which the mountain god’s “chosen ones” have access to power in accordance with feat-morality, to another centralised system based on the primacy of age, heredity and clan privilege, supported by Buddhism. Both ideologies have a presence in Nyishang, and in light of the complexity of the political institutions that carry the scars of multiple confrontations, it seems that it has been with great difficulty that the second ideology succeeded in controlling the first one.

114In Tibet, regardless of the diversity of its political organisations, both systems coexisted until recently. For two centuries, they have been rising up against one another on the margins. The first system survived among the Limbus of Nepal, the Sharwas of Amdo, and to a lesser extent among the Tromo in the Chumbi river valley. And the second system, inaugurated long ago by the Yarlung kings, is found in Sikkim and even among the Golok headmen. The shift from one to the other still resulted from the favour of the sacred mountains, the local deities. In order for power to survive, this change must be reflected in the annual festivals, those moments when the passing of time is interrupted. This then leads to political centralisation.

115Ultimately, a Tibetan house-headman is not much different from the Chinese emperor, whose subjects’ fate depends on his virtue. And the most formidable concentrations of power start in a house and extend to the far reaches of the empire. They are achieved with the help of simple ideas: the “head held high” status, the “powerful helmet”, the “dbang-thang” characteristic, those domestic virtues that all depend on the sacred mountains, the local deities.