(In)tangible Journeying and Its Transformation among the Rang from Byans, Far Western Nepal

Abstract

The main inhabitants of Byans have traditionally undertaken seasonal migrations between their home villages and their winter residences in the southern hills of the Himalayas. Some have also been trans-Himalayan traders. Upon their death, their souls were traditionally guided from the Himalayan foothills in the south, through Chaudans and Byans, to their ancestral lands in the far north, by a long oral text called se yāmo. However, over the past seventy years, sociocultural transformation and the development of transport infrastructure have substantially transformed both their tangible and intangible journeyings. In this article, I demonstrate, through linguistic anthropological and ethnographic analyses, the interdependency between these two aspects of their journeying experience, and show how changes in the performance of posthumous rituals mirror the broader changes affecting their traditional journeying and movements across familiar landscapes.