Mountain Deities Research Articles

The remaking of a Tibetan mountain cult festival: the worship of landscape deities in the Rebgong Valley, Amdo

ABSTRACT Festivals in honor of mountain deities were revived across the Tibetan plateau in the 1980s, some years after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in the People's Republic of China. This article, primarily analyzes the development of one mountain festival in Amdo, Qinghai, focusing on the decades from its revival until today. During mountain deity festivals, primarily men from multiple villages, a range of religious specialists, and representatives of local authorities gather at a stone cairn on a mountain top, where a variety of rites, ceremonies, and games takes place. In the ‘old society’ the chieftain of a congregation of villages had an important role as patron, mediating between the deity, the deity's medium, religious specialists and villagers, while his function has diminished in the revived festival. Faced with major social-economic-political changes, while retaining and recreating many elements of tradition, striking transformations in the festival's structures of patronage, piety, and play have transformed its human network, its format, and its significance.

In the land of the apu: Cerro Llamocca as a sacred mountain and central place in the pre-Columbian Andes of southern Peru

Cerro Llamocca is a mountain with a summit elevation of 4,487 m asl in the southern Peruvian Andes. This paper presents a first overview of recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in its vicinity, and introduces new results from archaeological surveys and strontium isotope analyses. Our survey data show how the wider Cerro Llamocca area comprises an extensive complex of archaeological sites, composed of different sectors with public, domestic, and funerary architecture and rock shelters, occupied throughout the pre-Columbian period from the Early Archaic to the European invasion in 1532. Despite the extreme living conditions of this high-elevation environment, Cerro Llamocca includes the oldest archaeological site hitherto recorded in the larger region: a rock shelter (PAP-969) on its south-eastern slope with evidence of human occupation in the Early Archaic period ∼ 8000 BCE. Human activity in the Cerro Llamocca area reached its zenith in the Middle Horizon (CE 600–1000), at a time of a dry climate and when an expansive Wari state incorporated the worship of mountain deities into an imperial strategy to dominate local people. Our strontium isotope analyses of archaeological human dental enamel from a funerary rock shelter (PAP-942), alongside modern plants as reference data, indicate that the people buried here originated in the adjacent highlands. At a broader level, we study the roles of Cerro Llamocca as a sacred mountain or apu and central place over a long-term perspective, and how these functions integrated and focused religious, ritual, social, political, and economic activities over this high-altitude complex. Its central place function was linked to its sacredness, but also to its topography, provision of shelter, and geographical proximity to a range of critical resources such as water, creating resource dependencies that shaped socio-economic cooperation and exploitation. Although Cerro Llamocca has progressively lost many of these roles since the beginning of the colonial period, local communities continue to revere it as a sacred mountain today.

The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name and Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God

The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity, Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name and Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God

Robert D. Miller II. Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God

Robert D. Miller II. <i>Yahweh: Origin of a Desert God</i>

『三國遺事』 수록 仙桃山 神母 전승의 분석

Attempted in this article is an analysis of the tale of “Godly Mother ‘Shinmo’ of the Seondo-san Mountain(仙桃山 神母),” documented in Samgukyusa(三國遺事)’s Seondo Seongmo Suhi Bulsa(仙桃聖母隨喜佛事) chapter. My analysis is based upon two basic observations: (1) There was a fundamental difference between concepts of ‘Godly Mother(神母)’ and ‘Holy Mother(聖母)’ in terms of their very nature, and (2) A tale that has displayed multiple versions in the past should never be viewed as one with a single origin or narrative. In addition, it should be noted that a motif of a ‘Holy Mother’ (who should have given birth to a ‘Holy Son’[聖子]) has never appeared within the context of the tale. This Godly Mother, who was also a mountain deity(Sanshin, 山神), was also once described as a Female Taoist Hermit(Yeoseon, 女仙) in the Myth of Faith that involved the Anheung-sa(安興寺) monastery. This shows that she was once viewed as a Taoist deity. The Buddhist event at Anheung-sa is recorded as an event that took place during Shilla king Jinpyeong’s reign, but the situation surrounding the event rather fits the reality of the ending years of Shilla (and beginning of Goryeo) more. “Seo’ak”(西岳, the Seondo-san mountain) is a Chinese translation of “Seosul(西述),” which means ‘the Western peak.’ This particular concept does not need to be perceived as one of the Five Mountain ranges(O’ak, 五岳). The O’ak system was embraced and employed during the Shilla dynasty’s overhaul of its administrative institutions in the dynasty’s later days. They(the Five mountain ranges) were regarded as beings superior to the original Three Mountains(Samsan, 三山), only to switch superiority with them later on. The Tale of Saso(娑蘇) follows the Chinese Imperial princess(“Saso”)’ visit to the East, and her settling down in Mt. Seondo. This was a tale based on a mountain with the name “Seoyeon(西鳶).” The region described as her destination, “Haedong(海東),” was the united realm of Shilla, so we can see the tale was formed after the 9th century. Reference to Mt. Seondo being one of the Three Regions that received Dynastic services(Samsa, 三祀) since the dynasty’s beginning seems to have been made with the original Three mountains in mind. The fact that Mt. Seondo was only provided[封爵] with the status of ‘Grand King[Daewang, 大王]’ during the reign of King Gyeongmyeong shows us that before then there was no dynastic memorial service reserved for it, and that fact does seem to have something to do with Seosul(西述)’s being acknowledged and recorded accordingly[追錄] at the time as well. Another fact, of King Gyeongmyeong hailing from the Park line within the Shilla royal family, lets us know that Mt. Seondo did not really have any connection to the so-called First Ancestral Mother(Shijomo, 始祖母) till the very end of the Shilla dynasty.

Our Time Is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala

Our Time Is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala

Societal Recognition of Ecosystem Service Flows From Red Panda Habitats in Western Nepal

The biologically and culturally diverse mountain habitats of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) produce numerous ecosystem goods and services of global significance and satisfy the daily sustenance requirements and wellbeing of poor and vulnerable local communities. Most studies of ecosystem services conducted in Nepal have investigated community forest management and protected areas, largely in the lower hills and plains of the country. However, to conserve red pandas and associated biodiversity, knowledge is needed of the services instrumental to the livelihoods and wellbeing of people living in and around their Himalayan mountain habitats. Using case studies of 6 remote villages nearest to known red panda habitats inside and outside a protected area in western Nepal, this study reports on key informant interviews, focus group discussions, informal interactions, and participant observations to identify and categorize the goods and services provided by these habitats. Among the provisioning and cultural ecosystem goods and services obtained from red panda habitats, local people prioritized seasonal grazing in high-altitude pastures, plant materials for medicines and food, wild plants for energy, transhumance culture, and religious interaction with nature. Their dependence on these services varied with season and location, with greater reliance on the services outside the protected areas. Some services used for valuing ecosystems, such as carbon storage and improved air and water quality and biodiversity, were only ever mentioned in a manner that would characterize them as cultural services provided by mountain deities. They only appear to be acknowledged as services with a use value by people from outside the region. This study suggests that understanding the value of the services provided to local communities could allow development of a policy that would also help conserve red pandas, particularly if income can be obtained for providing services to outsiders who have no perceived local economic benefit.

Tourism and sacred landscape in Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Nepal

While tensions between the sacred and the profane in tourism have been of long standing interest to tourism scholars, there is a dearth of literature on the growing influence of tourism on local residents’ spirituality and religious practices in sacred landscapes. This paper examines how local residents’ interpretations of sacred landscapes are influenced by tourism development, and whether tourism plays a role in influencing and reproducing sacred landscape and place-based spiritual values. This exploratory study is based on four months of fieldwork conducted in 2014 and 2015 in Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park in Nepal’s Khumbu Region. Results of the 33 interviews conducted with ethnic Sherpa community indicate the Sherpa consider their homeland as a beyul (sacred, hidden valley), and its landscapes (i.e. mountains, forests and lakes) as the abode of local deities. Tourism’s influence on local spiritual values is evident and reflected in changes in mountain deity worship, shift in human-environment relationship, and alterations in religious routines and practices. Although Sherpa still regard Khumbu as a sacred place and are actively involved in maintaining their spiritual values and cultural identity, the religious influence of beyul is slowly diminishing as reliance on tourism grows.

Spirits of Uncertainty: Eventologies of Nature on China’s Frontiers

ABSTRACTStudies of the environmental spirit world have been pursuing two main lines of inquiry: (1) that indigenous claims on ecological thought, including beliefs in chthonic spirits and mountain deities, are the outcome of a global process of abstraction and the commoditisation of nature which acts as technology of governmentality for the production of discursive formations through which neoliberal environmental subjectivities can emerge and (2) that the pitfalls of the nature/culture dualism can be avoided by giving priority to nonhuman subjectivities and positing sociologies of nature as subordinate to ontologies of the self-other divide or action-orienting cosmologies of local ‘nature’. The contributors of this collection engage with the spirit worlds and other invisible agents that constitute the everyday landscape of a number of ethnic groups in western China. While declining to engage with the notion of animism or subscribing to totalising ‘cosmologies’, the authors prefer to extract the eventfulness of haphazard and radically uncertain interactions with spirits or wondrous signs apt to be transformed into marvels and rumours. The ethnographies presented in this collection reveal an eventology of spirit worlds and landscape on China’s borderlands, an inquiry that – unlike history – does not study ‘events’ as such but the relation between what is deemed to be an event, a surprise, or a manifestation of wonder and what is deemed to be the innate, natural, ordinary, everyday life.

細谷広美著, 『アンデスの宗教的世界-ペルーにおける山の神信仰の現在性』, 明石書店, 1997年2月, A5判, 380頁, 8034円

細谷広美著, 『アンデスの宗教的世界-ペルーにおける山の神信仰の現在性』, 明石書店, 1997年2月, A5判, 380頁, 8034円

Maya Intimacy with the Mountains: Pilgrimage, Sacrifice and Existential Economy

AbstractIn this paper, I present two very different and yet very similar ethnographic examples of mountain-related pilgrimage and sacrifice ritual performed by the present-day highland Maya. The question I ask is why the sense of sacredness, animation and power of the mountains endures among the traditionalist as well as Pentecostal Maya in spite of the extensive transformations of the world today. In so doing, I examine the native concept of the mountain not merely as a social or cultural representation, but as an expression of everyday lived experiences and existential relationships between people and the physical and spiritual world they inhabit. Finally, I argue that the experience of interaction, communication and intimacy between the Maya and their mountain deities can be best defined as a dynamic participation in the course of the world – an existential economy of ‘working the world’.

The sku bla Rite in Imperial Tibetan Religion

Rolf Stein, Ariane Macdonald et d’autres savants considèrent le sku bla comme une divinité de la montagne. Stein voit ce culte comme une importation étrangère, tandis que Macdonald le considère comme un culte central de la religion impériale tibétaine. Après un réexamen des passages pertinents, l’auteur de cet article conclut que le sku bla n’est pas une divinité de la montagne et que la cérémonie sku bla n’est pas un emprunt extérieur au Tibet mais un élément central de l’idéologie de la royauté sacrée au sein de l’empire tibétain. Cette cérémonie créait un lien de vassalité entre le célébrant et la personne de l’empereur tibétain dans son rôle de souverain divinisé ; elle n’était pas célébrée par la cour royale elle-même, mais était plutôt pratiquée par les vassaux de l’empereur. Cette théorie explique l’absence du sku bla dans les Annales tibétaines (PT 1288, ITJ 750) et sa présence dans les Annales de la principauté de ’A zha (ITJ 1368), Les envoyés du Phywa à Dmu (PT 126), l’inscription de Rkong po et d’autres textes de Dunhuang tels que PT 1047 et PT 2204c. Cette théorie explique aussi l’utilisation du terme sku bla dans la paraphrase du Shangshu (PT 986) et les prières pour la fondation du monastère de De ga g. yu tshal (PT 16), mieux que l’influence chinoise proposée par Stein.

Overview of the Inca Frozen Mummies From Mount Lullaillaco (Argentina)

Three frozen bodies belonging to a young woman and two infants were found at an elevation of 6.715 meters (22,100 ft.) above sea level, on the summit of volcano Llullaillaco, in the Andes of northwestern Argentina. The mummies were discovered (and recovered for ulterior preservation and study) during scientific excavations codirected by the author of this paper at the highest archaeological site in the world. The mummies belonged to children that were sacrificed five hundred years ago, under the rule of the Inca Empire, as part of a state-controlled ceremony known as capacocha. According to the historical sources written during the Hispanic conquest, the Inca human sacrifices were performed in response to natural catastrophes, the death of the Inca emperor, or to propitiate the mountain spirits that grant fertility. The selected children and the young acllas or “chosen women” were taken in processions to the highest summits of the Andes to be sacrificed. They were believed to become messengers into the world of the mountain deities and the spirits of the ancestors. Numerous interdisciplinary studies were conducted on the frozen mummies between 1999 and 2004, a time span during which the “Llullaillaco children” were preserved at the Catholic University of Salta (UCASAL). These studies included radiological evaluations by conventional X-rays and CT scans, which provided information about condition and pathology of the bones and internal organs; as well as dental studies oriented to the estimation of the ages of the three children at the time of death. Ancient DNA studies and hair analysis were also performed in cooperation with academic institutions in the United States and Europe, including the Institute of Bioscience at the George Mason University, the University of Bradford and the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. In this paper we focus on the frozen bodies of mount Llullaillaco as objects for bioarchaeological and medical research, providing an overview on the paleopathology of the mummies that are among the best preserved known to date.

The Politics of Presence: Voice, Deity Possession, and Dilemmas of Development Among Tibetans in the People's Republic of China

AbstractTaking inspiration from linguistic anthropological approaches to the work of the Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975), this article uses a Bakhtinian perspective on voice as contested presence to analyze the post-Mao revival of mountain deity possession practices among Tibetans in China's northwestern province of Qinghai. I respond to recent work that suggests that state-led development processes have intensified grassroots contests over the moral sources of authority and legitimacy in China, by contrasting the ambivalent voices of an urbanizing village's Tibetan Party secretary with those of the village's deity medium, during a mid-2000s village conflict. The conflict underscored a crisis of authority or moral “presence” among Tibetans under intensifying central state-led development pressures that for many carried forward the disenfranchisement of Tibetans that started in the 1950s.

Cultural politics and the hydrosocial cycle: Water, power and identity in the Andean highlands

This paper explores interactions among water, power and cultural politics in the Andes. It analyzes the hydrosocial cycle as the political–ecological production of a time- and place-specific socionature, enrolling and co-patterning the social, the natural and the supernatural to reflect dominant interests and power.A case analysis locates community water control practices in Mollepata, Peru, in the broader historical setting of Andean water empires. To see how local worldviews, water flows and water control practices are interwoven, it unravels the ‘meta’ behind the ‘physical’, examining contemporary expressions of the ancient ‘hydrocosmological cycle’ that intimately interconnects the cyclical dynamics of hydrology, agro-ecology, human lifetime and cosmology. Herein, bonds among mountain deities, Mother Earth and humans are fundamental to guide water flows through this world, the world above and the world below.Next, the paper analyzes the ‘political’ behind metaphysical patterning of water flows. Since ancient times, elites have striven to reinforce subjugation over Andean peoples by creating ‘convenient histories’ and ‘socionatural order’, connecting local water practices and worldviews to supralocal schemes of belonging, thereby deploying overlapping governmental rationalities.Continued in contemporary, globalizing water politics and ‘governmentalities’, efforts to establish, demystify or transform frames of ‘water order’ are at the heart of water struggles. Here, dominant conceptual and cultural-political frameworks naturalize the strategic positioning of humans and nonhumans in hydrosocial patterns that support water hierarchies and legitimize particular distribution, extraction and control practices, as if these were entirely natural. Hydrosocial cycles are, however, importantly mediated by counter-forces and alternative water truths.

Artist Statement: Indigenous Virgin

Artist StatementIndigenous Virgin Marjorie Peñailillo (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Marjorie “Gigi” Peñailillo (Turronas Crew), Virgen Negra (2010), graffiti mural, Santa Inés, Viña del Mar, Chile. [End Page 242] Marjorie Peñailillo (Gigi) is a visual artist, a professional graffiti writer, and a master printmaker. She holds degrees in education, art, and printmaking from the School of Fine Arts in Viña del Mar and the University of Viña del Mar in Chile. Additionally, Gigi is cofounder of one of the few all-female graffiti crews in Chile, the Turronas Crew. She also participated in the multidisciplinary urban culture project called Cultura Urbana Chilena. Gigi has organized and led a series of graffiti workshops for children and young adults in Chile, in collaboration with the Culture and Arts Council and the country’s Office for the Protection of Children and Youth Rights. She has taken part in diverse graffiti events in Chile and elsewhere in South America, including the international graffiti summit Concegraff in Concepción, Chile (2006–12). She also taught a workshop for the Second Youth Festival in Fortaleza, Brazil (2011). Prior to these activities Gigi served as a juror for the “1er Encuentro Internacional Caída y Limpia” (First international encounter fall and clean) in Quito, Ecuador (2009), and participated as a guest artist in the First International Graffiti Encounter, where she contributed to the creation of the Muro por La Paz (Wall of peace) in Arequipa, Peru, and Santiago, Chile (2009). The Wall of Peace was a collaborative graffiti and mural project that brought together dozens of artists from Chile and abroad to paint images on the subjects of peace and nonviolence. Gigi’s work has been exhibited in various important venues. Together with the Veie Crew, she exhibited her short film Documentary 777: Graffiti and Urban Culture as part of her thesis for the University of Viña del Mar. Her work was also featured in the first exhibition of women graffiti artists in the Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano (ChileanNorth American Institute) in Valparaiso and at the Fine Arts Museum in Viña del Mar, both in Chile. Moreover, Gigi’s work has graced the pages of numerous important graffiti arts publications, [End Page 243] such as Rod Palmer’s monograph Street Art Chile (England), C.O.P. Magazine (Australia), and Negativos Graffiti Art Magazine (Spain). The themes and images in Gigi’s work focus on diverse icons associated with Latin American indigenous identity. Most notable is her use of Pre-Columbian aesthetic resources and symbolism from the Valdivia and Moche cultures in Ecuador and Peru, respectively. She is also influenced by the syncretism of Chilean and Bolivian religious festivities such as the carnivals of La Tirana and Oruro. Her search for an artistic identity makes of her work a constant mutation that brings together diverse fragments of cultures absorbed in her numerous trips throughout South America searching for a contemporary vision to be reflected in her prints and graffiti creations. Gigi’s images reproduced in this issue of Frontiers are from two walls of a graffiti mural she painted in the neighborhood of Santa Inés in Viña del Mar. These two hybrid virgins are mountain deities who represent fertility and the indigenous presence in colonial art. This graffiti mural was also part of Gigi’s thesis project, which focused on the role of graffiti and the urban arts in community building. The Pachamama or mother earth featured on the cover of Frontiers is the powerful Andean goddess who presides over planting, harvesting, and the earth’s reproductive cycles. Gigi has depicted her here as a nature spirit whose mantle is made of butterflies that give rise to other life forms on earth. For more information on Gigi’s art, see the following sites: www.flickr.com/gigigraff http://www.facebook.com/pages/TURRONAScrew/116338465104225 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8I6MwgXrk [End Page 244] Marjorie Peñailillo Marjorie Peñailillo is a visual artist, a professional graffiti writer, and a master printmaker. She holds degrees in education, art, and printmaking from the School of Fine Arts in Viña del Mar and the University...

The Friendly Yeti

Most images of yetis in Western popular culture and scholarly literature portray them as secular, predatory monsters. These representations overlook important religious dimensions of yetis that are hidden in the current literature so I take a new look at yetis in Tibetan religions in order to clarify our understanding of these legendary creatures. Following a phenomenological approach that sets aside the issue of the ontological existence of yetis, I examine texts, art, ritual, and folklore in order to propose four yeti personal ideal types: the Buddhist practitioner, the human religious ally, the friendly yeti, and the mountain deity yeti. These ideal types enhance earlier scholarship by demonstrating that yetis may appear in friendly as well as dangerous guises, may play religious roles even when they are not venerated, and may embody numinosity even when they are most fearsome.

Inka Roads, Lines, and Rock Shrines: A Discussion of the Contexts of Trail Markers

This essay discusses how Andean people have "constructed" nature with four categories of Inka rock wak'as (shrines) located on trails. Three groups consist of sculpted rocks on physical roads. The fourth category refers to the concept of extended zeq'es (radial lines and paths marked by shrines) which structured the natural and social environment of Cusco and probably of other Inka towns. I show that the Inka modified boulders on physical and conceptual roads and zeq'es for practical and symbolic reasons related, on the one hand, to the pan-Andean worship of mountains and, on the other hand, to a specifically Inka stone ideology made material in a politically conceptualized ideational landscape. The concept of extended zeq'es may provide a context for some poorly understood carved rocks in the Inka empire. Contemporary religious practices recreate some of these lines with regional pilgrimages and the scheduling of feast days. Part of these practices is the worship of holy images painted on sacred rocks, and Jesus is turned into a mountain deity. The essay places Inka stone trail markers in the wider context of an Andean identity informed by its sacred geography and culturally constructed processual landscape.

LA VENERACIÓN DE MONTAÑAS EN LOS ANDES PREINCAICOS: EL CASO DE ÑAWINPUKYO (AYACUCHO, PERÚ) EN EL PERÍODO INTERMEDIO TEMPRANO

Mountain worship plays a central role in the cosmology and religion of traditional Andean societies, as numerous ethnographic studies, ethnohistorical sources, and high altitude archaeological remains show. It is generally assumed that beliefs and practices associated with mountain worship have deep temporal roots, dating back to centuries or even millennia before the Incas. However, the forms this veneration took and its socio-political role are not so well-known. In this paper I present an archaeological case that shows that mountain worship was a key part of the religion of the inhabitants of the Nawinpukyo site (Ayacucho Valley, Peru) during the Early Intermediate Period (ca. A.D. 0_550/600). I argue that the ceremonies meant to honor a main regional mountain deity constituted an important integrative mechanism for the local community, possibly playing an integrative role on the broader regional level as well

Ritual under Change: Mongolian Influences on Horse Races and Mountain Divinity Worship in Tibet

AbstractThe article outlines the Mongolian influences on the biggest horse race festival in Nagchu prefecture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).Since old times these horse races have been closely linked to the worship of the local mountain deity by the patrilineal nomadic clans of the South-Eastern Changthang, the North Tibetan plain. In the seventeenth century the West Mongol chieftain Güüshi Khan shaped the history of Tibet. To support his political claims, he enlarged the horse race festival's size and scale, and had his troops compete in the different horse race and archery competitions in Nagchu. Since then, the winners of the big race are celebrated side by side with the political achievements and claims of the central government in power.