Media Generation

Annotated Transcript

for Himalayan Herders a film by John & Naomi Bishop version 1.0
1/8/98

THIS IS A PRLIMINARY VERSION. IT WILL BE REPLACED BY AN EASIER TO NAVIGATE VERSION AND A PDF THAT WILL BE EASY TO PRINT. Introduction
        This document is a transcription of the narration and subtitles, which have been augmented with descriptions and notes to aid the person using the film for teaching or comparative research. References to the book, Himalayan Herders, are also included.
        The film is organized around three themes: subsistance and economics, social and ritual organization, and change over the twenty-five years of the anthropologist's association with the village. When using the film in the classroom, it can be shown in three sections. The breaks are indicated in this transcript.
        The images were captured from a videocopy of the film.

	1 -- *Putting up Loshar* flag**
Loshar is the Tibetan New year. On the first day of the new year, each household puts up a new prayer flag. A short ritual follows the erection. Raising the jars of beer and distilled alcohol is called shulgar and is part of many observances. It can be seen also at the dedication of the new school building and in the wedding sequence. When this scene was shot in 1989, people were wary of the National Park ban on guns, and at the climax of the shulgar would shout instead of firing a blank round from a rifle.

2 – Visual Introduction

The music was recorded in 1971, and like all the incidental music in the film, can be heard on the record Music of a Sherpa Village (Ethnic Folkways FE 4320). [link]

Melemchi is a place; a cluster of houses on a Himalayan mountainside, a temple village at the northern end of the Yolmo Valley, a network of pastures scattered over the Thare massif.

Melemchi is a history, the story of people making a life -- herder-farmers who work as wage laborers in India, peasants who are also landlords, Tibetan Buddhists who depend on shamans.

This is a portrait of a Himalayan village.

Melemchi’s founding families migrated from Tibet in the early 1800s. Its mythical roots go back much farther.

3 -- Tupa Tsezhu
	The Yolmo Valley has many sites associated with Padma Sambhava, one of which is the Tupu cave at the edge of the forest above the village. It is often occupied by persons engaged in solitary meditation, which was the case at the time this footage was made. The lama interrupted his meditation to officiate at the Tupa Tsezhu festival.
Guru Rinpoche, the yogi who brought Buddhism to Tibet, lived in a cave above Melemchi during the 8th century. Each summer, his cave is opened for Tupa Tsezhu, a festival that marks the end of his meditation.
Ritual and sociability converge at Yolmo festivals. The prayers and offerings at the altar have a counterpart in a communal meal and dancing in the courtyard.

4-- Zomo Herding
	Dawa Sonam I was born in a gode and I grew up in a gode. Back then, everyone lived their life and died in a gode. Later people started farming in the village. If you have land, you can grow many things – barley or potatoes. Land can't die, like zomo (cow/yak hybrids). Zomo godes aren't good for the future. They used to be, in my uncle's time, but now, owning land and house is better. Zomo godes are not good for my children. I think my daughters should sell their godes. In the old days, some herders were millionaires. Now they have nothing.
[Nahding Pasture (8900 feet) Spring] Zomo are a dairy animal that thrives in the middle altitude zone between 7000 and 13,000 feet -- a range that is too high for cows and too low for yaks. Zomo are hybrids - the offspring of a yak father and cow mother. They are hardy at these altitudes; and produce more milk than either parent species.
	Tswong Doma Be careful That black one will chase you all around.
Zomo herding preceded agriculture in Melemchi and has been the main source of income for many villagers. The herds never come to the village. They move with the family, to low pastures in the winter and high ones in the summer.
Gode life is hard. When the family is young, the burden falls heavily on the wife
	Jemium's wife Milking and looking after the zomo is women's work –making cheese, making butter. Maya The husband takes the zomo out to graze. The wife milks, cleans up the zomo shit, makes the butter and cheese - all the rest... The work is too hard in a zomo gode. If the husband’s at the gode, then it isn't such hard work. If he’s away I have to do all his work as well. It isn't easy.
[Thare Pati Pasture 12,500 feet summer] A herd consists of 10-15 zomo, a bull and a few offspring. Traditionally young men received a small herd from their parents at marriage. They also receive rights to share the family pastures.
Zomo herds produce butter which is sold. Butter is used every day in food and in ritual. It takes more than 300 pulls on the leather strap before the butter comes. The buttermilk is heated and separates; the curds become cheese and the sugar-rich whey is fed back to the zomo.
Zomo must give birth in order to produce milk, but in a dairy herd, the calves compete with the herder for the milk. As hybrids of hybrids, these babies are weak and won't produce milk well, so the herders get rid of them. The skin from her dead calf is enough to start milk letdown in most mothers. But some won't give milk without a live baby, and in these cases, the babies remain in the herd.
	The biological, social, and economic considerations of zomo husbandry are discussed on pages X-Y in the book.

5 --Village Animals
A house in the village comes later in life, after capital has been accumulated to build one. Once retired from zomo herding, couples will live in their house and keep one or two cows or buffalo for household milk and butter. Village livestock also produce manure and their babies can be sold for cash.
Because of the crops, village livestock cannot graze freely most of the year. They depend on fodder which is cut and brought from the surrounding hillside. Fodder gathering usually falls to women and children, but only boys climb the trees.

6 -- Agriculture in village
Large fields are plowed by bulls, kept for this purpose by several families who rent them out.
Smaller fields are tilled by hand. Compost made from night soil and leaf litter is dug into the potato fields. Potatoes are a staple of the Melemchi diet, eaten boiled with in chili and salt
The main crops, wheat and barley, are planted in fall and harvested in spring before the pre-monsoon rains.
Agricultural labor involves either informal cooperation between extended family members or a more formal labor exchange called lari in which one day of work is repaid by one day of work.
Soaked corn is being pounded in preparation for a New Year's meal. Ibe Balmu and some of her daughters, her sister-in-law, and nieces are sharing the work and will share the corn. Informal cooperative arrangements among family members provide opportunities for socializing and cementing family ties, especially for those living in godes.	scan new picture
Pinzo is the adopted son of a Tibetan refugee, and came to Melemchi as a boy. He and his father take care of the gomba or temple, and the water-driven mill. They own neither barley fields nor herds. The villagers pay them in grain--a portion of each bag that he mills.
Grain is important in the Melemchi diet. It is also a trade commodity. Payments, taxes or tribute may be paid with grain. High altitude grains such as wheat and barley are traded for lowland grains, such as millet and rice, measure for measure.
Grain is also used to make alcohol. It is fermented into beer which can then be distilled into liquor. Fermented millet is heated in the copper bottom of the still. The vaporized alcohol condenses on a conical copper pan at the top and drips into an earthenware jug. Skill and patience are required to regulate the temperature of the mash and that of the cooling water in the pan. In recent years, with leisure time and extra income, many households distill their own liquor; a few older people produce it for sale
	Much more info on all these topics in the book, pages w-x.

7 -- Trade with Tibet
Melemchi is primarily a subsistence economy, but there has always been a need for cash -- to buy tea, salt, cloth, or consumer items, and to invest in zomo or land. Until 1950, when the Tibetan border was closed, a few Yolmo men made money trading sheep. Once a year, these entrepreneurs travelled to Tibet to buy flocks of sheep which they resold in Kathmandu for the Dassai festival. Meme Themba is the only Melemchi man alive today who traded in sheep.
	Themba The first time I went, I was 25 years old, and I did that business for 14 years. I only lost money once. To go there took 15 days, coming back took only 7. I brought back 300-400 sheep by myself. With more people we brought back many more.
	KARMU We needed 9 or 10 people just to carry the money (coins). We took a lot of people with us: Meme Themba, Meme Mingur, Pasang Gyalgen, many people… More than 60-80 people went sometimes, including people from Tarke Ghyang. MINGMAR Tell them everyone - all your friends. KARMU I don't remember exactly who went; I forget.
	MINGMAR Up there in Tibet, they would ask, who is your mother? who is your father? are your married or not? KARMU Shut up, you! MINGMAR Those were the questions they used to ask you. KARMU Leave it alone now.

8 –Wage labor in India
Even before the Tibetan border closed in 1950, a few Yolmo people had found work as laborers on high altitude road building projects outside Nepal. Today, circular migration for wage labor between Melemchi and north India has eclipsed zomo herding as the major source of cash for the village.
	Balmu We had our gode at a flat muddy place. My sister came up and said, you don't have to milk zomo in this muddy place. Come to Burma with me and in one month there you will earn as much as you can earn in one year here. I thought -- Impossible Other people told us the same thing, but we didn't know if it was true or not. Maybe bad things will happen there? Maybe good things? We didn't know. I didn't go with my sisters but they went and earned money. If you want to make money there you can do it in India. When we finally went when we were older, I didn't do much except make beer. My husband and my daughters carried gravel, but I didn't work. I just made chang, drank tea, and sat around – I didn't even pick up a stone.
	Dawa Sonam I worked on the road, digging mud, carrying stones, very light work. I never went out because I couldn't speak Hindi. If I spoke Hindi, it would have been OK, but since I couldn't, I didn’t like it.
	Themba (Dawa Sonam’s youngest son) I would like to go to other places. I am bored in this village, There is no future for me in a zomo gode. I can't do hard work. If I go to India, I can make a little bit of money. Now people have a choice.
	Sarkie I want to go to India soon. In this village, there is little to do. Just grow a few potatoes. The (national park) rules are too hard now.
	Mingmar (Sarkie’s father): I tell my children to stay in a good place and try to find the best kind of job. If they can do contractor work, then they should do that. If it isn't possible, then we will look into hotel keeping. You can't make any money doing porter work. I will help them set up a hotel. I will teach these things to my children. Some family members can work, others can make chang and sell it. The wife can run a hotel, while the husband and boys work outside. And I don't have to cook for myself. I come back Because everyone must work in the gomba. Also, this house will go bad – I don’t have a tin roof If you don't come back every few years, people will say you didn't make any money, that is why you don't come back. And you feel ashamed.

9—Animism and Shamanism
Bad weather can ruin crops. Zomo are prey to leopards and disease. Families are scattered between godes, the village and India. A legion of gods, ghosts, and spirits share the mountainsides. Melemchi herders turn to bonbos, or shamans, for the day to day management of the spirit world.
Karpu Bonbo has been called to the home of a woman with chronic medical problems. In a session that goes on all night he performs a series of rituals to learn the cause of her problem, and the cure.
Bonbos do animal sacrifices which neither lamas, nor the Buddhist villagers can do. The bonbo has already called gods into the twelve torma on the tray. "Accept the blood of the chicken. Have the chicken's blood"
Guided by his drum, Karpu Bonbo calls the spirits into himself, and goes into trance as they speak through him.
Villagers come and go throughout the night, some hoping for guidance with their own problems while the bonbo is in trance.


This space is reserved for a mini essay on the bonbo, specifically the migah puja, plus allusions to some of the other things he does.

10- Funeral
The rituals surrounding death are Buddhist.
Ibe Kenji, an unmarried, elderly woman, died after a two week illness. Her cousin has organized the death rituals
The body, wrapped in a white sheet, and dressed in red cloth and crown, sits by the house altar as the books are read.
A branch of thorns has been placed in the litterto discourage bad spirits from sitting there, and is removed just before the body is placed in the chair.
The procession leads the soul out of the house, out of the village, away from worldly attachments, and into the heaven where it will prepare for its next incarnation.
	Hit the drum slowly. Hit it two times. Yes, like that.
The procession stops at the gomba for the first of several death rituals to be performed there over the next year. Even when Melemchi people die in India their rituals are performed here in the village gomba.
The body is carried to the edge of the village where it will be cremated. The women and children leave before the fire is lit; only the men remain to tend the pyre and chant the prayers.

11 -- Monsoon

Use this space to write a bit about what happens in the monsoon viz the herding and agricultural cycle.

12 -- History

Yolmo enjoys a rich mythic heritage. Some say it's local deities, Cho Chatti, and Ama Chomo Yangri, were converted to Buddhism by Milarepa, a Tibetan yogi and poet who meditated here in the 12th century. According to other accounts, the deities came with the ancestors of the current residents who migrated from Tibet in the 1800s.

Melemchi is a guthi - a land grant from the King in support of a religious institution. Melemchi was given to the first Chini Lama in 1859. For four generations,

Melemchi people have paid taxes and provided services to his successors.

Today, Melemchi people maintain strong ties to the Chini lama's family and to his other guthi, the Boudhnath stupa in the Kathmandu valley, a pilgrimage site for Buddhists worldwide.

13 – Nara
In early July, most Yolmo gombas hold a Nara festival honoring the founding lamas. Melemchi's Nara takes place over five days. Everyone participates in the rituals of giving and receiving that underscore each family's relationship to the guthi.
On the first day, men gather in the gomba to make torma. These statues of barley flour, are decorated with designs of brightly colored. The men and boys who read the books prepare the torma, which will form the Nara altar.
Across the village, *other men and boys gather in an empty house to make zhero,* ceremonial braided wheat bread, fried in butter. These are distributed on the last day of Nara. Major donors, big landholders, and lamas receive the large square ones, while other residents receive several small ones. More than 120 pounds of butter is used to fry the Nara bread, and it takes three days to make enough.
For the next two days, those village men who read Tibetan read the Nara texts. In Melemchi, village men constitute the members of the gomba, and they perform the rituals.
The presiding lama is also a villager; a member of the founding lineage of this gomba who has studied with relatives who are lamas themselves
While the book reading continues into the night, the rest of the village gathers next door to eat and dance.
This space is for a bit more elaboration about Nara.

	14-- Winter
A few choice morsels about winter in the village and gotes.

	15- Yum

Zangbu is sponsoring a Yum. Buddhist books from the gomba will be carried to his house. He will pay to feed the village men and boys who read the books, all simultaneously, for four days. The entire village helps bring the books to his house. Carrying the sacred texts confers merit just as reading them does. As sponsor, Zangbu gains the most merit from the Yum.
	This space is for an elaboration about Yum.

16 - Changes in the Village
Some aspects of life in Melemchi have changed little since 1971. But by the middle 1980s, forces outside the village were being increasingly felt. Circular migration was widespread, bringing money and new ideas into the village. Melemchi was included within the borders of the Langtang National Park which brought the village in contact with the government park administration.
In 1984, a government primary school was opened in Melemchi. The teacher is from outside Yolmo and teaches the national curriculum in Nepali language, bringing both literacy and new values to the village.
One conspicuous sign of increased wealth is a building boom. The village grew from 35 houses in 1971 to three times that number by 1991. Tin roofs are purchased in Kathmandu and carried up to the village on the backs of porters. The tin roof lasts longer than the traditional woodshakes, and is a mark of modernity and prosperity. Money from wage labor has been invested in rice fields down the valley. The Melemchi landlord shares the profits with the tenants.
Tourism is a major industry in Nepal, and Yolmo is a popular trek because it is close to Kathmandu. The national park has licensed some village households to set up lodges where tourists can eat and sleep. -- Otherwise, there are few Yolmo people employed in the trekking business. Only one Melemchi villager works as a guide.

Nogabu

I started trekking work when I was 17. For 3 years I worked as a kitchen boy. Then I did sherpa work for four years, I became a sirdar (head guide) 4 years ago. No other Melemchi people are doing this work. I told friends in this village, " Why do you go to India all the time? Trekking work is in our country; It is good for your future." They don't want to carry anything; they want to start out as a guide right from the start. That why it is a difficult for them to get work. If you want to get the jobs, you have to do a little hard work at the beginning. I was born in this village and trekking work has given me a very good future. I built a house in Kathmandu I’m living there now with my wife and children. I want to build a house on my land here:
I would like to live in this village again..

Village meetings are informal gatherings where problems are discussed and fees collected. On this day, each household sends a member to pay wood and grass taxes, for themselves or relatives. Village headmen record the payments.
	I already paid my grass money. This time I'm paying for wood. Give me my change.
In 1989, the village school moved from the gomba to a new building,constructed with the help of donations from tourist trekkers. A village picnic celebrates the opening of the new school building.
	Purna I came here as the schoolmaster in 1985. Now I have 30 or 31 students who come to school daily. I have two and a half classes; soon I will have up to class five.
Except for gode families, most children attend school when their families are in Melemchi. After class five, they must leave the village for boarding school.
	Brother is going to school He will never have a zome gode

17 - Changes in Zomo Herding
The establishment of the Langtang National Park in 1984, with its rules, fines, and limitations on the use of pasture and forest resources was the last straw for some gode families whose children would rather work in India than take over the herd.
	Jemium After the National Park rules, and no one wants to buy a new gode. We aren't able to cut any grass. I have checked around. Except for a few godes Everyone wants to sell now.
	IBE We don’t want a gode anymore We want to live in a house. We are ready to sell but we can't give it away.
[ Kenkesa (8200’) in Winter] Ghale Pemba Gyalbu's gode is spending the month of March at his pasture, about an hour and a half walk from Melemchi. Two of his zomo gave birth this morning. Of his nine children, six are in the family gode, while the three oldest are in India. he himself has been to India twice.
	Ghale Pemba Gyalbu I have been twenty years in the gode. My father gave it to me. I started with 15 zomo; now I have 24. If the zomo give good babies, we can make more than 25,000 rupees in one year (from butter). If the National Park weren't in this area, I would like to have more than 35 zomo. I am not able to cut fodder now. The government makes all the rules. We won't buy any more zomo. Without the National Park here, I would live here until my hair is white and I am walking with a stick. At the high pastures, you don't have to cut fodder. You just milk and make butter, You don't have to follow the zomo around either. In the winter down here, you must cut fodder for the zomo. That is why it is such hard work. Dorje A cow gode is better, You don't have to milk them and make butter. If the yak gode makes good babies, then it is better than a zomo gode because it isn't hard work and you make a lot of money

In 1984, two families responded to the burdens of gode life by trying something new -- making zomo rather than milking them. These new herds, composed of a yak and a number of breeding cows; produce zomo. Other families followed suit - all older couples with many years of zomo herding experience, who traded the daily chores of milking and making butter for the easier life of raising zomo for sale. Cows could be kept lower most of the year, nearer the village, as long as the yak could be boarded up above. Women could spend more time in the village.
	Tin Norbu My grandfather gave it to my father, and my father gave it to me. My father gave me ten zomo and I spent 30 years in the gode. I gave my zomo gode to my two sons, We didn't want the gode. To do a zomo gode we must go to high places and make milk and butter. If we have a yak gode we get one or two zomo babies from the cow which we can sell. I have one yak, zomo babies, and cows – three kinds of animals.
	The father is a yak, mothers are cows, and they produce zomo. I don't think I'll have a zomo gode again because the children are not interested. I can't go to India, but I can sell 1 or 2 baby zomo and make a bit of money. Kanza and Jime are still young boys. Themba will return to India soon. Maybe only Jimi will stay…

	Dorje I was 18 when I started my gode. My father gave me 9 zomo and 1 bull. My father said we have a lot of good pastures so you must stay in the gode. Don't sell the herd and don't live in the village. We didn't have any big children. It was such hard work. We stayed in the gode 17 years. These pastures were shared with my 6 brothers. They all sold their zomo godes and other peoples herds were eating the grass. Since we had the pastures I decided to try the cow-yak gode. I think one or two zomo babies will be born. I will keep this gode for another two years and then give it to my three sons. Then I will stay in the village.

As money flows into Melemchi from work outside Nepal, the appearance of the village changes. Most of the houses have tin roofs, and several have replaced the open hearth cooking fire with a metal firebox and chimney which greatly reduces smoke in the houses. And electricity has come to Melemchi, followed shortly by the first television. Even government posters about AIDS have found their way to the gomba wall.

18 -- Marriage
New marriage customs are appearing in Melemchi. Love marriages, arranged by the boy and girl together, are replacing the traditional capture marriage, in which the unsuspecting girl is grabbed by friends of the groom and weds under protest. In a capture marriage, girls may refuse to go. Several years can be spent trying to fix such a marriage eventually, she either joins her husband, or the marriage is dissolved. In some cases, the bride's parents know ahead of time, but the girls are always surprised. Beginning in the mid-1980s, especially among young people with experience in India, some marriages were arranged by the young couple themselves, although the capture is carried still out and the girl protests strenuously.
	Hlakpa Diki Let me go, please let me go. I can walk myself I will hold this side. Let me go, let me go. Why are you holding me?
	Dawa Sonam My father and mother said, "You have to marry that girl." I liked her; so we married.
	Balmu Today's marriage custom is good. Before with grabbing marriages, the couple didn't know each other and he just grabbed, that's no good. Now they talk together And know who they are marrying. This is better. Before we didn’t know how the man would be. Whether or not we would like him…
	Maya (Balmu's daughter): We hardly knew each other, when we were first married. I had no idea (he would grab me); no idea. This isn't a good system; A love marriage is better If there are problems. You can’t blame others. If people force you to go Then it can make problems with those people who pushed you. We didn't love each other in the grabbing system. I was not happy when I was married. Everyone pushed and said I must go. Even now, if I am not happy, what can I do with all these children?
	Karmu Our parents discussed and decided. We didn't know each other at that time. Mingmar Our parents' decided and then we married Karmu Our parents talked together. Mingmar I loved her a little, and she loved me a little, then we married. Karmu Oh, shut up. After marriage, we stayed separately for six years. Mingmar She didn't want to come with me; it was very difficult for me. Karmu After five years, our parents pushed us together. If it is a good family, the parents let the girl go. A bad family— they go get their daughter back. Mingmar They will get angry and grab her back. Karmu It's just the girl's luck Parents say, "I don’t want to give my daughter." Yes they say like that...
Before sunrise, young friends of the groom come to capture the girl and take her to the house of the groom's father. In this case, her protests are for show. The party arrives at the groom's father's house, while the groom waits inside. As is customary, none of her family will attend.
Friends of the young couple and relatives and guests of the groom eat together before the actual wedding party. The bride will spend the day with her back to her new husband.
The village gathers later in the day for a wedding party and meal. The union is signified by banging the heads of the bride and groom together as they sit next to each other on the mat. The groom is the youngest son, so he will inherit his father's house and land. At marriage a girl retains her own clan affiliation, but her children belong to the clan of their father. The village acknowledges their union by gifts of a white scarf of blessing and money to the bride and groom.
	Urgyen Father's brother, Kanza gives his blessing. He gives one kata (white scarf) to his son May you be very rich and have a long life. and one kata to his daughter in law. And a present of one hundred rupees.

Melemchi is a place; a cluster of houses on a Himalayan mountainside, a temple village at the northern end of the Yolmo Valley, a network of pastures scattered over the Thare massif. Melemchi is a history the story of people making a life --