Guardians of the Land and Water
Rituals, Vulnerability, and Indigenous Belonging Among the Himalayan Mútunci
Jenny Bentley
The book offers a detailed analysis of the pluriverse of an Indigenous community in the south-eastern Himalayas. It is a rare deep-dive ethnography of the Mútunci community – more commonly called by their exonym Lepcha – and the ontologies and strategies activated in ritualised struggles to reduce marginality and ensure a good life. Based on over a decade of interactions, the author assembles community ritual practices and performances, their actors and power relations, as well as the histories and thought-frameworks they are embedded in. She shows how Mútunci actors live and activate various understandings of self and the world depending on their respective spatio-temporal positioning. Through the ritual lens, the author analyses vulnerability and survivance and unravels multi-modal processes of constituting belonging the place, community, and the Himalayan environment, putting the polysemic concept of Lyángdók Úngdók, protectors of land and water, at the core of her analysis. Moreover, the study develops a self-reflexive approach that aims to include Indigenous world-making within an analytical framework beyond dichotomic classifications.