The Ancestral Forest- Memory, Space and Ritual Among the Kulunge Rai of Eastern Nepal

About the Book Lost among the high hills of eastern Nepal, which has meant centuries of cultural isolation, the Kulunge Rai ethnic group have tenaciously maintained their religious tradition ever since their ancient origins. Bearing witness to a far-off past of hunting and nomadic life, their myths and legends form a plot and scenario that comprise a multitude of invisible entities: the "hunter spirits" and the "monkey spirits", the undisputed sovereigns of the forest world; Laladum, the deity who resembles a little girl, the initiator of young shamans from the villages of the area; the Nagi, or ophidiomorphic-spirits, dwelling in the waters, the totem ancestors of the Kulunge Răi group; Molu, a mythical forefather, lost in the woods and transformed into a deity.

A fascinating journey through the oral memory, the sacred geography and religious imaginary of this people. An ideal itinerary that progressively abandons the inhabited world and enters the abysses of the mythical woodlands the silent witnesses of the group's ancient life style - only to lose itself in the thick of the immense forests that even today surround the settlements of the Kulunge Rai.

Starting from the cults of domestic deities, the research goes on to analyse the rituals that accompany the souls of the dead and the village farming cults, as a necessary step before dealing with the hunting cults and the hidden paths beaten by Kulunge Rai shamans.

About the Author Martino at Perugia, has than fifteen years dealt history religions southern Asia.

After DEA France in Ethnologie générale comparative at (Nanterre) specialising oriental visual anthropology, he obtained doctorate Ethno anthropological Research (University of Siena 1997), among Tibeto-Burmese language groups.

Formerly lecturer in Visual Anthropology and History Religions at University Perugia since has National Co-ordinator the Anthropology Communication Development (Ev-K2-CNR Commitee Association Bergamo, Italy).

Introduction In the Hongu Valley in eastern Nepal, twice a year small groups of men gather in each Kulunge Rai village. Accompanied by their dogs, for several days they go into the thick forests that cover the high hills of the Solukhumbu region After winning the favour of the gods, the lords of the forest, the hunters begin their expedition in search of game, following paths consisting solely of scents and tracks that only the most expert are able to recognise Although they are seeking game, this becomes a mere pretext, since the entire expedition is organised in order to capture a force of an invisible nature, which, taken back to the village together with the slain animal, ensures the presence and increase of individual "life force" for the hunters and members of their families, a necessary condition for any sort of physical well-being and the sole substrate for any kind of "prosperity", including wealth, the fertility of the group's women, or abundant harvests and cattle. Starting as the hunting of deer, in the minds of the Kulunge Rai hunters the expedition is thus transformed into an actual pursuit of the invisible, a practice of a magical kind, of fundamental value in the dialogue binding mankind to the woodland spirits and in the relationship that unites the village with the surrounding forest world.

The hunt is carried out with great care and circumspection. The hunters know that in the forest they are outside the dominion of human power and have entered the sphere of chaotic forces with an uncontrolled and ambivalent character. They are in constant danger of being struck by the arrows of the hunter-spirits roving in bands close to springs and streams. Similar is the risk of encountering the monkey-spirits, who can steal a person's "life breath", or of meeting the "souls" of those who have died a violent death, who as a rule elect their dwelling in the forest itself. Here, too, Laladum dwells, a entity with the aspect of a little girl, the initiatrix of young shamans: to contaminate - even by one's mere physical presence one of her many forest dwellings attracts her wrath and, consequently, involves becoming a victim of her evil magic power.

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