‘We could have done with a bit more rain earlier after the planting,’ Tseten concedes, ‘but we cannot complain.’
I have found mentions of some offerings made in the past in a book I have been reading: widows' or prostitutes' menstrual blood in a bowl made from the skull of an illegitimate child, hearts and livers, flowers, incense, and a sampling of the finest food available. In the 1950s, an assembly of monks required ‘one wet intestine, two skulls, and a whole human skin’ for a ritual to pray for the Dalai Lama's longevity.6 The best barley and peas seem a bit ordinary by comparison.
Tseten laughs. ‘Yul Lha is not so hard to please. If you are respectful and sincere, he will help you.’
Tseten refers to Yul Lha with reverence, but also with familiarity, as though he is a real presence. Of course it is his job as a shaman, but it still comes as a surprise to me. I know the Cultural Revolution destroyed much of the fabric and culture of Tibetan life, and took from the Tibetans what they had for centuries valued most — their monasteries, their monks, their religious rituals. But I did not realise how many of the old traditions had returned in the years since, how much people's lives were once again dominated by the old beliefs.
I made a mistake when I first came to Tangmad village looking for the Rikzin family in July. I met a little girl with clear, radiant eyes, and a beautiful smile, and she was holding her mother's hand. When I complimented the mother on her daughter's beauty, she did not look at all pleased. She took the girl off in a hurry. My Tibetan researcher, Penpa, told me the woman would probably head for the monastery to pray to her daughter's deity in order to appease any anger or jealousy I might have invoked. I had put the girl at risk.
After three months in Tibet, I have learned that gods are everywhere. One day, I had arranged to follow Tseten on one of his rounds to see what it was like. He was an hour late to meet us. When he appeared, he apologised — he had been praying to the tree god for his neighbours before they cut down a tree to make a beam for their new house. Trees, flowers, crops, animals, humans, houses, wells, springs, rivers, mountains, earth, heaven — all have gods assigned to them. Humans, too, have gods keeping an eye on them: the one over your shoulder is the fighting god, the one under your right armpit is the masculine god and the one under your left the feminine god; the house god is present on the four corners of your roof, and the storage god in the cupboards; there is a god in the well, in the stable, and in the kitchen — if you make the stove dirty, you might offend the stove god, and she will make the whole family sick.
In fact, the story of how Buddhism came to Tibet is embedded in the mythology of these demons and gods. In the eighth century, King Trisong Detsen invited an Indian master to come to teach and to build the first Tibetan monastery. Legend has it that devils did their best to halt the construction. The master's life was also threatened by followers of Bön, the widespread indigenous religion. So another great Indian master, Padmasambhava — or Padam, as he is known — was called upon to travel to Tibet. Again, the same devils put obstacles in his path. The God of Gnyan Chen Tanggola, one of Tibet's holiest and highest mountains, was his most notable assailant. Padam's response was to sit in deep meditation on this mountain top, and, soon enough, the snow started to melt, creating a torrent, bringing earth and rocks down with it. The mountain god surrendered, convinced of Padam's superior powers, and offered his loyalty. Padam made him a protective deity in the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon, together with all his 360 subsidiary gods and goddesses, and numerous other devils and spirits.
These gods and goddesses are duty-bound to protect and to bring prosperity to the monasteries and monks, and the faithful. But they have been allowed to keep their bad habits — they are carnivorous, thirsty for blood, and often consumed by ego, anger, jealousy, and greed. They are quite unBuddhist; they have nothing to do with delivering enlightenment — that is left to the numerous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Traditionally, it is the shaman who intercedes with the deities and spirits, to honour them, to placate them, and to plead with them for help. When we were choosing characters to feature in our documentary film, every Tibetologist we consulted recommended that we include a shaman. After hunting for several weeks in the villages, Penpa, the researcher, came back one day in early August looking very pleased with himself, ‘You owe me a big present. I think I've found just the family you want.’
I drove with him the next day to Karmad — one of the eighteen districts (xiang) of Gyantse County. We turned off onto a stony track after twenty minutes on the main road to Shigatse, the second biggest city in Tibet. It was lined with willow trees, and through them I could see the vast expanse of yellowing barley fields under brilliant sunshine, stretching to the dark mountains on either side. The track went on straight for miles to the end of the valley, into the huge space of sky and clouds. Where were we going to end up? We crossed the Nyangchu River and passed several villages, all looking very inviting. I asked Penpa repeatedly, ‘Is this one ours?’ At last we slowed down and went left into Village No. 1, Tangmad, at a row of prayer-wheels. We went by a water tap where the villagers were queuing, the only tap for 600 people, Penpa told me. As far as I could see, as we drove through the lanes of traditional mud-brick houses, that was the only sign of modernity, bar some telephone lines and the occasional motorbike or car.
We parked outside a wide corrugated-iron gate. Penpa pulled a rope that opened the inside latch of the narrow side, and we entered the Rikzins' house. Like the others, it has two storeys of the traditional kind, the cows and sheep on the ground floor, and the family on the first floor, with a big courtyard where chickens run amongst the tractor and cart, and cowpats dry on the walls. We climbed up a flight of stairs to the small upper courtyard. Yangdron came out of the kitchen to greet us, smiling warmly. She had a broad oblong face, handsome rather than beautiful, with dark wide-set eyes, and brilliant white teeth — her smile really lit up her face.
‘This is our director, Sun, who wanted to find a shaman family,’ Penpa introduced me. ‘You want to see Tseten,’ she said, taking my hands in hers. ‘He has someone with him. But let me take you to his room.’
My first sight of Tseten was a little curious. He was sitting on a narrow bed in the family prayer room, in front of a wall hung with tangkas, ritual paintings of the Buddha and various deities. On a bench under the windows to his right was his patient, a young woman with a badly swollen face. He leaned over to her and spat on her cheek. After half a minute, he stopped and beckoned us with a smile to sit next to her, and went on with his spitting. I noticed Tseten's smooth, pale skin, unlike any villager we had seen. I supposed he spent a lot of time indoors. His smile seemed to express a benign disposition — no doubt a comfort to the woman. I immediately took a liking to him.
The patient left, bowing with gratitude. We had a brief chat with Tseten about our film, and then he led us to the kitchen to meet the rest of the family. I felt I was taken back to another time. A liquidiser for making butter tea, a solar reflector in the courtyard for boiling water, a telephone presumably for Tseten's activities, and a small black and white TV in a corner — these were the only reminders of the modern world. The family were sitting around the stove, drinking and chatting. Dondan, tall and solid, greeted us with a handshake. Penpa had told me he was forty-six, eleven years older than Tseten; he was a man of very few words, but the pillar of the household who took care of the farm. Loga was sitting in a corner, staring at us with a grin that revealed tiny teeth with big gaps between them. Although the oldest at forty-eight, he was also the slightest. I took a closer look at him. Something seemed to be wrong with him: his complexion was sallow and his hair sparse and yellowish. I looked at Penpa; he whispered, ‘He's had some illness all his life, the family does not know what it is.’ The two older sons were there, Jigme and Gyatso, looking like younger versions of Dondan, but behaving like typical, bored teenagers. There were two younger children, Tseyang — the only daughter — and Kunga, but they were still in school that day.
Mila, their grandfather, was away in Shigatse, visiting his wife in hospital. I was keen to find out more about him. Mila has been more than a shaman. He was a lama at the Palkhor Monastery in Gyantse for a decade, but was thrown out in 1959, after the Tibetan