ABSTRACT
Rituals focussing on ‘divinities of the soil’ can be read asindicative of a group’s traditional concepts about the forcesof ‘nature’ and the ways these can be legitimately used and controlled through the ‘civilizing force’ of ritual action. Such rituals are found among most ethnic groups in Nepal. Though they have a place in the Hindu tradition, it is among the TibetoBurman groups that these divinities have special prominence: they are usually represented by an aniconic rock formation at which offerings of blood are given (mostly in spring), and are often associated with a specific village territory. In Nepali they are generally referred to by the term bhume (< Sk. bhumiya ‘belonging to the soil’), but this Indo-European background cannot be taken as an indicator of their origin. Whereas among the Magars and some Rai groups such as the Thulungs, there seem to be no indigenous terms (Lecomte-Tilouine 1993a, b; Allen 1981), among the Tamangs, they are known as syibda-nè:da (Höfer 1981: 12f., 163f.), and among the Gurungs as sildo naldo (Pignède 1966: 307ff.), or shyolto-nolto (Strickland 1982: 54), terms apparently cognate with Tibetan gzhi-bdag gnas-bdag ‘master of the territory’, lit. ‘owner of the ground’. Among the Kulung Rais, the territorial spirit is known as tos (McDougal 1979: 37f., Schlemmer 2004: 350ff.), and among the Mewahang Rais, as ca:ri and ca:wa (Gaenszle 2000: 122ff.).1
