Guardians of Land and Water : Rituals, Vulnerability, and Indigenous Belonging Among the Himalayan Mútunci Róng

Abstract

The book offers a detailed analysis of the pluriverse of an Indigenous community in the south-eastern Himalaya. It is a rare deep-dive ethnography of the Mútunci Róng community – more commonly called by their exonym Lepcha – and of 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 Róng 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 to 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.