New publications (1): on Amdo

The editors of Asian Highlands Perspectives have recently announced the publication of five new volumes (their announcement is reproduced here with the kind permission of the editors). Free downloads are available by following the links below, and at-cost hard copies are available here.

AHP7: Passions and Colored Sleeves: Mongghul Lives in Eastern Tibet by Limusishiden and Jugui

AHP8: Mongghul Memories and Lives by Limusishiden and CK Stuart

AHP9: A Ngawa Tibetan Nomad Childhood by Rin chen rdo rje

AHP10: Collected Essays (see below for links to individual articles)

AHP11: A Mang rdzong Tibetan Life by Nangchukja

See below for details.

AHP7: Passions and Colored Sleeves: Mongghul Lives in Eastern Tibet

Limusishiden and Jugui provide a glimpse into a recollected, traditional world of Mongghul people in northeastern Qinghai Province. This complicated world is filled with spirits and ghosts causing disease and depression, marked with elaborate rituals for important events, punctuated by crude justice, and entirely enmeshed in a web of human relationships quite unlike those of any other place. These aspects, and others, are described with precision and care, and related in a matter-of-fact style that leaves the reader space to appreciate the ironies inherent in the juxtaposition of this world with our own. There is no better text for transporting the imagination into twentieth century Mongghul Qinghai. Keith Dede, Associate Professor of Chinese, Lewis & Clark College

 

AHP8: Mongghul Memories and Lives

Limusishiden (b. 1968) describes his lived experiences and recollections related to language, education, traditional beliefs, and folklore; provides details of his parents, three paternal aunts, and paternal grandparents’ lives; describes Tughuan (Tuguan 土官) Village; and reports on a visit to Jija Nuri (Jijialing 吉家岭) Village in 2007 and its rapid cultural transformation, providing unique insights into Mongghul (Tu 土; Monguor) life in Huzhu 互助 Mongghul Autonomous County, Haidong 海东 Region, Qinghai 青海 Province, PR China in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

 

AHP9: A Ngawa Tibetan Nomad Childhood

“I was born in a pastoral family in the autumn of 1986, in Rongrima Village, Hongyuan County, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture,Sichuan Province, PR China. When I was a child, my family lived in a ‘four-column’ wood house made using four poles placed in a rectangular configuration in the center of the home. Four shorter poles were behind the central columns. Four-pillar wood houses had flat roofs with several compartments, and had a skylight in the center that allowed light into the home and allowed smoke from the hearth to escape. We lived in our wood house from November to April. As flowers began to bud and calves were born, we took out our black yak-hair tent and pitched it, which announced that we would soon start moving to our camp on the open grassland where we would stay through spring, summer, and autumn.”

 

AHP10: Collected Essays

·         The A mdo Tibetan Lab rtse Ritual  by Kelsang Norbu

·         Childbirth and Childcare in Rdo sbis Tibetan Township by Klu mo tshe ring and Gerald Roche

·         Dmu rdo: A Powerful Hero and Mountain Deity   by G.yung ‘brug and Rin chen rdo rje

·         Echoes from Si gang lih: Burao Yilu’s ‘Moon Mountain’   by Mark Bender

·         The Failure of Vocational Training in Tibetan Areas of China   by Wang Shiyong

·         Fuel and Solar Cooker Impact in Ya na gdung Village, Gcan tsha County, Mtsho sngon (Qinghai) Province  by Rdo rje don ‘grub

·         “I, Ya ri a bsod, Am a Dog”: The Life and Music of a Tibetan Mendicant Singer   by Skal bdang skyid, Sha bo don sgrub rdo rje, Sgrol ma mtsho, Gerald Roche, Eric Schweikert, and Dpa’ rtse rgyal

·         Purity and Fortune in Phug sde Village Rituals by Sa mtsho skyid and Gerald Roche

·         Rgyas bzang Tibetan Tribe Hunting Lore  by Bkra shis dpal ‘bar

·         sa.bə: A Tibetan Rite of Passage  by Lhundrom

·         Muulasan Mongghul  by Limusishiden

·         Story – Fate  by Gelsang Lhamu

·         Story – A Stolen Journey  by Blo bzang tshe ring

·         Story – Is It Karma?  by Pad ma rgya mtsho

·         Folklore – Bear and Rabbit (I)  by G.yu lha

·         Folklore – Bear and Rabbit (II) by Snying dkar skyid

·         Folklore – The Frog Boy and His Family by Mchod pa’i lha mo

·         Folklore – Mchig nges and Repaying a Debt of Gratitude by Zla ba sgrol ma

 

AHP11: A Mang rdzong Tibetan Life

This book provides an autobiographical account of life on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Nangchukja’s (sNying lcags rgyal) account takes the reader from his childhood in a resettled agro-pastoral community to his adulthood as a community grass-roots development worker.

 

---

---