Michael Oppitz

The question has been put before: By which means or intervention does the shaman or faith healer effect his healing results? A new answer is attempted in this article in which a concrete example is being described and analysed: What do the shamanic healers of the Northern Magar in NW Central Nepal do, when confronted with a complicated birth? As neither medication or herbal treatment, nor any massage or obstetric manipulation is employed (methods well applied by the local midwife), the healing séance of the shaman has to be classified as a psychological manipulation of the patient. This is based on three elements: ritual acts during the séance; performance of mythical chants; and the presence of an audience. As for the chanted myths, it may be stressed that they relate stories which allude to the actual situation of the patient, insofar as their protagonist is in a similar situation as herself--only much worse. This overdramatisation permits the listening patient to first identify w...

The question has been put before: By which means or intervention does the shaman or faith healer effect his healing results? A new answer is attempted in this article in which a concrete example is being described and analysed: What do the shamanic healers of the Northern Magar in NW Central Nepal do, when confronted with a complicated birth? As neither medication or herbal treatment, nor any massage or obstetric manipulation is employed (methods well applied by the local midwife), the healing séance of the shaman has to be classified as a psychological manipulation of the patient. This is based on three elements: ritual acts during the séance; performance of mythical chants; and the presence of an audience. As for the chanted myths, it may be stressed that they relate stories which allude to the actual situation of the patient, insofar as their protagonist is in a similar situation as herself--only much worse. This overdramatisation permits the listening patient to first identify with and then to dis-identify from her mythical similé and to anticipate a happier end for herself than that related in the myth, which is always violent and tragic. The mechanism of healing (in our case: a successful birth) ensues from a gradual process of disidentification of the patient from the mythical heroine. This observation may be confirmed, if one compares the Magar case with similar ethnographic facts from other regions, both in Nepal and elsewhere. The described process of healing, effected through shamanic treatment, invites to a new comparison between this form of practice and that of Western psychoanalysis.

ion of the king of demons (fig. 37). In the northwestern parts of Maoxian County the iron head at the top of the wand normally is replaced by other iron structures. The sacred staff of Xiao Yongqing at Erlicai village, for instance, ends in a tinkling tree of numerous iron rings displayed on several levels around a long nail 16. The Naxi pictograph for the Yak horn ^=^ clearly indicates that it is employed for acoustic messages. 1 7. According to their mythology, the conch-shell trumpet or ddv p'?r was born from a sexual union between a dragon and a snake spirit (Oppitz 1997:60f.). The Naxi pictograph for the conch-shell trumpet also indicates its acoustic usage: ^g^*. Oppitz: Ritual objects of the Qiang shamans 29 Figure 32. Yak horns, blown for messages to heaven, 1998. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Figure 33. A conch-shell trumpet, blown to evoke the memory of the ancestors, 1998. Photo: Wolfgang Wenning. Figure 34. A pair of spherical bells rung to ward off demons, 1998. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Figure 35. Sacred wand, top part, with numerous iron rings to scare away demons, 1998. Photo: Wolfgang Wenning. 30 RES 45 SPRING 2004 Figure 36. Sacred wand with iron head, representing the "king of demons," 1998. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Figure 37. Sacred wand with screw, a modern abstraction of the "king of demons," 1998. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Figure 38. Sh?pi with sacred wand (trident top), 2000. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Figure 39. Top part of a sacred wand with trident and woolen strings, 2000. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Oppitz: Ritual objects of the Qiang shamans 31 (fig. 35). This structure can be removed from the wooden stem and rammed into the soil as an ind?pendant tool to scare demons away. In the Yonghe area He Qingrong's staff and that of an old shaman of Napu village both end in an iron trident (figs. 38 and 39)?a remarkable extension of the Himalayan trisul, which, particularly in Nepal, is not simply an emblem of Siva, but also a frequently used object in many ritual traditions of the local shamans. Here among the Qiang, two thousand kilometers to the east, the trident dominates the top of the sacred wand, warding off the powers of hell. Underneath it, various iron rings generate the usual demon-frightening tinkling sound. He Qangrong's staff, in addition, is adorned from the iron structure downward with various woolen strings. In some cases, the staff is entwined by a wild vine that grew around the limb while it was alive. Coiling around the staff and ending at the top in a carved head of a snake, the significance of this ornamentation is obvious: Similar to the anthropomorphic head of the king of demons, the serpent that is wound around the staff helps to exorcise demons, for demons are extremely frightened by snakes (fig. 40). When a Qiang healer goes to his client, which in many cases may be a march of several hours through inhabited and wild territory, he employs his sacred wand as a walking stick (fig. 41). On the road he makes sure that the clatter of the iron rings can be heard, and when he has reached his destination point the sacred wand is put on guard on a visible spot of the ritual site. Figure 40. Sh?pi holding sacred wand with twine, 2000. Photo: Michael Oppitz. Figure 41. Sh?pi He Qingrong walking to client with sacred wand, 2000. Photo: Michael Oppitz. 32 RES 45 SPRING 2004 According to Graham, the Qiang shamans borrowed their staff from the Taoist sacred wand, which it closely resembles and is used for the same purpose?keeping evil influences away (Graham 1958:57). This conjecture of historical derivation could, with no less reason, also be inverted. A sacred wand is known to many Himalayan, Mongolian, and Siberian societies having shamanistic practices and ritual objects. Now, if one accepts that Qiang religion, apart from Buddhist, Taoist, Bon, and other influences, displays a strong shamanistic undercurrent, it may be argued on account of the enormous historical depth and continuity of Qiang culture that some of the shamanistic features may have influenced the formation of Taoist ones in the areas where both became neighbors, in the Min Shan Mountains of Sichuan. The iron rattle. Another instrument that can frighten away unwanted supernatural beings is the iron rattle, called hua ni (fig. 42). It consists of a large, hoop-like ring (with a diameter of approximately 18 cm) on which more than a dozen smaller rings are hung, some flattened, others left round. The large hoop ends at the bottom in a blade-like, rhombic handle. The handle is about one third longer than the diameter of the large hoop (approximately 27 cm). All parts are made of iron. Some colored threads of wool are tied to the large hoop-like ring. According to an old pictographic divination book found in the possession of one shaman, the iron rattle was invented by the younger brother of Taishang Laojun, a culture hero for both Taoist and Qiang shamans. The iron rattle is employed for two main purposes: The rattling of the small…

This is an extraordinary book. It is unconventional in its focus and original in the exposition of its subject matter; it is exemplary in its approach, combining philological investigation of written documents with personal observation of ethnographic detail; it enters unknown territory in its reflections and comes up with unexpected theoretical conclusions; and as a piece of writing, it has style, following its own flow from the title to the last line. The main title may sound sexy, but above all it leads directly to the central scene of action: to Te, or Tetang, an isolated village in the High Himalaya of southern Mustang. Certain topographical features of Mustang can be read, in illustration of a widespread legendary tale, as physical evidence of an epic duel between Guru Rinpoche, the ubiquitous disseminator of Buddhism in the Himalaya, and a local demoness called Balmo, who resisted his missionary activities in the area. The hegemonic battle ended, so the story goes, in victory for the saint, who completed his subjugation of the demoness by nailing her to the ground with a number of Buddhist edifices erected at key points on her prostrate body. One of these points was her navel (te or teba), where Guru Rinpoche built a stupa; topographically speaking, it is at the small plateau (thang) where the future village of Te-thang would rise. The cover photograph of the book exposes this navel, the fortified walls of Te, surrounded by parts of the demoness’s body, the high, curvy walls of the mountains around it. The color cover photo is repeated in black and white as a frontispiece, and the navel is also on the spine of the book. Thus illustrated, the title makes additional sense. Te is indeed embedded in a majestic physical environment, a landscape corpus of mythic suggestivity. This can be attested to by another book, Sacred Landscape of the Himalaya, coedited by Niels Gutschow, Axel Michaels, Charles Ramble, and Ernst Steinkellner (2003). Here, too, a view of the village is featured on the cover, and inside this picture book various portraits of

Les tambours (re) utilises par les chamans (rammā) des Magar du Nord dans le Nepal du Centre-Ouest sont tous des exemplaires uniques avec une biographie individuelle, mais ils ont tous un ancetre primordial commun : le premier tambour des temps mythiques. La distribution geographique du tambour-re correspond a l'aire du chamanisme Dhaulāgiri. L'histoire de ce tambour est racontee pour chaque reparation d'un ancien ou chaque fabrication d'un nouveau tambour. L'A. a collecte une serie de mythes de fabrication de ce tambour, tel qu'ils sont exprimes dans des chants mythiques, lors d'une seance chamanique du chaman Parsad de Ghumilbang, le 25 mai 1978 dans le village de Taka (district de Rukum, Nepal occidental) a l'occasion de la reparation du tambour du chaman Kathka. Ces mythes correspondent a 6 recitals nommes de facon individuelle. L'A. analyse et decrit ces mythes du point de vue de leur structure et de leur contenu narratif et donne l'integralite de leur transcription avec des annotations systematiques.

The faith healers of the Magar community are renowned for their elaborate ritual traditions. These combine chanting of numerous oral texts with the performance of nightlong séances. The chants may be divided into two classes: narrative mythological creation stories and auxiliary songs containing instructions for the correct choice of materials. Although the auxiliary chants lack a manifest plot, together with the narrative myths they form a single artistic whole. One of these auxiliary chants is called the ‘Parched Grain Chant’. It deals with the primordial search for the right type of grain to be roasted in a particular vegetal offering rite. The craft of the chanting shaman is assessed by his ability to synchronise his song with the physical preparations needed for the corresponding actions. This presentation focuses on both the content and form of the song, and on its position within the entire ritual event

Co-Autoren: Michael Oppitz, Thomas Kaiser, Alban von Stockhausen, Marion Wettstein Die Nagastämme bewohnen die südöstlichen Ausläufer des Himalaya im Grenzgebiet von Indien und Burma. Bis vor etwa hundert Jahren als Kopfjäger gefürchtet und von den Bewohnern der Ebenen gemieden, entwickelten sie in ihrer Abgeschiedenheit eine einzigartige materielle Kultur und orale Tradition. Durch die britische Kolonialherrschaft und die baptistische Missionierung, erfuhr die Kultur der Naga ab Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts einen starken Wandel. Nach 1947 wurden die Nagaberge gegen den Willen ihrer Bewohner in den neuen indischen Staat integriert. Die Folge war ein blutiger Krieg, der unter Ausschluss der Weltöffentlichkeit mehr als fünfzig Jahre lang tobte. Erst seit kurzem sind die Gebiete für Ausländer wieder zugänglich. Dieser Band versammelt Aufsätze, Interviews und Bildessays von Naga- und westlichen Autoren zur Kultur, Geschichte und zum Identitätswandel der einstigen Kopfjäger. In detaillierten Objektbeschreibungen von renommierten internationalen Ethnologen und Völkerkundlern wird sowohl die vergangene als auch die gegenwärtige Welt der Naga lebendig. In: 2008b (Edited Book) with Michael Oppitz, Thomas Kaiser and Marion Wettstein. Naga Identitäten: Zeitenwende einer Lokalkultur im Nordosten Indiens. Benteli Verlag, Basel: 2008. pp. 11-29.

During the internship at ShapeDiver GmbH [1] the visual quality of an existing WebGL [2] platform had to be improved. This platform is used as an online 3D configurator, in which customers can modify the properties of parametric models. This includes the modification of properties like shape, size and materials. The difficulty for this project was to contemplate the fact that the product can be customized by the user in real-time. 1 Contract Requirements The contract requirements that were specified for this project were separated into three different categories: 1. Methods for the improvement of the overall quality of the renderer. Specifically, improvements for illumination, shadows and reflections. 2. Creation of 5 optimized materials. (Wood, Gold, Fabric, Steel and Plastic) 3. The application of points 1. and 2. in 3 scenes that must be defined by the employer.

... Most of the time there were three of us, the cameraman, the sound woman, and myself. ... We did not cut anything until we had completed all the shooting and all the darkroom ... Figure 3. Himalayan villagers watching their first movie, a film about their shamans and themselves. ...

... Title: Myths and Facts: Reconsidering Some Data Concerning the Clan History of the Sherpas. Authors: Oppitz, Michael. Issue Date: 1974. Citation: Kailash, Volume 2, Numbers 1 and 2, 1974, pp 121-132. URI: http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/227209. ...

There is no need for Marcel Broodthaers's objects to struggle to assert their claim to mythical status, for they already possess it-on two levels, in fact. First, because they are indeed exhibited as museum pieces; second, because, as signs, they already bear a heavy symbolic burden. The eagle, in whatever form it is encountered, is after all strongly invested with emblematic, mythological significance. It variously connotes strength, virility, rigor, freedom, authority, aspiration toward the absolute. Put another way, the eagles Broodthaers puts on display all operate on the symbolic level (this is even true of the stuffed eagle, expressing as it does a certain ideology of nature), and to the extent that Broodthaers refers us to this, he connects the eagle back to a first level of natural/objective speech. By identifying the symbolic presence in every conceivable eagle, Broodthaers engages in an incessant defusing of the eagle's mythic power. The mythical character of the domineering German imperial eagle is tamed, for example, by placing the national emblem in conjunction with the pale imitations of the DLRG, the ADAC, and the DFB (the German Life Saving Association, the German Soccer Leagues Association, and the German Automobile Club). In many cases, particularly those belonging to the sphere of common contemporary usage, the eagle exhibition's oppositional pairings reveal for the first time that these birds are truly mythical creatures. The series of German product logos demonstrates this most clearly. Caught within the net of cross-references evoked by the sequence of the arrangement, the bird loses the mythical aura of its traditional plumage. This is one result of the principle of serialization. It is an effect we could call mythoclastic. A second effect, already hinted at, consists of the suspension of the hierarchy, in effect, among the objects themselves. Every exhibited eagle becomes as important as any other, at least during the moment of observation. The running caption, "This is not a work of art," is almost, therefore, superfluous. It functions as a continually struck keynote, reasserting the methodological intention underlying each object. No object

The assessment of water quality of the River Yamuna in the Delhi stretch was carried out by determining changes in the concentration levels of 19 physico-chemical parameters. It was observed that vegetation plays an important role in acting as a bio-logical sink for mineral nutrients, ...