Differentiating Smoke: Smoke as duwa and Smoke from bsang on the Tibetan Plateau

ABSTRACT

On the Tibetan plateau, smoke, either as by-product of heat-generating activities or intentionally produced, is ubiquitous. Wafts of smoke rising from the central flaps of black yak-hair tents in pastoral communities are mirrored by yak-dung smoke rising out of chimneys in stone houses of agricultural areas. Observers of summer horse races and other community events might note the presence of thick plumes of smoke emerging from pyres of dried branches, often placed within or near a cairn of stones and prayer flags or latse (T. la rdzas) (Tibetan transcription within text follows the vernacular of Kham nomadic dialect. In the first use of a Tibetan word, it is followed in parentheses by the standard Tibetan Wylie transliteration). To a casual observer, the ever-present smoke might seem homogenous but, for Tibetans, smoke is expressive of multiple contexts and meanings. In this article, I attend to different kinds of smoke as they are articulated in the literature and experienced by nomadic pastoralists in eastern Tibet. Smoke as duwa (T. du ba, dud pa) from everyday activities including yak-dung burning and cigarette smoking and smoke from bsang (T. bsang) – a ritual complex of fumigation and purification – reveal that Tibetan perspectives distinguish kinds of smoke. Understanding where smoke comes from and the contexts of which it is part are crucial when attempting to delineate a conceptual and terminological category such as smoke. Tibetan phenomenological categories broadly prioritise vernacular ways of knowing and classifying, which presents a corrective to a dominant classification of smoke that could be used as rationale to resettle nomadic pastoralists and transform their way of life.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnographic categories
• Tibetan nomadic pastoralists
• bsang purification ritual
• pollution
• human–nonhuman relationships

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Simone Dennis, Yasmine Musharbash, and two anonymous reviewers for their careful and engaged comments to earlier drafts of this article. I am also grateful to Kabzung for checking the translation of the Tibetan text.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Gillian G. Tan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0492-7474

Notes

1 Unless specifically indicated, the context for this article is contemporary pastoral areas of the eastern Tibetan region of Kham.

2 For further ethnography of Tibetan nomadic pastoralists in Kham, see Tan (2016b).

3 In addition, Mathieu Ricard’s catalogue of Shabkar’s works includes a brief text on the harmful effects of smoking: Dug don lung dang rig pa’i mda’ mo (A Poisonous Effect: The Arrow of Scripture and Reason).

4 For more on the role of smells in ritual, see Howes (1987) and his argument that smell, or olfaction, signals a category-change in rites of passage.

5 This word is sometimes translated as ‘pollution’ but is also equally translated as ‘shadow’ or ‘defilement’ in a symbolic sense. For ‘pollution’ meaning ‘dirty’ or ‘filthy’, the Tibetan word is tsog (T. btsog).

6 A point to highlight here is that human senses are neither mentioned nor important (for comparison, see Howes 1987; Parkin 2007). The focus is on how bad smell and other forms of pollution invoke the displeasure of the deities.

7 For a relevant discussion on the overlap between non-monastic and monastic understandings of pollution and karma, refer to Mills (2003).

8 This requires further explanation. In present times, lamas who are not trulkus usually do enter black tents especially if they are close kin relations to local pastoralists. However, a trulku is also an institutional role. This separation between trulkus and laypeople may have emerged as a result of modern expectations (see again the changing institution in Hirshberg et al. 2017).

9 For more on hierarchy and the role of order in creating pollution, refer to Mills (2003, 211).

10 Dod yon nga (T. ‘dod yon lnga) is a canonical set of five substances pleasing to the senses.

11 Nol (T. mnol) is defined as a contaminated condition of the energy of a being that causes weakness. It is an underlying condition that is manifest as, and connected with, drib (T. grib) or pollution.

12 For more on what ‘life’ entails, refer to Tan (2016a).

13 For more on drib, refer to Mills’ (2004) paper on dip in Buddhist Ladakh (pp. 354–356).

14 By this I mean that the spatial area of influence between territorial master and human supplicant is understood by various means such line of vision (if one can see the mountain or hill where the territorial master resides, then one can be influenced by, and affect, him).

15 bka’ yang gsang yul lha gnas bdag bzhag bra lha rtse’i bsang mchod kyi las tshogs phrin las kun ‘grub bzhugs so

16 Examples are too numerous to list in this article but for an indicative list, see Bauer and Nyima (2011) and Yeh (2009, 2013).