Guardians of Land & Water

Guardians of Land & Water
Rituals, Vulnerability, and Indigenous Belonging among Himalayan Mútunci Róng
by Jenny Bentley

About the Book:
A carefully woven exploration of ritual protection, changing power politics, and Indigenous survivance.

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.

Published in India by Rachna Books
Published in Switzerland by Seismo Press

Paperback - 348 pages
ISBN 9788189602215

About the Author:
Jenny Bentley is an independent researcher based in the Indian Himalaya, with a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Zurich. In an ongoing project on storytelling and empowerment among Mútunci Róng youth, she collaborates with several Indigenous scholars, knowledge keepers, and artists. Additionally, she is an active member of the Swiss Anthropological Societies Interface Commission for Engaged Anthropology and consults at Echostream, a multi-disciplinary design agency based in Gangtok, Sikkim.